Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decvax!decwrl!spar!ellis From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Science: from specialization to incompetence Message-ID: <583@spar.UUCP> Date: Wed, 9-Oct-85 09:53:42 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.583 Posted: Wed Oct 9 09:53:42 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 17:42:36 EDT References: <253@yetti.UUCP> <1727@pyuxd.UUCP> <690@mmintl.UUCP> <759@utastro.UUCP> <556@spar.UUCP> <1836@pyuxd.UUCP> Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA Lines: 87 >> There are many interpretations of just what QM represents. However, if >> QM is philosophically unsatisfactory if it describes what we will >> see when we look, rather than "what is there when we don't",is it not a >> virtue that sentences expressing unobservable states are incapable of >> formulation? Must science be bothered with the potential metaphysical >> truth of questions like "Did George Washington sneeze on August 13, >> 1773?". Would not Occam have approved of a theory that insists that >> "States which are not accessible do not exist"? > >This is a very different kettle of fish from assuming the existence of >particular states and assuming their particular effects so as to "get" you >to your conclusion. Yes, Occam would be spinning if you suggested that >that falls in line with the Razor. Sorry. In science, all unobservables are idle metaphysics. >Furthermore, when you ask about whether you or George Washington or Genghis >Khan sneezed on a certain date, you are suggesting the possibility of an >extremely probable known quantity: human beings do sneeze. Scientifically, however, nothing exists without evidence. >To assert that that is roughly equivalent to saying >that speculations about phenomena that you have no basis for drafting a >model of (solely because you have a particular conclusion in mind and build >your axioms and models from there) doesn't sound very reasonable to me. >It sounds mighty presumptive, which is why Occam would have discarded it. How about that. Unfortunately, that's all that any scientific methodology can do! How do you suppose modern science got started? Originally, science's `entities' were abstracted from certain physical objects and phenomena that more-or-less instinctively arose in people everywhere. Things like billiard balls and collisions for example, were the presumptions of Newtonian mechanics. Science developed as far as it could go with such presupposed models without gaining any understanding about `mind'. Is it any wonder? Today we see a proliferation of methodologies, all in terms of what was known before, and many producing conflicting theories about "What Is". The newer methods sometimes incorporate subjective notions {perception, cognition, intentionality}. Scientific pluralism is hardly a `bad' thing, of course, unless one wishes that there be one single truth, one firm answer to every question. Now, what are we to assume when a scientist insists that X does not exist? (1) X is a useless concept within that scientist's discipline? (2) X really and truly DOES NOT EXIST? Certain behaviorist scientists have attained such levels of incompetence that they are unable to avoid misunderstandings due to (2) above. It is one thing to make a daring assumption (the nonexistence of `mind' or `free will') as a methodological constraint. It is quite another to forget ever having made the assumption in the first place. I recently encountered the height of unscientific arrogance in the quotes below from B.F. Skinner: It may seem inconsistent to ask the reader to "keep a point in mind" when he has been told that the mind is an explanatory fiction, or to "consider the idea of freedom" if an idea is simply an explanatory fiction... Decisions about the uses of science seem to demand a kind of wisdom which, for some curious reason, scientists are denied. If they are to make value judgements at all, it is only with the wisdom they share with people in general. It would be a mistake for the behavioral scientist to agree... Who is to decide what is good for man? How will a more effective technology be used? By whom and for what end? These are really questions about reinforcers. `Mind' does not exist. Value judgements are REALLY questions about reinforcers. It's the world, not the specialists, who are mistaken. The specialists will set everything right! Speaking paradoxically, we may say that incompetence, having been standardized, has now become an essential part of of professional excellence. We no longer have incompetent professionals, we have professionalized incompetence - Paul Feyerabend -michael