where does philosophy and physics meet/ merge if there is any close encounter at all?

Answer 1

When you get into things like quantum physics, it's pretty much all philosophy. Read A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Answer 2

Both physics and philosophy have posed the question what is the world like? What is made of and what would be the best way to find out? How does it work?
Most philosophers these days would concede that physics represents the best way of answering these questions, but in the past the two disciplines were a lot closer together. Descartes, the mathematician and philosopher, proposed in the 17th century that although the world might appear to hold lots of different objects - tables and chairs and stuff - actually they are all composed of the same material. Invisibly tiny particles of this material made up everything we see and the varying arrangements of the particles explained why we can move our hand freely through air but not stone - the particles being more densely packed in the stone than in air. Which is pretty spot on for a guy without an electron microscope.

Answer 3

Physics is a branch of philosophy and always has been. Graduate with a degree in physics at most universities and your diploma will read 'natural philosophy'.

Physics is a science, of course, and so incorporates the assumptions involved with the scientific method (make no mistake - there are MANY assumptions in physics). Many philosophies are not sciences only because they lack the tools to be so: there is no ethics-ometer or intrinsic-meaning-detector.

Like other philosophies, however, it is a means to discover not just the truth, but the best truths. It has had some enviable success in that area!

Answer 4

Actually physics and other sciences, in general, evolved from philosophy. But then religion and philosophy have always been close as well. At times one and the same.

But as the "hard" sciences began to be defined philosophy, as a "soft" science, began to split off. I personally believe that the hard sciences contribute much to philosophical debate and understanding. And that as philosophy has separated itself (as far as it has) from religion, it has (re)gained some of its own (old?) strengths back.

This is a good question for physicists - one of which, I am not.

Answer 5

I think the border is at the uncertainty principle - I think it's both physical science and philosophy, and one way from there goes to physics stuff and the other way goes to metaphysics stuff. I mean, at that point you are still discussing material, observable particles - but you're also talking about how the nature of the world is not subject to empirical testing.

Answer 6

Some philosophers have been telling us for years that none of this is real. They say that reality is just a creation of our minds.

Quantum physics tells us a very similar Idea about the reality of Reality.

This is more easily understandable if one considers the actual scale of the components of an atom. If one takes into account the fact that the neutrons, protons and electrons of an atom actually have huge spaces between them it becomes clear that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are made up of 99+ percent empty space.

This alone does not seem too important till you add the idea that the atoms that make up seemingly solid objects are more of a loose conglomeration that share a similar attraction but never really touch each other.

At first glance this does not really seem relevant, but closer analysis reveals that this adds a tremendous amount of empty space to solid objects that are already made up of atoms that are 99 percent space. When so-called solid objects are seen in this light it becomes apparent that they can in no way be the seemingly solid objects they appear to be.

We ourselves are not exceptions to this phenomenon.

These seemingly solid objects are more like ghostly images that we interpret as solid objects based on our perceptual conclusions.

From this we must conclude that Perception is some sort of a trick that helps us to take these ghostly images and turn them into a world we can associate and interact with. This clever device seems to be a creation of our intellect that enables us to interact with each other in what appears to be a three dimensional reality.

Understand that this is a vastly over simplifyed explination but I hope that helps to answered your question.

Love and blessings Don

Answer 7

None at all. Philisophy is very well educated guesswork and opinion. Physics is precise scientifically tested provable facts with no margin for error. Philosophy is about the intangible and unseen, even the non existant and physics is prepared to accept probability. Physics gives and accepts only facts.

Answer 8

in THE MATRIX. the movie closely follows Plato's allegory of the cave and there is all kinds of physics and stuff involved.

Answer 9

both the same.