Dear colleagues,
Unfortunately the end of this session on consilience is close. Around this
weekend Malcolm will post his final comments on the philosophical
whereabouts of this fascinating concept...
The recent comments by Stan, John, and Bob add to the complex mosaic ---I
wonder whether the reflection on the cloud ascend/descend existing
asymmetry could contribute to clarify the panorama and unite some different
strands. At least, I would like to write down a few ideas that just reflect
my own fooliness around.
About "ascend" first. What is the driving force for it? No doubt it is
largely the creation, the imagination, the inspiration of the individual
scientist. The social-communal networking may introduce further checkings,
experiments, teams, discussions, etc., and then the crucial "validation"
aspect that any serious scientific journal or publisher will demand before
adding it to the existing Galaxy. In spite of the vast mechanization of
knolwdge operated in our times, I venture this creative (and validation)
theme has not much changed, and it won't. Scholarship (in its
interdisciplinary splendors) should be mentioned too.
The "descend" is much different. Although both are social-communal
processes, their differences cannot be more pronounced. Who
"mandates"for the descend, for the application? Rarely it will be the
imagination or the ingenuity of an individual (the isolated, creative
technologist). Rather, it will be mandated by a corporate body, perhaps the
"committee", which may be present under multiple forms in an heterogeneous
collision of industrial companies, developers, institutions, the military,
political entities of all kind, markets, fashions, ideologies, etc., etc.,
who just want some bits of science "on tap" so to increase some apparent
"utilities" around. Application of science is thus marked by an
extraordinary heterogeneity of influences that continuously "elbow" on each
other, with the result that the extra-ordinary action capabilities allowed
by the clouds of scientific knowledge often become a destructive force
(Stan's).
All this means that the social "closure" of the two arrows of scientific
knowledge is quite peculiar and asymmetric indeed (in this, it far
separates from our own personal "closure" in the action/perception cycle
where symmetry considerations are really crucial---Berthoz's and Michel
Leyton's stuff could bring quite intriguing reflections on this regard).
All this also means the importance, in my personal opinion, of exploring
new approaches and angles about the heterogeneous collisions of knowledge
realms, starting by mopping up the misconceptions existing in our own house
of the sciences (Bob's on Wilsonian reductive consilience).
But, Have we been --both Wilson and herein at fis discussions-- performing
an undue overstretching on Whewhell's consilience? It is really a serious
question. Should we change gears, pay our respect to a very elegant
historical concept, and look for a new term? My own excuse to keep
defending the enlarged use of consilience is that finally heterogeneous
inductions --even of different disciplines and even of different realms of
knowledge-- have to "conciliate" each other in our own practice too,
Perhaps implying a common mental mechanism beyond the metaphorical abuse?
best
Pedro
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Received on Thu Dec 2 14:14:34 2004
