Clever Beast

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Richard Feynman once wrote: “Philosophy of science is as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds.”

In this quote, Feynman appears too eagerly dismissive of the idea that an intellectual rigor to science-doing is, by itself, insufficient without one also towards interpreting the wider context of the act (an essential additive precisely because it informs the semantic character of the results).  To say that we ought to have science without the philosophy of science, is like saying that we ought to have sex without concern for mutual consent (one is the deed, the other, the considered implications of it in practice).

While a philosophy of science may not be useful for scientists per se, it is pretty useful for human beings, of which, I have to think, most scientists sometimes are.

the 2% Fallacy

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Two propositions:

1) Any three angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees. 

2) Science informs us of the structure of the common reality we all inhabit, and which for the large part exists independent of what people say and think of it.

Both of are ‘reasonable’ but not interchangeably so.  Let’s disregard the common analytic/synthetic dichotmy between these propositions (see Immanuel Kant note at bottom of post), not because I disagree with Kant just that I do not find that division very illuminating for the topic at hand.  These two propositions of reason are distinct in another way: the first derives its truth-value from an abstract formal system analysis whereas the second does not.  The truth-value in proposition 2 is, I will argue, born out of mental deliberation.  While we tend to use the same word to denote both reasoning as an abstract process and reasoning as a mental activity the two usages are grammatically incommensurable. A formal system, insofar as it is self-consistent, demands rigid adherence to articulated rules, whereas mental deliberation, an admittedly muddled description of a cognitive event, allows unfiltered intuitive judgment to affect analysis.  One could also describe this distinction as one between the abstract and the existential aspects of ‘reasoning’.  

The allure of analytic reasoning is that it can demonstrate its proofs step by step in accordance with the formal system it applies to, delineated by the rules of the  inference imposed.   Existential reason has no such clear divisions built into its process of mediation (in the act of deliberation the rules of inference are only half-glimpsed). 

Proposition 1 fits the first category, abstract reason, in that the truth-value can be determined formally within the boundaries set by Euclidean geometry.  There is no coinciding formal system which can sufficiently prove proposition 2 because it pertains to an existentially-derived rationalization, using an ad hoc reasoning that is enabled by intuitive judgment (I will return to this point).  The aforementioned grammatical error occurs when one blurs the two kinds of reasoning, treating the mental act of reasoning as synonymous with the integrity of formal abstractions.  Perhaps as a consequence of the allure of the hard sciences, the rational component of the mental act becomes more pronounced even when it lacks essential soundness.

The mistaken rationalist may argue, for example, that while something like 2% intuition is involved in the determining process of proposition 2 - as the leap of faith necessary to draw the associations between the abstracted proofs with the existential reality - there remains 98% remaining authority of the articulated proofs that carry over and justify the decision. This is a complete misunderstanding of how formal reasoning derives its authority.  Bridging the gap between the formal system and the existential world is a derived rule which lacks the formal authority of the proofs it is supposed to enable.  Another way to put this would be to say the external applicability of a formal proof is nowhere authorized by the proof.  The derived rule is the leap of faith which entirely enables the real-world application of the formal reasoning.  Therefore without the 2% involvement of intuition one does not have 98% soundness to the external application of the formal proof, one has zero percent.

Let me describe this a different way: suppose a formal system of logic was programmed into a computer and the rules of inference, the axioms, the theorems were all clearly laid out so as to delineate the boundaries of which the system could necessarily comprehend.  Considering this formalism was a logical one requiring self-consistency it would tend to adopt as some of its rules of inferences the law of bivalence and the law of non-contradiction, and further abstractions could be imposed depending on the end desire of the content.  Terms would be clearly defined so as to prevent passive connotations of their common parlance to infect the integrity of the formalism (this is an inevitable difficulty of linguistic calculus, something even Euclidean was done in by in his geometry).  Already there is a disparity emerging between language in its lived sense of expression and what is required for the sake of the formal system. 

Now suppose we input into this computer program an existential question, i.e. a question that pertains to our direct experience of reality, one which is not filtered for the needs of the program, say: is there such thing as a soul? Can a formalized set of rules sufficiently interpret the semantic meaning of the term ‘soul’?  If there had been some term denoted ‘soul’ within the program it could not have any property that extended beyond the limits of the rules of inference, nor that had passive connotations.  It would be a semantic error to call such a thing ‘soul’ as it is abstracted from, and therefore filtered from, its experiential context.    Such a computer program expression of soul is merely nominal, in word only, having excluded from its potential expression all characteristics that are associated with it pre-abstraction.  The formalized ‘soul’ could only tautologically describe itself in parody of what it is supposed to signify.  Were the system sophisticated enough to identify this disparity it would respond with a syntax (semantic) error, a zero sum output.  There would be no partial formal value to be salvaged from the experiment that could then substantiate the meaning of ‘soul’ as it exists outside of the system.  The limited understanding of language and concepts used inside the formal system would have no precedent for the language of the external, existential question, and in a very real way could not elicit a response.  What bridges this disparity is not something inside the formal system but something without.

Due to our lack of such a puritanical computational system at our disposal when ad hoc formal analysis is done in our minds, we tend to confuse the abstract and existential aspects of what it is ‘to reason’ or ‘understand something as reasonable’ when justifying a belief.  Authorities are isomorphically carried over where there would have only been error messages.  The half-glimpsed boundaries of the system get blurred and the output, while perhaps seeming rationally convincing, consists of a combination of analytic and intuitive sources of knowing.  This other source is sometimes thought of as intuition, instinct, tacit knowledge, morality, etc.  Although the source of authentication is all too often irrational this does not exclude the possibility that it is mediated in such a way as to be consistent and tied with objective rules beyond our comprehension.  What is deemed irrational may only be a small part of the whole we can view critically, our limited scope of the formal system (if one exists) which extends far beyond our ability to grasp rationally.  Much more emphasis needs to be placed on this instinctual component of our judgments, of which abstract reasoning is only a small component. 

Returning to the original propositions:

proposition 1 is right insofar as it adheres to the rules within a clearly defined formal system.  It satisfies the rules of an abstract reason.

proposition 2 is right or wrong insofar as we glean the truth-value of the statement from our existential reasoning, a reasoning that is affected by intuitive judgment.

Similarly, any reason-based argument which attempts to disprove the existence of the soul overextends the integrity of its logic, mistaking the rationale as something formally sound when in fact it is entirely informal and thus incommensurable with the alleged proofs.  Though incommensurable this does not exclude the possibility that some sort of purposeful agreement can occur implicitly between the ‘proofs’ and the mental act of conviction.  That which is valuable in the sciences depends on it.  

Additional Note:

[Immanuel Kant had formulated two distinct categories of judgments: analytic and synthetic.  An analytic judgment is one that does not add anything to what is included in the concept (a simple reiterating subject predicate relationship, i.e. all bachelors are unmarried).  A synthetic judgment is one which extends beyond the concept, wherein the predicate adds something not already included in the definition of the subject, usually as a result of an empirical observation (i.e. water boils at 100 C).  Another way to think of it is an analytic judgment is one based on a tautology (or contradiction), self-describing itself, whereas a synthetic judgment associates a concept with something outside its definition.  It is not the greatest distinction and it has lead to some pretty murky philosophical digressions, and so I bring it up only to indicate that I am aware of it, but I prefer my distinctions.]

On the Privilege of Ethics and Belief

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[This post is for a particular person, posted here for convenience to read]

As we are both anti-realists, what I propose is a thought experiment where we both allow logic temporary validity, and for worldviews to be conceptual, capable of being critiqued as concepts.

If it cannot do this, if the authority of its claims are not logic-based, the edifice falls to the level of all ideologies, enforced by belief. (A side-note: relativism is not an ideology because it makes no claims of universality.  There is no either/or, ‘things’ can be either and or).  

The crux of my logical argument:

Man’s capacity for knowing exceeds the self-imposed limitations of understanding enforced by the scientific method.

K > k where k is a subset of K

furthermore

subset k is not able to deduce the value of K by means of its own processed conclusions because it is ALWAYS self-limiting of criteria.  This is the tautology.

k can only speak of the k in K, or in other-words, itself.  (Even if you didn’t like the word ‘knowledge’, use ‘perspective’ - it is less accurate, but gives you the same fallacy).  

Any attempt to reduce my argument to fuzzy metaphysics is self-indicting, because the concept of knowledge is evoked in your own theory.  We both take the concept of knowledge as permissible irrespective of the fact that it implies a fuzzy notion of comprehension - we are talking about ‘knowledge’ from a human perspective are we not?  If you wish to speak only of computational knowledge and dispense with Being altogether, then we can talk about the nature of knowledge within an AI computer.  Otherwise, talking strictly of Being-processed information, and the capacities to intuit what has meaning, and why, there is no logical argument for k to prescribe the limits of K - it prescribes the limits of itself. Now k can contribute to a prescription of certain corporeal truisms, but every time it tries to stare into the sun of Being it is blinded.  

Regarding all talk of the ‘demarcation problem of science’: the aim of that philosophical inquiry is to make a division between science and pseudoscience, the problems philosophers have come up against in doing so is including all the ‘good’ science under one methodology, here it is a question of the completeness of definition.  Nothing I am talking about pertains to that.  I choose the atomic approach, if you will: what essential ingredients are needed without which the bulk of science-doing cannot exist?  Answer: formal system(s)-plus-interpretation.  Or to unpack it clearly:  the application of one or more formal systems of analysis (i.e. geometry, algebra, statistics, unified measurements, etc.) plus an interpretation of so-called ‘real-world’ phenomena.  By virtue of this methodological quality of science-doing we can properly frame its proofs (this position more fully articulated  here).

so,

EVEN if you wanted to include (what I deem) laissez-faire empiricism, i.e. being able to deduce that the sun will rise tomorrow as ‘legitimate science’ I don’t care, nor would it disprove my position.  In which case I would say, fine, keep those forms of ‘science’, let that be the science you build your theory on.  Everything else is culpable.  Go about disproving the lack of value of any opposing theories of knowledge by using one fuzzy form of comprehension over another.  The best it can do is establish some basic truisms of objective/subjective divisions, of primitive physical properties of things, it cannot claim logical dominance over parallel (i.e. non-competing) interpretations of knowing.  Faith and reason are not in competition as they abide by separate means of authentication.

When one comes to accept anti-realism as the inevitable consequence of the illogical first premises of all positions, faith-based sentiments are no less true than reason-based ones.  This is not an inevitable endorsement of nihilism, nor any position that insists upon ‘anything goes’ with complete freedom.  Just to say that, in the absence of certainty and with what faculties of knowing at our disposal, we may self-configure.

This is my position.  One chief difference between our positions appears to be that I see as nearly certain the likelihood that I am an individual, that knowing is foremost an individual process.  There may be a common world out there, and by habit and empirical observation it satisfies me to behave as if there is most of the time, but the burden of knowing is individual, how I sense the world is more than by map-making, because I sense also being, emotions, that pesky humanity you talk of.  It is as a human being I self-configure.  I do not see the goal of living to be acquiring knowledge for it’s own sake, or to continue to make maps beyond my need.  My needs are individual, human.  Without certainty to bully me, I choose to self-configure away from the conclusions of what I see as an autistic impulse of man, towards a handicapped form of proof, and from that, belief of knowledge. This is not to say all of the conclusions arrived at via this approach are wrong, just unsuitably contextualized.  The parenthesis of meaning too rigidly fixed.  I believe individual interpretation is required, to remove the handicap of one kind of proof-making, and sense out the right measure.

Part of that right measure is the re-authenticating of any science-derived knowledge according to indwelling ethics that are individually gleaned.  What I am saying is Being is not merely a quantitative piece of phenomena, here is the fallacy.  Ethics always pertains to Being, there is no ethics if Being is not privileged.  Otherwise, you have an ethics in service wholly of an ideology.    

It seems you have lost the first premise of your argument, you have buried the Being of it, subverted language so as to limit the concept of ‘knowledge’ to be only computational, and have described the ethics of a robot.  




 

The Fallacy of Scientific Realism

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In the process of this entry I will be evaluating a particular strand of scientific thought known as scientific realism - or commonsense realism as it is sometimes called. This term refers to a family of positions which share a common belief in the real-world implications of scientific theories, a view that science informs us of the structure of the common reality we all inhabit, and which for the large part exists independent of what people say and think of it. Naturally, this interpretation of science satisfies a great number of scientists and laymen as it maintains continuity with tradition and adheres to a commonsense view of the world and our place within it. I am of the belief that its established orthodoxy in western society - implicit in the way science is reported - has a detrimental effect on our individual range of creative powers, since the bias is set against the relativist strands of reasoning which fuels the largely esoteric interpretations of post-modernism. Scientific realism has an aura of authenticity that stifles western imagination and puts an unnecessary obstacle in the way of man’s capacity for self-configuration (a topic to be discussed further in a future entry). But more importantly and to the point: scientific realism lacks sufficient proof, despite popular opinion to the contrary.

I wish to make this clear by using methodology as a demarcation criterion for science, mathematics and the external realm. This will not, I hasten to add, be a thorough investigation of the demarcation problem as it exists in the philosophy of science, as the present focus is limited to an epistemological evaluation of the methodologies at work in science and mathematics, rather than on the expansive implications of science as a field of study. This inquiry will bear on the demarcation problem only indirectly, in that it will provide a default demarcation of scientific reasoning which could be utilized in further refinements of the larger topic of science.

Both science and mathematics share a common methodological dependency on formal systems as a way of deriving theorems. formal systems were proposed as a way to exhibit every step of a proof explicitly, within one single, rigid framework, so that any mathematician or logician could check another’s work mechanically (Hofstadter p194). Their basic properties include rules of inference, axioms and theorems. The rules of inference delineate the boundaries of the system’s authority and are themselves unchallenged, in the same way Euclidean geometry can only be formally applied by first accepting his first four postulates uncritically. To the best of my knowledge rules of inferences are usually expressed in linguistic terms, as statements in common language. Foundational axioms are similar in that they are uncritically true but differ in that they are comprised of well-formed strings of symbols pertaining to the rules of inference, and are essentially free theorems. Foundational axioms are not always necessary for a formal system to work, for example in propositional calculus where a ‘fantasy rule’ is included in the rules of inference (see pg 183 hofstadter), but are common in pure mathematics. Theorems are produced within the formal system by stringing together the inducted symbols of the system in such a way as to comply with the rules of inference and foundational axiom(s). like axioms, they are formal constructs, but unlike axioms, they develop through the process of applying the rules of inference and are thus provable through this process. Together, rules of inference, axioms, and theorems comprise the basis for formalized analysis.

Calculus and Geometry are two obvious examples of formal systems but it is important to realize that formal systems are not restricted to these abstract disciplines but also include isomorphic correspondences between two different kinds of notations, for example in logic and grammar by using a propositional calculus which incorporates words and word-phrases into symbolic form, analyzes, and reverts them back into well-formed theorems. I used the term ‘isomorphic’ above, and this needs to be defined: an isomorphism is an information-preserving transformation wherein two complex structures can be mapped onto each other where there is a corresponding part, meanings that two parts play similar roles in their respective structures (Hofstadter pg 49). This concept of isomorphism will play an important part in my argument against scientific realism later in this entry.

For now, I would like to accomplish my original intent, to demarcate science from mathematics on the basis of method. As mentioned above, both science and mathematics inevitably depend upon some implementation of formal systems of analysis in their method, if only indirectly through the collaborative nature of their fields. Whereas mathematics is capable of being expressed intelligibly without the need to interpret beyond the confines of the formal system, as pure mathematics, science, insofar as it is independently coherent from mathematics, depends on isomorphic correspondence with an external realm. as such, the scientific method can be generally described as the external application of one or more formal systems, a quality Hofstadter classifies as ‘system-plus-interpretation’. This application results in a transference of information from the formal system to an ‘external realm’ which in the process must be interpreted, if only passively, by having a motivation for the particular isomorphism one is investigating (i.e. associating real-world concepts with mathematical symbols). In order to forego extraneous philosophical debate and preserve the issue at hand the external realm may be described as that which supercedes the domain of the formal systems. Both science and mathematics share a common dependence on formal structure that is distinguishable from the informal potentiality of the external realm. while the external realm supercedes the domain of these formal systems it does not necessarily exclude their content (the formalized theorems); thus, there exists, at the very least, the potential for overlap correspondences between the information of all three domains.

Mathematical method = formal system or system-plus-interpretation

Scientific method = system-plus-interpretation

External realm = informal and formal potentialities

A scientific theory insofar as it pertains to something external (which is the above-mentioned criteria) depends upon derived rules, rules which go beyond the jurisdiction of the formal system to interpret correspondences elsewhere (Hofstadter pg 194) The integral formality of the system is lost when rules are derived from outside of the system in such a way as is required for a scientific theory to be applied. One may argue that there is an additional formal system pertaining to the application of derived rules, a meta-theory beyond the confines of the original system, assuring the integrity of the proofs, but the derived rules to sustain the meta-theory may also be challenged, resulting in an infinite regress. Thus a scientific theory is always an approximation of the formalized proofs and lacks the jurisdictional authority in their external applications that axiomatic reasoning has within a well-defined formal system.

But this approximation or verisimilitude should not be considered justification for interpretations (such as scientific realism), primarily due to the fact that the verisimilitude is not meaningful in any qualitative sense (value-judgments), but only insofar as a 1:1 correspondence is discovered between quantitative aspects of, for example, water and its formal notation equivalent. Qualitative interpretations are dependent on our conceptualizations of the world, not the formalisms; they derive their value from outside the confines of axiomatic reasoning. the problem of engaging a natural world isomorphism is you apply real-world concepts which have built-in additional connotations that exceed the rule-governed meanings of the concepts within the exchange. these familiar meanings inspire us to assume beyond the boundaries set by the formal rules of inference, and corrupt the analysis.

When the raw data of a scientific experiment is compiled, it becomes necessary at some point to posit possible uses for the data that may extend beyond this demarcation of science. These are derived rule interpretations which possess measurably less authority than the raw data findings. Being only able to substantiate the quantitative what of natural phenomena within the constraints of the isomorphic exchange, the scientist still has the capacity to imagine scenarios for use applicable to the world we inhabit, and use these derived rule interpretations to link raw data with potential uses based on assumptions of how the universe works. So long as these transgressions result in further expansion of raw data that is self-consistent within the framework of the quantitative what it examines, derived rule interpretations can be useful, but still in themselves bear nothing more than a means to an end, with no intrinsic authority.

This is a crucial distinction, and I think its misunderstanding has been the source of most of the mystification we live with today. People simply assume that the derived interpretations of scientific theory that help expand our serviceable raw data are themselves within the boundaries of genuine science, and can be allotted self-consistency in the same way that asserting the boiling point of water is 100 degrees Celsius could be proven self-consistent, or that 2 + 2 = 4 is self-consistent. This is false. The untouchable rules of inference impart a self-consistent framework within which mathematical analysis can speak of indisputable truths (i.e. 2 + 2 = 4) but it is a fallacy to believe these provisional truths correspond with the unfiltered framework of the natural world. the indisputable nature of mathematical truths pertains only to the self-consistent framework of the formal system, demarcated by the invented rules of inference. Or to put it simply: there can never be a complete symmetrical correspondence between scientific fact and the natural world as such an isomorphism is incommensurable with the relationship of scientific method and the external realm as described above. in the resulting asymmetry of scientific method and the external realm no qualitative interpretations can be authenticated formally, rather they are believed on faith as guiding concepts to expand or correct the accumulation of raw data gained through the exchange. The qualitative meaning of the color red, for example, may be gleaned indirectly but since no sufficient formal system can prove it, it is open to interpretation and is therefore disputable. the notion of indisputable formalized truths is tautological (the formalized truths are true insofar as the system can be said to be true, which it cannot).

I distinguished sufficient formal systems in the above sentence for a reason. And this has to do with the revelation brought about to me through Hofstadter’s book regarding the multiplicity of systems imaginable, some of which transcend our steadfast bias for real-world usefulness. One has to arbitrarily impart a common base to a formal system which is provisional, and includes criteria such as consistency internal and external, and one that abides by basic tenets of logic and mathematics, to be enforced through the rules of inference. As Hofstadter attests, “consistency is not a property of a formal system per se, but depends on the interpretation which is proposed for it.’ (pg 94) consistency imbues passive meaning, and is thus beyond the domain of the system. He goes on to explain:

“A system-plus-interpretation would be logically consistent just as long as no two of its theorems, when interpreted as statements, directly contradict each other; and mathematically consistent just as long as interpreted theorems do not violate mathematics; and physically consistent just as long as all its interpreted theorems are compatible with physical law; then comes biological consistency, and so on.” (Pg. 96). These consistency measures have to be pre-programmed into the formal system and are not intrinsic to them. This brings us to the provisional license of the foundational rules of inference of any formal system, which creates rather than discovers indisputable truths according to a provisional use of reason maintained by faith. It is these faith-based boundaries of the domain of the system that signifies its tautological quality, unless the criteria programmed into the system is inclusive of irrational inconsistencies, which is possible but not applicable to the integrity of science and mathematics.

This returns me to scientific realism, one of the most prominent of the derived rule interpretations because it presumes a complete isomorphism between exact science and the natural world. I consider it a fallacy for several reasons; first, it is impossible to formally prove completeness of the isomorphism; secondly, the desired information transfer between formalisms and natural phenomena can be done successfully without dependence on a value-judgment as to why. This second point leads me to advocate the instrumentalist position on science that claims theories are merely instruments to predict observations. Instrumentalism opposes the realist belief in a hidden structure inversely determining accurate scientific endeavor.

If we were to expand from an epistemological evaluation of method, to include the wider implications of science as a field of study, it would be essential to somehow integrate “both a general strategy and a complex social structure that carries out the strategy” (godfrey-smith pg 5). For as a field of study, science is dependent on interpretations - real-world analogies of formalized theorems - so as to encourage collaborative expansion of the field, and is thus dependent on an artful integration of formal knowledge, and what may be termed tacit knowledge, knowledge which supercedes objective explicitness, and which is potentially individualistic. While the explanatory power of theories are not an element of scientific reasoning they are essential in the social sense. Yet the social dimension includes tacit knowledge, knowledge hidden from ourselves that according to Michael Polanyi achieves comprehension through indwelling, as a result of our existential state. As he puts it: “we can know more than we can tell” and this relates to Wittgenstein’s discussions on seeing-aspects. How does science reconcile this tacit dimension with its own social structure? I will end with two quotations that indicate further the complications inherent with reconciling formal and informal potentialities as is intrinsic of science.

“If an ‘isomorphism’ is very simple (or very familiar), we are tempted to say that the meaning which it allows us to see is explicit. We see the meaning without seeing the isomorphism. The most blatant example is human language, where people often attribute meaning to words in themselves, without being in the slightest aware of the very complex isomorphism that imbues them with meanings.

Above I used the word isomorphism in quotes to indicate that it must be taken with a grain of salt. The symbolic processes which underlie the understanding of human language are so much more complex than the symbolic processes in typical formal systems, that, if we want to continue thinking of meaning as mediated by isomorphisms, we shall have to adopt a far more flexible conception of what isomorphisms can be than we have up until now. in my opinion, in fact, the key element in answering the question ‘what is consciousness?’ will be the unraveling of the nature of the isomorphism which underlies meaning.” (Hofstadter pg 82)

“The acceptance of scientific statements by laymen is based on authority, and this is true to nearly the same extent for scientists using results from branches of science other than their own. Scientists must rely heavily for their facts on the authority of fellow scientists.

This authority is enforced in an even more personal manner in the control exercised by scientists over the channels through which contributions are submitted to all other scientists. Only offerings that are deemed sufficiently plausible are accepted for publications in scientific journals, and what is rejected will be ignored by science such decisions are based on fundamental convictions about the nature of things and about the method which is therefore likely to yield results of scientific merit. These beliefs and the art of scientific inquiry based on them are hardly codified: they are, in the main, tacitly implied in the traditional pursuit of scientific inquiry.” (Polanyi 64)

And finally, my position in list form:

1) The formal system dependency of scientific and mathematical methods admit a certain priority to irrationalism in that all formal systems rely on invented rules of inference. thus their proofs are provisional when applied to an external reality.

2) The indisputable nature of scientific and mathematical proofs are tautological, and should be treated as such within philosophical investigations.

3) The scientific method can only predict natural phenomena (the quantitative what) and only with approximate accuracy. science cannot qualitatively explain the world we inhabit with any formal authority, by the very provisionary limitations imposed in its methodology.

4) Neither science nor mathematics bear a symmetrical (complete isomorphic) correspondence with the world we inhabit, and therefore are not interchangeable in analogous interpretations

5) Neither science nor mathematics bear a symmetrical (complete isomorphic) correspondence with one another, and therefore are not interchangeable in analogous interpretations

Sources:

Hofstadter, Douglas R. Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Basic Books inc, 1999.

Polanyi, Michael. The Tacit Dimension, anchor books, 1967.

Godfrey-Smith, Peter. Theory and Reality.

“

Emile Durkheim, with the best will in the world, celebrated society as a force which liberates us ‘from blind unthinking physical forces”; in other words, specifically from nature, generally from context and psychologically from mortality. In this approach, nature and context are things which subject us. We must free ourselves from our subjection to the forces of nature. They fill us with fear.

Here you see our weakness for ideology. If we live in a context, we believe we are subjected. If we can free ourselves from this context, well then, we are free. For some reason, the idea that we might have a bit of both seems extraordinarily complicated. Why not have the ability to act in a manner which other animals or rocks cannot, while still seeing ourselves as part of the unthinking physical forces? Quite simply because it would imply living with complexity and uncertainty. We must have one or the other - freedom or subjection.

But if we cannot accept that we are both rushing forward and yet part of a synchronistic whole, what are we doing if not condemning ourselves to an isolated stance of denial?

”

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On Equilibrium, John Ralston Saul (2002, pg.173-74)

Higgs

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Scientists try to know but what if unknowing is the currency of the universe?

Perhaps the numbers never add up in the final analysis 

If that cannot be factored, enter the syntax error

98% of nothing is still nothing

The moon is still the moon

You gain nothing more

by grinding

out

pi

“And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes—how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicolored universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. You explain this world to me with an image. I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know. Have I the time to become indignant? You have already changed theories. So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity founders in the metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. What need of I of so many efforts? The soft line of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more.”

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The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus

Pandora’s Box

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How does the positivist spirit live on? So many defeats intellectually, so much development of thought & still clinging to 19th cen. ideal

There’s no greater fascism than the brute force of presumptive science. The reduction of life to information that one believes to control

Further maddening is the implication that to think of the body as anything other than said information is to be romantic or religious.

Since when did the norm become scientific fact and the deviation, emotive belief? That is the sickness, that shift away from ourselves.

Embrace the fuzziness of existence.

We are not mature enough for science, a science of exponential growth that cannot slow down for ethical considerations.

This notion of inevitability of man merging with machine…

Progress towards singularity is not progress. You have to be demented to think otherwise.

to be clear: this is not about art vs science, left vs. right - it is about being a human first, information second.

Ethics and Science

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I do not doubt that there is incredible creativity and reasoning and bouts of intuition within the act of science-doing.  While I question the foundation upon which it happens, I don’t question the commitment and integrity within which it goes about its business.  The internal processing is sound enough for me.  It is always the integration into the external realm and where ethics comes into play that is my chief problem.  Fundamentally, by virtue of very basic reasonableness it can be shown that Science has a limited, instrumental role in discerning our reality.  Ethically, considering that we live in a reality that is far more complex with qualitative features beyond the scope of Science, we should heed on the side of caution and keep it domesticated.  Science appeals to one quality of knowing and does it well… but we should not aspire to be autistic in our behavior; rather, we should find equilibrium in the full range of qualities we possess as sentient beings.  I suppose there is an ethics of science, of its procedural conduct, but the Ethics I am talking about is outside of it, unshackled, the Ethics of being human first, phenomena second.  Likewise Philosophy: a philosophy for the internal and one unshackled.  

Fragments on Scientific Method and Taleb’s Black Swan Theory

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Risk-modeling is culpable to the errors Taleb talks about, and virtually all application of scientific investigation relies on risk-modelling, so to say that science can somehow wipe its hands clean of any misuse is absurd. Of course there is admirable work in science, but the division between it and pseudo-science is blurred, not nearly as clear-cut as we like to think. And besides, whatever you think of ‘social sciences’ they are accepted by the our socio-political systems as credible sources for governance, for health, for predictions. They are treated as if they are science. And that, to me, is the charlatanism that ought to be highlighted, far more than religion.

I have read a fair bit in my time, I have spent a lot of time with philosophical ideas, and occasionally there comes this book that changes everything, there really are only a handful in my life: Douglas Hofstader’s Godel, Escher, Bach: The Golden Braid, Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals and The Use and Abuse of History, Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Dostoevsky’s Karamazov Brothers, and now, Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan. In a way, The Black Swan is a culmination of feelings and ideas I have had at one point or another enlarged upon and enriched and defended in a way that clarifies them, gives them a context and forges a new way to live and experience the world. The best part is that it is immensely readable. It has weighty things to say but unlike any philosopher I have ever read he is able to make them clear and entertaining and, I suspect, appeal to a wide audience… exactly what this books needs to do. No hyperbole is good enough, this truly is a book that could change the world were its exposure wide enough. It identifies the intellectual hubris of modern civilization and gives us a framework by which we could readjust.

Your ‘scientific method’ is a great display car but it is meaningless when we are talking about the act of driving. The second you drive it, it is culpable, and not because human beings are stupid, but because ONLY human beings use it – scientific-method-in-use has no innate protection from deception, it can marginalize it to a degree, but, Taleb’s argument would be that degree is far from satisfactory and could be much better with applied skeptical empiricism a la the Black Swan theory.

People don’t do science the way the scientific method is thought to be done, anymore than people do their jobs according to the posted job descriptions. There are similarities, and a narrative fallacy can connect the dots and make it easier to accept, but if you are rigorous with the your skepticism you can see how quickly that falls away

The scientific method is only as good as its inputs and the theories underlying the use of those inputs. It is a fallacy to think the method can weed out the errors that may exist unnoticed within these processed components to the task at hand. Each scientist would have to verify every step of every theory underlying the use of every piece of input, in order for the Scientific Method to be Scientific.

In actuality, people skim, and narratives prevail.

there is only a finite amount of time for each scientist to work with NOT JUST the data but the underlying interpretations of the data in every facet of the task at hand. I can’t actually believe we would have this argument, because it boggles my mind how someone could even claim people do that. There comes a fairly arbitrary point depending on the scientist where the granularity of information is skimmed and accepted. Do you verify and cross reference various interpretations of Bernoulli’s principle if it is an indirect piece of the puzzle of the data you are presently working on, or do you just accept the greatness of science and let it pass, and let those people focusing on Bernoulli’s principle solely to work it out? Science is compartmentalized, the assumption is verifications are being done somewhere else by someone else.

Next let me clarify what I mean by the scientific method, because I think I have been using two uses interchangeably when they shouldn’t be. There is the more general idea of scientific method, a set of steps that essentially Bob mentioned awhile ago, and let’s say it is a general tool, and on the last step when you retest you can do it yourself.. kind of the independent thinker approach I guess. In that respect, Taleb used something like a scientific method, and I am sure even pseudo-scientists can concoct whatever they want through that method and get bad results. Why? Because the method itself cannot prevent any and all misinterpretation and reliance on skimmed information. It is like saying if you have the right tool you won’t make a mistake

Can we agree there is no Scientific Method without people, and more to the point people interpreting data? So let’s accept this ‘marginal’ fallibility in the method… the question remains: is it possible that errors can persist in this ecosystem without being uncovered, not just for a year or two, but decades or centuries? I am guessing you would both say yes, or there is some SERIOUS positivism going on here. I am guessing the response would be “sure there are errors here and there and sometimes they are not seen for a long time, but they are exceptions and marginally insignificant because the same peer-reviewed risk-modelling techniques that people have won Nobel prizes for assure us of this”. The integrity is sound by a statistical regress argument, and more so, a positivist regress argument.

Taleb: “We need data to discover a probability distribution. How do we know if we have enough? From the probability distribution. If it is Gaussian, then a few points will suffice. How do we know it is Gaussian? From the data.”

So back to this hypothetical defense, one could say the errors are marginal because on a bell curve, the majority is sound and the deviations are a minority and less significant. THIS IS THE ERROR. What is not appreciated, what Taleb shows, what changes fucking everything, is the standard by which risk-modeling on a curve is a ludic fallacy (not lucid Gamble), it is like talking about a game of dice and trying to apply it to the real world which plays by different rules. Depending on the error, some are marginal and insignificant, but some are not, some are “scalable” and it is the scalability of the error that causes a Black Swan, it is the scalability that displaces the Gaussian bell curve, it is the scalability that undermines ANY scientific study (peer-reviewed up the ass) that hinges upon, directly or indirectly risk-modeling of this kind. It is not a minor problem, because, for example look at the defense for the integrity of The Scientific Method, which if Taleb is right, undermines your argument that the benefits outweigh and overwhelm the marginal decimal point adjustment errors. Einstein changed Newtonian Physics, Taleb is changing the narrative about what lies beneath the banner of scientific credibility… and even better he did so OUTSIDE OF THE PEER-REVIEW SYSTEM. That, in itself, shows its weakness. The Scientific Method, however you want to manicure it is a political system (by virtue of the peer-review mechanism, by citation numbers, by Nobel prizes jockeying). It is no more a representation of the reality of science than the Constitution is of the United States. People cheat, cliques are created (you cite me, I cite you), pressure is created to silence evidence (Taleb talks about Henri Poincare who actually came up with a lot of the Black Swan ideas, but depending on the politics of that given time, his influence was marginalized) and the enthusiasm for clarity over randomness, for justification for whole areas of study (economics for example) won out.

: the narrative of Scientific Integrity hinges upon the ‘history of the victors’… the silent counter-evidence exists and can be looked at to contextualize the truth, but more often than not, like with history, the narrative is retroactively told by those in a position of power to tell it. The myth outweighs the reality. Taleb exposes this in several cases.

“So the problem is a misunderstanding of what science is. It’s an ongoing search for knowledge which uses the method as one of its tools to add to that bank of knowledge.”

And I am saying it is an ideal never achieved, and that you are in the act of myth-making something that happens differently (it is similar, sure, but in one key aspect significantly different). And this isn’t just a useless philosophical parlor game trick. Underlying the concept of science, which informs how we approach it, is the science-doing and from that can be abstracted this model, this scientific method. Let me put it this way: I 100% agree that the Scientific Method you are talking about, this apolitical concept, this ideal, is apolitical and ideal and infallible (and it is a display car with no engine). But it is infallible because it is an ideal, science is done in the minds of people, in the physical tweaking of laser trajectories, in the interpretations of phenomena into theories and the continual retesting (the method cannot save us from those errors in waiting).

Your position appears to be that it can save us well enough, that there is a pragmatism to it that transcends individual use or patterns or corruption. There is only pragmatism if it can spot the corruptions occurring to it outside of the box. My point is there is a significant blindspot this “Science” cannot see. Nobody investigates “Science” except pseudo-scientists! It is a conceptual idea, not the act of doing. You need to apply the scientific method to science itself to resolve the blight I am talking about. But scientists with the same attitude of Gamble won’t do that because there are demarcations of what is true science and what is gobbly-gook, and this is a barrier on knowledge, presumably for the sake of the integrity of the cumulative knowledge base.

In the act of preserving a kind of knowledge you cut off the ability to analyze the integrity of the method you use.

Now from your last comment, Bob, I get the idea you are more lenient about what can be pooled in with this idea of the Scientific Method, that economists, insurance analysts, statisticians, philosophers, can be included so long as they use this technique, and somehow the peer-bases feed off of one another (?) . I have been arguing more against Gamble’s opinion of a group of people using the method the ‘right’ way vs the pseudos (because after all, the methodology can be used exactly the same way irrespective of the inputs, this is my confusion with you saying The Scientific Method, without the details of the specific group of scientists, it is merely the same method used by fringe groups, the method can support or disprove some crazy shit, what matters is the peer-system it is attached to).

Ingrained in the methodology is the need of peer-reviewing, and so this notion that you can speak of the pure form of it without the political, is wrong. You cannot have a group of people judging the integrity of one another’s reason without it being political. That, again, is an ideal not based in reality – it removes human behavior from the equation. The corruption is endemic to the process, and my whole thing about Black Swan theory is the corruption is far greater and more damaging than the anointed have been able to acknowledge.

Now maybe you are saying the introduction of Black Swan theory is a part of this “Scientific Method” success story, they (human beings) got it wrong but over time, they get it more right. OK. That is not attributed to science (concept or the doers). That is attributed to the human race. With that wide a net you can excuse almost any short-sightedness that soon after a calamity, finds an answer.

My target is the Scientific Community (of which the Method is a tool) insofar as we pretend such a thing can be demarcated.

“if we as humans decide to make [the scientific method] political, well, we’re just stupid. And science couldn’t care less.”

Science can’t care because you have removed the human from the equation

the scientific method itself is only as good as the peer-review system it adopts, and by that I mean the parameters. If you only want to have findings that can be reproduced and verified empirically as close to phenomena as you can get, and the peer-system devoutly adheres to this than the likelihood is there will be relatively sound means of refining a particular kind of knowledge.

Theoretically you could use the same steps of the scientific method, change the parameters, so that it is not empirical, but within a certain realm of logic that is ascribed, have a peer-system on the same page and churning out refined product along those lines. That was my point above about fringe people being able to use the method and the value not inherent to it. The value is value added by the particular set we think of as scientists.

Is all knowledge empirical? No. How well does the scientific community consult knowledge outside the realm of empiricism? Are there degrees of integrity they are willing to integrate with? And if so, if they will absorb findings that are not empirical, conceptual frameworks, philosophical ideas, why then is there a circling of the wagons to assert the empirical integrity of science? The demarcation is either blurred or it isn’t.

my personal opinion is the demarcation IS blurred, but that the way science is done is like a high-functioning autistic. Kind of the way the Catholic Church has to get with the times, whether it likes it or not, there is top-down inspirations from outside of the demarcation to be relevant. The selecting of Nobel winners, perhaps, or just a free-floating narrative that infiltrates, the community integrates into its theories conceptual frameworks, from philosophy, from economics, from statistics and that is how the ‘high-functioning’ aspect occurs, otherwise it would be utterly hopeless. These free-floating meta-narratives are not scientific, not empirical, but intuited. And they can fail (I mean by scientific standards as well as higher magnitude). Failure can come from not enough input from outside of the box, or the ideological bent of the input by way of power bias.

It is not just that the act of science refines useful knowledge, it can blind us of the dangers in the process. Look hard enough at the single point on the horizon and you are liable to walk off a cliff.