Pete, I'd like to commend you on an excellent statement here.
JK
Pete Giansante wrote:
In my experience, what physicists really think is likely to evoke as
much controversy among themselves as the discussions on this list evoke
about "what physicists really think". Sometimes the controversy among
physicists gets pretty heated...even downright nasty. That reflects on
the personalities involved. I have deep disagreements with some of my
physicist colleagues, but among those of us who have decided that none
of those disagreements are worth the destruction of productive
relationships, we do our best to remain open. No one has a lock on the
truth. Any physicist who has any credibility with me retains the
ability to be humbled by what he doesn't know, which dwarfs what he
does know.
As for RR's attitude toward physics and physicists, I honestly never
got the impression that he ever intended any criticism or indictment of
any part of physics that is useful. Chapter 7 of Anticipatory Systems
remains one of the best treatises on the subject of scientific
epistemology I've ever read, and it that piece RR pays proper credit to
the Newtonian paradigm. He neither canonizes it nor demonizes it.
I believe I've read enough of RR's criticisms of "contemporary physics"
to understand what he is criticizing, and I believe that the point of
his criticism is less about criticism per se than it is
about the epistemological shortcomings of the dominant scientific
paradigm, which simply cannot tell us much about complex systems. Seems
reasonable to me, but not everyone gets what RR is saying; some of the
people who don't get it are physicists, and some are biologists. So?
All that says is that they don't see a way in which the things RR is
saying have any particular relevance to what interests them.
I like what Steve Johnson said in describing what he proposed as being
a likely favorable reaction to RR's work among physicists (I'm
paraphrasing from memory here): "Wow...that's really an elegant
perspective. (shrug) Now, back to work on crunching these numbers..."
If one doesn't see any immediate applicability of RR's work to one's
own work, then regardless of the elegance of its philosophical
arguments, its influence will be limited to a slower, less coherent,
more indirect transformation of one's view of the epistemology of
science. Nevertheless, it will have an influence.
If one takes a more philosophical approach to the way one views science
as a whole—as a process for acquiring useful knowledge about the
universe in which we live—I think RR's work holds great promise as
pointer to the kind of "new physics" that Schrodinger and Einstein
proposed as necessary to take our comprehension beyond anything the
current paradigms can provide. I think that, far from attacking physics
and physicists in general, RR used Schrodinger and Einstein as examples
of 20th century physicists who clearly recognized the limitations of
"contemporary physics"—who challenged their fellow physicists to be
open to epistemological growth that would make physics a more universal
and more useful science.
At least, that's my take on it. Others have their own opinions. I know
two other physicists who have read Essays on Life Itself
from cover to cover on my recommendation. Each liked different parts,
and both were interested in parts other than the ones that interested
me most. Both thought that RR makes valid points about scientific
epistemology, and particularly about the limitations of existing
scientific paradigms. That's a small sampling of physicists, but those
results are consistent with what I already knew: "what physicists
really think" is not monolithic.
I also like Howard's post representing the way physicists (good ones,
anyway) are likely to respond to some of Judith's statements that
Howard quoted in that same post. Those responses are consistent with
RR's perspective, as I understand it. As a physicist, I recognize some
of the attitudes that RR criticizes in some of my colleagues, some of
whom appear to enjoy being in the limelight. That's their prerogative,
but as to whether they accurately represent the attitudes and
perspectives of most physicists...that's a matter of speculation. My
guess is that they don't.
So, while it might be true that the majority of physicists may not
avidly embrace RR's work—and even those that do might not find it
immediately applicable in their own work—I believe that there is
perhaps less fundamental incongruence between the epistemological
perspective inherent in what most physicists really think and RR's own
perspective than some of the debate on this forum might suggest.
Pete
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