Self-reflexive?

In Quest of Optimism Beyond the Edge: through avoidance of the answering process (Part #5)

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

Following the challenging reframing offered by Douglas R. Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, 1979; I Am a Strange Loop, 2007), the issue raised by Anton Zeilinger brings into focus several forms of self-reference:

• that of the respondents as scientists reflecting on their profession, and those aspects of it with which they disagree
• that of the respondents reflecting on the question and the nature of their response, especially in the light of other responses with which they are not in sympathy
• that of the Edge and the World Question Center in positioning themselves as instigators of the process, handling its responses, and presumably excluding some as inappropriate
• that of appreciators of the responses in general -- and those, such as this writer in particular, in choosing to comment on them.

Questions which might then emerge include:

• the extent to which science is a belief system in a set of other belief systems, each with their peculiarities. This raises the issue of how a set of belief systems is to be understood in its diversified entirety, as explored elsewhere (Tuning a Periodic Table of Religions, Epistemologies and Spirituality -- including the sciences and other belief systems, 2007). If, as a mode of knowing, science was to be compared to sight or vision, how is smell or taste to be understood within a vision framework? How meaningless is it? How much of significance can be transferred from "smell" to "vision" -- as explored in relation to synaesthesia?
• how views of a "scientist" are reconciled with those held by the same person:
  • as a believer of some other kind?
  • as an actor in a politicized or commodified system which may exert pressures to which the "scientist" is acquiescent or in which the scientist is complicit?
• how disagreement is to be processed and why consensus is held to be preferable?
• what is the understanding of how the future will "disagree" with any currently emergent consensus?

The last points were partially addressed by one contributor -- Gerald Holton (The Increasing Coalescence of Scientific Disciplines, 2007) well-known for his early comments on complementarity (The Roots of Complementarity, Daedalus. 1970). However, given its prevalence, there is surely a case for exploring more systematically the nature of disagreement, especially if any consensus achieved is essentially premature and unstable. The "coalescence" he notes might be better understood as acceptance of the need for a bigger toolbox -- but without any significant insight into a new methodology of multi-tool use. Shifting metaphors, the chef may have a wider choice of ingredients and equipment but this says nothing about the skills, recipes and parameters required to produce more tasty, nourishing foods.

A more radical exploration might follow from the inquiry of Nicholas Rescher (The Strife of Systems: an essay on the grounds and implications of philosophical diversity, 1985) into the disagreement inherent in the relationships between schools of philosophy precluding any prospect of agreement (from his perspective). Given the manner in which philosophy and epistemology underpin the methodology of scientific inquiry, this would suggest the need for more radical explorations of the possibility of structures built on incommensurability (Beyond Method: engaging opposition in psycho-social organization, 1981; Using Disagreements for Superordinate Frame Configuration, 1992). Given the conflicts to which they give rise, the pathetic incapacity of religions to process their disagreements confirms the inadequacy of approaches dependent on "coalescence". A similar point might be made with regard to the natural and social sciences and the manner in which various "sciences" are marginalized, as variously explored by Paul Feyerabend (Against Method: outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge, 1975).

In elaborating this commentary, how then is the set of questions as a whole to be encountered? What might be understood as going on when faced with the views of 160 people of eminence presenting a variegated optimistic understanding of the future? One contributor clarified the inappropriate past initiative to envisage a "unity of knowledge" -- despite Holton's perspective. Another was optimistic that such will not be found (Frank Wilczek, Physics will not achieve a Theory of Everything, 2007).

What kind of coherence, if any, is then to be expected from the encounter with the set of questions? Is the emergent significance of any synthesis to be appropriately described in terms of the delightful German term -- Buchbindersynthese -- namely a synthesis framed solely by the binding of the book in which the collection of replies is set? Or perhaps by Projektlogiksynthese -- namely a synthesis framed by the specifics of the task of the moment?

How then to interpret one's direct experience of the set of questions in the moment? Specifically:

• what does one "get out of it"? Namely what filters does one apply in selecting patterns of significance and connecting the dots of meaning so detected?
• what does one "put into it"? Namely what significance does one bring to it in supplying a connective pattern -- if such is to be sought?
• how does one find reason to approve of particular responses as appropriate and relevant whilst disapproving others as especially inadequate?

Beyond the edge of known territory, some incomplete maps of former times (based on a flat Earth understanding) had zones labelled "here be dragons". As with such maps, perhaps it is useful to conceive of current frontier zones of understanding as inhabited by equally surprising beasts. The "dragons" might usefully be understood as markers for the need to transform metaphorically the flatness of cognitive territory into one at least as complex as a sphere -- to allow for self-reflexivity. Dragons are indeed convenient for this purpose because of their association with the widespread symbol of the tail-biting serpent Ouroboros.

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]