Science is a Form of Imagination

Science is a Form of Imagination

Perhaps you have had the opportunity to watch two very intelligent people talk. If one is trying to explain something to the other, you might see that they say things like, “Imagine this saltshaker is a three-dimensional object, right? But this napkin we’ll call a field, and we’ll put the saltshaker here. Now, if this fork represents gravity . . .”

When describing things that are unknown, it is inevitable that you need to rely on the language, images, and ideas of the known. In other words, you use metaphor, symbolism, and analogy. All of these can be thought of as the language of model-making and the practice of the “scientific imagination.”

Of course, as we’ve noted above, we should avoid the danger of confusing our analogy with reality. In the Lankavatara (a third- or fourth-century Mahayana Buddhist sutra), there is a passage that reads:

Be not like the one who looks at the finger-tip. For instance, Mahāmati, when a man with his finger-tip points at something to somebody, the finger-tip may be taken wrongly for the thing pointed at; in like manner, Mahāmati, the people belonging to the class of the ignorant and simple-minded, like those of a childish group, are unable even unto their death to abandon the idea that in the finger-tip of words there is the meaning itself, and will not grasp ultimate reality because of their intent clinging to words which are no more than the finger-tip to them.

So, bearing in mind that if we wish to point to something, we will need our fingers (words, models, analogies, metaphors, symbols), we must nevertheless not get too fixated on the finger, and keep focusing on the thing to which it’s pointing. With that caveat, let’s look at what Feynman had to say about analogies, especially when it came to communication and teaching (which, from his point of view, amount to pretty much the same thing!).

In a filmed 1985 interview from the BBC’s Fun to Imagine, Feynman once likened science itself to chess:

“One way that’s kind of a fun analogy to try to get some idea of what we’re doing here to try to understand nature is to imagine that the gods are playing some great game like chess. And you don’t know the rules of the game, but you’re allowed to look at the board from time to time, in a little corner, perhaps. And from these observations, you try to figure out what the rules are of the game, what [are] the rules of the pieces moving.

You might discover after a bit, for example, that when there’s only one bishop around on the board, that the bishop maintains its color. Later on you might discover the law for the bishop is that it moves on a diagonal, which would explain the law that you understood before, that it maintains its color. And that would be analogous to us discovering one law and later finding a deeper understanding of it.

Ah, then things can happen—all of a sudden some strange phenomenon occurs in some corner, so you begin to investigate that, to look for it. It’s castling—something you didn’t expect.

We’re always, by the way, in fundamental physics, always trying to investigate those things in which we don’t understand the conclusions. The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that’s most interesting—the part that doesn't go according to what you'd expect.

Also we can have revolutions in physics. After you've noticed that the bishops maintain their color and that they go along on the diagonals and so on, for such a long time, and everybody knows that that's true; then you suddenly discover one day in some chess game that the bishop doesn't maintain its color, it changes its color. Only later do you discover the new possibility that the bishop is captured and that a pawn went all the way down to the queen's end to produce a new bishop. That could happen, but you didn't know it.”

With that simple analogy, he was able to elucidate the entire history of scientific evolution, of the way that science progresses over time, and the deeper underlying worldview that informs scientists’ approach to studying the world. He took something that people knew (chess) to describe something they didn’t (science’s overarching orientation toward nature) and connected them so that people could transfer their understanding from one to the other. In other words, so they could learn.

Feynman was noted as a brilliant communicator (when many physicists are known to be precisely the opposite) for a few reasons.

1. He was enthusiastic and genuinely had a passion for his work. This inspired and excited others. His wonder and awe at the world was infectious and made others see the magic in even the most ordinary phenomena. Watch any Feynman interview or lecture and you never get the sense that he is bored of anything. Compared to the sense of tedium that many science educators bring to their material, it’s no wonder this gave him such an edge!

2. He was able to use analogy, and use it wisely. Feynman was not an intellectual snob, and he met people where they were—if someone knew nothing of what he was talking about, he didn’t assume they never could understand; rather, he figured out what “language” they spoke and addressed them accordingly. This ability to use whatever tool will work is precisely what makes him a good scientist. Theoretical physicists work in strange realms; their world is mathematical, abstract, and probabilistic. They understand the value of converting these sometimes bizarre findings into more intuitive and concrete metaphors to better convey them to, well, the people who live in the real world!

3. He was able to make science human—he used stories, narratives, and emotional appeals to make people care about what he was saying. Science is not some dead, neutral thing. Rather, curiosity and the thirst to understand is a deeply intimate human experience that digs right into the most poignant questions of life. To acknowledge this human element—rather than drily dismiss it—makes science something that belongs to everyone.

4. Finally, as we’ve already seen, Feynman was good at not letting ego get in the way. The technical term may be “vibration,” but if he can make the point more quickly by saying “jiggling,” then there isn’t a reason not to. Let go of stiff, inaccessible language—it may be “right” and make you feel like an expert, but it’s useless if it communicates little other than your superiority. Language is there for the using! It’s allowed to be colorful and eccentric—especially if that eccentricity breaks apart stale old conceptions and invites real, genuine insight.