Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe by Paul Sen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Three Cheers For Thinking

According to Sen scientists are great guys (almost exclusively guys) and the unrecognised heroes of history (as opposed to politicians and other notables). They have revealed to us the truth about the universe and how it works. Their prophecies should be heeded. So his book is a sort of modern hagiography of the secular saints of that field which he believes is the most enduring and useful of all the sciences, namely thermodynamics. Of interest to me however are the implications of Sen’s intellectual biographies for the philosophy of science.

A great deal of practical progress has been made by being wrong. For example, one of Sen’s heroes is Nicolas Carnot, the man he considers the founder of thermodynamics. Like Newton’s theory of gravity, which is conceptually incorrect but useful in sending astronauts to the moon; and Michael Faraday’s theory of electricity, which was equally wrong, but allowed the extensive development of electric motor technology, Carnot’s theory of heat is actually incoherent. Yet his ideas form the basis for an entire science.

I think it’s important to recognise that these people were not just a bit wrong in their thinking so that a little tinkering with their ideas could correct their errors. They were fundamentally in error. Carnot’s ‘caloric’ theory of heat turned out to be nonsense. It was replaced by an entirely different conceptual description, which in turn gave way to yet further fundamental changes in thermodynamic theory. The fact that each wave of theory produced greater practical results masks the uncontested fact fact that all previous thinking was shown to be wrong in its essentials. Not just wrong in details, or wrong in the level of specificity or conceptual expression. They were completely misguided.

At least they were misguided in terms of subsequent scientific developments. Each epoch of development represented a decisive conceptual break, a discontinuity, with the past. The theories of Josiah Gibbs and Pierre Duhem, for example share almost nothing with that of Carnot. It is the case that they allow much more to be accomplished. Pragmatist philosophers would like us to believe therefore that later theories are closer to the truth of more congruent with reality than previous theories. This despite the fact that every previous conceptual expression has a view of reality that is contrary to latest thinking.

In other words, what constitutes reality is constantly changing in science. Reality is whatever we think of as reality lately. We know that this reality will not be the one that survives the next conceptual revolution. There is nothing else against which to measure our conceptions except the next set of conceptions, which will always claim authority because they produce more results. But aside from that, they have no claim at all to a better description of reality, much less the truth of those descriptions.

Sen makes his intention in re-telling the story of the development of thermodynamics clear. “This book is an argument that the history of science is the history that matters,” he says. I think he’s right. But what I find incomprehensible about the book is that he also thinks that history matters because of great minds. What clearly matters, according to his account, is not the individual minds, great or not, but the historical community of scientists and engineers within which a continuous conversation about ‘heat’ has taken place. The fact that the topic had no fixed meaning within this conversation is it’s most remarkable feature.

Thermodynamics has obviously given us power. But this power is the result of talking, not a better understanding of the universe. Arguably, given the paradoxes and inconsistencies of modern physics, our conception of the real is as primitive as that of the early Greek philosophers. Yet, Sen is keen to quote Einstein who said of thermodynamics, “It is the only physical theory of universal content, which I am convinced… will never be overthrown.” Perhaps, but doesn’t Einstein sound more than a bit like Lord Kelvin in his late 19th century pronouncement that Newtonian physics had almost completed a final description of the universe?

Regarding the Pragmatist objection that we now can do much more than we have ever done before because of our scientific knowledge: all one can say is that all the results aren’t in yet. As Sen says, “The story of thermodynamics is not only one about how humans acquire scientific knowledge, it is also about how that knowledge is shaped by and, in turn, shapes society.” He shows how scientific knowledge is achieved haphazardly, and that knowledge affects society with at least as much randomness. Yet he professes no sense of humility much less awe about our condition of fundamental ignorance. We actually have no idea what future science will reveal. But we do know based on experience that it too will remain ignorant of whatever is ‘there.’

So success is whatever passes for success. And people like Sen are there as boosters and cheerleaders. His account of scientists and their breakthroughs is at times fascinating. But his assessment of what all this thought means I find simply banal. It is only vaguely interesting that Einstein designed a safer refrigerator. There are so much more important things to say about science and scientists, don’t you think?

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Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s As If Reality Didn’t Exist

Here’s the problem: the more one studies quantum theory, the less one understands about it. Richard Feynman said that and no one has had the temerity to argue the point since. So Rovelli has written a short book whose purpose is not to elucidate the incomprehensible but to demonstrate that incomprehensibility in a comprehensible way. Why did he write it? I suspect that the answer is connected with the remark made by his colleague cited at the very beginning of the book: “It’s as if reality didn’t exist.”

Quantum theory is a peculiar sort of triumph for human intelligence. It is a humiliation for anyone who claims to know what reality means. If reality is constituted by the facts of quantum research - superposition, instantaneous action at a distance, the effects of observation, etc. - then all other facts are compromised. As Rovelli is keen to point out: after a century of scientific effort, quantum theory has never been proven wrong. In which case its results are more than confusing. These results contradict our experiential intuition, our logic, and the fundamental concept of truth.

So the old joke, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?,” takes on a tragic new meaning. Not only do our eyes lie. Everything everyone has reported about the world - except about quantum physics - has been false. Not just useful approximations, but false. This is not a matter of, for example, continuing to use the term sunrise when we all know this an ancient belief turned metaphor. It means nothing is continuous despite appearances. It means there are no things, only relations with no fixed components, only a scientific language with no clear referents outside itself, and a range of contrary interpretations about how to connect that scientific language with the words we use with each other.

This is intellectually humiliating no matter how spectacular the practical consequences of quantum research. Such research allows us to do things we simply don’t understand from the production of nuclear weapons to plant breeding. But whatever it is that lies behind the veil of the quantum equations, if anything, is as inaccessible now as it was when Plato wrote about his cave or Leibniz his monads. Could it be that this is the essential meaning of quantum physics, namely that the enterprise we call ‘thought’ is not what we presumed? Perhaps thought has nothing to do with appreciating reality, approaching truth, or understanding how things work.

Perhaps instead, thought is ‘merely’ the term we use for human cooperative effort full stop. Rovelli implies this in his highlighting of the group-think manner through which quantum physics emerged. Not just that of the 20th century scientists commonly associated with the science, but also their, often obscure, predecessors whose work they exploited. In other words, it is not the practical results which are important but the massive collaboration required to produce the ideas that have become common currency. And the fact that these ideas have turned the tables on their creators by going rogue, as it were, are a provocation by thought to yet more cooperative thought.

It’s a thought.

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The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom by Candida R. Moss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Error Has No Rights

In 1832 Pope Gregory published an encyclical, Mirari vos, in which a traditional view of not just the Catholic Church but also most other Christian sects was made an explicit part of their teaching: Error has no rights. In fact this encyclical was part of a series of directives by various popes over the next century that denied almost every human right we take for granted - from freedom of conscience to the importance of democratic institutions. These are all still ‘on the books’ and are promoted as authentic doctrine by many to the present day.

The connection between this Christian denial of human rights and Christian martyrdom, Moss’s topic of investigation, is straightforward: self-induced Christian paranoia. From the writers of the New Testament, to the earliest apologists, through the crusades and pogroms of medieval heretics, and into today’s evangelical warriors, the persistent trope of Christian culture is one of actual or impending persecution. According to Christian ideology (consistent but distinct from its theology*) the world is out to get its adherents; and always has been.

What Moss shows very clearly is that this narrative of persecution is fictional from its earliest versions. It persists because it is functional. As she says, “The rhetoric of persecution legitimates and condones retributive violence. Violence committed by the persecuted is an act of divinely approved self-defense. In attacking others they are not only defending themselves; they are defending all Christians.” This ideology is the rationale behind every political (and, historically, military) move by all Christian churches. It justifies the most inhumane actions - from widespread persecution of others to the denial of the right to even object to such persecution. This is institutional paranoia on a massive scale.

Christian paranoia is most acute when it is least justified. Just as the tales of primitive martyrs mainly emerge only after Christianity is legitimised by the Emperor Constantine, so modern evangelicals claim oppression by the democratic state as they wield their considerable political muscle on issues as diverse as abortion, voting rights, and gun control. Its martyrs include foetuses, disgraced preachers, and politicians who have lost their seats because they have espoused ‘Christian causes.’ Always on the lookout for opposition, real or imagined, Christianity is an inherently divisive ideology. According to Moss: “The recognition that the idea of the Christian martyr is based in legend and rhetoric, rather than history and truth, reveals that many Christians have been and remain committed to conflict and opposition in their interactions with others.”

And as Moss notes in passing, “some Christians argued that the crucifixion was an elaborate magic trick and that Christ never really died.” Is it any surprise therefore that so many American Christians believe that Trump actually won the recent election and is governing the country from Florida?


*The ideological evolution of Christian thought moves from suggestions of forbearance to directives of terrorism in approximately the following steps:
1. Jesus died.
2. Jesus died for your salvation.
3. Others have died to prove that Jesus died for your salvation.
4. All the faithful, too, must be prepared to die for Jesus in order to promote his message of universal salvation.
5. Jesus’s message of universal salvation must be defended, if necessary by oppressing or even killing those who reject it.

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The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Disappointment

I am an admirer of Tabucchi. But either I miss the point of this book or there is nothing there. Each is certainly possible. I have re-read it three times over the last month and can find nothing that relieves my disappointment. If anyone else finds a key to open a locked treasure I have missed, please get in touch.

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