7.30pm. Thursday January 29^th 2015 at The Victoria, 48 John Bright Street, Birmingham B1 1BN.

Philosophy is dead, Stephen Hawking argues. It has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. 

So Raymond Tallis relates in his essay Should we just shut up and calculate? Does Physics need Philosophy? At Birmingham Salon, Tallis will explore the gulf separating science and philosophy – the contrast between the world as we experience it and its representation in the physical sciences. 

It was not always this way. Tallis is at pains to point out that in ancient times, the philosopher and the physicist were often one and the same. “Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here” was reputedly inscribed at the entrance of Plato’s Academy. From the 16^th century scientific revolution onwards, however, quantitative and empirical approaches progressively displaced ‘armchair speculations’. While Philosophy came to a standstill – or seemed to – science made spectacular advances that have transformed human lives. 

So what’s the problem?

 

Our daily lived experience and scientific theory have parted company, Tallis says, and this is especially noticeable in relation to time. The Special Theory of Relativity sounded the death knell for ‘tensed time’ with its clearly delineated notions of past, present and future. And yet this is a reality that underpins the lives of everyone, including physicists. Einstein himself was troubled by the disappearance of the ‘now’ and its meaninglessness in physics. That the theory of relativity cannot accommodate our lived experience and the contrast between the knowable past and the unknowable future ought to concern us all, argues Tallis.

At the Birmingham Salon, Tallis will make the case for a philosophical approach to complement physics  in reconciling scientific discovery with the everyday reality.

Professor Raymond Tallis is a philosopher, poet, novelist and cultural critic and was until recently a physician and clinical scientist. In autumn 2009 he was listed by the Economist's Intelligent Life Magazine as one of the top living polymaths in the world.

Should we just shut up and calculate? Does Physics need Philosophy? In: Tallis, Raymond. Reflections of a metaphysical flâneur and other essays, 2013 

Mistaking Mathematics for Reality  In: Tallis Raymond. EpimetheanImaginings: Philosophical and other meditations on every day light, 2014.