Are There Beings about Which Physics is Unable to Say Anything? Cover Image
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Czy istnieją byty, o których fizyka nic nie może powiedzieć?
Are There Beings about Which Physics is Unable to Say Anything?

Author(s): Krzysztof A. Meissner
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life
Published by: Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
Keywords: physics;anthropology

Summary/Abstract: Not so long ago the titular question would have been an open provocation in the eyes of almost all physicists and I believe that today too many would treat it identically. For them the obvious answer would be: “no”: whatever exists in reality, in a material way, is – or will be in the future – described to the very end by physics. Everything that does not belong to this category either exists in a deformed and fleeting fashion, or is not a being but only a relation between beings. At this point it is worth mentioning an immanent limitation: physics does not deal with beings that are internally contradictory (take the example of the motion of small bodies in the general theory of relativity). Ostensibly, I can express an opinion about their existence, but actually I cannot think in this way if I know about their inner contradiction, which Ludwig Wittgenstein stressed in his treatise on logic. A significant remark concerns the language in which we speak about beings. It could appear that this is not a problem in physics, since the language of physics is mathematics, the identical for all. Nonetheless, things are not that simple. For instance, the same equations, for instance Albert Einstein’s equations in the general theory of relativity, are experienced completely differently by someone who sees them for the very first time or after a year’s work with them, and still differently by someone who has dealt with them for over 30 years, as in my case. The meaning of the message also depends on the recipient – it is possible to be unable to say it but it is just as possible to be unable to receive it. My text will deal with two questions: beings, which physics deals with but whose ontological status is unclear (in other words, I am capable of speaking about it but am not quite sure whether it exists), and beings that exist but about which I am unable to speak within the range of physics.

  • Issue Year: 320/2018
  • Issue No: 1–2
  • Page Range: 199-201
  • Page Count: 3
  • Language: Polish