Hi NoMan;
great hearing back from you.
I also like the connection between Schroedinger's and Pandora's respective boxes, neither of which is purely evil. Pandora's box still had hope in it, even though she closed the box before it came out. It’s still there, and those of us with a consistent practice still manage to dig that hope out of her box. Schroedinger's box has a cat that is in a sense both dead and alive; so there's hope, too (50% hope for the cat, 50% hope for the taxidermist?). I love cats with a passion. I would be the crazy cat lady, if both me and the hubby weren't allergic to cat dander. One of life's ironies, I guess. So I have to be the non-crazy non-cat lady instead. There are good witches, too, I believe, or are those merely a more modern, new-age feminist invention?
It delights me that you find my writing clever, even though I hope that the cleverness is merely a vehicle for something more. I’ve seen cleverness in many forms, show-offy, trying to make other people feel inferior, hunting for approval, things like that. I hope that my cleverness isn’t any of those things, but that it instead is merely preparing a path for true wisdom. I know that’s asking a lot.
Our Paleolithic ancestors must have hypothesized and conducted experiments. Someone had to invent the atlatl. Edith Hamilton describes ancient myths as man’s first attempt at science. Some might say the ancient Greeks started it by taking a hard headed look at nature, divorced of mysticism.
It always seems to me that people like Hamilton, who look at myths as merely some kind of primitive proto-science, don't have a good understanding of mythology. It seems to me as if they are missing they point of what mythology can be. I don't think its function (for wise people, of course there've always been confused literalists) is
explaining anything. Mythology is about connection not analysis. Mythology allows us to crack the code of our own subconscious images, but not in order to explain the material world but in order to access our own psychological depths and grow. Of course such a narrow view on my part is going to tick off the occasional "I am ok, you are ok" exegetical relativist, but, hey, that's ok. Of course, from a certain point of view, you can also use "Hero with a Thousand Faces" to swat flies, but if that's all an owner of the book would ever do with it, he or she would miss out on so much.... Hamilton kind of got on my bad side, when she was quoted in a history of psychology class I took last semester as saying the following:
Hamilton as paraphrased by my history of psychology professor: Edith Hamilton, in her book, the Greek Way, argues that there is one prevailing characteristic of modern man, his faith in reason and his ability to create desirable personal and social changes. Hamilton contends that this modern role in man can be traced to beginnings in Greece. The Greeks, she argues, are really modern. For this reason, the first major period we will examine is that of the early Greeks.
But why was Greek culture more advanced than the earlier African development, mainly in Egypt, where culture existed some 1000 years prior to that of Greek civilization? Were not Egyptian and even Chinese cultural advancements prior to those in Greek culture? Hamilton maintains that Egyptian and Chinese cultures were more Eastern in origin, and Eastern thought is representative of more primitive thinking than is Greek culture.
Some students have objected to the word "primitive," thinking that it has a negative connotation. While "primitive" has been used pejoratively, as in his primitive i instincts got the better of him," recall that the root stem is "prime" meaning "first," "origins," "beginnings," "original"first in in rank, degree, importance excellence, of highest quality, as in "prime rib" or "prime" wheat.
What characterizes modern thought? Hamilton maintains that modern man is not necessarily characterized as simply having a more recent chronology or identified by an arbitrary division of years or centuries. Rather, modern thought involves an awareness of oneself as an individual and one's role in society; it is the capacity to analyze situations and to act in accordance with principles derived from past experience. Mainly, modern thinking places faith in the rational side of man. Some third force psychologists, in rejecting this, advocate a more irrational approach. But the very decision that spiritual, mystical, or religious modes of existence are more desirable than materialistic or naturalistic approaches to life is arrived at by some intellectual or rational point of view.
Even though I disagree somewhat with much of both Hamilton’s view and my teacher’s interpretation of it, I can see that she has a few points. But this describes the birth of “rationalism” or “modernism,” if you so want, not the birth of “science.” One can use scientific methodology and still humbly feel to be a small part of a larger world order, completely mythologically in tune with oneself or Gaia or God or All That Is or whatever one chooses to call It. That’s where I feel most fundamentalists (as well as some of the radical, rabid take-no-prisoners Atheists such as Dawkins) take a wrong turn, that they think it’s an “either-or” proposition. It isn’t, in my opinion.
Science is more than simply rational thinking. Philosophy wouldn’t exist without rational thinking either, but science is using rational thinking and then is adding empiricism to it, connecting the thought with the material world, helping us determine if the thought is merely a pretty idea or has some practical, ontological, or epistemological (rather than simply aesthetic or idealistic) value. Without empiricism, we conduct philosophy rather than science. Nothing wrong with philosophy, but we have to be careful to not mislabel what we do, lest we might confuse ourselves and others. Empiricism is a relatively new invention. Yes, I’m sure whatever stone age dude or dudette came up with the wheel did so though trial, error, and observation. But he or she didn’t so explicitly. It was not yet an actual “method.” Francis Bacon was the first who explicitly formulized the ideas of empiricism as well as some of the logical fallacies that obscure our thinking and get in the way, therefore laying the foundation for all that I now call “science” (which has been so successful in coming up with results that it’s even imitated and parodied by pseudo-scientists—the most sincere form of compliment as some say).
The greeks started examining the natural world, but Bacon was the first who proposed and explained inductive thinking. That was the quantum leap in human consciousness that birthed the scientific method. Thomas Aquinas managed to balance theology and Aristotle’s writings, but Aristotle was using deductive logic not induction (collecting large amounts of data, finding patterns, coming up with general rules based on what we find, using experimentation to verify or falsify those rules) as Francis Bacon did. That was the great innovation. Everything before then was philosophy rather than science.
But for every well known name I could list there are hundreds of lesser names known to historians. And for every name known to historians there must have been thousands that are unknown, obscure friars whose work was never published.
Good point. That's one of my beefs with history... it seems so random, because our knowledge of it is based on bits and pieces that happened to be recorded and collected and preserved, leaving so much else out that fell prey to fires, fanatics, and simple decay, I'm sure. Also, what about cultures with only verbal transmission... Who knows how many more precious insights we are missing out on because some languages die out and with them the his and her-stories of those cultures?
He was into astrology.
Not according to these sources:
http://www.phys.uu.nl/~vgent/astrology/newton.htm
http://www.sakshitimes.com/index.php?op ... &Itemid=42
He certainly seemed to have been fascinated with theology (a fascination that I share), but all available evidence seems to point towards his supposed practice of astrology being a (convenient for believers in and sellers of astrology) misinterpretation of Newton's attitude and ideas.
I don’t have an answer as to exactly when science officially began. But it doesn’t seem right to take one of the very few extraordinary events in the history of science and say it all started right there. Did Buddhism begin just after Siddartha Guatama lived? Did Christianity spring into existence just after Jesus was crucified? These things take time to foment.
True. By pinpointing one particular spot, I’m oversimplifying. Besides, no matter how important one particular idea is, if one person doesn’t get a chance to have it, another, in a different time and place is likely to. Some ideas simply emerge because their time has come, and the person credited for them might be simply the one putting pen to paper at that time. Had he not, the idea would have still manifested itself in other ways. At least that’s how the progressive optimist in me sees it.
People were interested in the new technology they saw around them; the telegraph, the steam engine, and railroad were changing the world. […] Today, we are absolutely immersed in science. When we look through the newspaper or watch the news we are constantly confronted with science and the scientific method as our guide, whether it is a murder trial, or global warming, or genetic engineering, or sociological studies, or transportation safety, or diet and health, or energy options, or weapons design, or PTSD in soldiers, or ADS in children. It might be said that we are drowning in science.
Yes, but most people did (and many still do) look at it more as a form of magic. We press a button and something happens. "Wow" (if we are of the excited type) or "so what" (if we constitutionally tend to take things for granted). True scientific literacy is still rather rare, even in the industrialized world. But I feel in today's world, we can no longer afford that kind of attitude. There are so many different claims clamoring for our attention that basic science literacy is no longer something that should be left to a geeky elite, I feel, but is a survival skill. And our schools are woefully failing this responsibility, it seems. And most U.S. Americans have other things to worry about. Most polls to the topic that I come across seem to show science to be in most U.S. Americans' minds to be a luxury to be considered long after reading, 'riting, 'rithmetics, and trying to keep kids from stabbing and shooting one another.
The techniques used in the late 19th century in archaeology, for example, would not be considered science today, but more like treasure hunting and grave robbing.
I feel similarly about the beginnings of psychology (and even some more recent pseudo-scientific developments such as Freud-inspired “recovered memory” therapists who managed to get people accused and jailed for outrageous and years later conclusively disproven claims just by asking children leading questions and then not bothering looking for any additional physical evidence of the alleged abuse.): treasure hunting and grave robbing in the mythological sense. Disclaimer: I’m not saying all abuse memories are fabrications but that one has to be extremely cautious and skilled when interviewing potential victims, lest one risks planting distortions and false memories. See Elizabeth Loftus' work, if you are interested in finding out more.
http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/A ... ytoday.htm
I can’t help but think of science as a recent phenomenon – even though, some of the most spectacular breakthroughs were made many centuries ago.
Ooops. There I am so bound to try and convince you that I almost missed that you and I are essentially saying exactly the same thing…
Another way to think of the newness of science is to look at the proliferation of science fiction. In many ways sci-fi has taken the place of fairy tales. And it is a 20th century phenomenon.
It is also interesting to see how most of sci-fi (and I’m speaking as a fan here, not trying to snub the genre) has a slant that either glorifies/idolizes or demonizes/blames science. There are few stories, it seems, that have a balanced view of science.
Not only do I see science as being new, but I see it as part of the myth we are living, as science and scientists guide and characterize our culture. And yet, it is said that we are over 90% science illiterate. There is this disconnect between the wizards of this esoteric knowledge and the general public. This scientific illiteracy shows itself even in politicians.
Yes, which is where I find it scariest. How is somebody supposed to make sound choices for a country and its inhabitants, who has to rely on predigested information of his advisors on such important topics as science, matter, and physical reality rather than using his own sound judgment, essentially jumping to conclusions without any solid foundation of which to jump off (other than his own unqualified opinions)? Scary indeed (and in deed)! Another problem I see is many people’s ignorance about their ignorance. Is that always a characteristic of ignorance that it doesn’t recognize itself or are there other people out there who go, hey, I know next to nothing about this, but one simply can’t know everything and at least I’m aware of the limits of my knowledge? Maybe that’s the difference between humility and ignorance, the former is self-aware and the latter isn’t.
I guess the whole leaving it up to some wizard to do their thing and hoping I get something out of it, too, is a basic human trait. Not just in the area of science but also in spirituality and pretty much anywhere else do I see people who try to get the goodies without the work needed to get there, hoping somebody else will do the work for them and then, in return, giving that person power (and, in good old hero-sacrifice tradition, trying to periodically shoot ‘em down for it).
It seems the negative aspects of science are manifest but we, as a society aren’t taking advantage of the positive aspects.
Is that true? In the industrialized world, we benefit greatly from science on so many fronts. We don’t hunger because of modern agricultural methods, we live longer, and many of the diseases that killed our ancestors are merely a side note of our lives today. Instead of not taking advantage of the positive aspects, what I see is taking advantage but not wanting to pay the price (alienation, pollution, etc.). Look at all the daily things we take for granted. Mass transportation. Seemingly unlimited access to information at the touch of a few buttons. And so on. Each of those comes with its own sacrifices and drawbacks. But without science literacy, it is hard to distinguish which of the problems around us are real and which are just puffed up fantasies of people in the business of stirring up panic. So, how can we make good and responsible choices under those conditions? One of my pet peeves are internet based discussions between mothers about pediatric issues such as vaccinations. There is a lot of fear and misinformation out there amongst those who consider themselves science critics, but at the same time there are other moms who simply trust that everything is ok. Neither demonizing nor romanticizing scientists helps. And to try and criticize something without true understanding isn’t helpful at all. It simply adds to the overall noise and makes things worse. It seems to me that we are a society of spoiled brats who simply want something for nothing. That’s not how the world works. Everything, even the most honorable things, comes at a price.
So the question would be, what knowledge does Mary lack rather than what knowledge has Mary gained after leaving her black and white room?
Or what is the difference between knowing about something and experiencing it. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the experiment, but to me that seems to be the core of it. Experience is not just a choice. There is a physiological component to it, and that component matures as a result of our interaction with appropriate stimuli. Experiencing is a learned skill, but the learning that takes place to prepare us for it is different from the type of learning that creates (book) knowledge. The awe I feel when seeing a rainbow is different from the fascination that graps me when learning about prisms and wavelengths of color, which itself again differs from the content of the information that fascinates me. Experience and fascination are highly individual. Your experience of a rainbow differs from my experience of a rainbow. My experience of today’s rainbow differs from my experience of another rainbow tomorrow or yesterday. But the wave lengths of light that comprise the rainbow are objectively measurable and the same every time. Neither experience nor knowledge trumps the other. To think so would be like arguing what makes a better breakfast, toast or jam. Each of us might have different preferences, but most of us might enjoy the combination of toast and jam more than the individual components.
But will she record that she has gained knew knowledge about such things she knew everything about through books, lectures, and documentaries? Will she?
If she tries to, she will notice that words and formulas fail her to describe the complete experience. That’s where mythology comes in handy. It’s the language of experience, just as math and logic are the language of science. To try and take those experiences and distill their scientific meaning out of them would in fact be pointlessly reductionist. To pick one of those experiences and examine one aspect of it might be scientific but wouldn’t at all be descriptive or reminiscent of that experience. That week would always be with her, because it would have transformed her way of looking at life, but to try and capture the essence of that transformation with one single person’s scientific methods would be pointless. If Mary is both smart and wise, she will know that. So, yes, my vote would be for her to put the scientific journal away for a moment or two and to allow herself time and room to digest this avalanche of experiences. Poetry wouldn’t be a bad idea.
A smooth transition would look something like this:
1.) Physics
2.) Chemistry
3.) Biology (including psychophysiology)
4.) Mathematics
5.) Economics
6.) Research Psychology
7.) Sociology
8.) Political science
9.) Cultural anthropology
10.) Applied/Clinical Psychology
11.) History
12.) Literature
13.) Fine Arts
14.) Philosophy
15.) Religion and spirituality.
O.K. (with the proposed amendments, in bold). Where would you place the discipline of medicine on this continuum?
I know it’s tempting to want to say that science is science and bad science is not science. […]Any science that includes the human psyche, such as economics, cultural anthropology, and psychology has to contend with the Mary Problem in one way or another. We can’t know what it feels like to see the colors of the rainbow if we have never seen colors.
Yes, that is correct. But to contend with the problem doesn’t mean to give up on sound methods. I believe it makes sound methodology even more important, first and foremost knowing of the limits of what a specific experiment can or can’t find out. Again, that’s why a good research psychologist uses large data sets, lots and lots of people. We can still make scientific statements about a forest, even though no two trees are ever the same. But if we look at enough trees, then we can distinguish the pattern of larger cause-effect relationships from the background noise of individual differences. The scientist and the poet ask different questions. Neither of the two perspectives is superior to the other. They are simply different. The scientist might look at the forest and is attempting to determine, through experiments and observation, if acidic rain in fact kills trees or not. She might work together with the economist who, in cooperation with engineers and politicians, looks at the feasibility of trying to save those trees or change the surrounding industries towards something more sustainable if the trees are in fact threatened by said acid rain. But the poet, who describes the beauty of the individual tree and whose heart aches for each tree that dies, or the Zen practitioner who simply sits under it, opening herself up for the possibility of saving all beings, take another approach. Neither of these approaches is entirely true or false. They all hold important puzzle pieces. But without the scientists’ harsh and reductionist look, the poet might not have much to write about in the future.
But the universe that we live in and our experience of it does not lend itself to this simple distinction.
No, this is not an intuitive distinction but a learned one, in itself dualistic rather than experiential.
And we can’t know what it is like to be a Yamomami, or a Trobriand Islander - or what it was like to live in 16th century Europe. We can ask them, or read what they wrote. But they have and had different values based on unique ‘subjective’ experiences. And to project our values onto them is to see them through a contorted lens. Hence, we have the vague concept of value relativism.
Yes. To me the biggest problem is not that of differences in experience but of intellectual colonialism (a term I just made up, in order to nail down what I’m trying to say). We’re not very good at listening to each other. I believe that philosophically, we do have a lot to learn from other culture’s member’s experiences, and our culture totally sucks at that, because we tend to be very arrogant about our own way of living and perceiving. But that has nothing to do with science. Science, when conducted properly, transcends individual differences. If conducted humbly and with awareness, it might even, on a case by case basis, transcend arrogance. If somebody who comes from a vastly different cultural background conducts the same experiment I do and achieves a different result, then I have found a good reason to suspect that my methodology is in this case vulnerable to bias. So I have to restructure my method and conduct a new and improved experiment. But I don’t throw out science altogether, as some humanists propose. At its purest, science values everything equally. Of course, it is important to limit what we examine and how we examine it by looking at the ethics of our goals and methods. Still, even here, religion doesn’t seem to work too well for us, because religions, when applied to more than one person, tend to contort our lens and tend to be culturally myopic. So, instead, I would encourage using philosophical ethics rather than religiously colored ones.
One example:
http://www.csicop.org/si/2004-09/scientific-ethics.html
One of the problems we have as a culture in terms of knowledge acquisition is that ideas born in the harder sciences migrate through the soft sciences toward the humanities with its human values. For example, Darwin publishes Origin of Species in 1859 and by the end of the century people are thinking in terms of ‘Social Darwinism’. It was a horrible concept.
Yes. And this migration tends to distort what the idea is actually about. I wonder how many passionate creationists are actually defending their religion against “Social Darwinism,” not realizing that they’re beating on a straw-man and misinterpretation rather than understanding the scientific perspective at evolution.
And if you saw that film ‘What the Bleep do we Know? you’ll see a claim that our decisions can determine the outcome of the physical world.
Yes, I saw and disliked that movie greatly. Mostly because it presented itself as scientific (with little graphs and animations) but, if you dig further, is actually a propaganda piece for a new age cult. It’s insincere. Also, I was annoyed at the message that we only need to think “right,” and then we won’t ever need psycho-active medications. I was co-monitoring and peer-counseling on a message board for people with uni- and bi-polar depression at the time. Many of the members there were already on shaky ground with their decisions to keep taking their meds, and for some of them the difference would be extreme (complete loss of control and of social, professional, and personal responsibility, as well as dramatic tendencies towards ruthless self-destruction when off meds versus a chance for humble yet "boring" happiness when on them). So, I found the scene, in which the main character throws her meds into the trash can (besides, what do you do throwing prescription meds into a trash can that can be accessed by children??) to live happily ever after, extremely offensive. What worries me is that several, otherwise caring and responsible people actually recommended the movie to me, because they liked it. It was a really good lithmus test for science literacy amongst the people I knew. Those who had some kind of background in science or engineering loathed the movie; those who didn’t were impressed by it.
In all three of these cases there is some truth, some small precious quantity of truth. But problems persist because life will not fall neatly into categories of science and nonscience.
Life doesn’t, but methods generally do.
But how the devil are you going to put a scientific frame around romantic love. It’s a testament to our immersion in science that you think there should be such a frame.
Actually, I don’t think that. My problem with Gray is that he pretends he comes from a scientific angle by proudly presenting his mail order PhD. Also, he claims that
all men are “from Mars” and
all women are “from Venus.” So, he’s making generalized claims, which are the essence of science. So, he’s the one claiming to be a scientist and therefore opening himself up to being measured with (and falling short by) science’s standards. I would have no problem at all with him, were he simply to write poetry or autobiographical essays about his own relationships, hoping that some of it will resonate with other people. But he doesn’t stick to that but is instead attempting to make statements about all of humanity that he presents as scientific, therefore making money of other people’s trust and ignorance.
I think of Carl Jung as being the most successful straddler of all, with one foot in science and one foot in the humanities and religion.
I don’t consider him a scientist at all but rather a philosopher. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy and find what he came up with incredibly inspiring. In my eyes, there can be a fruitful cooperation between philosophers and scientists, in that philosophers come up with the grand, innovative ideas, while it’s up to the scientists to, empirically and painstakingly, find out which of those ideas have some form of material/demographical representation and reproducibility, and which are simply crapshots or pretty forms of literary fiction.
The pop-psychology, that took-off in the 1970s, I believe, is less about science and more about mythology / religion. It is weighted toward the humanities.
Are you sure it’s about mythology and religion and not just about making money? I guess I’m a bit jaded by the fact that I did interact with a new age publisher in 1999. Even though they did see themselves as spiritually oriented, they had no intention of staying true to what I wanted to write about. Instead, they kept nudging me towards what they wanted me to write about that would "sell well." There was much interest in making money, and very little interest in finding truth (scientific, spiritual, personal, or otherwise). I compromised for a while, figuring, hey, the second book will be what I actually believe in, but as I told you before, the project (fortunately) never came to completion.
Always a pleasure,
Julia