Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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AKPHIL: Philosophie der Physik

AKPHIL 1: Naturgesetze und Theorienbildung

AKPHIL 1.4: Talk

Tuesday, March 8, 2005, 11:45–12:15, TU TC6

Plausibility of the ’power’ of symbolic representations to decribe physical reality — •Ivo Knittel — Institute of Experimental Physics, University of Saarbrücken, 66041 Saarbrücken

Einstein quoted the deepest mystery of the universe to be that we are able to understand it. However this statement should not be taken too seriously. In effect, Wittgensteins modestly called "Abbildtheorie" of language actually explains how a symbolic representation can be a model of a physical object in much the same sense as an exact copy of an object is a model of that object. Wittgenstein showed that no model can be given of the process of the agreement of the members of the language community. In our terms, on the agreement of ’referees’ on the equivalence of models. In that sense, the process of physical understanding cannot be modeled within physics. Still, a non-circular story of physical knowledge aquisition can be told because rather primitive subjects can serve as ’referees’. The symbolic representation aquired in the described way is still not knowledge in its full sense, because it lacks ’intentionality’ in the sense of Searle.