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dear alan and karl, yes, what you say not only makes sense to me but shifts the focus to the nature of the ‘radical transformation’ of science that is required in order to ‘get to the inclusional understanding’. my sense is, that we have to convert the ‘observer’ who ‘sees’ what’s going on ‘out there’ and ‘responds’ to it, .... to an ‘experient’ who senses inclusion in the world dynamic, ... in which case the orientation shifts away from ‘what logic he uses’ as well as ‘the manner he uses logic’, ... in re-casting the ‘observer’ as the ‘experient’, ... the inadequacy of our sense of visual perception becomes apparent, since we cannot SEE ourselves as included within the dynamic we are observing. this is the paradox of mars retrograde motion, ... we can see mars moving in a funny way because it is not mars movement but beyond-object-based-motion that we, as observer, are experientially included in. it is by ‘intuitive intellection’ that we understand this, ... and it is a crude expedient to simply shift the center of the universe to the center of the sun, in order to explain it (as poincaré points out by showing how it is nonsense to claim that ‘the earth rotates’ (attributing to the earth its own motion), galileo’s insight was not that the center of the universe simply shifts to the center of the sun, which is equivalent to making space absolute, but that it makes less sense to assume that it is coincidental for all of the stars to move around us with the same diurnal and annual cycle patterns etc. than to assume that the commonality of these cycles is due to the motion of the earth relative to the stars, ... this manner of understanding not requiring us to impose an absoluteness to space by giving it a fixed center). so, this relates to the need for radical transformation of science, .... since science cannot get out ‘inclusionality’ (to ‘see’ itself as included in what it is looking out at); i.e. as long as we think in terms of understanding in terms of something we ‘achieve’ by means of ‘something we do’ (apply logic, think, visually perceive, ‘sense’ in terms of being an independent ‘sensing device’ etc.), all of which require a ‘center of active understanding’ (individual consciousness). in other words, not only do we have to radically transform our notion of science, in order to get to inclusionality, we have to radically transform our understanding of ‘who we are’ (transform ourselves from ‘observers’ of the world out there to a-centric ‘experients’ of inner-outer inclusion in the world). these two needed transformations seem to be the same thing expressed in different ways (the nature of consciousness, the nature of our somatic dynamics; i.e. the nature of ‘mind’ and ‘matter’). regards, ted _____ From: A.D.M.Rayner [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Monday, May 29, 2006 7:59 AM To: Group concerned that academia should seek and promote wisdom Cc: Ted Lumley Subject: Re: Science and Wisdom-Inquiry Dear Karl, Well, I must say that I feel invigorated and strengthened in resolve by the insights and understanding you have expressed here. I hope others in the group may feel similarly. I also feel in agreement with Ted's point that it is not rationalistic logic per se, but acceptance and exclusive use of this logic based on relying on the 'tip of the iceberg' of visual perception, and not realizing what lies beneath this outward appearance, that can get us into Titanic trouble! "but if I am right about the way that physics is, then it cannot become inclusional and remain as it is. We need a radical transformation of the so-called natural sciences. They cannot be reformed." That's very much how our modern scientific situation appears to me and why I have felt so supportive of Nick's initiative. Best Alan ----- Original Message ----- From: Karl <mailto:[log in to unmask]> Rogers To: [log in to unmask] Sent: 29 May 2006 03:10 Subject: Re: Science and Wisdom-Inquiry Dear Ted, Alan, and others, I have a great deal of sympathy and interest in Alan's ideas about inclusionality. So far, I have resisted commenting on them because I wanted to give anyone who was interested in but unfamiliar with inclusionality a chance to discuss them with Alan directly before we all launched into a deep discussion about how it related to Nick Maxwell's call for a revolution in academia. On a personal note, I used to be a physicist. My interest was in relativistic quantum cosmology and fundamental particle physics at the Delphi Collaboration, CERN. My thesis was in Measurements of Tau-Lepton Polarisation in the LEP-ring and Tests of Electroweak Theory. However, my cosmological interests were around chaos theory, many-world theories, probability, measurement, evolution, consciousness, and the role of the observer. I became highly critical of mainstream science and its conceptions of objectivity and causality, in favour of a more holistic science (a more phenomenological approach). I actually came to a similar position with regard to inclusionality -- without terming it as such -- and radically relativistic concepts of space-time as you articulated in your email and AAlan has also expressed regarding his work on organic boundaries. I discovered that my ideas had more in common with Heraclitus and Taoism than mainstream science, and it seemed to me that, in my own way, by trying to write down the mathematical physics of the Tao, I had come to my own understanding of the Tao of Physics. In comparison, mainstream physics is a branch of engineering, nothing more. I was no longer doing anything remotely congrument or compatible with mainstream physics, so I gave up physics and found a philosophy department that kindly would take me in as an intellectual refugee. I subsequently found that there were many philosophers that also had come to similar understandings of the natural world and the problem with modern science. However, very few philosophers of science took technology and experimentation seriously, hence my reincarnation as a historian and philosopher of science and technology began. So, I am very sympathetic and in broad agreement with your ideas. I think that they are better explanations of the evidence than those provided by mainstream science. But mainstream science cannot accept these ideas largely because it is dominated by the technological conception of scientific methodology and the natural world. Modern experimental physics depends on a metaphysical conception of technology in order to represent itself as a natural science on the basis of a technological conception of Nature. This aspect of the historical development of modern science has been completely neglected by the traditional philosophy of science, yet it has profound implications for how objectivity and causality are understood. I agree that natural science should be based on intution (as well as situated phenomenology and hermeneutic history) rather than technical rationality, but the unfortunate reality is that mainstream physics is based on technical rationality rather than intuition. Mainstream physics is a technoscience within which what natural entities are understood only in terms of what they do, which in turn are reductively understood in terms of how they perform as technological objects within the technological framework of experimentation. Even mainstream "thought experiments" are technologically constrained because they are constrained in accordance with expectations regarding what can be measured. Hence, the mainstream interpretation of relativity is one that reduced our conception of space-time events in accordance with a positivistic understanding of measurement. The same is true of quantum theory and all other branches of mainstream physics. If we take a close and honest look at how physics is done in practice (rather than our imagination) then we see that the ontology of the natural world is completely replaced with a set of machines and their associated explanatory representations. It is for thie reason that I consider scientific progress to be synonymous with technological progress. And it is for this reason that I am sceptical of the claim that experimental physics is a natural science. I agree with you that "without the concept of the object, we cannot have a science that is grounded in ‘what things do’ (what objects do)." Hence, mainstream physics cannot accept ideas of inclusionality and radical relativity. Experimental physics would be impossible without the concept of the object, understood in terms of its quantifiable aspects. Hence, Poincare's (and Einstein's) problems with the mainstream scientific conception of the object and how their solutions (their latter work) put them at odds and outside mainstream science. I broadly agree that Alan’s definitions avoid the dependency on fixed entities and opens the way to a fluid understanding of the evolutionary dynamic our experience informs us that we are included in. But, this is why Alan has enormous difficulties with mainstream science. Mainstream science cannot accept inclusionality because the scientific methodology depends on the fixed object, which it understands in terms of a set of machine performances. By paying close attention to how experimental sciences are done in practice, we can see that they are not based in direct experience at all. In fact, they are based on mediated experiences, interpretations of the responses of instruments and machines to human interventions, which are themselves understood in technological terms. Epistemologically science differs from technology because it offers explanations, but ontologically it is the same as technology because it transforms natural beings into technological objects in order to measure and experiment upon them. I agree with your comment "...if we accept the relativity of motion, then it makes no sense to compare any rational project (technological development) with the science we have developed since rational projects can only be implemented from within the evolving common hostspace of the continuing present. the visual perception of the ‘roll-out’ of a rational plan (the actualization of an individual NON-PLURALISTIC ‘aim’) is pure abstraction that bears little resemblance to the reality of our experience, a reality wherein we are bound up in a dynamical hostspace that is undergoing a continuing-in-the-present spatial-relational transformation." But, for this reason, mainstream physics cannot properly accept the relativity of motion. Indeed, "...what makes more sense is the buddhist aphorism, ... ‘there is no path to community harmony, community harmony is the path’ as in the bodhisattva ethic of relaxing one’s particular ‘aim’ (private agenda) so that others can attain enlightenment before you." But, for this reason, the modern physicist qua physicist, will maintain that inclusionality is unscientific, and that buddhist aphorisms could bring personal enlightenment, but it cannot be a part of science. So I think that our points of disagreement arise because we as somewhat at cross purposes. You are saying how science should be (i.e. inclusional, not technological) and I am saying what science is (i.e. metaphysical, technological). I broadly agree with you that physics should should be inclusional, in order for it to better relate to our experiences, but if I am right about the way that physics is, then it cannot become inclusional and remain as it is. We need a radical transformation of the so-called natural sciences. They cannot be reformed. Please have a look at the first chapter of my book On the Metaphysics of Experimental Physics (the chapter is available as a pdf at the link below) where I elaborate why the character of experimental physics is essentially technological. http://www.palgrave.com/products/Catalogue.aspx?is=1403945284 best regards, Karl. _____ The all-new <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail/uk/taglines/default/nowyoucan/free_from_isp/*ht tp:/us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=40565/*http:/uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html> Yahoo! Mail goes wherever you go - free your email address from your Internet provider.