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I was looking at some of my father's writings on information and
followed the logic into the next set of ideas which was on genericity (which
aspects of a system are particular and which aspects are universals that can be
applied to all sorts of different systems) and the related concept of surrogacy
(substituting one system for another for study such that when you learn about
one, it teaches certain things about the other; as in using laboratory rats to
learn about human cancer risks). The following was what most caught my
attention:
"Science, especially physics, claims to concern itself exclusively with
objective, context-independent things, completely divorced from the
subjectivities arising from a "structuring mind." In its simplest form, this
asserts that only particular things are real, and that we learn about them
through enumeration of their adjectives."
He was making comparisons between the use of language and
substituting the word "adjectives" for various aspects of systems that describe
the system, which would have the designation in language here; "noun". (If
our noun is"dress" then "dress" is the system, to which "red" is
an adjective, "large" is an adjective, "silk" is an adjective... even though
these aspects we are referring to can be other than adjectives in their own
right. Silk and red are also nouns in language, for
example).
"Anything else is the province of theory. (Parenthetically, however, we
may note that it is adjectives that are directly cognized as phenomena, and the
nouns they modify are already products of a "structuring mind".)
According to this view, a 'set' of such particulars is not itself a
particular, and accordingly is allowed no such objective reality. Therefore,
anything based on the formation and properties of such sets is, strictly
speaking, outside the province of objective science. In particular,
classifications such as the periodic table or Linnaean taxonomy constitute mere
subjective intrusions superimposed on the particulars they assort and classify.
We learn nothing objective about a chemical element bycalling it a halogen,
nothing objective about an organism bycalling it a vertebrate. Such adjectives,
pertaining to sets, rather than exclusively to the things themselves, convey no
'objective' information about the particulars to which they refer.
Indeed, strict impiricists quite rightly feel that admission of such
subjective classifications into their science, although of course they do it all
the time, is to open a Pandora's box. Once we start forming sets, relations, and
classifications on the basis of how particulars look or behave, there is no
stopping. We might, for instance, note a basis for relating systems of entirely
different character, such as an organism and a dynamical system (ie; establish a
relation between a material and a mathematical system). And even, ultimately,
use such a relation to obtain information about the one in terms of the
behaviors of the other. From a viewpoint of strict empiricism, such
possibilities are simply monstrous.
Let us look at these matters a bit more closely. An empiricist,
concerned with particulars such as water, oil, and air, which he will for
convenience collect together as "fluids," has no trouble with phrases such as
'turbulent water' 'turbulent oil', and 'turbulent air'. Here, the adjective
'turbulent' correctly modifies a particular noun to which our impiricist will
grant an objective status, or reality. But suppose we turn these phrases around,
to yield 'water turbulence', 'oil turbulence', and 'air turbulence'. We are now
treating the "turbulence" as if it were an objective thing, and the water, oil,
and air as instantiations or adjectives of it. To treat this "turbulence" as if
it were a thing in itself, to be studied apart from any specific instantiation,
and indeed, capable of telling us new things about these particulars, is
intolerable to the empiricist.
Such an interchange between nouns and adjective provided, for instance,
the basis for Schrodinger's question, What is life?. An orthadox empirical
biologist finds such a question meaningless-- 'life' and 'living' are harmless
adjectives applied to certain kinds of material systems, conveying information
about them. But Schrodinger's question turns everything upside down; it turns
life into a thing, and any particular organism into an instantiation of specimen
or adjective of life."
He goes on to conclude:
"Strict empiricists see such considerations as nonsensical at best,
hopelessly metaphysical at worst. To grant independent existence to an
adjective, to treat it as a noun, involves a mode of analysis they cannot admit.
They are willing to partition a noun into other nouns, a process akin to
resolving a mixture into pure substances. But the relation between a noun and an
adjective is more subtle than that; in particular, it cannot be regarded as a
mixture in this sense. There is no 'empirical, physical' process capable of
making such a separation, and therefore it falls outside experimental analytic
modes by its very nature. Not, for that matter, is there a 'synthetic', inverse
procedure for producing a noun that realizes a given adjective (eg; 'living') by
simple juxtapositions, or the creation of mixtures. Indeed, there is something
inherently 'non-generic' about what can be done by pursuing such simple-minded,
syntax-based strategies, on the grounds that only these must be accorded
objective status. It is the possibility of such interchanges between particular
nouns and their adjectives that provides the basis for concepts of
'surrogacy'."
In the above passage, from Essays on Life, Itself, my father was
phrasing things in a very characteristic way: He would first describe the way
the current thinking in science is approaching matters, going into deep detail
about why and how they think the way they do. Often, he can make it seem very
sensible and it's sometimes difficult to figure out where his opinions lie. That
is, it's difficult... until you get to the punchline at the end where, in
the final paragraphs, he turns everything upside down, shows you where the holes
in the thinking are, and lays waste to the prejudices that have been hemming
science in for so long.
When I first started reading my father's work, I had to get used to
that sequence, because I was always getting confused about what he was trying to
say until I got to the end of each passage. His intention was not to "come out
swinging" or start a fight. His intention was to show science the way he found
it, show why it was the way it was, show his own analysis of the situation, and
THEN sum up his own conclusions at the end. It's an intelligent way to do
things, but I've had people tell me they wish he had stated his conclusions at
the beginning, and then let the rest of the book do all the other parts. They
think he would have gotten a wider audience by doing so. Any opinions from the
group on that subject? Or the discussion contained in the above
passage?
Judith
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