Re: MR as ontological

["Tim Gwinn" <***>]

Hi John K.,

 

I need to backtrack here, because I am perhaps misunderstanding you. This entire branch of the thread began where you posted:

 

> Is there not another way to see this? That looking at quantum processes

> as a link to understanding consciousness is a way to seek consistency

> with the mechanistic view - consistency that will be necessary for any

> successful theory of consciousness. We are not talking about different

> reality claims here, but different theory constructions.

 

I'm not trying to "trap" you in your words, I just am very confused. Specifically, the above remark that "consistency with the mechanistic view" will be "necessary".

 

But, below, you say that "incommensurable scientific theories are the norm".

 

Is, then, consistency among views necessary or not? Or, did you mean something else by "consistency" in the quote that I misinterpreted?

 

It was that "consistency" as "necessary" that initially led me to respond regarding the conflicts (incommensurabilities) between Newtonian and Rosennean paradigms, and then all the rest of this branch of this thread followed.

 

Hopefully, we are approaching better understanding of each other. :)

 

Regards,

Tim

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: ROSEN Forum [mailto:***On Behalf Of John Kineman
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2003 9:44 PM
To: ***
Subject: Re: MR as ontological

Hi Tim!

I don't see the contradiction in anything below the first paragraph, in the way that I am reading it:

I think you may have accidently mis-stated the case, or perhaps misunderstood my meaning. Following the instrumentalist ethic should not be imagined as to "cease to do science and to do art"!!! That is too harsh and would be two eras behind in the philosophy of science.  If you'll excuse an incomplete history, for the casual reader's sake: In the pre-modern (classical/positivistic) era a single, consistent reality was presumed to be the achievable goal of scientific description. Modernism challenged the consistency assumption (due to quantum discoveries), proposing that reality itself was fragmented, and now we are into post-modernism which is heavily dominated by instrumental theory construction within at most, a relative realism. This restores reality to a possibly consistent whole, but makes it unknowble. Today's dominant view is that we have useful theories about what can be experienced, being unable to induce a consistently "reality" that is describable. In that, Rosen's views were ahead of their time, but should be highly relevant today if they can be more widely known. The post-modern view, as I understand it (not an expert, just try to stay as up as I can on it) extends directly (though less routinely) to instrumental world view construction, as anticipated in some of the highest epistemological traditions of Khun, Popper, and others. Suppe gives a good account. I'd avoid Dennett. It is by any count a valid and dominant scientific epistemology to propose that no world view or theory accurately represents reality, except through a modeling relation. That's also Rosen's argument, which I think you accept, so perhaps the reality issue is a paper tiger?? I mean who cares if we call it "real" or an approximation of "real" when we have only models in any case?

I myself mix instrumentalism (which I fought for a while) with a relative realism. I argue to retain the concept of a single reality as a goal (to drive scientific method), but not to attribute reality to any particular model or theory (or one could alternative think of attributing partial reality to them all, to the extent they commute with experience). So the theory is always an incomplete description of reality, and therefore must exist among a set of incomplete descriptions (instrumentalism). My caveates on instrumentalism are probably the same as yours, intended to prevent things like Ptolomy's theory of circles from being counted as equally valid science, but it was science at the time until Newton found a better explanation. Parsimony made Newton's view better science, and so it goes with the next revolution.

Also, one does not get art simply by failing at science (we might all have second careers if it were so). To elevate scientific theories to the status of art, which they do not normally achieve, they would have to evoke an emotional response that transports the viewer/reader to some exploration of the soul. Physicists have tried to do this, waxing philosophically about God and creation and so on, but I think their ability to get away with it is owed to the erroneous view that physical theory is describing some ultimate reality, rather than being, at its core, instrumental physical theory. A failed scientific theory generally fades into obscurity and is of little interest at all. Ptolemy's theory of spheres is often cited and survives in the history books because it so well demonstrates the principle of parsimony. In that sense it has become art, decorating science books. I doubt that it is a similar case with Newtonian theory. It will be around as science as long as we rely on our five senses for observation. Deeper views are needed for deeper phenomena, however, and "seeing" beyond the senses. At least that's how I currently stack it up.

 Pseudo-scientific views, like Creationism, flat Earth, Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision, or Von Daniken's "Charriots of the Gods" and other "fake" science (to cite the most common examples), achieve a status of art by virtue of their appeal to our fantasies. But these are not examples of instrumentalist theory because they begin from unwarranted assumptions. Even instrumentalism has rules for what constitutes a "reasonable assumption." In Rosen's case, I believe the assumptions are reasonable. In the case of Newtonian mechanism, the assumptions are also reasonable, given mechanical questions, because they conform to our sensory view of things. As Niels Bohr said (he was a bit broader in his vision than Einstein, I think), regardless of what reality theory we eventually come up with, we will always be interested and need to see reality in the terms we are most familiar with from experience with our senses. Bohr erroneously tried to prove correspondance between classical theory and QM and failed. This officially launched instrumental theory construction, because the idea of correspondance had to be abandoned.  The problem was thus NOT taking the classical view as instrumental - i.e., not being congnnizant of that point where its assumptions break down and where it is thus useless. I believe Rosen's view is broader in some regards, but also has points of failure that will be instructive to look at, although I suspect we will not know what they mean until a much fuller application of his view has exhausted its explanatory ability and defined its domain. That could be a long way off. So, all I'm saying is that, while I like it too, we should not repeat the mistake of thinking that we have discovered the ultimate reality - we have a better understanding perhaps.

Tim Gwinn wrote:

John,

 

I'm afraid we do have a big difference here. :) To me, to "drop the reality claim on both sides, and treat both as alternative approximations to reality", is to cease to do science and instead to do art (or something akin to art), where there are multiple incommensurable representations of reality with no schema binding them together.

incommensurable scientific theories are currently the norm, except within narrowly defined disciplines (which then appear incommensurable).

In such a case, we are no longer attempting to resolve the incommensurability between the logical corollaries of each view, we are ignoring them.

I agree with the sentiment.  I also argue for a process of synthesis, which is not routinely pursued except in physical science. But I would not criticize diversity of views on the basis of our not having achieved that synthesis. In many instances we don't know how to combine theories, so they exist side-by-side, particularly between disciplines. To risk paraphrasing Rumsfled, science is not "tidy."

 

To me, science is as it's root ("scire"="to know") suggests: it is precisely about attempting to know how the world works.

Yes, recognizing that "The map is not the territory" (Korzybsky); and that models typically don't commute with reality (Rosen).

It is the business of making claims about the world. And it rests, as Rosen cites as 'Natural Law', upon the assertions that 1) the world is not whimsical or arbitrary - there are relations among phenomena;

yes, but which is different than claims about their knowability

and 2) that these relations are detectable and can be cognized by us.

through poorly commuting models - leading often to incommensurable and paradoxical views that nevertheless have relative scientific value.

Without both of these, science itself is not feasible.

Further, these imply that there is a schema in the world to be detected and cognized.

Yes, Certainly, although we don't know that it is pre-established. It may itself be an organic product.

Nevertheless, your statements themselves do not contradict mine, given the caveats I've inserted.

 

Whether the Rosennean paradigm will by supplanted or subsumed by another paradigm at some future time certainly remains to be seen.

Yes, but is virtually guaranteed by the theory itself. Still, it hasn't supplanted other views as yet. It is still a fairly small group that is even aware of it. But in any case, our views don't conflict in this regard either, that I can see.

To the extent to which it does not rely upon any particular formalism beyond the formalism known as the Modeling Relation, and to the extent that the realm of complexity which it addresses is open-ended, and to the extent to which it consistently subsumes Newtonian, Einsteinian and QM paradigms, I find the Rosennean paradigm a sound basis for contemporary science.

So do I, in spades! So where's the disagreement??? You did not say here that you find it anything more than an alternative for understanding reality. You only said that you think it is the best one at the moment, for describing the kinds of things we are interested in. I agree on behalf of my interests as well. But that is not a reality claim. Similarly, I I don't accord reality to mechanisms, but am fairly sure that anyone who does manual work, repairs a car or house,  will be proximally engaged in following Newtonian theory and will involve Rosennean views only in regard to managing the project (because that is the part that deals with the living components). This is what instrumental theory construction states, that different theories are useful for different purposes.

Love and Peace,

John K.