Friday, June 14, 2013

Scientism and the Artistic Side of Knowledge

Here are the first few paragraphs of an article of mine on scientism in the narrow sense, which you can read in full on R. Scott Bakker's blog (through the above link). The article gets into the aesthetic aspect of knowledge and the horrors of scientific progress.

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How should someone who accepts the scientific picture think of the relation between the arts and the sciences? By “scientific picture” I mean the content of scientific theories, of course, but also the scientific methods of explanation and the questions that can be answered by those methods. One option, which I’ll call “scientism,” is to say that scientific explanations are the only stories worth telling, that if a statement can’t be tested or translated into precise, mathematical language, the statement should have no part in our view of what’s real. I’ll call a defender of scientism a scientific absolutist, since this defender says the scientific picture of reality is complete in that it exhausts everything we should say about the world; plus, “scientific imperialist,” which is sometimes used here, is pejorative and “scientist” is taken. Scientism is opposed to what I’ll call “pluralism,” to the view that scientific methods aren’t the only worthwhile ways of talking about the real world.

Is Scientism Coherent?

There’s some reason to think that scientism isn’t a stable option, after all. The question is how exactly the scientistic thesis should be formulated. Let’s assume, for example, that the scientific picture includes Scott Bakker’s Blind Brain Theory or at least some theory in cognitive science that fulfills our worst fear about the conflict between what scientists say we are and what we intuitively, traditionally assume we are. In particular, let’s assume that the folk ideas of meaning and values are incompatible with science. That is to say, symbols don’t relate to the world in the way we naively think they do and nothing is really good or bad. On the contrary, let’s assume that cognitive scientists will soon be able to explain precisely how these folk illusions arise, in terms of biochemical processes. And we can even assume, then, that that knowledge will be disseminated in the business community, enabling the elites to exploit those processes as far as the law will allow. Just as scientists have no need of the God hypothesis, there will be no scientific reason to speak of the meaning of symbols, the truth of statements, or the value of anything. These folk ways of speaking will be deflated. To be sure, they might persist, just as there are still theists long after the dawn of the Age of Reason, but the folk concepts won’t add to the scientific picture of reality, they’ll make no sense within that picture, and they’ll be undercut by the scientific explanation of their appearance.

Notice that were the scientific way of speaking of the folk concepts to presuppose those concepts, scientism would undercut itself more than anything else. By “presuppose” here I mean to assume as part of scientism’s story of what’s going on. A scientific absolutist can grant that so-called meanings and values exist (as well as consciousness, freewill, and the other elements of the folk view of us), but the absolutist can’t endorse the folk way of speaking of these things. (In philosophy of language jargon, the absolutist can grant the extension but not the intension of “meaning,” “value,” and so on, which is to say that she can grant that those words apply to something, without subscribing to the way those words picture that thing.) So instead of saying that a symbol’s meaning is its representational relationship to what the symbol’s about, the absolutist might say that that relationship is an illusion caused by the brain’s ability only to caricature its real, neurological processes when the brain resorts to intuition or to any discourse that posits something other than a field of causally interacting material bodies.

16 comments:

  1. Curse, curse, a thousand times curse Wordpress' restrictive takeover of the comparatively accessible Google platform.

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    1. You prefer Google blogs to Wordpress ones? I like Google blogs too, but I wonder whether Wordpress ones give the blogger more options.

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  2. Sometime around two years ago, Wordpress decided to no longer let me blog or comment. Apparently, this one offended the CEO enough to be specially coded into the system as a permanent block. :-)

    Google/Wordpress reminds this one of Microsoft/Apple: you exchange mouse drivers and day-to-day flexibility for trendier designs and a deeper level of authoritarian control over how the inborn OS works.

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    1. That's too bad, High Arka. If you have comments on that article, though, I'd love to read them. You can add them here, if you like.

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  3. In spite of its popularity Scientism is a clearly false philosophy (given the extreme reductionism it implies).

    Common sense alone would indicate that it should be promptly dismissed. In spite its appeals to reason and enlightenment, in my opinion it one of the most obscurantist ideologies of the modern times. And a dangerous one.

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    1. Mind you, anyone with a science-centered viewpoint would be suspicious of commonsense, since science has shown that many of our intuitions about the world are wrong. I'd agree that the power of those who benefit most from technoscience is dangerous, but scientism itself strikes me as more sad than dangerous.

      By the way, Scott Bakker has written a reply to this article, which can be found here:

      http://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/necessary-magic-a-reply-to-ben-cain/

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  4. Benjamin,

    I don’t know exactly what you mean by “science-centered viewpoit”. Science requires a naturalistic methodology alone, however scientism (probably due to success of science and its methodology) assumes the validity of naturalist philosophy (this validity is clearly false, it is disproved by reality or common sense if you will). I agree with you that common sense can lead to errors (and it is not so reliable as one would like to admit).

    I don’t know also what do you mean with “science as shown that many institution about the word are wrong”. Science, in spite of its many limitations, tries to explain the material reality, and has been remarkably successful in that. However science doesn't seem to discredit or proof institutions to be wrong, however someone can claim that to be true (on whatever basis they seem fit).

    Scientism is dangerous by the philosophical falsification itself, it is not just the problem of the misuse of the acquire knowledge (however this is a distinct problem as knowledge requires responsibility). My concern about scientism is related to the philosophical implications, particularly by its claims to a higher rationality degree (dismissing and neglecting the aesthetic and ethical values and realities, for instance). You may neglect its importance, I do not. Scientism is the current religion in the West. This “scientism” enthusiasm was observed before, for instance just before WW2, both in Europe and the US, with tragic consequences, you can look out for the eugenic movements that were so popular among the secularized elites. Just as now, everything had to be blessed by science (as an ultimate validation), as it is now. By the way I hope (for everybody sake) to be wrong about this.

    I will see Scotts reply, thanks

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    1. I agree that scientism is philosophically important, but to the extent that scientism is dangerous, scientism would just be the tip of the iceberg. I agree also that scientism is a kind of religion, as I argue in "Scientism: Modern Pagan Religion" (link below), but this is so only if "scientism" is taken in a broad sense, to include all science-centered aspects of post-industrial cultures, including consumerism, the obsession with technology, and even democracy and capitalism. In its narrow, academic sense, most people aren't scientistic and they don't even know what the word means, so that sort of scientism is more sad than dangerous.

      You might be thinking that scientism is dangerous because it leads to hell. I wouldn't go that far. And again, whether commonsense refutes scientism is the question at issue, so a scientistic person would deny that.

      http://rantswithintheundeadgod.blogspot.ca/2011/09/scientism-modern-pagan-religion.html

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  5. Sorry, it was "intuitions about the world" not
    "institution about the word".

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  6. Thanks for the correction, I really did not understood what you said.

    I looked at Scotts reply and I think (as far as I can understand it), he holds a position that it is possible to qualify as extreme scientism (or as you say absolutist scientism). Scientism is based on the faith that science can explain everything (if not just now then somewhere in the future) and science is the only valuable knowledge. The normal versions are cautious while addressing things like ethics, aesthetics, or anything that is subjective, and try to advance a explanations based on evolutionary arguments that are quite meaningless as this argument can be apply to about anything. Some people question free will, but even in this case what is, more commonly, questioned is an absolute free will that nobody defends. Scotts argument however is to reduce the things that can’t be explained by materialistic naturalism (that really can’t be addressed by science) to illusions (useful falsifications generated by the brain). This is absurd and if taken seriously, then it would be possible to extend this conception of illusion to all reality (and not only to the subjective things we find difficult to explain). Then we ourselves might be also an illusion.

    While I was reading some things Scott wrote, it came to my mind a text by Richard Feynman on “Cargo Cult Science” and I leave you the link:
    http://neurotheory.columbia.edu/~ken/cargo_cult.html
    In spite of being critical about the pseudoscience wars (and see the demarcation problem as essentially futile) I found this text quite interesting.

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  7. Concerning your corrected statement

    "Mind you, anyone with a science-centered viewpoint would be suspicious of commonsense, since science has shown that many of our intuitions about the world are wrong."

    in respect to the wrongness of many of our intuitions what really impresses me the most is not that they may be wrong, but much more how often they seem to be right, mainly for people working in creative areas such as art or science. This is what is striking for me (as mere intuitions they should be mostly incorrect).

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    1. An interesting point, but "right" here doesn't mean true. Artists rely on intuitions and the unconscious, to inspire their creations, but Scott would say what's really doing the work here are neural mechanisms of which we're ignorant. And his point is that as we learn more and more about those mechanisms, we'll likely come to take our commonsense intuitions less and less seriously, just as science has forced us to give up on our prejudices in many other areas of inquiry. For example, it used to be obvious that the Earth is flat and at the center of the universe or that illnesses are caused by demons or that women aren't equal to men in terms of their personhood. Scott's worry is that science is already starting to do the same for psychology and for our commonsense self-image.

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    2. Benjamin,

      Nobody denies (that I know of) that the brains provide a framework for cognitive processes and reasoning, intuitions, states of mind, … this is one thing, some other thing it to assign this to specific mechanist processes, however it is possible (and somehow inevitable) to know more about those processes (humans are quite tenacious in exploring the unknown as scientific achievements show evidence).
      The thought that somewhere in history the earth was flat is a myth (used to represent a mockery of superstition supposed to exist in the middle ages) it is not really a fact. However the earth was supposed to be at the center of the universe. This was both a theological belief and a scientific one, which came about to be dismissed with the acceptance of Copernican description of the solar system in the XVI century. But then again in the early XX century the universe encompassed only our galaxy, from then on our universe has been expanding altogether with our technical capabilities to observe it. I think that there are still people that believe that the illnesses results from bad thoughts from his neighbors, and still call the shamans to undo the wrong doing (at least in Africa, as someone describe it to me). Woman aren’t equal to man, physically, however everyone (or most people) agree that women should be treated with the same dignity and should not be discriminated (or subjected to unfair treatment (at least in theory, however in practice this this depends on culture).
      The focus of science is the study of the material word and this includes us humans and the society. For that purpose, long ago we created the natural sciences, humanistic sciences, social sciences, psychology, anthropology, … (and philosophy, art, religion…). In fact we do not cope very well with the fact that we don’t know, it is a pain we carry with us, and when humans see something they don’t understand they try to overcome it, sometimes with “acceptable absurdities”, other times with reasonable theories, but we live haunted by our ignorance. In spite all the advances in the natural sciences (that are spectacular) in fact it seems that the advance in “the knowing of ourselves” is not so impressive, and I am very sure (at least I find reasonable to have faith in that) that we will progress in that area as much as in all the others.

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  8. Benjamin,

    I gave a second reading at Scotts reply, and although I don’t share his scientistic view (which fails by the falsewood of presumptions and for beeing overoptimistic concerning the current real capabilities of science), I found it contains worthwhile thoutghs namely on what concerns to the way we deal with the unknown (and the variety of ways we use to dismiss it), which is quite disagreable (and painful) for us humans.
    I would like to stress two points in the last part, where Scott questions you, the first is related to his overstatement of science capabilities saying “Mechanistic explanations are–quite obviously, I think–the rising tide. Art? Machines are already writing novels and articles, painting pictures.” Mechanistic explanations, as the general understanding of nature, are progressing, however science is still short to find adequate explanations for very simple things (for instance in predicting crystal structures for not complicated molecular materials, just to name a simple issue). This optimism and enthusiasm is clearly unjustified (it is a matter of faith). Anyway the fact that we can built machines that can write novels, articles and paintings pictures can impress us, however if, by absurd, the outcome could be art then this would be miracle.
    The second is related with his statement “he fails to consider any of the evidence of human theoretical incompetence, and really only assumes the opposite”, while I am not sure if this claim is true or not, I find it raises a point that is related to the way we deal with our limitations, and any theory of knowledge, claiming to address value and meaning must address this.

    I got curios about the BBT suggestion and I will try to learn something about this.

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    1. Scott would say it's unwise to bet against faith, and that he's reasoning here by induction rather than exercising religious faith in science. There's the god-of-the-gaps issue here, which is that many people doubted that science would explain this or that in the past, and those doubters usually were proven wrong, so it's dangerous to stake out some narrow ground as being impregnable (unexplainable by scientific methods).

      If you're coming from a religious perspective, such as a Christian one, you'll have a harder time battling scientism, I think, since you'd disagree on more of the fundamental, preliminary issues. For example, you'd have a higher opinion of faith and the scientistic person would be more of a rationalist, so your epistemic assumptions would be far apart. It's hard to argue with someone when there's not much common ground between you.

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  9. I am a scientist and a believer (a poor one however), but I was myself an atheist for a long time and I stood for the same scientistic perspective that is now so popular, somewhere in this path, for reason which are not relevant at the moment this view seemed inadequate and wrong, and I decided to find a more reasonable one. Nothing new, it is quite a recurrent history for so many people. With this I don’t claim (as I don’t want to value my perspective or to convince you of anything) to hold the truth. This is just to mention that I know very well (in first hand so to speak) what is to be an atheist and a scientifist. Besides most of the people I know and with whom I socialize are also atheists and scientifist and they are not a plague neither are they bad people, on the contrary, they are generaly good people and mostly what we can call as rational (although not so much as they like to admit, but this is not a big deal, this applies to almost everyone). There is a myth about religious people being less rational on grounds of their religious belief, but this is nothing but a myth, people are just as rational with or without clearly religious convictions. In most cases, people do not reflect seriously about methaphysics and the presence of religious believes is mostly a reflection of the prevailing tribal culture, which affects us, humans, so much, as we are deeply social animals that fell strongly the need to act according to the social norms. Anyway all this to say that the claim about an higher rationality of “scientistic people” is a unjustified myth, however of course there are religious people who are not so rational (confirming the myth), but the reverse is also true (disproving the myth).
    Today, it is widely recognized, that we do not need to use “God” to explain the material reality, and it has been like that since the XVII or XVIII century (or before), and it is generally considered an absurd (by common sense alone, but also for philosophical reasoning) reasons. The so called god of the gaps corresponds to a poor vision of things, at least this is my perspective (just for the ignorance it implies). In my view we all share a sense of the divine this is reflected on the easy that is for humans to perceive the infinite, the absolute, the perfect. We don’t limit ourselves to perceive it, we expect to observe it and many times we demand this, for me it is like something that is deeply impregnated in us. Our lives also provide us (all of us) another experience of contact with divinity and a strong one that is the contact with our parents, while in childhood, as for quite some time we are completely depended upon them and they are the ones that protect and provide us everything. Probably this is too long, but I just want to mention another thing that is faith, our own existence depends on faith, we could not survive analyzing, evaluating and rationalizing everything and we take most of the things we deal with on faith (of existing, of being where they are, of meaning what they suppose to, …). It just isn’t possible to dismiss faith.

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