Einstein vs Bergson, Science vs Philosophy and the Meaning of Time

ABC.net.au/ ^ | June 24, 2015 | Joe Gelonsi

[lbryce]

When Henri met Albert the stars didn’t quite align; nor did their clocks. Jimena Canales, historian of science, tells Joe Gelonesi about her discovery of an explosive 20th century debate that changed our view of time and destroyed a reputation.

Physicists and philosophers have a curious relationship. They both need each other for the cosmic dance, but one partner sometimes refuses to join in. Star physicist Stephen Hawking even declared the end of philosophy in 2011.

In some ways the pronouncement was to be expected; physics triumphalism dictates that at some point philosophy will exhaust itself and be unable to solve the mysteries that science seems to conquer in leaps. It’s been coming for a while; at least since the word science replaced natural philosophy a few centuries ago.

Along this narrative are high points of confrontation, played out by grand actors on the intellectual stage. Jimena Canales has rediscovered one such moment, which pitted a grandee of philosophy against a rising star of physics.

[lbryce]

If I had the opportunity to pick a stellar, fundamental subject, discussion of our time between the universally acknowledged,quintessential genius/experts in their respective fields, I would find it very difficult to choose one as perfectly matched, appropriate to the objective sought, as this particular article attempts to fulfill.

[lbryce]

Einstein vs Bergson, Science vs Philosophy and the Meaning of Time ping

[cripplecreek]

When science and religion weren't at war.

Einstein didn't buy LaMatre's theory of an expanding universe till Hubbel proved the priest to be correct.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Lemaître’s expanding universe wasn’t based on religious belief, rather it was a possible solution to Einstein’s field equation, with the cosmological constant removed, that fit Hubble’s observations.

[cripplecreek]

I don’t suggest that Lemaître’s expanding universe theory was religiously inspired, only that religion and science haven’t always been at odds the way they are.

Hawking may be a brilliant man but unfortunately he’s slid into attacking religion rather than promoting and developing his theories.

[Yardstick]

*bump*

The article is a good read and the sound clip is a good listen.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Einstein asserted that time could only be measured by observing events, like the progression of the hands of a clock. It appears that Bergson imputed psychological time with physical significance beyond what it could support. When I started the article, I thought the Henry that Einstein was going to confront was Henri Poincaré, who came within a hairs breadth of inventing relativity, except he could not give up the psychologically grounded notions of absolute time and absolute space. Same could be said for another Henry, Hendrik Lorentz, who actually had devised the Lorentz transform, which Einstein independently reinvented. Lorentz became a friend and supporter of Einstein.

[Vaquero]

Lemaître had to stop the Pope from trying to shoehorn ‘the Big Bang’ into ‘In The Beginning ‘. He kept his religious beliefs separate from science.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Lemaître also had to decline appointment to a papal commission on birth control, on the grounds that it was field about which he knew nothing.

[Chainmail]

Time ping.

[Vaquero]

I don’t know the reason, if there was another possible reason....Personal, philosophical, faith based?

I do know that he was eventually made a Monsignor by John XXIII.

[lbryce]

Thank you for your review.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

No, Pius XII doted on Lemaître and wanted to use him as the sunny face of the new scientifically hip Vatican, to clear the air about all that Galileo unpleasantness. Lemaître on the other hand wanted to spend his time using those new fangled IBM computers to solve problems in computational astronomy. He was allowed to live out his final years in peace.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks lbryce.

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[Flick Lives]

Star physicist Stephen Hawking even declared the end of philosophy in 2011.

Yet another arrogant pronouncement by Hawking. You'd think physicists who consider the infinite scope of the universe, looking outward or inward might have a little more humility about the limit of their current knowledge.

[super7man]

might have a little more humility about the limit of their current knowledge.

I will now paint with a broad brush. As a class of people, physicists are the most arrogant I have ever met or worked with. They believe that they understand the world better than anyone else, and have license to let every one know it. However; there are many ways to understand the world.

I have often felt that a Fuller Brush Man understands the world better than a physicist. (Wow, there's a blast from the past.)

[mjp]

In a theoretical nutshell this expressed perfectly the division between lived time and spacetime: subjective experience versus objective reality.

Both are right. Pain or boredom makes subjectively experienced time seem to pass slowly, while fun and excitement makes time seem to pass quickly. While the objective time for both as measured by a clock are the same.That is a hypnotic trance called time distortion.

[tet68]

What we have then is Shrodinger’s Clock.

Also the clock isn’t objective because it has
no awareness of itself.

[lbryce]

Brilliant observation. Ain’t it the truth.

[MHGinTN]

Isaiah 42:5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; ... I’m pretty sure that Isaiah lived a few hundred years before Einstein or Hubbel.