Questions about God and Science

[Angrboda]

This is just my personal take on things as a rogue philosopher, so understand it as my view and my view only.

Scientists, at least those worthy of the name, do not believe in the existence of protons, sub-atomic particles, gravity, quantum waves or anything of the sort. Scientists do believe that they have mathematical and philosophical models, ranging from Maxwell's equations to tenets of the theory of measurement which have demonstrated themselves consistent with macroscopic observables (though those observables, many, were in turn dependent on earlier 'so-called' observations). These mathematical models, when connected up together so that all the undefined terms link up with definitions, are consistent with observed behavior of macroscopic objects. A scientist using a tunneling electron microscope to probe a large, complex molecule, is not physically looking at the molecule, she is looking at a buttload of theories and mathematical models, many of which are solely dedicated to explaining the macroscopic behavior of the tunneling electron microscope itself, which allows her to establish some credibility to the notion that the mathematics of what she is "seeing" is consistent with, and interpretable in light of these other mathematical models. We don't care whether there are actual protons, or if they are incredibly tiny Justin Bieber clones doing dances — we care that the overall interlocking set of mathematical models is consistent and that there is a reasonable expectation that we can make further inferences about observations, such as what she is "seeing" in the tunneling electron microscope, that are justifiably reasonable given macroscopic observation (such as, of the LCD screen of the microscope) and that our prior work in developing and verifying the consistency of the models that the observation is built upon justifies such inference. It doesn't matter if there is everything or nothing at bottom, so long as it is consistent with and predictable at the macroscopic level by our mathematical models.

This is a common mistake people make in reference to quantum physics. People argue about the implications of the Copenhagen interpretation versus Many Worlds versus Decoherence. These are "interpretations" of the theory — attempts to paint a suitably robust metaphysical picture of what is there at the bottom. These interpretations are the "Bohr's model of the atom" of our day. They don't refer to reality as such, so much as a picture of what might be an ontologically tangible model of why the equations do what they do. Perhaps one can think of it as a meta-theory of the theory. The theory is the equations. The rest is just philosophical falderal.