Particle physics foundation ontology
A particle physics foundation ontology (or particle ontology or particle physics zoo) is the system of interlocking scientific claims that hold that atoms are made of physical particles, and that there is a finite number of these that exist, and which must be taken into account in any ontology that purports to describe a foundation for classical mechanics and for chemistry. Such beliefs motivate the continued investment in particle accelerator technology and basic research, as distinct from funding of physical theory or education.
The current zoo and these methods are explained under particle physics. This article is concerned with the impact of the zoo on activities other than particle physics.
why do we need this zoo?
Many assume this foundation ontology to be the best current scientific understanding of "the basic level of reality. Our ontology involves quarks, spacetime, and probability amplitudes." - Eleizer Yudkowsky
Its existence, and its extension, prompts the raising many issues basic to epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, cognitive science and even theology. Is it "the basic level of reality?" Or is this claim extravangant, unreasonable, dangerous or worse?
who uses this zoo?
Although particle physics uses the zoo to motivate more investigation into particle physics, this is not its only or even primary influence on the sciences:
Increasingly, simulations guide the investment of energy in basic research. Thus, the zoo is important because it provides the most basic description of reality to be used in foundational computer science and artificial intelligence, in funding, and because invesigations into it serve as a standard of proof for falsifiability in other "physical" or "hard" sciences - whose laws are presumed to apply throughout the known universe, i.e. to be "universal".
does anyone dispute the zoo?
Yes. Anti-reductionist physics argues that the foundation ontology may be composed of collections or relationships or operations, rather than the particles.
To understand this and other issues in context requires some review of particle physics as it has come to be used as a foundation ontology in the other sciences:
origins
Atomism - the first foundation ontology that assumed any model of "particle physics goes back 2000 years to the Greeks; and Isaac Newton thought that matter was made up of particles in the 17th century. However, it was John Dalton who formally stated in 1802 that everything is made from tiny atoms." - schoolscience, UK
Dmitri Mendeleev's first periodic table in 1869 helped cement the view, prevalent throughout the 19th century, that the natural sciences must assume a foundation ontology of atoms composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons - and nothing else. The atomic nucleus of protons and neutrons was assumed to be an unbreakable unit, with electrons as their only mobile separable particle.
The 20th century explorations of nuclear physics and quantum physics, culminating with proofs of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion, gave rise to an active industry of generating one atom from another, even rendering possible (although not feasible economically) the transmutation of lead into gold. These theories successfully predicted nuclear weapons.
when is science not science?
The late 20th century Cold War arms race prompted scientists in the United States, Soviet Union, and Europe to build particle accelerator technology to literally smash atoms into smaller and smaller bits. Although initially the Soviet Union did not share any beyond the most basic results, for military reasons, gradually tensions eased and the current particle physics zoo became recognized as a product of "normal science" although only a very few experimental apparatus were capable of reproducing results.
This was one of many factors prompting investigation into the philosophy of science, an empirical method, and falsifiability itself. It paralleled similar foundations questions rising in the philosophy of mathematics, especially "Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem (1931), which shows that there is truth beyond even math's ability to prove that it is true." - Oskar Gruenwald
The most significant philospher involved in both debates at a foundation level was Bertrand Russell - whose views became increasingly politicized and difficult to characterize as science - some consider him the first of the late-20th century body philosphers.
versus waves, strings, and order
There are several strains of argument that challenge the particle ontology.
Some challenge the consistency of the various assumptions of particle physics. One well-known challenge, through string theory and various branches of quantum mechanics, attempt to unify explanations of phenomena observed in particle accelerator experiments in a theory based on waves, cognitive bonds between observer and observed (e.g. David Bohm's "implicate order"). This challenge generally follows scientific method and accepts claims of falsifiability of mathematical prediction.
It has, however, failed to produce a unified field theory. As Eugene Wigner first noted in 1960, the belief that such a theory is possible is an article of faith: "both possibilities, unity and conflict, remain possible."
as a consequence of human bias
A substantial strain of doubt about the reality of difficult-to-observe physical phenomena has persisted in modern physics. The first such tenous claim was advanced by Eugene Wigner in his 1960 paper "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences," in whose footnotes Wigner argued that "it is useful, in epistemological discussions, to abandon the idealization that the level of human intelligence has a singular position on an absolute scale. In some cases it may even be useful to consider the attainment which is possible at the level of the intelligence of some other species." This argument lay unexplored for forty years as cognitive psychology, anthropology, primatology and other sciences investigated "the level of the intelligence of some other species."
Significant ethical debate on the funding of sciences has sometimes flared, but there is no great call to preserve Great Ape species for their cognitive insight into physics, nor to cease funding particle physics in favor of a program of study of "ethno mathematics - the study of folk mathematics around the world." The debate is conducted in informal and, ultimately, political terms. Physicists' insight into spiritual or ecological matters is still generally seen as separate from their physics.
Were they broadly accepted, these arguments would alter the profession of physics but probably not its ultimate reliance on mathematical notations.
anti-reductionist physicists
Some solid state physicists more deeply question the notion of particle physics as the foundation for all other understanding. They point out that large numbers of objects can undergo statistical behavior and have properties that are indepedent of the properties of the particles themselves.
Furthermore, they note, there are systems with radically different components that can undergo very similar behavior, and it has been argued that the similarities in behavior can best be understood through universal rules which are independent of the properties of the components of the systems themselves. These rules or methods or processes would then be "more real than matter" in that they would determine how observers shared an understanding of matter, and would set limits on investigative feasibility.
just another limit?
Models, however, are applied, and sometimes determine the fate of many lives. It is critical to science's survival to know how to test models, and when it is impossible to test them. Else, science itself loses credibility.
Finding such limits, of course, has been a feature of 20th-century math and science, e.g. the Planck length, the Uncertainty Principle, and etc..
If some of these limits are to feasible method, or even ethically imposed by restraints on experiment, as per the Precautionary Principle, that may not in itself be surprising, as theology has long claimed that ethical rules and moral principles guide human conceptions more than any sensory test.
social limits to knowledge?
Addressing both the social and ethical limits to knowledge is a common theme of modern theologians, notably Pope John Paul II, who argued in his 1995 Fides et Ratio that "reason too needs to be sustained in all its searching by trusting dialogue and sincere friendship. A climate of suspicion and distrust, which can beset speculative research, ignores the teaching of the ancient philosophers who proposed friendship as one of the most appropriate contexts for sound philosophical enquiry. (n. 33)"
This is not a request to abandon inquiry so much as to redirect its goals: "I cannot but encourage philosophers--be they Christian or not--to trust in the power of human reason and not to set themselves goals that are too modest in their philosophizing. The lesson of history in this millennium now drawing to a close shows that this is the path to follow: it is necessary not to abandon the passion for ultimate truth, the eagerness to search for it or the audacity to forge new paths in the search. (n. 56)"
That search, presumably, is for a new and ethical foundation ontology.
as a consequence of embodied minds
Any such set of new assumptions, however, would still have to explain particle physics at least as a consequence of human or primate cognitive chemistry and the experimental apparatus, i.e. particle accelerator, and explain how "the embodied mind brings mathematics into being" - thereby creating human ideas about physics below the atomic level.
In their 2000 treatment of the cognitive science of mathematics, linguist George Lakoff and psychologist Rafael E. Núñez raise serious objections to assuming any such mathematical model to be "real" - suggesting that such particles may well be detected due to desire to detect them, or a shared observer bias amongst all their human observers, or reliance on a very few expensive particle acclerator apparatus, that justify their existence by providing outputs to physicists relying on it for status.
At present this line of reasoning seems confined to certain radical body philosophers and ontologists, and is noted here only for completeness.
Critics argue that no serious observer bias question has ever undone a major physical theory, and that arguments against the particle physics foundation ontology are ultimately only 'political'.
unclear future
As simulation methods, falsifiability, observer bias, and the objectivity of "big science" funded by governments and corporations comes into question, it seems likely that concerns with the particle physics zoo as a reliable foundation ontology for other sciences will continue. Understanding of human and primate cognitive chemistry and neuroscience, however, seems insufficient to advance any new foundation ontology based on those. For more information, see philosophy of mathematics.
Another possibility is that mathematics, sciences, and technologies will not be considered distinct in future and will not require a foundation ontology of any kind - relying strictly on one process of falsifiability. For more information, see philosophy of science.
External links:
"Philosophy Redivivus? Science, Ethics, and Faith"