Science is a way of knowing about the World. The objective is to predict, perhaps manage, or hopefully survive the future. Western science tradition, starting with Galileo and moving through Descartes, Newton, and Einstein, has always insisted in being “objective” and not “subjective”. Objectivity requires that the scientist not be part of what is being observed. Objectivity requires that there be objects in the Universe that we can observe, document, measure or manipulate in a way that is the same for you, me, us, and them.
That is just flat-out impossible.
Consider the following mundane example: I am a white, at least somewhat privileged, male past his 80th birthday. Do I exist in the same universe as a 20-year-old female, black or native, born and raised in Baltimore or on the Navajo Nation? If you picked me up and dropped me into her world, what would I see? Even looking at the same object, it is unlikely I would see what she sees.
There is huge overlap between our worlds. Neither one of us should step out in front of a bus. That’s a simple question, and that is why physicists had all the answers. They reserved unto themselves the simple questions. That all changed with quantum mechanics. Suddenly the answers were no longer certain and easy. Einstein wrote Max Born, “You believe in the God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which objectively exists,”1,2.
Einstein felt there was a real, objective, universal, universe that could be described and understood, in the third voice, by a universal observer. Einstein and Born are two individuals, so similar in every aspect, living in two very disparate worlds. In one ambiguity is ignorance. In the other, ambiguity is knowing and understanding. That is a huge difference.
Chemistry is inherently more complicated and complex than Physics because, crudely put, it encapsulates Physics. Biology encapsulates both and is magnitudes more complicated and complex. Then, there are the Social Sciences, and Science has a serious problem.
What is the problem and how does this happen? Maturana and Varela argue that we create knowing by living3. Our existence, how we act, what we do, and how we experience it all creates a private universe4. This private universe is ours. We share huge chunks, just as I share huge chunks with the women described above, but at the core, there are things that, for lack of a better term, I will call feelings. These include, but are not limited to, intuitions, beliefs, values, emotions, experiential memories, idiosyncratic insights,5 and just plain curiosity.
It does not matter whether the feelings are true, correct, rational, empirical, or any other adjective you might want to apply. They exist and are the tools and constructs you use to build your universe, which is the only universe that counts.
If none of us existed, neither would the Universe. There might be huge chunks of rock flying around but it isn’t a Universe until you and I call it a Universe and then, you and I may, or may not, be talking about the same thing. I don’t know how the Stone Henge builders thought of the Universe, but in the last 5000 years, we have expanded, contracted, added and subtracted from whatever the Universe might be.
Recent explorations of the Universe include sending all sorts of vehicles, and objects out into the forever. Pure Science at its best, but little of it predicts, perhaps manages, or helps us survive the future. There are positive side effects in the development of materials, technologies, etc., but that is not why we do these things. We do them because of feelings.
We cannot admit that of course. Are we really going to admit that we spend billions of dollars and risk lives based on feelings? No, we never will. We need the illusion of cold, objective, neutral Science to underpin these decisions.
Back here on Earth, the illusion of cold, objective, neutral Science fails to answer the crucial questions because all the crucial questions are social, i.e. complicated and complex. For example, here is an extremely complicated and complex question. Should old growth Redwoods remain trees or be processed into lumber?
There is no way that cold, objective, neutral, western Science can effectively, and rationally, answer that question. I absolutely have an answer. You may have a different answer, and somebody over there might have yet a third answer. The point to be made is we live in different universes and our answers are modified substantially, if not totally, by our feelings.
Until we recognize this, to think that we are being scientific will mislead us into terrible decisions and worse futures. What can be done? To slightly modify the answer from Maturana and Varela we “have only the universe we bring forth with others and only love helps us bring it forth”.3,248
We must recognize that redwood trees and lumber are not fixed objects in space. They exist in a myriad of universes. We must open our minds to the validity and sanctity of those other universes. We must open our hearts to the feelings of others, and we must negotiate in good faith with you, me, us, and them to understand their overlapping complicatedness and complexity. Then we can declare that scientifically, certainty is ignorance and ambiguity is knowledge. And we might be able to proceed to save ourselves and the Universe.
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Post Script: A Personal statement.
The posts the I put up here are the products of my trying to understand what we can, and perhaps do, know and how we know it. I feel like a small child lost in a big woods, but there are stars I can sometimes use to tell direction. Personally, I have had some heroic teachers in and out of school. And then there are books. Four life-changing books that I recommend to everybody with time, curiosity, and patience with themselves. These are written by heavyweights. They are not easy; that is why you need patience with yourself. I know, I still struggle If you read these, you will not look at the World in the same way again. If you haven’t read them, I recommend the order listed. (They may have multiple print dates.)
-Capra, Fritjof, and Pier Luigi Luisi. The systems view of life: A unifying Vision. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
-Hofstadter, Douglas R. Godel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. New York: Basic Books, 2023.
-Maturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Varela. The Tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: Shambhala, 2008.
- Capra, Fritjof, and Ugo Mattei. The ecology of law: Toward a legal system in tune with nature and community. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2015.
1) https://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/Peter.Budd/PDF%20files/Does%20God%20Play%20Dice.pdf
2) Einstein’s concept of God was complex and evolving throughout his life. In this case he was likely using “God” as a stand-in for Chaos and probability.
3) Maturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Varela. The Tree of knowledge: The biological roots of human understanding. Boston: Shambhala, 2008.
4) Private Universe is an oxymoron, but the obvious alternative, “priverse” is just ugly.
5) Newton only did experiments to convince the common man. Everything important was found in thoughts inside his head. (SOCIOCYBERNETICS - THE PATH TO A SCIENCE OF BECOMING. Arne Kjellman, Dept. of IT & Media, Mid-Sweden University, Sundsvall.)
So many quotable quotes in here, Dexter. Thanks for adding to my book stack, too!