Karl Muller : "One physicist “got” something that a lot of philosophers still don’t, and this was Niels Bohr, when he said: There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.

Charles Brown: If we can say it relatively truthfully about the world , it _is_ the world . Language is using something to _represent_ something that it is not- symbolic signs. The representation conveys some truth about what it represents but it is not literally identical with what it represents.

||||||Karl Muller continues : "Understanding physics means understanding the limits of language, a subject that centrally concerned the philosopher Wittgenstein (who actually trained in aeronautical engineering and nuclear physics in Manchester before the First World War.) His famous Tractatus concluded by saying: “What we cannot speak about, we must pass over in silence. The End.”

Bohr went further, saying something that will probably be sneered at by many physicists of today:

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

I went through a degree course in physics without the issue of language being raised once. My master’s degree ended up being in the language of the science classroom, and I found myself clinging to Wittgenstein and his notion of “language games” as absolutely the only concept in this entire realm that made a scrap of sense. Language is always located in a social context, and cannot be separated from it.

Charles Brown : Language is inherently social ; it is communication among people !

Muller : "You need to study the game in which the word is used, to grasp its meaning. If you want to look for “consciousness” in quantum physics, watch two quantum physicists talking, and look very carefully for any signs of it.

The philosopher and “spiritual scientist” Rudolf Steiner said that language was only adequate to the material world. You can say: “Here is one stone placed upon another.” And what you say will be adequate to the material world. But to say what was going on in the minds of the people who placed those stones, what they mean, what symbolism they have—well, that can be a different story for every person, and can never be fully articulated in language.

Charles Brown : Actually , they can tell you what was going on in their mind ( pace Wittgenstein). Or sometimes you can infer what was going on in the minds of the people who placed the stones from the pattern in which the stones were placed. This is what we anthropologists do with Stone Age artifacts . We infer that they had linguistic consciousness

Muller continues :"I discovered this in Jerusalem, where every single rock has at least three completely separate mythologies.

Charles Brown : See anthropogists Claude Levi-Strauss on all myths having multiple varuations. Words can have multiple meanings

Muller continues Language is not adequate to express spiritual experiences.

Charles Brown : speak for yourself ( smiles) . I adequately express my spiritual experiences in language all the time !

Muller continues " This is a fundamental dividing line. The moment you are speaking of inner experiences, you become like Wittgenstein, who says (to paraphrase): I never actually hit the target with my words, but if you watch around where I’m shooting, you’ll begin to see that I’m always aiming at the same moving target, and you’ll get an idea of what I’m actually trying to say. In fact, this may be the one and only place he actually did hit the target, it’s a perfect description of his process.

Charles Brown : his process , not mine

Steiner also gives the only picture of the evolution of language I’ve ever seen that makes sense. He says it is divided into three phases: the Chinese era, when language had to be beautiful, as in angelic; then came the Roman era, when it had to be accurate, and adequate to the material world in building roads and bridges; and now the modern era, when language needs to become good, when people want to see that your words are positive and having a beneficial effect. It’s actually going to be the Russian era, Russian is notoriously opaque and poetic and a language of the future. It’s not an accident that they don’t have the definite article “the”, so they’re always asking the deep questions in the physics corridor, like “What is time?”

You can say what you like about Steiner’s long view, but what he’s saying is manifestly “good”, in that it’s encouraging manifestly positive and honest language. So I feel he’s being consistent and leading by example.


Is physics doing “good” in the world? We have enough atom bombs to blow the entire planet up and kill every living thing on it, several hundred times, at least. One would have thought that killing us all once would be enough, but “overkill” has no meaning to some people.

Here’s another quote from a physicist who “got” it, and was not scared to use blunt language to try and shock his peers (and the politicians) into some kind of sanity:

We scientists are clever — too clever — are you not satisfied? Is four square miles in one bomb not enough? Men are still thinking. Just tell us how big you want it!

This is Richard Feynman at his best. And I challenge you to find one philosopher of our times who has articulated this central issue more powerfully. 292.2K viewsView 1,853 upvotesView 64 shares 1.8K 64 147 Profile photo for Charles Brown Add a comment... Profile photo for Charles Brown Charles Brown · Just now If we can say it relatively truthfully about the world , it _is_ the world . Language is using something to _represent_ something that it is not- symbolic signs. The representation conveys some truth about what it represents but it is not literally identical with what it represents. Profile photo for Garret Mayle Garret Mayle · 3y A good few philosophers have actually expressed the exact sentiment that our ability to describe reality is ultimately limited by our capacity to describe concepts through language, and further by our ability to relate ideas to one another within our limited worldview and further limited ability to… Read more 51 Profile photo for Karl Muller Karl Muller · 3y You cannot be any kind of philosopher unless you look at the role of language and concept formation, so I was just trying to show that there are physicists who really do “get” these issues. The point is that the physicists are then involved in the real world — the very real world, like blowing up wh… Read more 36 Tim Eseeker I believe your reference to “genuine traction” is pointing at the