Natural Hearing (Aristotle's Physics)
4. Natural Road, Common vs. Private Experience, and Experimental Science
https://berquistcourse.com/course/philosophy/3-natural-hearing/004-natural-road-common-vs-private-experience-and-experimental/

[0:02] I did try reading for a while the modern scholarship on the Psalms. You know, they're not seem interesting the way Thomas does this kind of thing in the Psalms.

[0:38] In the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illuminate our images, and arouse us to consider more carefully. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, Pray for us. help us to understand all that you have written. Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. You have an eye or an ear or a nose of the mystical body of Christ?

[1:12] I was reading the you know the commentary in the first epistle to the Corinthians. Of course, Saint Paul is making this comparison between the church and the body. And at first, he mentions you know the eyes and the ears, and the hands and the feet, and how the eyes can't say to the ears if we don't need you, and vice versa, and the same with the hands and the feet.

[1:38] Well, the way Thomas understands the meaning of those parts, that the hands and the feet refer to the active life, and the eyes and the ears to the Contemplative life, but in the active life, the eyes are the bishops. I think where it comes to that, huh? Episcopal, huh? Episcopal, and the

[2:09] the feet are the rest of us, right? Who are kind of being directed by the hands, and the hands, direct the feet, and then the the eyes and the ears, the contemplative life, and the eyes are the masters, like Thomas, who's teaching us, and then the ears are the what the learners, and that fits in with what Aristotle said too in the metaphysics there that the eye is more the sense of discovery and the ear more the sense of being taught, the sense of learning.

[2:38] But then in a subsequent text there, he he also brings in the nose, and so Thomas explains that he says they're the the masters, those who can understand these things by themselves and teach the rest of us. Then there are the ears who can what learn and understand what the masters are saying, but they they depend upon the masters. And then there are those who who are neither of those, right?

[3:02] But by kind of being close to these, they get a little bit of the perfume, you might say, the the odor of this, huh? And they're the the nose, huh? And if I said you know in the contemplative life too, you know, where people might come up to the monastery, you know, and they get kind of a whiff of the spirituality of the place, but they can't really you know enter into it fully, or you know sit down and read John the Cross or somebody, you know, very serious writing, you know, about these things, but they can get kind of a of a whiff, you know, of the the spiritual life.

[3:36] It's interesting that the author of a cloud of unknowing he he compares the nose as the organ of the spirit metaphorically as the organ of discernment. Yeah, yeah. So to not,So we have a question here now about the first reading in Aristotle's first book of Natural Hearing? It was about the the scopus, the aim or the goal of natural philosophy, which is to know natural things in the light of their causes, so ultimately know their causes.

[4:19] And then the rest of it was mainly an explanation of the order in which we should try to understand natural things and their causes, and that order was the general before the what particular. But in giving the reason for that, that the general is to the particular as the confused is to the distinct, and then the more general premise that the confused is before the distinct in our knowledge,

[4:53] he also gave not only three kinds of signs or three kinds of examples to show that in fact we know things in a confused way before distinctly, which also in a way touched upon other kinds of confused and distinct besides general and particular. And then he what gave a reason right in terms of the confused being more known to us, but the distinct being more known by nature or more known simply, and that's going back to the as he says the inborn or natural road.

[5:31] Okay. So this is one of the most important texts where Aristotle elaborates this aspect of the natural road that goes from the confused to the distinct. Okay. I said I'd bring you a little thing that you can have, and so let me give you maybe here. I think we got about ten copies, right?

[5:59] Yeah. Right. Okay. So, should pass these around. I don't think we'll we'll go through this right now. This this is kind of a gives you kind of the whole picture of what the natural road is.

[6:20] And for your, I think we've talked about these things from time to time, but since you get it in a disconnected way as it comes up in the text of Aristotle, because there's no one place I think Aristotle brings together all the different things he says about the natural road. So I talk about what a road is in our knowledge, just to refresh your mind on that, and then state what the first road is and why the first road is.

[6:49] Right, that is, and then why you have to see every before and after along that road to really understand it. That's what a road is: something, an order in our knowledge, a before and after. And then I distinguish the different kinds of before and after. There's a before and after of different kinds of knowing along the road, like sensing is before memory, memory before experience, and so on.

[7:16] And then the order in which things are known along this road. I think we've talked about that before. And first, the order in which different things are known, like sensible things are known before things cannot be sensed, and various things. And then the order in which one and the same thing is known along this road. Okay. And then finally, from that we can lead on to that thing that Aristotle talks about—that what is more known to us is less known by nature, less known simply, and vice versa.

[7:49] And that's what I talk about on page what five and six, which I've talked to you about already. So I've talked about I think these things, you know, in passing, but these altogether. And then starting on page seven, I just gave you some of the more common consequences of these different aspects of the natural road, ah. Okay, so I think I'll leave you with that, and if you want to ask me anything about it next time, but I'll leave it with you now rather than.

[8:19] Okay, I need to give you kind of a, you know, kind of a more complete knowledge of the road as a whole. But here or somewhere else, you might go into this or that aspect of the road more at length. Okay. Now, one thing that might be important to point out too,

[8:41] the the reason Aristotle gives here might seem to be applicable to any form of reasoned-out knowledge. But I think you've got to be careful, and if you ever have a chance, or we ever have a chance to look at Thomas's commentary in Boethius's De Trinitate

[9:05] De Trinitate is really a tremendous, tremendous work. And Monsignor Dionne used to say, you know, they say it's the same Boethius who wrote this and wrote this other work, you know. But I don't believe that he says; he's kind of joking, I think, huh? But that De Trinitate really, you know, engages the mind of Boethius, and his mind is up for it and so on. But also in that road, he does a lot of sapiential things, things that belong to the wise man, where he distinguishes natural philosophy and mathematics and wisdom, the various parts of looking philosophy, and then he talks about the the way they proceed.

[9:46] And he's with the brevity of wisdom. He says that natural philosophy proceeds rationabiliter, reasonably, and then mathematics proceeds disciplinabiliter, learnably, and wisdom proceeds intellectualliter, in understandable way. And Thomas will have a whole what article on one word, you know, with all kinds of things to be said, huh? So that's a thing worth studying, you know, at some time for it by itself. But the reason why I bring it up here now is that when he's explaining in what sense does natural philosophy proceed reasonably, and Thomas will distinguish two different senses of proceeding reasonably, but the sense that applies to natural philosophy is the one where reasonably is named from the nature of reason, huh?

[10:46] Now it's natural to reason to get its knowledge from the senses, and you could say natural philosophy is the closest to the senses, as Aristotle said in ancient times, and as Einstein said in the 20th century, natural philosophy or natural science it begins and ends in the senses. So the natural road, you might say, is especially followed in what natural philosophy. So it doesn't mean that natural philosophy alone does it, but especially it does it.

[11:19] So if you look at at what is being taught here mainly in the first reading, that we considered things in general before in particular, you might say, well, is that really the way geometry is, huh? Well, to some extent, the geometer talks about what a triangle is before he talks about what a equilateral triangle is. He talks about what a quadrilateral is before he talks about a square or rhombus is right.

[11:47] But if you look at geometry as a whole, it's not from the general to the particular. But from the simple to the composed, from plane geometry to what solid geometry. Well, if you look at natural philosophy as a whole, yeah, we talk about change in general, and then we talk about the particular kinds of change. So as a whole, it's characterized more by general to particular than is the

[12:22] mathematics, huh? Okay. Now he doesn't make it; he doesn't unfold it here, but Thomas does elsewhere. A second aspect of the road of natural philosophy, and I mentioned it last time in that first paragraph, and as far as its elements, huh? Well, elements refers especially to the cause we call matter, right? And you could say that he's touching upon the fact that natural philosophy goes what towards matter, huh?

[13:00] And it actually does this this twice, huh? One as you go from the books of natural hearing towards the books on the universe to the books on generation, corruption. You're going down towards matter, and then you start to study living things. You start by studying the soul in a kind of kind of abstraction from the body, explicitly on the soul, and then you start to study more the bodily aspects of living things.

[13:37] And as you go forward, you go deeper and deeper down into what matter, right? So, as far as the order of consideration, as it's called, order of determination, huh? Natural philosophy. I think these are the two most basic things. It goes from the general to the particular, right? And it goes towards what matter.

[14:09] Now in geometry, it's something quite different. The first thing you notice in geometry is it goes from the simple towards the composed. So you take up the cube before the, I mean, excuse me, the square before the cube, right? The circle before the what? Sphere. See, and notice the cube is not a form of square. It's not, you know, it's composed of six squares, etc. And the sphere is not a form of circle, but you know, you rotate a circle around and get a sphere.

[14:45] So it's as simple as the composed. See, the more you study geometry, the more you see that's the way you have to go. Then you know, in studying my master here, who is Euclid, I notice the second thing about geometry, and that is that it tends to go from the equal to the what? Unequal. And you notice that right away in geometry, when Euclid say enumerates the species of triangle, he'll give the equilateral triangle first, then isosceles, then scalene.

[15:23] And he gives the species of quadrilateral. He'll give square first, you know, and oblong and rhombus, and then rhomboid, and get less and less equalities. You go on. Even when he gives the axioms, he gives the axioms of equality first. Quantity equal to the same, equal to each other. If equals add, equals results equal. If equals have subtracted, equals results equal. And then he gives the axiom of inequality: the whole is more than the part.

[15:52] And you'll see that in the theorems. You know, the most famous theorem in some way in the first book of Euclid, the one that ends up the whole book, you might say, is the Pythagorean theorem. And the Pythagorean theorem, as you know, says that the square in a right angle triangle, the square in the side opposite the right angle, is always equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle.

[16:17] Now, when you get to the second book, and towards the end of the second book, you find out the theorems for the obtuse angle triangle and the acute angle triangle. And the obtuse angle triangle, the square in the side opposite the obtuse angle, is always greater than the squares on the sides. Okay, that's that's more like a what theorem of inequality. And then in the acute angle triangle, the side opposite the acute angle.

[16:47] The square in that is always less than. He tells you how much it's less than and how much is more by those theorems, huh. So the theorem of equality comes before the theorems of inequality. And more than that, if you examine the actual proof of those ones, he uses the Pythagorean theorem, the theorem of equality, to prove the theorems of inequality. Now there may be some exceptions to this somewhere, right?

[17:15] But for the most part, only geometry proceeds from the simple to the composed, and from the equal to the what unequal. So it's quite different from what natural philosophy does.

[17:30] Now, when you get to to wisdom, at first sight it might seem that wisdom is a little bit like natural philosophy, because you consider what they call the communia, the common things, like being and act and ability and so on, before you consider the what immaterial substances, the separate substances, what we call the angels and ultimately God Himself. But it would be better to describe this as going towards the immaterial, because he considers first of all those things that could be in matter but don't have to be in matter, the common things, and then he goes towards the things that cannot be in matter, cannot be material.

[18:17] So he's going towards the what immaterial, and then you see, hey, this is like almost the exact opposite of what he's doing in natural philosophy. There he's going down towards matter as the science goes on. Here he's going away from matter towards the immaterial. And when you study even those common things, and the most clear example is in the ninth book of wisdom, where he takes up act and ability.

[18:55] In the first part of the ninth book, Aristotle talks about act and ability as are found in moving or changing things, and then he rises in the middle part to a completely universal consideration of act and ability, where it can be even understood in immaterial things. So, if anything, he's going from the what less universal towards more universal, or he starts by saying a few things about a number of things in Book 7 and 8 about material substance, then he gradually leads you up to a general understanding of substance that will be the foundation for talking even about the immaterial substances.

[19:33] So, in a way, he's going from the less universal to the more universal in that way. When he talks about the one, he begins with the one, which is the beginning of number, right, to the one that is convertible, equally universal as being.

[19:48] So, in the two things that you see in the wise man, that he goes towards the immaterial, and that in a way he leads us up from the less universal to the most universal, he's proceeding in exactly the opposite way to the natural philosopher. And then the mathematician entirely different way again. He proceeds, you know, from the simple to the composed. Of course, if anything in theology, in theology and wisdom, we do the opposite because the last thing we know is God, and He's the simplest thing of all.

[20:23] So we don't go, you know, start with the simple. We start with the composed and work our way towards God, who's the simplest thing there is. Just the opposite of geometry. So, as Thomas and Boethius before him, and Aristotle before them, say, you know, they make a mistake who try to proceed in the same order in the same way in what every part of philosophy. In fact, there's many other differences besides those.

[20:52] Those are just in regard to the the order of termination, the order of consideration, but they're entirely different in all three sciences. If you read the Summa contra Gentiles,

[21:06] he shows how the order in theology, you know, revealed theology, and the order in in natural theology and philosophical wisdom are just just reversed. Yeah, so

[21:23] that's only one of the seven things that you have whereby one science differs from another in the way they proceed, the order of consideration.

[21:33] But that pertains to the third road. We're talking about the first road, right? So you have to realize that. At first sight, although the reason Thomas or Aristotle gives here for considering things in general before particular would seem to be applicable to any science, and to some extent it's true because it pertains to the natural road, is followed, most of all in natural philosophy, for the reason that Thomas gives following Boethius in the De Trinitate, that this science most of all is in conformity with the nature of our mind, which is apt to get its knowledge from the senses.

[22:12] Okay. Okay, so let's look now at our second page here, which is common and private experience. Unlike most of the things in this course, this is a universal importance. Just like that text on the confused and distinct is very important for other things as well as for natural philosophy and logic. Why do we define and divide? That's two ways of going from the confused to the distinct.

[22:48] We have to define and divide to go from the confused to the distinct. Now, this distinction between common and private experience is very important for understanding what the philosophy of nature is, but also important for understanding what experimental science is, and as the reading from Paul VI there, it's very important for understanding what theology, right? Okay.

[23:21] Now I begin with the definition of common experience. What is meant by common? There, it's the experience which what all men have and cannot avoid having. So it's two parts to the definition there of common. When we speak of common experience, everyone has. And it can't avoid having it done. So, any way to live in this world without having some experience of pleasure and pain? now you're going to get hungry sometime.

[23:52] you're going to get bumped sometime. You may suffer, but you got to suffer some kind of pain, right? Okay. And any way to live in this world without experiencing whole and part? Well, if you take your steak in one gulp, you take your your beer in one swallow, you might not experience whole and part. But as it is, you're going to have to experience whole and part even to live.

[24:18] If you breathe in the whole air in the atmosphere. If only breathe in a part of the air around you, you're gonna experience the whole and part. So there's no way to avoid that. You see. So there's some things that everyone experiences and cannot avoid, and that's what we call common experience. Now, when I define private experience, I define it as the experience which only some men have.

[24:47] Okay, it can be just one man, or you know. I don't put in the definition that you can avoid, although this is often true, but it's not always true. If a car hits you, you may experience a broken leg. You don't have much choice about it, huh? Okay.

[25:10] Now, this experience might be acquired by experiment, huh? But not everybody has performed the experiment. Or it might be acquired by prolonged experience, huh? Sometimes it requires special effort and tools. Sometimes it comes about by what you're exposed to by chance, huh? Okay.

[25:33] So, as men, we're never going to have the experience of giving birth to a baby. Okay. But all kinds of other things that will never what as individuals experience, huh?

[25:49] But now, if you had a pet dog as a child or a pet cat, you might acquire an experience of the dog or the cat that not everybody has. When I was a boy, we always had male cats, and then my my daughter, you know, got a cat from her piano teacher was a female cat, huh? So the female cat was going to have kittens. So my daughter was doing her research.

[26:15] She just did in grade school, lower grades, and so on. And she has these books on cats, and one book says that the each kitten goes to a different nipple, and the same nipple. I'd never heard this before, and so that's interesting. So I watched after the kittens were born, and I picked out one kitten in particular that was a little different in its. colors and shades, I could follow it and see where it went.

[26:41] It always went to the same nipple. When you got six little kittens or seven kittens running over there, if they didn't each go to its own nipple, you'd have what chaos? It's very interesting how they do that. How nature has avoided that what terrible confusion of trying to feed seven little ones at once, huh? See, so notice, through having a female cat there that gave birth to kittens.

[27:09] I now have an experience of cats that I didn't have as a child, right? And the other people won't all have. We've never had a pet cat, huh? But someone else might have a pet canary or a pet parrot or pet dog or something, and the different kinds of dogs and so on. Okay.

[27:29] Now, the words "philosophy of nature" were sometimes used to cover the whole study of the natural world. So, if you look at Sir Isaac Newton's major work, there, the Principia. The actual title of the work is Principia Mathematica Naturalis Philosophiae, the mathematical principles of natural philosophy. And in Scotland, I think it is they still call the departments they're dealing with what we call physics, chemistry, and biology.

[28:05] They still call them what natural philosophy, and sometimes even the modern scientists will call natural philosophy when they're studying the natural world and talking about just out of wonder, out of curiosity. Okay, but sometimes they use the word "philosophy of nature," not to name the whole study of the natural world, but to name that part which is based on what common experience, huh? And that's a a. Somewhat customary way, and then we use the experimental sciences to name that knowledge of the natural world that's based on private experience.

[28:52] Okay. So as I explain here in the third paragraph, some parts of philosophy do not require any private experience. Our common experience is the only experience required for them, and this is especially true of those parts developed by the early Greek natural philosophers and Plato, and brought to an ordered whole in Aristotle's general books on nature and the soul. I'm referring to two, in particular, the eight books of hearing about nature, which I now translate, as you can see,

[29:32] natural hearing, right? And the three books about the soul, okay, which are often given today the Latin title De Anima. Okay. So the eight books of natural hearing and the three books about the soul, those eleven books can be understood with only what common experience. Okay. So sometimes I say to students, and they begin the philosophy of nature course, "Did you register for a lab for this course?

[30:05] Why isn't there a lab for this course, like there is maybe for physics or chemistry course? Well, it's because it's not because this course doesn't require experience, but this course is what based on the experience you already have and can't avoid having of the natural world. See why the physics or the chemistry biology is based on experience that not everybody has, and this lab is an attempt to get a little bit of that experience that not everybody has.

[30:38] Do you see that? That's why they have a lab. Okay. Now, the knowledge based on common experience is going to be more general, as you might expect, than the knowledge based on what private experience.

[31:07] So you could syllogize from what we saw in the first reading that if a knowledge of the general comes before a knowledge of the particular, then knowledge based on common experience is before knowledge based on what private experience. That's based upon seeing that knowledge based on common experience would be more general than knowledge based on what private experience. So if you're talking about pleasure and pain in general, you can, you know, assume that everybody has an experience of pleasure and pain, right?

[31:46] Now, if you're asking, you know, how painful is it to give birth to children, you'd have to talk to probably a woman or something,

[31:55] because not everybody would have an experience of that particular what pain, see? I say, which is worse, a broken leg or giving birth to a baby? Well, I don't know, but maybe somebody has experienced both of these pains, but I haven't done. See? So we wouldn't all have the experience sufficient, right, of our own, to be able to discuss, you know, the pain of a broken leg or the pain of an abscess tooth or pain of giving birth to a baby or whatever it might be, right?

[32:23] But if you're talking about pleasure and pain in general, yeah, everybody could talk about that on the basis of their common experience of pleasure and pain. Do you see that? Those are that's much more general to be talking about pleasure and pain than be talking about the the pain of childbirth and so on,

[32:42] huh? So the distinction between common and private experience is necessary for understanding the distinction between a knowledge based on common experience and a knowledge that requires a private experience, and for understanding, therefore, what philosophy of nature is in this what more narrow sense, right? Or it's not being used to. You know, if for a while natural philosophy and natural science were synonymous, natural philosophy was from the Greek word, and science from the Latin word, huh?

[33:22] But now we tend to use often natural philosophy only for that part of the study of natural things for which common experience is sufficient, huh? And we call experimental sciences that part that requires a private or special experience. Do you see that? Now, notice just as you shouldn't identify general and particular with confused and distinct, because that's only one kind of confused and distinct. So you shouldn't identify knowledge based on common experience and knowledge based on private experience with general and particular.

[34:02] You could say in geometry, say that the knowledge of what a triangle is is general compared to the knowledge of what an equilateral triangle is. That's not two different kinds of experience for those two. Okay. So knowledge of the general is before knowledge of particular is more general than knowledge based on common experience is before knowledge based on what private experience. Is that clear enough? Okay.

[34:36] Now, in the next two readings here, they're taken from two very famous and very great scientists of the 20th century. Niels Bohr, the man who began the modern atomic theory, back in 1913 when he applied the the quantum to the atom, and he was known at that time as being the man in the world who understood the atom best. And he came to Germany and gave a series of lectures on the atom, and they called it the Bohr Festival.

[35:06] It's been known ever since as the Bohr Festival. And Heisenberg was present for these, huh? he was a young student at the time. And what's interesting is that Bohr gave his lecture, and in the question period Heisenberg posed an objection, and Bohr gave a reply to it, but he kept on looking over at Heisenberg, you know, like he was impressed with this man's thinking of these very young.

[35:31] And when he got through his lecture, he came over to Heisenberg. He says, "Let's go for a walk." They went for a walk, you know, back and forth, a couple of hours, and Heisenberg said it influenced all his future thinking about the atom. He talks about the tremendous impression that Bohr gave on him. So,

[35:50] now Bohr was known for, you know, after he he became world famous, he set up an institute for the study of theoretical physics in Copenhagen, and this became a place where men came from all over the world to study under him, like Heisenberg came from Germany and Oppenheimer from the United States and Gamow from Russia and so on. And many many of these men who studied under him, they went on to get the Nobel Prize themselves.

[36:18] Einstein was kind of a loner, but but Bohr was, you know, more gregarious, you might say, and he had tremendous influence upon these men. And they looked up to him like the son looks up to a father. They would speak, you know, Pauli's filial reverence and Heisenberg's reverence for for Bohr. So he's very influential, you know, the young generation, the physicists, and the future Nobel. Now, this particular reading from Boer, very beginning here of his.

[36:49] There's three volumes, you know, of Boer's essays, and he's known to have what, you know, over and over again until he had just right what he wanted to say, huh? And notice this opening remark: the task of science is both to extend the range of our experience and to reduce it into order. Well, and I show you a million texts from the great scientists, but the two parts of experimental science: the empirical part, which comes from the Greek word for experience, the part devoted to what gaining experience, and not everybody has, which may very often require an experiment, but you can also sometimes make a prolonged observation.

[37:31] And then the theoretical part, they call it sometimes the mathematical part, whereby you reduce this what experience and what you observe to some kind of what order, right? Okay.

[37:46] Now I contrast that with the fundamental parts of these two philosophy, where the task of them is not to extend the range of our experience, but to understand the experience we already what have our common experience, huh? So you see the contrast there between that and what you're doing in the eight books of Natural Hearing or the three books about the soul. They're not trying to extend your experience; we're trying to understand experience you already what have of motion or change or of of life in the case of the De Anima.

[38:23] In the three books about the soul, you're really basing yourself upon our common inward experience of being alive. That's what it is. Now, but notice the second thing that Boer says there, and this is kind of. Surprising when you think about it, and to reduce it to order. That strikes me as very strange,

[38:50] because in the case of the philosophy of nature, Aristotle is not trying to reduce our experience to order; he's trying to find order in the natural things. And Bohr is saying that we are what reducing not even things, but our experience to order. I said to a friend who's very learned in science and has a degree in science as well as in philosophy, and I said, "Now, is that an exaggeration?"

[39:20] He says, "No, that's what they're doing." And I think you can understand it most of all from the fact that they order their experience in physics at least by mathematics, and the mathematics is worked out quite independently of the natural world. And then they take something from math that they can use to order their what experience. So in that sense, they are like introducing what order into something that rather than finding an order in it, they bring the principles of order right from pure mathematics and they use it to order this experience.

[40:02] And so, is it you're not finding an order in things, but you're what bringing something from mathematics to order your experience? It's a very strange kind of knowledge. Come right down to it, huh? Okay. But I want to emphasize, you know the first part, especially to extend the range of our experience. We're going to be basing ourselves upon an experience that not everybody has. That's why we have that empirical part.

[40:28] Now, most people don't know this too much, but there's actually a division of labor in experimental science, and some scientists are labeled empirical physicists, and others what theoretical physicists. I have a book in my office, say, which is the collaboration of an empirical and a theoretical physicist. So the division, there's a division of labor there to begin with, and you can see that the the experience that is the basis of experimental science is not necessarily had even by the scientist, especially by the theoretical scientist.

[41:12] Einstein's special theory of relativity, kind of one of the immediate impetus for it was the Michelson-Morley experiment, American physicists. Well, as you might expect from the name, the Michelson-Morley experiment was it was it conducted by Einstein himself, right? So the experience that is the starting point for Einstein's theorizing is not an experience that himself has.

[41:42] Then you get to let's say the general theory of relativity. General theory of relativity had to be tested during an eclipse of the sun, and they didn't test it until after the First World War because of the the commotion of the First World War. But after the First World War, they sent scientific teams down to the southern hemisphere where there would be an eclipse at that that part of the world.

[42:06] And the most famous team and the one that confirmed it was the one headed by the British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington. And Sir Arthur Eddington called Einstein long distance and told him that his theory had been confirmed. And Einstein said, "I knew it would be."

[42:25] But the point is that the experiment that started the first theory of relativity and the experiment that, say, confirmed the second theory were not conducted even observed by Einstein. You see, you see how private it is.

[42:42] And I was just I was looking at Heisenberg again in the in the internet, you know, email, whatever it is. And you can actually the little recording of Heisenberg's voice there talking about one of his theories, but I couldn't hear it too well. But anyway, but they're giving you know some more you know things about his life and so on. And of course, working with Sommerfeld, I knew that, the theoretical physicist.

[43:11] But at that time, the German universities were starting emphasis upon empirical physics, and they had empirical physicists and theoretical physicists responsible for his his degree, right? And and the tension between the two, you know, because Heisenberg was much more into the mathematical and into you know working in the lab. And they tell stories, you know, of Bohr's Institute there, theoretical physics. You had empirical physicists working down the labs, and the theoretical physicists were upstairs working out the mathematics and ordering this. And Bohr being the head of the institute would sometimes go down, like you kind of do, and encourage the boys downstairs, right?

[43:47] And you know, you know, help them a little with their tubes and so on, you know. And then he'd break something, you know, and then he'd find his way out of there. See, it does take a lot of expertise just, you know, to do these things properly. And I remember when one of the biologists at Assumption was going away to get a degree, and the first course he had to take, you know, in reference to preparing for his degree, was a course just in how to use the instrument he was going to use in his research, wasn't?

[44:16] The course just to learn the instrument, huh? And you can even see, you know, if you read the literature enough, you can see the jokes about this difference between the theoretical and empirical physicists. The one that always sticks in my mind was in one of the German cities, in one of the labs, the equipment blew up, and you know, I don't know why it blew up and something went wrong, things blew up.

[44:39] And then they found out that at the time when the equipment blew up, Wolfgang Pauli, the great theoretical physicist, was in the train depot, and said, "Well, that's why it blew up." It was obviously just a joke, you know, but it reflects the fact that there's this division of of labor. So actually, you know, in a general chemistry book or a general biology book that a that a chemistry, you know, biologist might be teaching, there are statements that are based upon experience that he simply could not have.

[45:14] And that's why I say, you know, strange it may seem to some people, in that respect, belief is more necessary for experimental science, human belief, than it is for philosophy, because the theoretical physicist is believing the empirical what physicists have done When Louis de Broglie proposed the theory of wave mechanics and so on, and they're so different from the current ideas that they started to make fun of it, you know, La Comédie Française, the French National Comedy.

[45:49] But Einstein was still, you know, had a lot of authority at the time, and he said, "No, just a minute, there might be something to this." So they tested the theory in the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York. They tested the French physicist's idea in the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York, and exactly what he predicted showed up. See, so then of course they repeated experiments in Europe, but notice that first one there, you know, Louis de Broglie wasn't conducting it, you know, the French weren't even conducting it.

[46:20] You see, so there's a real division of labor there. And as as this goes on, it becomes more and more a true one that there's some kind of a division of labor there.

[46:37] But you don't have that in the philosophy of nature because. Everybody has experience. Now the second one here is from these very important lectures of Heisenberg, the Gifford lectures, and they've been. You can buy them in the form they give it the title Physics and Philosophy. That's basically the Gifford lectures he gave in Scotland. They're very interesting

[47:02] readings there. We had a little passage on that. The other thing I gave, remember, and Heisenberg sees importance of the knowledge, more general knowledge for theology a little bit. But anyway, notice what he says here. Since the time of Galileo, the fundamental method of natural science had been the experiment. Huh. This method made it possible to pass from general experience to specific experience. Huh. To single out characteristic events in nature on which its laws could be stated more directly from general experience, and making a somewhat similar distinction to the one I have made between common and private experience, because general experience is specific experience, something like what I call common and private experience.

[47:48] He's thinking of something like that anyway. Um. I mean, he's exaggerating a bit there when he says that the experiment enables you to do that, because if a biologist went out in the woods and observed a bird in its natural habitat, you know, for days after days after days, right? He would acquire an experience that everybody has too, huh? Which would be a specific experience, huh? What especially characteristic of the physical sciences is the experiment as a way of getting an experience that everybody has.

[48:23] An experiment is is what, you know, kind of subjecting nature to something you don't find in nature, and something is revealed then by that, huh? Just like we do sometimes, the people that found their character, huh? You know, I remember seeing a movie years ago. Where these people were trying out for the CIA or something like that, and they're all invited to this countryside estate where they're going to be tested, you know, as to whether they would be admitted as CIA.

[48:54] And they've all arrived at this kind of really nice place, and then they're informed shortly after arrival that that the testers and so on have been delayed, you know, because of this or that in Washington or it was. So just relax for a week or two, and then we'll be there. See, well, unbeknownst to them, that's when the testing is going on, and they're seeing like which guys are susceptible to the charms of women, you know, and and other you know weaknesses that could make you a bad candidate for for spy school.

[49:27] And so, I mean, the point is you you're artificially arranging a situation to test people's what character, huh? You know, they say every man has his price or something like that, or somebody. You see, so you're creating artificially the thing, huh? That was kind of one kind of somewhat little vulgar joke, but it was kind of interesting for the point. It's at a party, see, man, woman at the party, and this one man proposes a hypothetical question to the woman: Would you sleep with a man, you know, that you're not you know ready to, for a million dollars for one night?

[50:05] Well, for a million dollars, what are they going to say? I don't know. Maybe they would say. That's kind of hypothetical question, right? But it's the sort of thing where where you're not going to be really offered that, right? See. And then the kind of the punchline is later on in the evening, this guy offers twenty dollars to this girl who said yes to the million dollar hypothetical question.

[50:26] She says, "Who do you think I am? " And he says, "We know what you are. We're just telling you about the price. " This is a very funny story. I mean, the point is, you see, you put somebody in unusual circumstances, huh? What was the Shakespeare play where that takes place? Who cannot be betrayed of the plot? Yeah, yeah. In All's Well That Ends Well, right?

[50:53] Where this man is always bragging about a brave soldier he is and so on, and so one day he's out on guard duty. They dress up like the enemy soldiers and they grab him, right, and take him in and pretend that they've captured him, and then they, you know, threaten him and he he reveals all the the point of the troops and so on. And then they take off their mask and he's completely disgraced.

[51:17] His name is Parolles huh? You know, which means I guess words in French. He's the words, not real words. But he says, "Who cannot be betrayed with a plot? " You see, so

[51:32] you could design artificially, right, circumstances to test somebody's character, huh? And you might, you know, in the normal course of events, you know, not ever have this kind of. But test, huh? So the experiment enables you to get an experience that you would not normally have, right? That would not come up in the ordinary course of events, huh?

[51:59] So there, Heisenberg is making somewhat the distinction we've made, huh? I notice the second statement is very interesting. Some statements of ancient philosophy are rather nearer to those of modern science. Now, when he says this, he doesn't mean that that they are they've arrived at what modern science has, right? But he says they're they're near in some way. This simply shows how far one can get by combining the ordinary experience that we have without doing experiments.

[52:28] That ordinary experience is something more like what common experience, huh? But this is another, you know, way of speaking with the untiring effort to get some logic order to this experience to understand it from general principles. So I think you see in Heisenberg here words that are different from the ones that I used up there, but they're expressing somewhat the same what distinction or distinctions like the one that I made, huh?

[52:58] What he calls general as opposed to specific experience. Sometimes I hear people speak of common experience and special experience, right? I use the term common and private experience myself, but he sees that, huh? But at the same time, he sees it and Bohr sees it, in his remark that This is a a private experience, an experience that requires, you know, some sophistication even to get, huh? And some effort, huh?

[53:28] Maybe some special tools, huh? And these experiments only do require this special training. Now, the third reading is from.