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The demise of scientific realism - Magical Realist - Oct 28, 2026
Constructing models of unpredictable phenomena enables them to be predictable. Like how computers can now forecast the weather thru their own internal data-driven modelling. There's an argument that this is basically what Science is meant to do--to construct models or maps or theories that allow prediction and describability. Instrumentalism vice realism. But if that's the case, we shouldn't expect those models to accurately represent or depict reality itself. No more than a map is expected to show us what the territory looks like. Indeed, being inside an exact simulacrum of a reality will only leave us as lost and clueless as being in the reality itself. It is in the abstract nature of the map or model, in it's being NOT real in itself but only semantic and referential, that it works at all as a guide to navigating and orientating ourselves in the territory. Science is the art of improved modeling. From Ptolemy to Newton to Galileo to Einstein to quantum physics, true only in the sense of making possible more predictions and better descriptions.
"Niels Bohr's famous perspective on the instrumentalist nature of physics—often cited in discussions of the Copenhagen interpretation—is captured in his statement to Aage Petersen:
"There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
Key Quotes & Context
• On the Task of Physics: In Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (1934), Bohr similarly wrote:"Our task is not to investigate the essence of things—we do not at all know what this would mean—but to develop those concepts that allow us to speak with each other about the events of nature in a fruitful manner."
• Instrumentalism vs. Realism: Bohr viewed mathematical and conceptual frameworks as useful tools for predicting and organizing phenomena rather than as literal pictures of an underlying reality. This put him at odds with Albert Einstein, who maintained a realist view that physics should uncover how nature actually exists independent of our measurements.
• Poetic Language: Bohr also emphasized the limits of human language when dealing with atomic scales, noting that "when it comes to atoms, language can only be used as in poetry", where the goal is to build mental images and analogies rather than literal descriptions."