[mturmon]

Not so fast. By the time you rope in the notions of absolute zero, entropy, and Maxwell's demon, you could kick up enough dust to keep a whole stable of grad students busy.

These debates are less about a clear and present problem, than a mode of inquiry asking to look again at something "familiar" in a different way.

[iainmerrick]

Partly I'm playing devil's advocate here, as I'm sure there is a good answer... Can you give me an example of a useful, positive contribution that metaphysics and/or philosophy (I confess I don't know what the distinction is between them) have contributed to these topics?

For example, ancient Greek philosophers made many speculations about the nature of atoms, and in some ways their guesses were correct, but I don't think that speculation was especially fruitful. But their advances in geometry and number theory were tremendously productive.

[JadeNB]

> For example, ancient Greek philosophers made many speculations about the nature of atoms, and in some ways their guesses were correct, but I don't think that speculation was especially fruitful.

In terms of finding the actual answer (at least to the extent that we know the answer), it probably wasn't; but, in terms of suggesting that the question was one that had an answer, I think it was enormously fruitful. Leon Lederman's wonderful book "The God particle" persuasively (if perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek?) argues a very direct intellectual through-line from the Greek analyses to (then-)current particle physics.

(Having said this, my personal feeling is that philosophy has done its part by expanding the scope of scientific inquiry, but probably doesn't have much to add to modern-day scientific discourse; but, then again, I am a scientist, and so am pre-disposed to believe in the primacy and importance of my discipline.)