| Definition of Science; Philosophy and Science Complementary Methods of Inquiry |
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What science is and is NOT as background:
Science as defined in Wikipedia is NOT what TAI refers to as science. What TAI means by science is a very specific notion known and generally understood at mid twentieth century. Unfortunately, as the Wikipedia definition indicate, what TAI means by science has been lost. From Wikipedia: (From the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge" or "to know") is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding of how the physical world works. Through controlled methods, scientists use observable physical evidence of natural phenomena to collect data, and analyze this information to explain what and how things work. Such methods include experimentation that tries to simulate natural phenomena under controlled conditions and thought experiments. Knowledge in science is gained through research. There are, today, many activities that fit this definition. However, this definition is faulty. First it makes science an inquiry into how the physical world works. This is a common misunderstanding, that the difference between science and philosophy is the subject matter. This is not so. Philosophy and science are both methods of inquiry. The difference between them is in the tools of inquiry. The rest of the definition is quite inadequate. Worse I would say it is quite wrong. It would apply better to empirical philosophy. Remember that in Newton’s time there was only philosophy. In his use of mathematics, which he invented, he introduced a new form of inquiry that became known as science to differentiate it from philosophy. However natural philosophy persisted. In the early part of the twentieth century catalogs were put out selling laboratory instruments and they were referred to as “philosophical instruments”. However science produced such impressive results that folks wanted to be scientists. There were many disciplines that were not ready for a transition to science such as psychology. They were doing quite well as philosophical inquiry. Nevertheless, guesses were made as to what gave science its power. For example science was quantitative. How could they be quantitative in a discipline such as psychology? I have answered it many times; when you don’t know what you are doing, but need numbers, do statistics. Today there are many fake sciences based on statistics. Given what is now being discovered about life, statistics are invalid, misleading, and produce tragic errors. I believe people today are being turned off science as a result. Our claim that we are developing a science of life and a science of value must be rather annoying; more damned intellectuals trying to control the world. Thus I think it extremely important that we present in detail what we mean by science TAI Definition of Science: Hartman put forth a hypothesis in the 50s for a "non-physical" science of values. It was truly remarkable work considering physics, a science of the physical, was so successful at time that people took it as a standard model for a what science should be. A great deal has changed since Hartman was alive. Hartman wrote that value science would be more like musical science than physics. I agree. We must grasp the basics of what science is and not be mislead by the properties of physical science, e.g. physics. The methods of physics or any science has both analytics and synthetics as Hartman put forth based on Kant. However in today's philosophical logic discussions, the Kantian distinctions are misunderstood. Clearly there is need for a renewal of the original Kantian notions of analytics and synthetics. It is my proposal here that we re-define science to include the Kantian analytics and synthetics in the development of a new science of life-itself (living domain, non-physical) in which formal axiology provides the synthetic foundation. In the 50s, our worldview was one of materialism. Physics was a science dealing with what we saw as laws of materialism, cause and effect, determinism, reductionism etc. Physics was assumed to be the fundamental science from which all else would follow. Basically if you wanted to understand the universe, you worked with the laws of matter to do so. In the 50s Newton's and Leibtnitz's infinitesmal calculus was the only mathematics in scientific use. That calculus is founded on the real numbers. Thus everything was seen as being numerical and computational. Physical science has acquired many characteristics that are not going to hold for nonphysical science. For example, it is thought that science must be quantitative. Physical science is based on the infinitesimal calculus that is based on the real numbers. For nonphysical science it is time to look at other calculi. There is now a great number to draw from. The analytics is the philosophy. It explores with language" what is" based on experience. For instance today there is a lot of discussion about what is the reality of quantum physics. With the analytic method, philosophical and hypothetical theories are developed and explored. There are two kinds of philosophy under analytics; speculative philosophy and empirical. For purpose of our discussion here let's define the distinctions: Speculative philosophy; invents categories that are starting assumptions such as metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, ethics, morality etc. Empirical philosophy; includes actions and observations of questions coming out of nature that get explored through laboratory experiments, driven by linguistic hypothesis about experience, not from synthetic theory. By this definition, I would say that what people refer to as science today is largely Empirical philosophy, not science. If there is no calculus, it is Empirical philosophy. The synthetics is the calculus. While it is true science requires a calculus. My definition of theory is "thought recipes," (see Spencer Brown, Laws of Form) a synthetic calculus in which the concepts are not derived by abstraction as in language, but instead are postulated using a logic. In mathematics, every line is a command to do something, not a description. Today there are forms of calculi with different properties and consequences, none known before mid 20th Century. Due to all the research occurring in logics, we now have logics suitable for life-itself and value principles. That is, calculi that can address the non-physical and physical realm of the living domain. For instance, traditional logics have required truth-value consistency. Life is creative and will create new truths. Logics available now do not require truth-value consistency and life-itself denies the possibilities of it. There are no states that the organism returns to. It is a constant forward process of new reality creation There is a new worldview developing in leading edge science and new sciences. It is a worldview recognizing the primacy of life-itself. Matter is seen as created by living processes. Matter is simply a consequence of life taking habits. As a habit, matter exhibits determinism in repetition. A given state repeatedly producing the same consequent state is seen as cause and effect i.e. mechanisms. Matter is subservient to life itself. Fifty years ago there was a great deal of literature, including books, trying to explain the mystery. Whitehead declared mathematics as the freest creation of the human mind. Yet it was the key to scientific knowledge. The new worldview helps us understand. Life itself is creative. Living entities are capable of acting. They are not passively waiting for external forces to move them. In acting, living entities can change reality. Life itself is the source of evolution. Living processes develop as societies of living entities. The entities of a society have maximum freedom; they live in pure democracies subject only to coherence conditions. Coherence conditions make maximum freedom possible. To understand the new reality, values replace the old basics of mechanisms and determinism. The new reality requires a science of values. Finally, I believe we can show precisely why life centered institutions and societies are failing. Mechanisms and controls don’t permit the living processes to function. Also, failing to experience primary knowing, which I believe is the domain of intrinsic value. This is the story we want to tell with your support. Philosophy and Science: Complementary Methods of Inquiry Needed I believe many people think the difference between philosophy and science is the subject matter. This is a common mistake! The actual difference is the method of inquiry. That is, philosophy and science are complementary methods of inquiry. Both should be applied to all subject matters and applied as is needed and appropriate. In Newton’s time, physics was philosophy; philosophy was all there was. Newton developed and applied new mathematics. Physics became a science. (Locke protested 30 years after publication of Newton’s Principia. Locke believed that we could understand man but only God could understand nature.) Today physics is a science. But there comes a time when the science becomes full of mysteries. That is when physicists might become philosophers once again. For example while the mathematics of quantum theory works very well the underling reality is unknown. So today, we often hear physicists speaking philosophically. I believe quantum physics has crossed a line from the non-living domain to the living domain. We need both a new philosophy and a new science. Today physics is considered to be the most fundamental science. Quantum physics comes close to life but not close enough. Soon a new science of life will be seen as the most fundamental science. And I don't mean biology as we know it today, since today's biology has its foundations in physics, mechanism, and separation of mind and matter. With the new science of life as the fundamental science, physics will be but a part of the science, not the foundation. Science is the discovery of organizing principles. Such principles are hard to find since they are never absent. We see elephants because normally we do not see elephants. Organizing principles are always at work. Non-living science is organization involving cause and effect. Living science is science of organizing principles for self-acting entities. (They are what field being has been pointing towards.) Science is the study of change or process. Change cannot be random or without order. If it were, there would simply be chaos instead of us. Also, change cannot be deterministic. If it were, there would be no meaning. Values would be irrelevant. Science discovers and expresses, brings into consciousness, those organizing principles that order, but do not determine, change. Always, science involves metaphysics with a matching logic. For non-living science, you can have Substance Metaphysics, and "Thing" Logic. And for Life-itself science, you have Process metaphysics and the Logic of Acts. Today process philosophy has become a very active branch of inquiry in which there are many competing positions. Without becoming involved in any one such position Rescher characterized process philosophy as "a doctrine committed to certain basic teachings or contentions" as follows: (1) Basic contentions of the process metaphysics
Actually, process philosophy has a long history. It began with Heraclitus in the 6th. Century B.C. Some process philosophers include: Gottfried Leibnitz, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Charles Peirce, William James, Henri Bergson, Samuel Alexander, C. Lloyd Morgan, John Dewey, George Herbert Mead, Alfred North Whitehead, Wilmon H. Sheldon and Charles Hartshorne. There are many approaches to process metaphysics. Whitehead’s is probably the best known. I also see field being as process metaphysics. A Matching Living Logic (I prefer the word life-itself-logics): The logic of non-living matter (discrete things or objects) is much concerned with truth preservation, consistency, mono-polar, and cause-and-effect. The "living" functions are very different from the "non-living." The logic of life is creative, rich in variety and even paradoxical as it embraces both poles of contrasts (strong/weak). Even psychology shows that paradox is a fundamental principal in the human psyche. Instead of cause and effect, life logic is governed by willful intensional acts. For 2000 years it was believed that paradox was fatal. We now know that it need not be, but it does require a different kind of logic. I do have problems with the word logic. Logic is a collection of formal systems originating in the need for sound arguments. Needed now is a class of formal systems with different properties for different purposes. They could be called intensional logics; (intensional refers to meaning). Google leads me to believe that intensional logic now means modal logic. I think we are losing distinctions. It could also be called axiologic for value logic. For now I will call them “life-itself-logics.” Distinction between Old and New Logics or Formalisms: Characteristics of Traditional Logics:
Characteristics of Life-itself-logics:
To this day, infinitesimal calculus is the primary, if not the only, formalism used for scientific inquiry. The infinitesimal calculus is founded on real numbers. Thus it produces real numbers, creating the illusion that science must be quantitative Life, however, is not computational. Thus we need new formalisms based on forms of order other than numbers, in working with life and living processes.
(2) Francisco Varela, Principles of Biological Autonomy, North Holland, 1979 |