Why physics?

There are several reasons to place physics at the center of our argument:

1. Physics is usually seen as the hardest of all hard scientific disciplines today. It has everything to say about what we call physical ``reality'' in the world -- from galaxies to atoms to elementary particles. For many, a physical world is the world.

2. The whole scientific community (including psychology, cognitive science, in some respect linguistics, etc.) is dominated by an active or passive physicalist world view. This view is sometimes very active, such as in chemistry or astronomy. In these disciplines, physics offers a foundation for all explanations. Their explanatory frameworks are to be seen as either derivation or approximation of underlying physics. In other cases, physics plays a passive role. For instance, it is accepted that no scientific discipline whatsoever could ever violate the laws of physics. In all these cases, physics does mesh with other scientific disciplines and is regarded as more subtle. In other words, a fact established in physics is to be established as a fact in other disciplines. For example, no linguist is in the position to argue for a theory that is in any way incompatible with the laws of physics. Indeed, no human, as a physical entity, can utter a physically impossible sound.

3. Physics offers good theories for many engineering disciplines ``for all practical purposes'' (FAPP, as John Bell calls it). This includes those which are heavily physics-oriented such as aeronautics and electronics and those which are more distant, such as architecture and information/communication technology. In the latter case, physics usually plays a supporting but indispensable role. Also, note that many mind-related scientific disciplines rely heavily on the help of the equipment built according to the knowledge of advanced physics -- positron-emission tomography (PET) or nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tomography in psychology, psycholinguistics or cognitive science, to name some. In these cases, they take the results measured by physical instruments as the basis of any reliable evidence.

Although physics is indeed very successful in explaining the phenomena which we can or can not see (ranging from the Big Bang in the beginning of the universe to the stability of atoms on your finger tips), the relevance of modern physics to sciences of mind, including linguistics, in my view, is rather due to its crisis rather than its success in accommodating physical ``reality.'' In fact, the main theme of this chapter is that the naively-understood physical ``reality'' -- an invariant objective substance -- is only a limiting case of a more subtle reality, in which activeness has its place. I am not prone to the opinion, however, that this more subtle reality is supernatural (remember that I am advocating a naturalist account) or unintelligible. Nor do I think that there is mind or soul that can exist independently of physical objects. There is no doubt that it can be argued that way, as many students of humanities would prefer to. They ask: how can you otherwise accommodate intention, free will and consciousness in physics without resorting to an autonomous mind^2.3? This conception, however, in my opinion, is largely owing to a misunderstanding of physics. It is all too easy to accept the well-established but out-dated Newtonian/Cartesian world view -- let us call it `folk physics,' which has penetrated so deeply in our everyday life. In this view the physical world is lifeless and mechanistic, in short, the universe is qualitatively identical to a clockwork. But this is not correct even if only physics is concerned, as we shall see.

Before we proceed, something must also be mentioned about the role physics plays in functionalist or emergentist approaches to mind-related sciences. In emergentism, physical objects are the substrate on which new phenomena (mind) emerge. In functionalism, physical objects are the realization of a specific function. So physics itself is often held as a macroscopically irrelevant or uninteresting topic from the view point of so-called levels of explanation. However, if any theory happens to imply a violation of existing physical laws or starts with assumptions that are refuted by physics, it is sufficient to falsify the whole theory as unscientific. In other words, newly established physical facts have the power to falsify approaches in other disciplines. Now what if the most subtle physical ``reality'' ceases to be ``meaningful'' and there is no other way except through ``consciousness'' or ``mind'' to establish physical facts, as Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics implies [10]?

It may be pointed out that all scientific disciplines can be treated as some sort of functionalism in that they are interested in the logical/causal relationship between the relevant entities in their corresponding disciplines. These entities are mostly defined through their corresponding functions or roles. For example, consider what role genes play in biology or the Federal Reserve in macro-economy. Although one cannot deny that there is a realization of the functioning unit, one is apt to think that this is irrelevant. But this view can turn out to be fruitless. To see why, consider astrology: if an astrologer can predict the solar or lunar eclipse very accurately (he can) and tell the ups and downs of Dow-Jones (alleged being influenced by these celestial events), would these facts establish astrology as a science? In fact, if the investors in Wall Street do believe in the astrologer, his prediction must be correct to a certain degree. Now we will ask: isn't it the realization of a function (the good prediction here) that makes an account of social psychological explanation of the impact of astrology on financial markets more scientific than astrology? Isn't this realization crucial in finding a more plausible causal explanation?

This motivates us to take a closer look at the foundation of physics, for according to a physicalist account physics is the ultimate realization of any function. But before delving into physics, let us take a look at the other center piece of our arguments -- mathematics.