----- Original Message -----
Sent: 25 May 2006 21:19
Subject: Science and Wisdom-Inquiry
Hi Alan,
I liked your allusion to 'Dr Who and the Cybermen'. As I argued in On
The Metaphysics of Experimental Physics, the science of cybernetics is
the culmination of the positivist interpretation of both science and
Nature, which ultimately reduces the ontology of the natural world to the
contours abstracted from the interaction between human interventions and
machine performances. The scientific realist 'logic of discovery' is thereby
represented as being the process of explaining technological innovation in
terms of the realisation and exercise of natural mechanisms in material
practices. This means that a distinction is maintained between
science-as-description and science-as-explanantion (manifested in terms of the
empiricist vs. realist debate), while the scientific methodology remains one
of designing, constructing, and mapping out machine performances.
Largely my criticisms of science are directed to
the unquestioning acceptance that the experimental sciences (such as
physics, chemistry, genetics, biochemistry, neuroscience, etc.) are natural
sciences. To the extent that other sciences (including some of the social
sciences) model themselves on the experimental sciences, then these should be
included as well. As I am sure that you agree, I think that this has
profound implications for how life is understood by the biological
sciences.
Increasingly, biology has become dominated by genetics and biochemistry
because these fit into the technological framework, reducing life to a set of
fundamental machine performances, and provides machine prototypes (in exchange
for funding) to satisfy the commerical, military, and civic ambitions of those
who fund scientific research.
My concern (discussed in Modern Science and the Capriciousness of
Nature) is the way that the metaphysical foundation of
experimental science, which I term as mechanical realism, and the underlying
societal gamble in the goodness of a technological society over the natural
world, 'naturalises' the development of the
industrial-military-university complex as being a rational consequence of
natural evolution and, hence, the dominant conceptions of 'rationality' and
the human good life are placed in the service of a social elite and its
interests in such a way as to represent it as the only rational basis for
human existence. All resistance and opposition to the 'progress' of industrial
capitalism (especially in the so-called Third World) is represented as being a
product of either resentment or an irrational romanticism.
As you know, during my time at Bath University, I have become aware of
your research and ideas about inclusionality. It is a view that I am very
sympathetic to and interesting in. I have not responded to your emails in this
forum largely because I wanted to leave a space for others (perhaps who were
not familiar with your ideas) to respond and discuss them with you.
While I think that there are interesting directions in non-linear
mathematics and visualisation that have bearing on your ideas, what I
personally find most appealing is that, by appealing to the spatial and
temporal situatedness of the observer, it seems to me that your ideas about
inclusionality call for something of a return to natural history and
phenomenological narrative, which, in my view, provides the basis for a
deeper and more scientific relation with the natural world. I think that the
development of the technosciences was an impoverishment of human
understanding of the natural world. Alternatively, situated phenomenological
narratives have been painstakingly developed through centuries of natural
history and careful observation of nature-as-it-seems. The problem was that
the whole concept of objectivity has become one of reproduction in controlled
conditions -- which transforms natural beings into sets of machine
performances which are amenable to quantification and interventions. AAs a
result of this fundamental transformation in the character of observation, it
seems to me that biological science has become completely
disinterested in the natural world and is obsessed with
technological innovation.
While I find your ideas about inclusionality to be convincing, as I have
said in previous converstations with you, my only point of disagreement with
your position is that you let the dominant technoscientific paradigm
have too much sway on the nature of rationality. Hence, you position
inclusionality in opposition to rationality. I think that you concede too much
by doing this. It seems to me that there is a strong argument that
positivistic science is irrational, if we adopt a much broader and deeper
conception of rationality, within which an ongoing critical reflection of
the fundamental presuppositions and assumptions of science are essential for
any claim for the rationality of science. And it seems to me that there is a
strong argument that your ideas about the importance of examining the need for
inclusionality in biological science is itself a consequence of your
rational investigation into the foundations of biological science.
What do you think?
Karl.
Dear Nick, Karl and all,
I feel in close correspondence with what Karl is, I think,
saying here about how its coupling with technology sustains orthodox
science as a form of supernaturalism, alienated from natural process,
in a manner that is alluded to in science fiction stories like 'Dr Who and
the Cybermen'.
I also feel close kinship with the view that the role of
philosophy is to reveal and explore the implications of underlying
assumptions, and, where these assumptions are found to be wanting in terms
of their representation of natural process, to explore ways in
which more representative premises could be developed. This is what I
have been attempting in my teaching and research.
Notwithstanding the deafening silence that has followed my
recent communications with this forum, I continue to feel that there is a
mutually beneficial connection to be made with my/our explorations of
'inclusionality'. So, perhaps against my better judgement, I am responding
to what has been said in this thread.
Yesterday, I thought of two very simple
statements of the distinction between rationalistic and inclusional
enquiry:
1. The logical premise of inclusional enquiry is that
natural form is
primarily fluid dynamic (space-including) and
hence non-linear, continually transforming (simultaneously and reciprocally
receptive and responsive), and not completely definable at any
scale.
2. The logical premise of rationalistic enquiry is that
natural form is
primarily fixed (space-excluding) and hence
linear and completely definable at any scale, so that change (action and
reaction in sequential time) is dependent on the imposition
of external
force.
So the question is: which logical premise and mode of enquiry
makes sense
of our full human experience and is actually supported by
contemporary scientific
evidence? And which ultimately makes nonsense
and is supported only by belief in a
visual illusion, self-sustained by
technological development? And which includes space for emotional response
in a dynamic (living) context?
Sorry to be so persistent.
Best
Alan
