Archivist Llewellyn critical comment on piet paper
Gilles Kuhn
comment of her on Piet papers here it follow:
The problem of perception (individual conscious experience) is that it
generates falsehoods dependent upon point-of-view (POV). Eg., the
world is flat and not round. Science and technology, through the use
of telescopes, microscopes, x-rays, cyclotrons, etc. have allowed
humans to change their point of view beyond the physical capacities of
the human body alone to reveal the true workings of nature and the
world around us. In short, humans have evolved to perceive the world
around them within their own framework and to adapt to the problems of
scale of only some of the physical world around us. That humans are
capable of developing such tools which expand individual consciousness
beyond those for which we evolved when facing certain obstacles, is a
testament to the power of imagination and to dedication to the process
of scientific experimentation, with rigorous standards to produce
valid and accurate results. It has opened the doors of perception to
things beyond, one could argue, what we are physically but not
intellectually incapable of confronting.
The problem of “free will” is that, without the aid of science and
technology, it is again limited to one’s own physical capabilities and
the laws of nature. Say I wish to fly. My physical attributes do not
permit me to do this as much as I may desire it, or wish it, or
resolve to reject gravity of as my choice when expressing my “free
will.” However, I can imagine the possibility of flight, as Orville
and Wilbur Wright did. I can observe and harness the power of the wind
and build and test an airplane as they did at Kitty Hawk. I can
imagine that the stars and the moon are physical and reachable
objects. Simply look back in time at how perceptions of the universe
have changed. The sky was imagined by the Romans and the Greeks to be
representative figures of the “gods,” which from their vantage point
on the ground appeared so. Shakespeare’s understanding of the
universe was of a fixed “firmament” which covered the Earth. Without
the telescope, we might not have imagined a universe that extended
beyond our own solar system. So, perception (the act of observation)
does give one the impression of “free will” but a free will which is
limited within the scope of that perception.
When you say, that you wish to “set aside the presuppositions”
scientific methods and return to only those things that can be
determined through experience, you go backwards (not forwards) to the
foundations of the Western scientific method itself, to the writings
of the Rationalists and the Empiricists. It seems that in your paper,
you would need to their works and examine any flaws apparent in their
approaches leading to the scientific method you seem to be attempting
to poke holes at. Descartes was a rationalist who rejected all
previous knowledge, whose “single design” was to “strip one’s self of
all past beliefs,” and argued in his Discourse on Method that the
first principle of confirming existence was to establish, “I think
therefore I am.” You might suggest that his fundamental argument
rested on a human-centric assumption that the world only exists as
humans perceive it to exist, and (apparently) only those humans who
exhibit what we call consciousness. This does not include those
people, say, in a vegetative state, or those who are dreaming and
unaware of the physical world around them and (except through lucid
dreams) are incapable of self-reflection of their own existence or the
ability to control the outcome of their “sleeping reality”). To
Descartes, imagination is limited only to those with consciousness.
Such an equation would require one to say that sleeping humans and
those in vegetative states do not imagine or dream, or for that matter
exist from their own POV. “Free will” is again overcome by the
physical and medical “impairments” of the human body’s ability to
sustain individual conscious experience which exists under one’s own
volition. And from this same logic, one cannot issue one’s own “free
will” to live when one’s physical form require that it die—that is,
without the aid of science, medicine, and technology. Science
challenges the notion of limitations of “free will” imposed by nature
and by corporal form. Recent experiments have shown, for example, that
by understanding sensory perceptions for sight, for example, means not
understanding the eye, but the brain. And with the proper stimulation,
blind people can see through their tongues. Such experimentation
indicates that sensory perception is electrical in nature, and
suggests that among similar organisms, the external world, including
colors, would be perceived by the mind essentially in the same way. (I
am not aware of similar studies across species). It was Spinoza who
tackled the philosophical question of emotions like love and hate and
the mind’s capability to interpret pleasure and pain. Genetic studies
have shown why some individuals may be more prone to violent behavior
than others.
The single objective reality, which belies the foundation of testable
and repeatable experimentation, as each individual could theoretically
do the exact same procedures and see for themselves the same result.
It exists, therefore, by common or mutual agreement (or what you refer
to as intersubjectivity). In terms of quantum physics, what you are
describing is the same argument: the acts of imagination, logic,
hypothesis, and the subsequent need to develop additional tools to
prove their ontological status as “existent.” The tools, as a problem
of scale, will improve our physical ability to perceive our physical
surroundings will portend to expand our consciousness of the universe.
Such is the purpose, for example, the LHC. The project hopes to prove
or disprove widely “accepted” theories describing the nature of the
universe--theories which thus far lack critical physical and
observable evidence. It is not new in the history of science for
enormous breakthroughs to occur as “thought experiments.” Einstein’s
famous quote, “imagination is more important than knowledge,”
highlights the same divide you refer to, and somewhat undermines his
own credibility. Einstein’s theory is after all just a theory until
proven by observation in 1919. In 2003, astronomers measured the speed
of gravity for the first time, again validating his General Theory of
Relativity.
Liebnitz suggested the origin of most of the ideas we have are driven
as reflections upon and abstractions on the sensory perceptions of
physical objects we encounter. The scientific method is a “check sum”
whereby an observation is made, reflection and imagination about those
sensory perceptions occurs internally, and in order to prove the
internal determinations apply, the situation must be recreated (such
is the purpose of experimentation) to prove in repeatable fashion
those ideas hold true to physical, measurable, and observable reality.
The benefit of adhering to the established principles of scientific
inquiry is in its ability to distinguish itself from the pseudo
sciences by preventing and unreliable and untrustworthy results. The
concern is that if one attempts to add the concept of sense or
consciousness as a universal factor such as space and time, then you
may end up as pseudoscience or a branch within the collective
psychologies, alongside Jung’s collective unconscious.
Time and space are defined through experiential evidence, the way in
which we are physically capable of sensory-perception given our
physical being. We can only experience one space at a single moment in
time of conscious awareness. We can reflect, on previous spaces and
times we interact with as stored memories through the act of
reflection. Motion depends on both space and time. (Leibniz’s
precedence of motion over matter seemed in establishing its necessity
for life, and therefore is again a human-centric position, when there
are in fact many “nonliving” entities in motion, including some like
viruses which are biological in nature). There must be at least one
physical object composed of matter which occupies part of an
observable space. Motion is established through a progression of
changes in the position of the object, occurring though a perceived
forward motion in time. Unlike a reel of film, existence is not a
recorded surrogate and cannot be replayed exactly or played in
reverse. How we define those objects is subjective, as it relates to
the nature and limitations of language to describe our physical world.
Even if two people perceive the same object, we may comprehend it
differently based on our knowledge of the object, previous experience
with that object or abstracted concepts related to that object.
Defining energy, it seems, is matter that exists in a different state
as they are interchangeable with one another under certain conditions.
That is, matter equals (is) energy.
The objective of the paper seems to create a modern-day extension of
Leibnitz’s concepts of pandynamism and panpsychism, of which I cannot
comment fully, but which this seems to be a good source of background
information:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/leibniz-physics/.
Other avenues besides psychology and physics, such as virtual
realities, AI, and cognitive computing (which combines neuroscience,
computer science, mathematics, cognitive neuroscience, and information
theory) offer interesting opportunities to explore perception,
learning, and experimentation in a nonphysical manner.
Piet Hut
Thank you for your detailed comments. You wrote that I "wish to set
aside the presuppositions of scientific methods". However, it is not
that I want to give up anything that we have learned about science and
about the (ever changing) scientific methods. Rather, I want to extend
the terrain of science further, in a qualitative way, which implies that
also the method of science will have to be extended further, qualitatively.
A recent example of such an extension was the switch from classical to
quantum mechanics, which implied rather fundamental changes in method
and interpretation of both theory and experiment in physics. Quantum
mechanics did and did not "set aside" the presuppositions of classical
mechanics. As far as the ontology of quantum mechanics is concerned,
yes, it is completely different from that of classical mechanics. As
far as most practical measurments are concerned, however, quantum mechanics
did not "set aside" the presuppositions of classical mechanics; rather it
pointed out the limitated domain where those presupposition are approximately
valid, and it also showed what to do outside that domain.
Similarly, I think that science can be extended further, but including
some kind of a phenomenology in which subject and object are both taken
equally serious. That would require a widening of the empirical method.
The current scientific method would still be respected as far as it would
apply to objects, but it would be extended with other methods that would
be apt for studying subjects in their own right. Then, later we might
hope that some kind of unification can be found, too, but that is probably
going to be a separate challenge.
While it is always a good idea to read scientists and philosophers of
previous centuries, for inspiration, including the ones you list in
your email, it is at least as important to be willing to embark on
concrete investigations for ourselves, which is what we are attempting
to do in the phenomenology workshop in the Kira Cafe on Fridays, 2 pm.
As for your discussion of free will and perception, those considerations
start with positing a material world as the base or carrier for the mind.
Independent of whether that could be shown to be true, or whether one
would like to believe in that picture of layering of mind over matter,
a purely phenomenological investigation will sidestep that whole question,
by investigating the nature of first-person awareness in and by itself.
Pema/Piet
------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: Gilles Kuhn <gille...@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:36:43 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Archivist Llewellyn critical comment on piet paper
To: Philosophical Seminar <philosophi...@googlegroups.com>
will' to live when one's physical form require that it die -- that is,
------- End of forwarded message -------