Newton and Life in a Mechanical

1
Newton and Life in a Mechanical

• The Scientific Revolution The search for
  physical cause for a predictable effect
• M. Todd Tippetts, Ph.D.

2
Aristotles Mechanics

• Natural Order to things
• Rocks fall because they want to be in their right
  place, with the other rocks
• Planets move in circles because that is their
  natural motion

Aristotles View
Modern View
3
Paradigm of Scientific Age

• Nature works in predictable ways based on natural
  laws
• Laws could be expressed in mathematical formula
• All reality is a result of the interaction of
  matter (particles) and energy
• Concept of Atom

4
Democritus and Atoms

• Indivisible particle of all material called
  atomos
• Properties of atoms explain their behavior
• Water atoms are smooth
• Iron atoms are like velcro
• Fire atoms have spikes
• Xeno and idea of dividing matter forever won

5
John Dalton Revises Idea of Atom

• Quaker Schoolteacher, no lab of his own-- Used
  other scientists results to formulate Atomic
  Theory
• All matter made of indivisible particles called
  atoms
• Atoms combine in simple ratios to form molecules
• Chemical reactions are just a reshuffling of
  atoms atoms themselves are indestructible

6
Atomists through the Ages

• Democritus, Leucipitus
• World was explained in terms of atoms. There was
  no need for the Gods
• Atheists also at time of Dalton used atoms as
  evidence for self sufficient universe.
• Atoms moving in the void.
• Boyle, Newton and Company
• World made of atoms, God made the atoms --
  Existence of atoms was an evidence for the
  existence of God

7
Mersenne (1588 -1648)

• Catholic Priest and amateur scientist
• Worked in defining and defending miracles
• Used Aquinas definition
• Mechanical philosophy sets the boundaries for
  what can be explained. What falls outside those
  boundaries is a miracle

8
Robert Boyle (1627-91)

• Atoms were created by God and act according to
  the laws that God gave them. Gods attention
  keeps them moving
• God is the Author of the universe free
  Establisher of the Laws of motion, whose general
  Concourse is necessary to the conservation
  Efficacy of every particular Physical Agent"

9

• Boyle felt Atheistic Atomists made two
  fundamental mistaken assumptions
• They assumed atoms/matter had always existed
• They assumed atoms moved by themselves
• Boyle felt that atoms existed because God made
  them. They moved and continued to exist only
  because God preserved and sustained them
• Ontological Sustenance

10
Modern Ideas on Atoms

• They didnt always exist, but formed shortly
  after the Big Bang about 15 Billion years ago
• They move because of the remaining heat energy
  form the Big Bang. When the sun and stars goes
  out and the universe cools, they will stop moving

11
Boyle and Voluntarism

• God was free to make any natural laws that he
  choose. So they could not be deduced by reason,
  but could only be elucidated by experimentation.
• This was a justification for experimental science

12
Descartes (1596-1650)

• Cartesian Coordinates used to make physics
  mathematical
• "In our search for the direct road to truth, we
  should busy ourselves with no object about which
  we cannot attain a certitude equal to that of the
  demonstration of arithmetic and geometry."
• God put the atoms into motion. Sciences goal
  was to find those mathematical principles which
  God had used.

13
Moving Particles and Machines

• Action of the earth, plants and animals were all
  explained by moving particles. They were nothing
  but machines
• Involuntary behavior of humans was also just a
  machine
• Since animals were just machines, you could treat
  them however you wanted (no animal rights)

14
Matter-Spirit Dualism

• Although some proposed that human though was also
  just moving particles, Descarte insisted that
  immaterial spirit was the source of human thought
• This ghost in the machine was what
  differentiated humans from animals
• This has been rejected by many modern scientists
  and philosophers.
• See Daniel Dennett on reading list

15
Isaac Newton (1641-1727)

• Raised Anglican, but dissented from some
  principles (Trinity, etc.)
• Special Lucasian Chair founded so he could stay
  at Cambridge as a lay person
• Now held by Stephen Hawking

16

• Wrote book on Biblical Interpretation
• Proposed simplest possible interpretation,
  usually literal
• History shows prophecy has been fulfilled
• Thought the Pope was the Antichrist
• Studies Spiritual Alchemy
• Change Lead into Gold
• Transform base men to higher levels
• Involved in mystic traditions
• Rosicrucians and Occult Freemasons

17
Scientific Positivism

• Science should look for mathematical
  relationships in the phenomena. Teleology and
  Metaphysics should be avoided. Study how things
  take place, but not why.

18
Newtons Laws of Motion

• Inertia An object at rest remains at rest, and
  an object in motion remains in motion
• Force (Mass) (acceleration)
• Gives relationships between mass, velocity and
  changes of velocity.
• Allows prediction of position, velocity and
  direction of moving particles
• For every action there is an equal and opposite
  reaction.

19
Particles and Motion

• Newton invented Calculus to calculate forces on
  particles, and use this to predict their motion.
  If one knows the momentum, the position and the
  forces involved, on can predict any future
  position. This works for cannonballs, and for
  planets.

Planet accelerates moving towards sun, and slows
down moving away from it
20
Forces on Cannonballs
Acceleration of gravity attracts cannonballs to
the earth. Path is determined by gravity as well
as the initial direction.
21
Newtons Law of Gravity

• Gravity was attraction at distance based on the
  mass of the objects
• Earth pulled the apple towards it
• Gravity is what holds the moon around the earth,
  and the earth around the sun

22
Gravity is the Law God has chosen

• Gravity is everywhere just as God is everywhere
• Gravity shows Gods continuing interest in the
  world.
• Ontological Sustenance maintains gravity
• God intervenes to keep universe in balance
• Keeps the universe from collapsing due to
  gravities attraction

23
God of the Gaps

• For Newton, gravity was a strong evidence for
  God. Gravity was there because God caused it to
  be
• If gravity is shown to be an intrinsic property
  of particles, then there is no need for God

24
Newtonian Physics and Free Will

• If one knows the position, momentum and the
  forces acting upon any particle, you can
  calculate where it was in the past, and where it
  will be in the future.
• Planets are found in predictable location as they
  orbit the sun. They have no choice where they
  will be located at any given time.

25
Newton and Free Will

• Does this apply to the moving particles in
  animals, and in humans?
• Do we really have free will, or is it just an
  illusion as we move along our path which is
  determined by our momentum, and the forces on us.
• Perhaps all thought is reducible to an
  arrangement of neurotransmitters, and ions
  crossing membranes particles and forces acting
  on them.

26
Mind Spirit Dualism

• Animals are simply machines, a collection of
  cleverly assembled particles
• Mans immaterial soul makes him different from
  the animals. This allows him to have real
  thoughts, not simply an epiphenomena resulting
  from moving particles

27
Dualism

• But there was no actual evidence for this
  immaterial soul, no evidence for its interaction
  with the physical body
• Perhaps if animals didnt need a soul, humans
  didnt either
• Dennett and others have proposed theories of
  consciousness based entirely on moving particles
  and neurons.

28
Role of God in a Mechanical Universe

• Enlightenment scientists saw the universe as a
  huge clockwork. If all events are the universe
  moving along its predictable pathway, what is God
  to do all day long?
• Deism God made the universe, and now has
  nothing to do with it

29
Responses to Deism

• Newton God needed to attend to the universes to
  keep it in balance. Gravity only existed because
  God constantly willed it. God kept the universe
  from collapsing due to gravitational attraction.
  Comets were God moving around the matter to keep
  balance.
• God of the Gaps

30
Responses to Deism
Leibnitz The idea that the universe needed
minding was blasphemy. God made the universe
right he first time, it didnt need fixing.
31
Stability of Universe

• For Newton, Gravity should draw the universe to
  the center till it collapsed
• The universes stability was the best evidence
  for God
• New knowledge of the Big Bang has provided a
  non-theistic reason for that stability its
  still expanding
• One day it may still stop expanding and then
  collapse

God of the Gaps
32
Einstein on Disappearance of Gaps

• The more a man is imbued with the ordered
  regularity of all events, the firmer becomes his
  conviction that there is no room for causes of a
  different nature. For him, neither the rule of
  human nor the rule of divine will exists as an
  independent cause of natural events.

33
More from Einstein

• To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God
  interfering with natural events could never be
  refuted, in a real sense, for this doctrine can
  always take refuge in those domains in which
  scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set
  foot. . . .A doctrine which is able to maintain
  itself not in clear light, but only in the dark,
  will of necessity lose its effect on mankind,
  with incalculable harm to human progress.