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From: hadeishi@husc4.harvard.edu (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Characterization
Message-ID: <337@husc6.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Mon, 6-Oct-86 15:35:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.337
Posted: Mon Oct  6 15:35:29 1986
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780c.UUCP> marty@ism780c.UUCP (Marty Smith) writes:
>>   "The universe is uncharacterizable in its entirety" seems to me to be
>>a true statement.  I can never know the state of the universe because the
>>memory required to hold that state would be bigger than the universe itself.
>> . . .
>   Ah!  This is a different interpretation of Gallmeister's statement,
>which is in fact true.  We certainly cannot characterize the exact state
>of the universe, even in theory; it simply is not possible to measure and
>record the states variables of all of the different particles.
>   However (although I don't have the context at hand) I don't think this
>is what Gallmeister meant.  His meaning (I am paraphrasing a statement with
>which I disagree, so be careful!) was that the exact characterization by
>Man of natural law is impossible.  And this is that with which I disagree.

	David, I get the impression from you that because this question is
open, you feel free to assume (for the sake of philosophizing) that it
is true (that the Universe is completely characterizable by Man.)  This
implications of this implicit assumption, however, are vast.

	What IS clear is that CURRENT physical theory does NOT completely
characterize the laws of the Universe.

	In light of this the particular form of a physical theory that
you choose to operate with becomes extremely important:

		Suppose you have two different forms of a physical
	theory which have been shown to be mathematically equivalent.
	In an abstract sense you can say the two forms are indistinguishable
	one from the other. (I am paraphrasing an argument given by
	Richard Feynman in _The Character of Physical Law_.)  However,
	this is only true from the point of view of the internal
	qualities of the theory; i.e., if you start with one theory
	you can derive the equations of the other.

		However this theory is not complete, and you are
	trying to develop a better characterization of physical reality.
	From this point of view the form of the theory which you adopt
	has significant consequences.  One form of the theory may suggest
	possible extensions or alternative theories, the other form
	may suggest totally different extensions.

		Because of the limited nature of human mindpower
	and the incomplete nature of physical theories, this distinction
	(between forms of a theory) acquires fundamental importance.

	I am speaking purely analogically here.  You wish to leave the
question (of the characterizability of the Universe) open, and would
leave the job of the actual characterizing to the physicists.  However,
it is clear to me (from the tenor of your responses) that you have not
considered the full ramifications of this view.

	Whether or not the Universe is completely characterizable by
Man, it is very likely that the everyday world that we see is NOT
characterizable in this sense.  By this I mean: it turns out that
the nature of physical theory precludes calculation of the properties
of complex systems in an exact form.  I mean that it is not even possible
to compute the structure of, for example, a protein molecule.  So it is
not possible to derive chemistry from physics, and it does not look
likely that this gap will ever be completely breached.

	(Also there is an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that
our current physical theories will always remain an approximation:
this is due to the existence of effects at higher levels of structural
complexity which are not reducible to lower-level effects.  If this
is the case then the program of the final physical theory looks very
dubious indeed.  These kinds of effects are not "nice"; i.e., they
don't look good for the claim of generality of physics, however they
are not surprising in that all of modern physics has been derived
from the study of the simplest possible idealized systems.  Effects
that would be measurable only at a higher level of structure would
therefore not be included in current physical theory.  This is not
an orthodox view, but it is not possible to discount off the cuff.
But this is not central to my argument.)

	I take the activity of philosophy to be the ultimate
science; i.e., the inquiry into the nature of Reality itself.  Now
the claim of characterizability has an associated (not logically
derivable but politically related) stance:

	(Loose) definition: A rational framework is a set of
	propositions and rational principles which can be
	easily articulated using language.

	1.  Assumption: It is possible to organize our experience into a
	rational framework.

	The problem with this is that Reality as we experience it
and live it is essentially a continuous phenomenon.  What we consider
to be "objects" in our rational framework are never Wittgensteinian
objects; i.e., objects we typically talk about (whether they be
physical objects or ideas) are never "colourless."  We are always
leaving something out when we speak of any thing.  Our language
is necessarily discrete but our experience is continuous.

	Of course it is necessary to abstract reality into these
discrete meaning-bundles we use to construct language.  However it is
clear that certain experiences cannot be transmitted in this fashion.
As Tu Wei-Ming (a professor of Chinese History here at Harvard) put it,
"A group of wine tasters may be able to discuss the fine distinctions
of taste between various wines.  However, no matter how hard they
try, they will be unable to explain their experience to someone who is
not also a wine taster."  (cf. Wittgenstein's private language argument
in a weaker form.)

	Language in itself contains no meaning; it requires
at least two people with common experiences before the symbols
can be said to have meaning.

	However, it may be that someone may experience directly
something which is not easily related to ordinary language-game objects.
If this experience is very far removed from these objects or
frameworks then it becomes impossible to directly refer to the
experience or even to relate any inferences that can be drawn
directly from the experience.  It may be possible to give vague
hints, but it would be like trying to describe a football game
in the language of someone who only sees the shadows on the wall
(i.e. the inhabitants of Plato's Cave.)

	Whenever you work within a rational framework, or attempt
to construct such a framework, you must naturally become inextricably
involved in a language-game.  If you are not extremely lucky, this
language-game will trap you; if, in addition, you are somehow trying
to contruct the perfect language-game (the "correct" language-game)
then you are doomed.  Because the language-game must necessarily NOT
be correct, by the nature of language games.  My hypothesis is that
language games are not sufficiently powerful to characterize our
universe, and therefore they should be viewed with extreme caution.

	So my stance, as it were, would be to mistrust all rational
frameworks, and, in fact, to discard them when doing serious
philosophy (what I am attempting to explain to you now is not
what I call serious philosophy, though it is certainly more serious
than most philosophy which is arrogantly proclaimed as "serious.")
This stance suggests radically different approaches to confronting
reality as a human being (I do not claim to be the first to suggest
this, but I do seem to be one of the few to argue its rational
justifiability.)

	The validity of this stance must be confirmed empirically.
It has proven in my case to be of the utmost importance, and in fact
was expounded very well (although somewhat cryptically to the modern
Western reader) by Lao Tzu some 2,500 years ago.  Despite its
antiquity, however, I do not believe that it has really been understood
and practiced by very many; however it remains a telling critique
and indictment of almost all of traditional Western philosophy.
(Hee hee - I love making ridiculous pronouncements like that,
especially when they're true, Hee hee).

				-Mitsu