Writ on this Date, a Saturday, the Eleventh of December, in the Year of Our Lord, Two Thousand and Ten:
In regards to scientific and philosophical debate, information gets tossed around so carelessly that it begins to wear down on the concept of knowledge itself. What do we really know? How do we know it? How can we prove we know it? Legend tells us that Socrates once uttered, “All I know is that I know nothing.” And that probably comes close to where we all are at intellectually, but how does that make sense? Obviously, he knows something if he knows he knows nothing. However, if he does know nothing, then he couldn’t know that he did. It’s a paradox, and yet still, it speaks truer in our hearts than any hair-brained theory or some strained unified law in science–at least, to me. Socrates was at least mostly right. If you look at the bigger picture and contemplate just how much information really is floating around in the cosmos, by comparison, we would have to say that we might as well know nothing, because the limited knowledge we do possess would be so close to zero when contrasted to infinity as to ultimately make no real quantifiable difference.
Knowledge is like a distance we are to traverse, and for all intents and purposes, it seems as if it can be accomplished easily enough. It’s as simple as walking down the block. However, it when you break it down to its smallest parcels–its individual points–you discover that you have to traverse half the distance before you can traverse the whole distance. Then, you find that you have to traverse half of half of the whole distance. Then half that, then half again, until you find yourself approaching infinite, but you haven’t even actually gone anywhere yet. It’s another paradox. This is why I talk about the unreliability of cold, hard knowledge, especially when it comes to information as posited by the physical sciences. In the end, we can only presume to know. The theory of knowledge is just that, a theory. It matters not how much evidence you might have to back your claim, the evidence is still factored into the theory itself and thus, everything must be put into question.
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And now I wish to bring up the topic of reductionism. Reductionism is a term (always pejorative) used to label a view that is deemed unacceptable. It is a reducing of an idea or thing into its most fundamental parts. And although this view is almost universally panned, it must be noted that reductionism is a practice very much essential to what science is and its supposed purpose.
A reduction is a claim of the form: ‘A’s are nothing but B’s,’ such as ‘lightning is nothing but a discharge of static electricity’ or ‘water is nothing but two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.’
Generally speaking, “is nothing but” means “is identical with”–the most important contemporary model of reductionism is the claim, “humans are nothing but biological organisms.” –that is to say, complex biophysical systems. This is felt by many to involve unwarranted reduction–but science cannot prove anything otherwise.
In reality, nothing can be conveniently reduced. Lightning is studied in electrostatics and in meteorology, however neither of these branches of science claim to know lightning entirely. They each have differing vocabularies and definitions pertaining to how lightning relates to the branch itself. Also, lightning can be said to be ‘awe-inspiring’ but that term is not utilized in any scientific context. Does that make it any less true? In the same manner, painting is just the use of chemicals to arrange an image. These can be chemicals on the canvas’ fibres as well as the make-up of the pigments that create the colors that are used. However, painting isn’t a branch of chemistry, it is an artform.
The reductionist sentence: ‘Paintings are nothing but a composition of chemicals’ may be true, but it is not the whole truth, and this should be obvious. It necessarily excludes the aesthetic characteristics as well as the principles of beauty in art.
Biological systems are made up of chemicals, so chemistry can be said to be more fundamental than biology. But then chemicals, in turn, are composed of combinations of atoms, composed of forces and particles central to physics. Thus, physics can be said to be more fundamental than chemistry. Is this where the fundamentality stops? How long until the reducing ceases? What really is the most fundamental thing?
Most scientists, I believe, would claim that physics would be the most basic science–the most rudimentary explanation of all things we know to be true in the universe. But that claim itself is not entirely true, is it? Physics says there are four elemental forces and about seventeen or so irreducible particles–and that is it. Nothing more makes up the inventory of the entire universe. I suppose that could be held as a truth, sure, but there is still a lot left that’s not understand. Even a little bit. There’s so much undiscovered and unexplored in physics it is mind-boggling. The relationships between the forces and the particles, the forces and the forces, and the particles and the particles are just now beginning to be tested and evaluated at levels essential for them to even begin to be comprehended. Still, we’ve explained a lot of what occurs in nature due to physics, and yet the science itself definitely cannot account for all occurring phenomena. Impossible. Can it really be the most basic science?
I always prefer a poor joke to no joke at all, so I suppose the current systems we’ve implemented to record knowledge work for the time being. Just as long as we all accept the fact that there is still something big very much amiss in the way our thinking has been structured and organized. The conscience of science–the true knowing-knowledge–is not here. It is thus far absent in our midst.
Therefore, lastly, I must say: Be a dedicated enemy of all convention, intent on exposing the stupidity and arbitrariness of custom.
For all you naysayers and dissenters out there, I ask you: What is the scientific justification of laughing? We should all part from a cause when it is found to be lost. The scientific cause is not found to be triumphant. It shouldn’t be abandoned entirely, merely taken with a very big grain of salt.
Thank you all for your time and attention.
Respectfully submitted,
Blepedaimones Lothario
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