For awhile now I've been searching for a diagnosis of what the exact philosophical issue is that collectively Mainstream, Non-mainstream, and layman physicists have had regarding modern scientific practice.

The Mainstream is rather consistent in stressing empirical virtues such as falsifiability, empirical adequacy, and the mathematization of nature in general. However, such approaches are usually met with a disapproval at colloquial ideas of understanding, visualization, or explanation and in certain situations such notions are even seen as unscientific addons that in truly objective science. . . away from popular science articles, science fiction stories, or documentaries. . . can be eventually abandoned. Classical cases regarding this usually revolve around Special/General Relativity and Quantum mechanics/field theory where if any such colloquial understanding/explanation is found lacking they are directed not to 'better approaches' but to the mathematics simpliciter. Our language and our visualizations pail in comparison to the supreme abstract generalizer of mathematical/logical syntax.

Non-mainstream opponents, crackpots, and other assortments of fringe scientists seem to regard such 'shut and calculate mentalities' as a platonic obsession with mathematics that has clouded our intuitive judgements. A lack of philosophical work in general regarding a widespread acceptance of the notions of visualizability and intelligibility of scientific results or theorizing has allowed for, by their words, for incoherent reification of abstractions to take center role. However, in attempting to alleviate these concerns they usually then fall back on a rather narrow idea of visual analogue modeling which is no less dogmatic than their opponents.

It seems strange to advocate or better demand that science or physics in general be visualizable given the pop-cultural scientific mentality that nature is in some sense: Incoherent to our sensibilities, far stranger than anything we could think of, paradoxical, and esoteric in rather astoundingly unintuitive ways. We will fail if we try to view nature on our terms conceptually. . . so why even try. Better to abstract away far as possible from any specific notion.

Further, visualizability or an emphasis on analogical/metaphorical language as opposed to mathematical/axiomatic frameworks to understand scientific theorizing seem so antiquated. The usual responses I see regarding this say something along the lines of, "How can you know, prove, or convince me that the world really is such as your analogue models presents it as? This was high science a century ago but its been found lacking come the modern era." They object that, "Any approach that one could take to analogue model modern mathematical models are bound to fail." So while layman might need such subjective vices, objective science demands no such need.

There is something greatly misguided about these ten cent objections as if either science is supposed to be so abstracted and VAGUE that we may not even understand what it is that we've been theorizing about for decades.

That, or advocate for a strange scientific ESOTERICISM that regards talk of nature in incoherent or paradoxical fashions demanding no requirement of our own to attempt to make sense of what comes out of our mouths. Then celebrate this incoherency and un-intelligibility of our assertions rather than clarify them in some more intelligible fashion.

“I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.” - Feynman
___________________________________________________________________________________

Visualization of the sciences did briefly vanish at the outset of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory but as of late its been appearing more often usually in fluid analogues to understand interpretations of quantum mechanics or various analogue models in service of deciphering hawking radiation in a table top experimental apparatus.

Its not something that can go away and its saddening that logical positivists along with their ilk had buried it for so long under dense logical axiomatic formulations of theories (syntactic understanding of theorizing) or mathematical abstraction (semantic understanding of theories) in a sisyphean attempt to grasp natures objectivity by removing us along with understanding/explanation as well. I.E. the ten cent phrase that, "Science ONLY deals with description and not with explanation."

Part of this failure seems to be that if you are not able to showcase something as true/false, to present its potential falsifiability, or make some strong explicit choice among numerous options then its altogether pointless. . . therefore irrelevant to objective scientific practice. Contrary the Aether obsessed non-mainstream opponents and the anti-visualizibility advocates of modern scientific practice you don't prove/disprove visual analogue models but this does not make them pointless or dispensable.

They are useful beyond being mere tools to dumb it down to the level of those who are not as mathematical oriented.

Further, anti-realists and their numerous underdetermination arguments put forward to all of science in particular or subject specific (conventionality and realism in the philosophy of spacetime for example) would then doom the majority of scientific results to the waste bin as well given their holistic un-falsifiability. I would see it as tremendously dishonest/inconsistent if this were not done as well.

The somewhat ever present conventionality in the choice of the analogue model does not negate their objective usefulness in furthering our ability to make abstract connections or feel as if we've grasped nature beyond merely cataloguing it.

The inability or difficulty in constructing visual analogue models is not a bid against them and rather any such similar objections would seem to be advocating for laziness regarding any sense of creative advancement. In the modern age of extreme theoretical abstract modeling (string theory, alternative models of gravitation, quantum gravity, etc) it demands GREATER attention, which has been neglected, as to how we construct and use such modeling techniques so that they can be used as powerful heuristic tools to get past the current mainstream gridlock.

Here is a lecture given by Henk W. de Regt which showcases what I'm getting at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY1vySjRFdA \
___________________________________________________________________________________

There is so much more work to be done here as in what sense to clarify understanding or explanation which aren't as strictly objective in an un-informative sense as certain approaches to scientific explanation are while retaining their pragmatic features which make them so malleable.

Further, what classes of visual models exist and how can we characterize them?

There are strictly mechanistic models which were popular mental inventions for centuries using strict analogues such as: Billiard balls, balls and springs, and other such solid rigid or soft body dynamics. All with sometimes rather clear objective rules for how they are meant to be constructed or used.

However, there is nothing stopping you from creating an analogy between phenomenon that themselves might still be rather mysterious. For example, treating atomic phenomenon as similar to our solar system giving rise to the solar system model of the atom or the Rutherford model. Such analogues wouldn't in a classical sense be seen as mechanistic but in the realm of analogy there is nothing stopping you from doing just this.

What implications does the relationship between the analogue models we construct/use have with regards to contemporary philosophical discussion?

Forms of reductivism which are so popular are easy to interpret as by-products of numerous approaches to visual models BUT perhaps the notion of STRONG EMERGENCE could be conceptually better understood by treating such language as having to do with some mental HIERACHY change of the models we use. This would require an analysis of how language as regards nature CHANGES model to model such as the change of heat from a qualitative property of things to being weakly emergent from things that themselves are not hot. Rather, heat is then redefined or thought of as the motion of microscopic bodies.

Static property --- by a re-interpretation via a certain analogue model ---> Dynamic property

In that analogue model if you froze the universe their wouldn't be heat as heat is a by-product of these microscopic bodies.

___________________________________________________________________________________

I hope some fruitful discussion can be held here and await your responses. I do apologize for the great amount of text but I needed to get it down and out. I'm tired of this merely bouncing around in my head.