Q&A: Intuition and Modern Science
Intuition and Modern Science
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I recently read your book Truth and Unstable. I enjoyed reading it, and it gave me a lot to think about. Thank you very much.
You argue in the book that our tool for deciding what is true is intuition: a combination of thought and cognition. Looking with the “eyes of the intellect” at the ideas or concepts behind things and comparing them in order to clarify what is correct and what the truth is (even if it is not certain).
That raised a question for me: from the little I understand about quantum theory, Einstein’s theory of relativity, and other modern theories, they are very unintuitive. It is hard to grasp the theories (probability in the electron’s location, wave-particle duality, time depending on the frame of reference you are in, etc.); it is hard to understand why things work that way; and without many experiments with unequivocal results and many scientists supporting these theories, we probably would not believe them (as opposed to Newtonian mechanics, which from what I know seems fairly intuitive and logical to me).
Now, assuming that you do in fact believe these theories and also understand them well as a physicist,
doesn’t that raise a question about the use of intuition as a tool for knowing reality?
For example, one could say that if intuitions do not work at the micro level of matter (quantum theory) or at very high speeds—and therefore we need to rely on clear experiments—then perhaps they also do not work regarding the creation of the world or anything else that is very far removed from the reality we live in.
Does our intuition work on things we do not really know?
Thank you very much 🙂
Answer
Intuition does not operate in a vacuum. You could ask a similar question about Occam’s razor, which instructs us to choose the simplest theory. Is quantum theory or relativity really the simplest? Clearly, the razor principle does not operate in a vacuum. Within the constraints of the facts and observations, among the theories that explain them, we choose the simplest one. The same is true of intuition. Intuition does not mean that I just go by what seems most logical to me. I need to gather all the relevant facts, and in light of them ask what seems to me the most plausible explanation that will account for the facts. The fact that Newtonian mechanics is simpler and more intuitive does not help me, because his mechanics does not explain the facts. Among the theories that explain the facts known to us, quantum theory and relativity are the most intuitive.
Discussion on Answer
Read it again.
I read it again: “quantum theory and relativity are the most intuitive” = they explain in the most plausible way the facts I collected.
Now I’m asking (as someone who finished reading Truth and Unstable and is still trying to get to the depth of the ideas) — how does that play out in practice? After all, as you yourself said, Newton’s explanations do not explain the facts, and therefore we do not choose them—that is the criterion! Where is plausibility here? Intuition?
When I think about all the phenomena that led us to understand that there is, say, a force of gravity—I want to say that the explanation of gravitational force is the only one (not the plausible one) that can explain them!
I assume I’m missing important points here that you obviously explained, but I just can’t quite put my finger on them.
None of these is the only explanation. Recall the example of the graph and different ways of connecting the points on it. That is exactly the answer to your question.
Instead of the law of gravity, there could be infinitely many other explanations: every body with a geometric shape is attracted to another; every colored body; in every odd-numbered minute there is one kind of attraction and in even-numbered minutes another. For every data set there are infinitely many possible explanations. You immediately default to the simple one, and so it seems to you like the only one.
Sorry for “raising this post from the dead”…
What, then, is meant by “quantum theory and relativity are the most intuitive”? Basically, from what you explain, they are simply the only ones that explain the phenomena with the highest success rates—isn’t that so?