Famous Idealists in the history of science

[Astra052]

Recently I've been reading about people who have held idealist stances and was surprised at how early into modern physics the idea actually caught on. Arthur Eddington and James Jeans were two major British physicists who during the 1920s promoted the idea of idealism. Bernard d'Espagnat was CERN's first theoretical physicist and after being troubled by the lack of attention given to interpretations of quantum mechanics (the "shut up and calculate!" philosophy) he came to the conclusion that idealism was obvious. Seems like CERN has a habit of producing these types of thinkers! Anyone else know of any interesting idealists from historical or contemporary science?

[AshvinP]

Carl Jung. Thanks to BK, there is no reasonable doubt left that he was an idealist.

David Bohm was likely in the vicinity of panpsychist or idealist metaphysics. Niels Bohr as well.

Rupert Sheldrake.

That's all I got right now.

[Astra052]

Carl Jung. Thanks to BK, there is no reasonable doubt left that he was an idealist.

David Bohm was likely in the vicinity of panpsychist or idealist metaphysics. Niels Bohr as well.

Rupert Sheldrake.

That's all I got right now.

Eh, Sheldrake is more a parapsychologist with a lot of his stuff being about telepathy or spirituality but noted.

[Martin_]

I'm going to be a bit anal here and ask for a clarification:
Do you mean Science or Physics?

[Lou Gold]

Recently I've been reading about people who have held idealist stances and was surprised at how early into modern physics the idea actually caught on. Arthur Eddington and James Jeans were two major British physicists who during the 1920s promoted the idea of idealism. Bernard d'Espagnat was CERN's first theoretical physicist and after being troubled by the lack of attention given to interpretations of quantum mechanics (the "shut up and calculate!" philosophy) he came to the conclusion that idealism was obvious. Seems like CERN has a habit of producing these types of thinkers! Anyone else know of any interesting idealists from historical or contemporary science?

I think that Shamanhood has been full of them but they've been denied scientific status by dogmatic materialist science doing its usual trickery.

[Astra052]

I'm going to be a bit anal here and ask for a clarification:
Do you mean Science or Physics?

Science, the people I named just happened to be physicists.

[dkpstarkey]

Don't forget Edmund Husserl, the founder of the 20th-century phenomenology movement. His badge of honor as an idealist is that some of his own followers turned away from him due to his 'turn' to idealism. In response, however, he insisted that his philosophy was being misunderstood.

[AshvinP]

Don't forget Edmund Husserl, the founder of the 20th-century phenomenology movement. His badge of honor as an idealist is that some of his own followers turned away from him due to his 'turn' to idealism. In response, however, he insisted that his philosophy was being misunderstood.

That reminds of some other 20th century psychologists - Carl Rogers, Piaget, Maslow.

[SanteriSatama]

Eh, Sheldrake is more a parapsychologist with a lot of his stuff being about telepathy or spirituality but noted.

Rupert is a biologist, who in his defense of empirical science has taken increasing strong position against materialistic scientism and dogmatic pseudoskeptics who believe in physicalism.

His own philosophical position sounds like animism of a sort, which fits inside big-tent idealism. .



It's curious that materialist physicalists don't see "spooky action at distance" of quantum entanglement as fatal threat to their religion, but dogmatically resist telepathy in fear that it would shatter their dogma. Their ability to make that separation rests on their faith in the mathematical theorems of non-communication theorem and unitarity (which have nothing to do with empirism). The motivation for faith in unitarity is resisting change and evolution, so that the teleology of deterministic predictability can go on. So it's not really about matter, it's about (false) sense of conservative control their math magic seems to give them.

[Astra052]

Eh, Sheldrake is more a parapsychologist with a lot of his stuff being about telepathy or spirituality but noted.

Rupert is a biologist, who in his defense of empirical science has taken increasing strong position against materialistic scientism and dogmatic pseudoskeptics who believe in physicalism.

His own philosophical position sounds like animism of a sort, which fits inside big-tent idealism. .



It's curious that materialist physicalists don't see "spooky action at distance" of quantum entanglement as fatal threat to their religion, but dogmatically resist telepathy in fear that it would shatter their dogma. Their ability to make that separation rests on their faith in the mathematical theorems of non-communication theorem and unitarity (which have nothing to do with empirism). The motivation for faith in unitarity is resisting change and evolution, so that the teleology of deterministic predictability can go on. So it's not really about matter, it's about (false) sense of conservative control their math magic seems to give them.

Look, I'm all for studying parapsychological phenomena from a scientific, unbiased basis. Scientists study all types of things that are explicitly pointless but are worth knowing just for the scientific knowledge. Since that is the case, I don't see why studying things like supposed supernatural phenomena shouldn't be done from a neutral standpoint. One that isn't trying to confirm the phenomena nor is it trying to disprove it, just studying what happens. My issue with Sheldrake is that he's pretty blatantly a spiritualist. I have no problem with spiritualism but to say what he's doing is hard-cut science just isn't true. He's trying to PROVE something with science rather than going into it and just seeing what happens. This is why his studies get so much criticism, he's openly biased towards the spiritual point of view. Just being a biologist doesn't give you legs to stand on, Richard Dawkins is a biologist. I do agree there is a real dogmatism in science that is and will be over come, Sheldrake just isn't the man to point to for this in my opinion. To me he's a pseudoscientist who appeals to science to prove already held beliefs. One day those beliefs may turn out to have been true and we were all fools but the way he goes about arguing for and trying to prove it just isn't science.