Re: [Fis] CONSILIENCE & interdisciplinarity

Malcolm said:
>Dear Pedro, and All,
...
>This brings me to the other issue that Pedro has raised--whether we should
>view the sciences in terms of a strict hierarchy, in which physics informs
>all the special sciences, but is never informed by them,
     SS: This locution is incorrect for the specification hierarchy that I
believe is being discussed -- e.g., {more generally applicable phenomena
{more particular phenomena}}. The levels in this hierarchy are referred to
as 'integrative levels' because the higher (more inner) levels integrate
(control, regulate, inform, interpret, harness) the lower (more outer)
levels. Thus, biology regulates diffusion by way of contrivances in the
circulatory system. This aspect is not, I agree, an import from set
theory, but a further development of this kind of hierarchy (which may
indeed -- for all I know -- have a mathematical interpretation in set
theory itself).

>or whether a circle
>of sciences is a better metaphor because it allows that every science can be
>informed by any other science. It seems to me that if the circle metaphor
>implies that connections between sciences are entirely symmetrical,
     SS: Not in this herarchy. The lower levels make possible the higher,
providing material causes, while the higher integrate these, providing
formal causation. There could be a symmetrical locution that would be
correct -- both upper and lower levels provide affordances for each other,
but these affordances are quite different going one way or the other. It
is simply that' affordance' is a very general reference, as in {affordance
{integration}}, or {affordance {making possible}} being equally possible.

>then it
>says, incorrectly in my view, that statistical mechanics and thermodynamics
>have an equal status. I agree that the strict reductionist view that falls
>out of a strict hierarchical view of science is too rigid.
     SS: That would indeed be a reductionist reading. Note, however, that
in this format it would be permissable to derive a purely physical
understanding of a biological system, by deliberately leaving out explicit
expression of the formal causes involved. This kind of representation
could be interesting from an evolutionary point of view

 A better view
>seems to be a mixture of both. After all, theories, such as statistical
>mechanics, have achieved a bone fide kind of consilience that has not, and
>will not, be achieved by any theory at the phenomenological level. On the
>other hand, higher level theories, no matter how consilient, are in a
>constant state of development, which is driven by the development of less
>consilient phenomenological theories below them in the hierarchy. There is
>a kind of coevolution between the levels.
     SS: This is incorporable into the specification hierarchy.

Aleks said:

>2. Hierarchies of sciences
>
>Perhaps that is demonstration enough that vertical integration is beneficial
>if not necessary. And here come in Pedro's diagrams of sciences. I do not
>see a need for politically correct circularity.
    SS: In my view, the circularity is imposed only in the postmodern
social constructivist perspective, where the hierarchy winds up inside the
innermost (highest) level -- human sociocultural cognition. That was the
way I used the circularity, which, then, is not a strict circularity at all.

I also agree with the
>optimistic viewpoint that there needs to be only a single vertical field
>that provides the cognitive "tools" (which are, however, psychologically
>feasible) to all the horizontal fields. Role models already exist: logic,
>mathematics and statistics (and philosophy that studies their foundations).
     SS: So, {logic {math {statistics {foundational studies}}}}. Note here
that the specification hierarchy formally branches (to the right here), so
that other fields than statistics can be derived from basic math.

>As a side note, I found Pedro's reference to circle of knowledge very
>interesting. There, religion and philosophy are in the center. Where is
>religion today?
     SS: In the hierarchy {mind {inorganic realm {organic realm {biological
realm {human cognition}}}}} the religious implication has usually been
imputed to 'mind' -- the totipotence from which all else devolves. The
contructivist move is to place all of this inside human cognition as one of
its products.

While philosophy sets the framework for what and how to
>think, religion answers the Why?.
     SS: So does any final cause, including the Second Law of T.

>3. Objects reified
>
>Mathematics and logic, for one, have been cast in stone. Nobody dares
>question the fundamentals anymore, it would be unimaginable throwing all
>that away. This seems like a proof of Stan's senescence.
     SS: It is certainly an attribute of senescence in my concept of it.

>Mathematics and
>logic are all discrete, based on objects and their behavior. Probability
>theory, too, is discrete, with the division of the universe into discrete
>events. And without probability theory, there is no statistical notions of
>information or entropy. If you now look at the natural world, you don't see
>objects: you see the fuzz of interlocking leaves, the swaying fur of grass,
>the smooth gusting of wind, swarming of flies, the gritty mess of mud, soil
>and pebbles on the ground, the swirling stream, the foamy foam.
>Then you turn and look at a urban landscape: objects (discrete buildings),
>objects (discrete chair), objects (discrete road-side signs), objects
>(discrete potted plants), objects (discrete buttons), objects (discrete
>humans), objects (discrete molecules of air), objects (discrete plant
>species), objects (discrete knots of wind speed), objects (centimeters of
>leaf surface area), objects (zeros and ones encoding the music on a CD),
>pummeling of photons, cascading of electrons. We don't know what there is
>inside an atom, but surely it's objects, and objects within them. Computers
>are engineered so that everything is fully deterministic and predictable,
>and there is nothing that is not an unnested discrete binary object, all
>equal, all egalitarian.
     SS: In using the specification hierarchy for evolutionary thinking,
the format is read as {vague -> {{{{increasingly more highly specified}}}}}.

>We're trying to fit every aspect of nature to objects and to relationships
>between them. The problems we have with concepts like continuity (what is
>infinity? what is zero? what is divide-by-zero?), forces, fields,
>relationships and interactions (are two particles interacting at a distance,
>or are they really a single object? is a molecule of my body an independent
>molecule or is it my body?) are a kludge retrofitted on objects that tries
>to capture everything that objects alone miss. Indeed, our representations
>have senesced, and all we will ever do will be in the context of objects.
>*Can* we think in some other way than by reifying objects, or has our
>cognition senesced a long time ago? If computers don't, do we still have the
>freedom to think in non-objects? Fuzzy logic is not an answer: every fuzzy
>variable is still an object: either it's hot or it is not, two values, two
>objects. Just as in logic, a hypothesis is either perfectly true or
>perfectly false.
     SS: I am one who hopes fervently for development of a logic of
vagueness, toward which maybe second order fuzziness points. My problem is
I am not capable of working on that problem
>
>You might wonder for a few seconds, perhaps admit it, but you would
>certainly not want to work in this direction. Life's too short and that's
>senescence.
    SS: I hope you will not give up entirely!

STAN

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Received on Mon Oct 11 22:23:27 2004