History, Theory, and Philosophy of Science In SMAC RT 7th smester Fall 2005 Institute of Media Techn

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History, Theory, and Philosophy of Science (In
SMAC RT) 7th smester -Fall 2005Institute of
Media Technology and Engineering Science
Aalborg University Copenhagen
2nd Module The Paradigm of Modernity Luis E.
Bruni
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Arthur Peacocke (Chapter 2)

• Whats there? ? ontology
•  
• the stuff of the world, matter, possesses
  energy, and is located in space at a particular
  time.
•  
• The concepts of space, time, matter and energy
  continued to appear to be given, self-evident
  features of the world, a priori concepts
  essential to our thinking.
•  
• Are these four concepts constantly the same in
  different cultures, traditions or historical
  periods?
•  
• Ex what changes to our conceptions of these
  concepts have been introduce by new theories such
  as relativity theory and quantum mechanics?

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Samir Okasha (2002)

• Science ? usually taught in a ahistorical way.
• The origin of modern science ? the scientific
  revolution ? in Europe between 1500 and 1750.
•  
• Previous foundations ? Aristotelianism.
•  
• Modern Science ? paradigm changes ? e.g. the
  Copernican Revolution.

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Mechanical Philosophy

• Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) ?The language of
  mathematics could be used to describe the
  behaviour of actual objects in the material world
  ? also the importance of testing hypothesis
  experimentally ? the empirical approach.
• René Descartes (1596-1650) ?mechanical
  philosophy ? the physical world consists simply
  of inert particles of matter interacting and
  colliding with one another ? all observable
  phenomena can be explained in terms of these
  inert particles ? still the dominant view today.
•  
• Mechanical philosophy ? the final downfall of
  the Aristotelian world-view?

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The climax of the scientific revolution

• Isaac Newton (1643-1727) ? Mathematical
  Principles of Natural Philosophy ? improved the
  mechanical philosophy with a powerful dynamical
  and mechanical theory ? three laws of motion plus
  the principle of universal gravitation.
• Newton ? great mathematical precision and rigour
  ? invented the mathematical technique we now as
  calculus ? this gave great success to the
  Newtonian world-view in the following 200 years ?
  it was believed that anything in nature could be
  explain from such an epistemology ? chemistry,
  optics, energy, thermodynamics, electromagnetism.

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The downfall of Newtonianism?

• Relativity theory (Einstein) ? Newtonian
  mechanics does not give the right results when
  applied to very massive objects ? or objects
  moving at very high velocities.
• Quantum mechanics ? the Newtonian theory does not
  work when applied on a very small scale ? to
  subatomic particles.
• Both theories ? are very strange and radical
  theories, making claims about the nature of
  reality that many people find hard to accept or
  even understand ? what is going on here in terms
  of ontology and epistemology?

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Physicalism

• Physics is considered the most fundamental of all
  scientific disciplines ? for the objects of other
  sciences are themselves made up of physical
  entitiesE
• E.g. botany ? plants are ultimately composed of
  molecules and atoms, which are physical
  particles.
• What about cognitive processes?

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Life Sciences

• Charles Darwin ? The Origin of Species (1859) ?
  the discovery of evolution by natural selection
  ? paradigm shift?
•  
• Subsequent work has providing striking
  confirmation of Darwins theory ? the centrepiece
  of the modern biological world view.
• Molecular Biology ? a paradigm shift? ? from the
  DNA double-helix to the Human Genome Project.

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New scientific disciplines

• New scientific disciplines ? computer science,
  artificial intelligence, linguistics,
  neurosciences.
• Probably the most significant in the last 30
  years ? cognitive science ? the various aspects
  of human condition ? perception, memory, learning
  and reasoning ? the human mind similar to
  computers.
•  
• Social and human sciences ? ex economics,
  sociology, anthropology ? have flourished in the
  20th century ? considered to lag behind in terms
  of sophistication and rigour ? why? What is your
  opinion? What would make them sophisticated and
  rigorous?

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Logical Positivism

• The fundamental feature of a scientific theory is
  that it should be falsifiable.
• That a theory is falsifiable ? does not mean that
  is false ? it means that the theory makes some
  definite predictions that are capable of being
  tested against experience ? if the predictions
  turn out to be wrong ? the theory has been
  falsified or disproved.
• Karl Popper ? theories that are not falsifiable ?
  do not deserve to be called science ?
  pesudo-science.

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Science and pseudo-science

• Example ? Freuds psychoanalytic theory ? can be
  reconciled with any empirical findings whatsoever
  ? the concepts can be made compatible wit any set
  of clinical data ? is unfalsifiable.
• Example of a falsifiable theory ? Einsteins
  theory of general relativity ? it would predict
  that light rays from distant starts would be
  deflected by the gravitational field of the sun ?
  extremilly hard to observe except during a
  solar eclipse ? this prediction was confirmed by
  observation ? by Arthur Eddington in 1919.
• There is certainly something fishy about a
  theory that can be made to fit any empirical data
  whatsoever.
• Does this criteria hold in modern science? How
  about the theory of evolution? Is it falsifiable?
  Is it pseudo-science?

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The paradigm of Modernity
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What is the paradigm of Modernity?

• Modernity ? from 1450 to ?
• Scientific Rationalism ? 1600
• Mechanicism ? 1600
• Materialism ? 1700
• Positivism ? 1800

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Scientific Rationalism

• Decartes ? 1600
• Rationalism ? identification of reason with
  mathematical procedures.
• The whole of knowledge can be constituted by
  reasoning ? excluding any dogmatic influence ?
  the constitution of the universal science.
• Chains of reasonings ? clear and distinctive ?
  that can be applied to any branch of knowledge ?
  including morality.

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Cartesian mechanicism

• The first product of rationalism in the
  scientific field ? Cartesian mechanicism
• Mechanicism ? the ancient atomistic conceptions
  of Democritus and Epicurus? ? forerunners of
  materialism?
• Democritus ? the principles of all things are the
  atoms and the vacuum.

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Democritus

• The necessary movement of atoms gives rise to
  visible bodies through aggregations and
  disgregations.
• Even our knowledge is constituted through
  material pathways, when the fluxes of atoms
  coming from existing bodies strike our sense
  organs.
• The vacuum ? not being a possibility of
  manifestation ? could not have a place in the
  manifested world, leading the atomists to a
  paradox ? not admitting by definition any other
  positive existence than that of the atoms and
  their combinations, the atomists are directly led
  to suppose that between the atoms there exists a
  vacuum in which the atoms can move.

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The mechanicist thesis

• The mechanicist thesis ? everything is
  explainable based solely on the principles of
  matter and local movement.
• Any concept lacks explicative value if such
  concept cannot be analysed in terms of the
  dynamical possibilities inherent to the material
  structures, by reason of the configurations and
  movements of the component particles.

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The way to materialism

• Decartes ? did not feel like proposing his
  animal-machine theory at the human level ?
  dualism ? mind and matter ? Decartes considered
  one term and consciously neglect the other ? as
  opposed to his successors who negate the
  existence of one of the parts altogether ?
  considering only the part that was amenable to
  the mechanicist conception in order to reduce the
  entire reality in a way that was naturally going
  to lead to materialism.
• Materialism ? a later product ? became explicit
  with the revival of mechanicism in the XVII and
  XVIII centuries.

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The net result

• Positivism ? each increment in knowledge produces
  a correspondent withdrawal of ignorance ? the
  idea of a knowledge that grows as an asymptotic
  approximation towards an infinite point of view
  that represents complete knowledge.
• Reductionism ? the principle of analysing complex
  things into simpler more basic constituents ? the
  view that things and living processes can be
  explained (only) in terms of the material
  composition and physicochemical activities of
  their components.

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Asymptotic knowledge grow
Total Knowledge
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The limits to reductionism

• The reductionist ideal in relation to the highest
  hierarchical levels of emergence ? the human
  mental process ? the most promising strategy?
• New neuroanatomical components that one had no
  idea about are being described simply by looking
  at where specific proteins are distributed in the
  brain. My guess is M. Raffs that the
  reductionist approach, even where it is just a
  fishing expedition, will lead to real
  understanding in unpredictable ways, and that the
  molecular and cellular basis of memory, learning
  and other higher brain function could well emerge
  bit by bit, until the mystery gradually
  disappears, just as has been happening in
  developmental biology
• (M. Raff, in the discussion of a symposium paper
  by W. G. Quinn, 1998 124).

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Paradigms of complexity

• In the 1900s ? alternatives to the
  reductionist-positivistic epistemologies.
• Technological evolution ? produces a perception
  of increasing complexity and interactive
  synergies.
• Frontier disciplines ? cognitive sciences,
  evolutive sciences, systemic thinking, philosophy
  of science, experimental epistemology,
  cybernetics, semiotics.

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History, Theory, and Philosophy of Science (In
SMAC RT) 7th smester -Fall 2005Institute of
Media Technology and Engineering Science
Aalborg University Copenhagen
2nd Module The Paradigm of Modernity Luis E.
Bruni