The physicist Arthur Zajonc provides us with his view of science that gives me hope for the future
Science can lead us away from reality into abstractions. It is too easy for the model to take over from the reality it is supposed to represent. The lived experience of the phenomenal world often takes a back seat. Zajonc gives us a couple of examples where the model dominates. The genetic code is one, and the neuroscience of the brain as a representative of the mind is another. If we are not careful our models become idols and the living reality is forgotten.
From a radio documentary featuring Arthur Zajonc he gives his views on Goethe’s science:
If you look at the actual practice that he undertakes it is I think faithful to the core principles of science, namely, it is empirically grounded, it proceeds from one methodical experience to the next, and it comes to a kind of insight, a moment of aperçu, of discovery.
He thinks that all good science proceeds in the way Goethe describes. It begins with insight. An example of which is Newton connecting a falling apple with the movement of the moon.
Here he discusses the relationship between spirituality and science and our understanding of knowledge.
He believes that spirituality should be a part of science just as it is found within religion.
We believe that some significant aspect of “spirit” actually resides on and activates both sides of this mapped polarity…
The polarity he is talking about is that between reason/knowledge/science on one side and faith/belief/religion on the other.
He states further:
For us, spirituality is a term which bears on the most encompassing view of life and human engagements. Our objective is therefore to provide an account of how this may be so. Following advice given by Owen Barfield, we seek to distinguish, but not to divide. (Barfield, Owen 1971)
IMO the practice of science is becoming too compartmentalised, too specialised, where the specialists become something akin to high priests of their selective knowledge.
Our children need to be educated in a scientific method in which all can participate and learning can be seen as an ongoing, enjoyable experience which fills them with wonder, not as a set of hurdles to jump over in order to secure a job at the finish line.
When these comments are made, I always ask to show the fruitfull intersection of spirituality and science.
It’s all bullshit.
But it is your (CharlieM’s) kind of BS.
Zajonc is talking philosophy. He seems confused on the distinction between science and philosophy.
We don’t see much of that kind of philosophy in universities — maybe it’s there in continental philosophy, though I never looked into that. Perhaps we need more of that kind of philosophy.
Zajonc’s mistake is to think that you can do science that way.
I’m curious as to the argument that the model dominates (presumably this is bad) in the genetic code.
Sorry, Charle, but Zajonc sounds like a nut; we have many examples of elderly scientists who go off the deep end, and here is another. He seems only one step removed from Madam Blavatsky, though that may not be a problem for you.
I know Continental philosophy really well. It’s not really there.
Maybe there’s something close in phenomenology: Husserl’s late phenomenology where he talks about the conflict between science and “the life-world” (Lebenswelt), Heidegger on the priority of practical engagements over disengaged speculations, and Merleau-Ponty on the contradictions of “objective thought”.
I like phenomenology, but the anti-scientism has never appealed to me. I prefer to think about science as a mode of practical engagement rather as something other than practical engagements.
It’s not really clear what he’s trying to do, other than to say that the model isn’t the phenomenon. Easy to say, not so easy to truly realize that there’s still an unexplained phenomenon even after you have “explained it.” But I can’t see that he’s really confusing science and philosophy, more like realizing that creativity is something apart from physics. In the end, he’s pretty solid on the science, including physics, and is spending an inordinate number of words pointing out that there’s still more to reality than just the model.
More in the earlier German Romantic philosophies. Nietzsche’s fairly well within that tradition, although differing substantially from Goethe. Husserl’s there, somewhat, but he’s really far too mechanical and non-psychological, which is why his approach really doesn’t work (we evolved, Husserl. Think about it). Heidegger’s mostly a kind of re-working of neo-Platonic thought coupled with Aristotle’s phenomenological approach (again, fails to understand psychology–which has its own problems, to be sure–but which is essential) and pretending that it’s an alternative and new approach (ok, he’s acknowledging Aristotle fairly well, neo-Platonism not so much).
Not really. He’s good on the science, recognizing, though, that there’s more to it than the theory. But I think that’s not really a new thought, nor is Goethe’s approach to the creative side obviously the only or the best one. And Zajonc seems more to side with Newton and normal science when push comes to shove, than does Goethe. Goethe seems (I don’t know a lot about him, so I’m just going on impressions from various sources, including Zajonc) to want to say that there’s something wrong with Newton’s science, and Zajonc just wants to say that theory doesn’t exhaust the phenomenon that is theorized. Could have said it in a lot fewer words.
Glen Davidson
Goethe and Newton had a dispute concerning the theory of colours. Wikipedia has a nice comparison of the differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Colours#Table_of_differences
The most important difference between their theories is this: Newton’s theory is still appreciated by modern physicists. Goethe’s theory fell out of favor among scientists, but the little tools Goethe made to illustrate his theory are used in art education. Newton’s theory is worthless for art students.
The question one might ask, if empiricism matters, which one is more hands-on empirical, art or science? Goethe was undeniably rigorously empirical.
All my work is with models. I am probably biased, but I think that what I do really is part of science. Science is an interaction between models (which allow one to make predictions) and empirical observation and experiment.
As for calls for models to go away, because they aren’t real science, those are (sadly) heard from time to time from empirical scientists. The best way to respond is to make rude obnoxious noises and make it clear that you think that the person is being silly.
Many great scientists have been inspired by their spirituality.
Zajonc is a scientist who loves his science. You will need to give me examples of where you think he seems confused.
I did not know that Goethe’s theory of color is still used in art education! That’s a very interesting fact!
I suppose I see them as “empirical” in different senses.
If we want a testable model of the causal structure of reality, Newton’s method is the one to emulate. If we want a rigorous phenomenological description of color-experience, Goethe’s method is the one to emulate. That would explain why art students find Goethe useful and Newton useless.
The model isn’t in the genetic code, the model is the genetic code.
Have you listened to any of the audio I linked to?
The following is an excerpt from the audio where he explains what he thinks about models. (I copied it directly from the audio so it may not be word for word, but it is pretty accurate.)
What is bad is not the fact that the model dominates, it is the fact that the model is taken for the reality.
Take evolution and psychology seriously — and ruin the pristine purity of rigorous phenomenology as the foundation of all knowledge? Perish the thought!
Nietzsche, for all his faults, did take evolution (as he understood it) and psychology seriously — but he was not interested in the demand for apodictic clarity and certainty that Husserl wanted. As the experiments of Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze showed (in different and probably incompatible ways), Nietzsche and phenomenology are fundamentally incompatible.
That doesn’t sound like a problem with what science does, but a problem with how we think about what science does.
I tend to think of the sciences as social practices for constructing testable models of various aspects of the causal structure of reality. (There’s lots of room for doubting that all these diverse models can integrated into a single coherent model, though.) The models are explanatory insofar as they can tell us why observable regularities obtain, to the extent that they do, and also why we observe the irregularities that they we do. So there’s a tension between descriptive accuracy and explanatory adequacy that drives science (or, if you’re a Kuhnian, ‘normal’ science).
I don’t see it as a problem with science that it omits phenomenology. That’s just a different project, though one equally important to us.
The neglect of phenomenology would be a problem for science if one wanted to take the sciences as determining one’s metaphysics.
But my thought that metaphysics itself should be scientific does not mean that we can get all of our metaphysics from the sciences. It means rather than the sciences should constrain our metaphysical speculation, precisely because the sciences do (ideally) force us to put our assumptions to the test against reality.
Neil is both an admin here at TSZ and a moderator. Neil exemplifies the sort of site the admins/moderators want. Neil’s comment is bullshit. But it’s his (Neil’s) kind of BS.
At what point, Joe, do you submit your models to the philosophers, in order for them to tell you how well your models comport with reality?
Ever?
I don’t listen to long audios, and usually not short ones either, though this guy is certainly longwinded. I note that what you copied says absolutely nothing about the genetic code other than “The genetic code would be a kind of contemporary example”. But what does that mean? How is it an example? What does he think our view of the genetic code is, and what view would be better?
If you can’t explain, perhaps you shoudn’t mention such things.
At what point, John, do you submit your models to the philosophers, in order for them to tell you how well your models comport with reality?
Ever?
John doesn’t need the help of philosophers to determine how well his models comport with reality. But he might want to talk with us if he wanted some help in thinking through what “models as comporting with reality” is and means.
I disagree that administrators have any role in setting the tone or atmosphere for TSZ. Being an admin here is a matter of technical skill and available time. The only people who set the tone and atmosphere at TSZ are those who participate, and they do so by participating, to the extent that they do.
Let’s pretend that the admins here at TSZ have no moderation powers. We know that’s false, but lets pretend anyways.
Ready to pretend? Go!
You have rather thoroughly misunderstood my comment in another thread. Empirical biologists, not philosophers, judge whether models fit adequately, or usefully. With some arguing with the theoreticians.
What I leave to philosophers is to argue about whether concepts in the model really exist in nature, as opposed to being useful in modeling it.
Newtons apple would of been a minor tweek. he would already been , very few, involved in figuring out how things worked.
Unless the apple fell in his teen years.
All this talk about science is dumb.
there is just people(tailless primates for some) trying to figure out how things work which obviously are or did work.
in fact its not that inventive like inventions. its possibly less intellectually demanding to be a Newton/Einstein then someone who invented the great things. I’m not sure but more likely a higher score of thoughtfulness.
So proving things, science also, does demand a way to proved you proved it.
Evolutionism escaped such scrunity.
Only today in small, but slightly bigger, circles is crazy wrong evolutionism being finally overthrown as this blog forum is a sample of.
Empirical biologists judge whether the models fit, and then philosophers judge whether or not these concepts really exist.
Hmmm……
So the biologists are judging if the models fit what exactly?
Aren’t you forgetting that admins here participate rather intensely in the discussions? Or are you saying that even if they do, they have no role in setting the tone or atmosphere here?
Good observation, but Felsenstein’s end of sentence, which you chopped, answers this.
According to Felsenstein, scientists use concepts in a manner that seems useful to model nature, whereas it’s a philosophical question what ultimately exists in nature. I’d only add that “useful” is also a philosophical question, namely teleological or ethical or ideological, whichever perspective you may have; not a scientific (empiricist) one anyway.
Erik,
I disagree, what part did I chop off that answered that?
Here is the whole quote:
This sounds to me like he is saying, biologists judge whether the model fits adequately, and philosophers judge if the concepts in the model really exist. So I am still not sure what the biologists are judging. If a model accurately reflects something that may or may not exist?
Joe Felsenstein is saying that biologists judge if the concepts are “useful in modeling nature”. This is quite subtly put, and presupposes a very limited usefulness. If “modeling nature” is all that scientific concepts are supposed to do, e.g. to be accurate or corresponding to “nature”, then there’s still no answer what we are achieving when we are “modeling nature”. And not even what “nature” is. These must be again philosophical questions.
But if “useful” in that sentence has any broader applicability, such as “good for gaining more information about nature”, then it obviously is solidly inside the realm of philosophy (or ideology), halfway outside of strict empirical science.
Sure. “Why is science important?” is not itself a scientific question.
The question arising from strictly Felsenstein’s choice of words is Why/How is science useful? And you are right, it’s not a scientific question.
Felsenstein contends that biologists can judge whether concepts are “useful in modeling nature” i.e. useful for science or not. When useful for something whose usefulness cannot be scientifically determined, how useful are the concepts really? Looks like for scientists, “useful” means so little that it’s almost as good as useless.
Hmm. I might just as well say “good” is useless as a concept without adding “for whom” or “for what”.
Agreed. And they are philosophical questions, right?
Sure! Any question beginning “why” is a philosophical question. Unfortunately all “why” questions are ultimately unanswerable.
Well, that thoroughly refutes everybody here!
And you know this because you ran the probabilities through a model? Can I take a look at it? If you are saying that those questions are unanswerable because you can’t put them into an empirical model, then you just made a philosophical statement. That’s unscientific of you, or what?
And, as an aside, it shows that science is limited, while philosophy isn’t. So philosophy can really investigate anything and everything, something that should be the domain of science, according to some.
There’s considerable overlap between science and philosophy. They can even be seen as aspects of the same thing, like wind is actually air when in movement. Rather than assuming that the one is right and the other is wrong, or that they are so different as to be irreconcilable, it’s better to understand how the one presupposes the other.
Well, just ask yourself “why” anything. It will take you down an infinite regress to the first cause. Depending on your inclination, you will be asking “why is there a God” or “why is there a universe”.
Science can’t answer “why” questions. It’s very useful for answering “how” questions.
Philosophers can and should question everything. Do they answer “why is there a universe”? Not yet, I think.
As I make no such assumption, it’s not my problem.
We need to understand that when Goethe says:
he is using the word “theory”, not to mean speculation, but in its original meaning as a kind of seeing in the mind, an understanding.
So you are right that there is more to it than “theory” as it is commonly used. But Goethe’s whole point is that there is not more to it than the “theory” as he uses it. For him “theory” is a beholding of reality. Frequencies and wavelengths are not the reality of colour.
Newton, according to Zajonc, used Goethe’s method when contemplating the motion of heavenly bodies. The mathematics, the modelling, came after the moment of insight.
Goethe was not interested in making mathematical models, he was interested in using his senses to examine with great care the world around him. At a time when investigators around him were trying to keep a distance between humans and animals, when they trying to hang on to the concept of humans as specially created, Goethe argued that physically humans were no different from the animals around them. An argument developed from the belief that humans were separate because, unlike mammals, they did not possess a hyoid bone. Goethe demonstated that humans did indeed possess a hyoid bone and won the argument.
Goethe wished to stay within empirical investigation and wanted to avoid any form of speculation beyond what the phenomena themselves were telling him.
And that’s a bad thing? Or an unanswerable thing?
By the way, if there is the first cause, then the regress is not infinite.
Therefore science is useful and philosophy isn’t? If philosophy can answer “why” questions along with “how”, then isn’t it rather more useful?
So you simply deny that the question has been answered at least since Aristotle, if not Plato? Or maybe you like this philosopher’s answer, “It’s purposeless.” Who was it? Hint: Predates Plato.
You are quite full of assumptions that make every statement of yours problematic.
I think that figuring out the relationship between science and phenomenology is of immense philosophical (and perhaps even cultural) importance.
The most tempting move is to say that one gives us an access to reality that the other does not. Either the world as we directly experience it is a kind of subjective illusion and the sciences tell us what’s real, or the sciences are just models or instruments and what’s real is what we directly experience. Alex Rosenberg vs. Owen Barfield, just to get a sense of the most extreme versions of the contrast. (The scientific image and the manifest image, to use Sellars’s terms.)
My own view is to say that ought to reject the thought that if the scientific image is true, then the manifest image cannot be, or conversely. Instead we have to recognize that both the scientific image and the manifest image are true — put somewhat better, both phenomenology and the sciences disclose truths to us.
The philosophical task that I find most interesting and important is to dissolve the appearance of conflict between them. So from my perspective, both Rosenberg and Barfield — or going back to their original inspirations, Newton and Goethe — go too far in one direction at the expense of the other.
Bad for whom? 😉 The test is to answer “why is there a universe”. I don’t have an answer for that. Not sure if you or anyone else has a satisfactory answer.
Why?
Logic.
What if they’re both false, or at least incomplete? Though I speculate that one may be more incomplete that the other. What sort of truths does phenomenology disclose? Can you name a couple?
I find philosophy most interesting when the philosopher is not pretending to have superior insight, especially when they take the trouble to keep up to speed on scientific development. I find I can read Rorty and Dennett with appreciation and of course I rate KN and his unpretentious pragmatism very highly.
There’s a satisfactory answer to “why is there a universe” that predates Plato? Would it be any trouble to hint a bit more?
Not if you are a pragmatist. I’m quite happily resigned to some questions being currently unanswerable.
But why is it logical?
Picking up on Joe F’s remark about models, I think one might substitute “model” for “image” and the current scientific truth becomes provisional, and science a quest for models that better* (or more usefully) fit observed reality.
ETA* “better” in this sense means “more accurate”
Isn’t the latter part just a tad bit pretentious by assuming philosophers don’t keep up with scientific development? How well should philosophers keep up with scientific development?
Isn’t it so that when a philosopher keeps himself up to date on science better than you do, then he actually has superior insight and you would inevitably feel he is “pretending” and so you would ignore him and go on learning stuff from those who have less insight? And by the way, why should philosophers keep up with scientific development instead of, say, keeping up with philosophy, which is their actual field? And how about scientists keeping up with philosophy?
Understood. You hate insight. You like to have your assumptions reassured.
Buddha. But he was all about insight, and probably not up to date with your kind of science, so forget it.
Some don’t. One example is Mary Midgley and her total
comprehensionsmiscomprehension* of what Dawkins meant by a selfish gene.Perhaps philosophers need something akin to Science Daily to popularise ideas that go un-noticed, inducing non-philosophers to pay more attention.
Both can do both. Both might benefit.
Not sure what you mean, here. If you or anyone has an insight as to why there is a universe, I’d be interested. Sure, I make assumptions but I doubt I can hang on to them in the face of contrary evidence.
ETA just noticed typo*
Certainly all scientific theories are provisional.
Phenomenology describes what we experience as we experience it. Some phenomenological truths:
1. All intentional thoughts involve an intentional act and an intentional content.
2. The kind of detached speculation characteristic of theorizing presupposes a more basic engaged coping with the world.
3. The world as it is experienced by us as unified is inseparable from our experience of the self as able to experience a unified world. (This is actually Kant, but phenomenology makes more clear why this must be so.)
4. All perception of the world as unified necessarily involves a capacity for bodily movement.
5. One’s perception of bodily movement as perception of a unified world that is objective-for-us is inseparable from one’s awareness of other embodied subjects who are also perceiving a world that is objective-for-them.
These are not truths about the causal structure of reality, but truths about how we embodied-and-minded beings necessarily experience the world as it is objective-for-us. They are truths of the experience of embodied-and-minded beings, not truths about what the world is really like independent of all experiencing, embodied-and-minded beings.
I would hesitate to say, full-stop, that science gives us knowledge of noumena. I would say rather that the progress of scientific theories is an asymptotic approximation of the noumena. (That’s what makes me a Kantian naturalist rather than a full-blown Kantian idealist.)
The Buddha was the world’s first phenomenologist. 🙂