----- Original Message -----
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.
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