Some words on Scientism (Letters 7.0)

Some words on Scientism

When I press ENTER then my computer initiates emitting this message, and later yours (or your smartphone) will receive this message consisting of bits & bytes, of letters and words. Between these devices I hope there will be no omitting, no distortion, no loss and no lack of bits & bytes, of letters and of words. This is of some technical interest, and that's it. In the realm of living creatures, I can go down to some life forms, let's say unicellular organisms, which possibly (!) can be regarded as emitting and receiving signals. But to look on myself as such a thing (a look which is possible and not per se wrong!) destroys philosophy before it started. Because such a look to human interaction, guided by technical approach, is (secondo me) subtly founded by and therefore finally ends in scientism.

How to deal with scientism? Can it be regarded as an opponent? So, I could try to deal with scientism by using the military OODA-Loop, recently mentioned by @hefestus? OODA means four imperatives: Observe - Orient - Decide - Act. I'm not a good friend of militarism, but some warfare inspired stratagems against an ideological opponent might nevertheless be useful. What I like most about Col John Boyd's OODA-Loop is that it invites me to take any opponent seriously enough to observe him/her carefully and to try to get into his/her way of thinking. Thus, the model promises to gain advantage and protrusion. But let's also keep in mind what one critical summarizes on the OODA-Loop: 'It is not incorrect, but neither is it unique or especially profound'.

The aim in this context is not to paralyse the opponent, since this is obviously impossible as long as there is no specific organisation or institution or person. You cannot paralyse scientism itself. But some tactical analysis will do. So, let's assume scientism to be some aggressor, and we are in defense of our realm. Let's go to one important border, threatened by scientism: the question, why or to what purpose are we here?

Why is that question an important border of the philosophical realm? In how far is it threatened? The importance results from the equivalence to the question: What is the meaning of (my personal) life? The latter formulation avoids at first hand to have to speak about the 'here' and the 'we' from the first formulation of the question. But in a further step, the contents of 'here' and 'we' also will have to be cleared in some sense. Threatened is this border by scientism attacks on concepts like 'freedom', 'communication', 'consciousness'. The attacks mostly appear smooth and subtle, but they are nevertheless poisoning and dangerous.

I’d like to step into OODA by starting with an observation of an article which I regard to be scientistic. The mentioned article introduces scientific concepts from mathematics and physics ‚to comprehend and cope with our environment‘. But it is not engineering what it deals with. Instead of such technical issues, the article tries to provide a dynamic view on ‚mental patterns or concepts of meaning‘ – without any references to human sciences, just by picking up some core ideas from Gödel, Heisenberg and Maxwell. Furthermore the article introduces some basics of logic to the reader with the assumption or assertion this would be a reflection of the thinking process or the core of some evolutionary epistemology.

At this point I should mention that the above observation is not the very first one. I came to the above given summarize by repeatedly cycling the OODA-Loop. In this respect it is the observation ‚n + 1‘ after n OODA-cycles while reading the article, thinking about it and doing some investigation into its background and its construction. As one could say I followed the article’s principles of ‚destruction and creation‘, which means analysis and re-construction or which means hermeneutics or interpretation or understanding – name it like you want, names do not really play a role in this concern.

My orientation – the second ‚O‘ in OODA – gains from cycle to cycle more and more profile. From the first impression – the article on ‚destruction and creation‘ be a quite pragmatic and useful approach to or a first introduction into epistemology – I had to dissociate and to gain distance, be it involuntary or not. Within the article there are no self-reflections, no clearances of the own point of view, no deeper involvement into the mentioned techniques of logic. Thus my orientation leads to the opinion that the author gives his own world view an underlaying feeling of science without having studied and permeated the summoned mathematics and physics. One can find this exemplary in the citation of the Heisenberg formula. The citation is not fully wrong, but it is not correct and it seems not to be understood (replacement of impulse by velocity and hence dividing on the other hand Planck’s constant by mass). Even if the citation were correct and understood, the fact would remain: Human interpretation of the environment and the actions to be taken while trying to survive has almost nothing to do with Heisenberg’s equation. In the argueing of the author it deserves as a pseudo-scientific vehicle to show some imponderables while acting.

‚The result is a changing and expanding universe of mental concepts matched to a changing and expanding universe of observed reality.‘

Here is revealed the view as a naive realist who thinks human knowledge could principally reach out for recognising reality in total. The suggested possibility of matching is only limited by some ideas from physics and maths like Entropy, Indeterminacy Principle, Incompleteness. In fact, these ideas show part of the impossibility to really uncover reality by human skills.

So, after these observations and orientations (and some more which I regard not worth to report) I have to come from my n-th decision – which was to further investigate in the article – to my now last decision: to leave this article behind and to step on to my last action: while writing down my own thoughts, I now jump to the questions of the ‚Grand Purpose‘, if I may call it so. What is the meaning of doing this writing? What is the meaning of my personal life? Why are we here?

First let me say: the following is not meant to answer these questions! It is about reflecting them in a non-OODA-loop way. I regard the OODA-scheme as being ‚likely neutral‘, i.e. not wrong or harmful and not healing the world or guiding my thoughts. It’s pragmatic in a common sense, it cannot match questions of meaning since there is nothing to observe. One could say: observe the people who talk about meaning, and this would have some point (as behaviorism has some points), and yet it will not really lead to metaphysics which is the realm of concepts like ‚meaning‘.

In other terms, my experience while observing and orientating leads me to the decision to keep distance from scientism and from OODA-looping. If someone else will regard my steps as OODA-generated, than may it be so. To follow a rule is not the same as knowing it or willingly observe the rule. The rule might be constructed only by some analysts. In this regard, the above paragraphs and this writing is not for the purpose to say something but to show something. One can go up and down the phrases and destruct and rebuild the arguments and nevertheless fail on understanding. One can on the other hand try to follow the shown way for one’s own. The latter is the ‚method‘ or ‚strategy‘ of philosophy. It is not really a method or strategy, it is in itself a decision to look on the so-called world or environment as an experience thrown by only half (or better: much less than wholly) understood phenomena and to regard on one’s own life and personality as a treasure and gift from a transcendent source.

This decision is free but not arbitrary: If I am confronted with the fork in the path, than I can choose. If I cannot see the fork, if I am not standing before a decision, than I cannot produce it. This would not be a lack of reasoning but maybe some missing experience. Or it could be the result of an earlier decision made. So or so, ‚after all we‘re only ordinary man’, as Pink Floyd once put it (‚Us And Them‘ from ‚The Dark Side of the Moon‘, 1973).

Why are we here? Let’s assume, ‚here‘ would just point to Steem: Could we give a fully exhausting answer? This would require a deep insight in our own personal mind and soul in order to catch our motivations and purposes on this. While trying to get this insight, we possibly would find out that ‚here‘ as the Steem is interwoven with ‚here‘ as our contemporary time and our environment we live within. These for their own part interwoven with history, tradition, culture, heritage, and so on. Thus we could possibly find out that ‚here‘ is widely open, reaching far beyond our (event-)horizon – and yet it is not ‚there‘ but ‚here‘.

Now let’s assume, the ‚we‘ would point to you, the reader, and me, the writer. It’s obvious that we both are not alone ‚here‘. We are surrounded by a greater ‚we‘. The deeper we dig, the more we will find that the greater ‚we‘ not even stops by reaching all mankind. It is moreover like a wave to cover all what is living. And me for myself – am I not also in some kind a ‚we‘? Since I experience myself not as a homogenic total neither psychologically nor physiologically. There seems to be a unique center in my consciousness, however this center seems also to expand and to shrink in a not regular but timely fashion. So, I’d like to conclude or rather to invite the ‚we‘ to regard as a pluralis concordiae what means: interacting on the same goals, on the same purposes, and sharing the same values.

Why are ‚we‘ ‚here‘? To find out this, we can bend back this question in our purposes and upgrade it to a part of the Grand Purpose itself: We are here to find out why. The meaning of life lies not beyond life but in itself. This is not said as an answer nor said as a biologism. Because the essence of ‚life‘ lies secondo me deeply embedded in the ability for astonishment. Those who could follow my poor writing up to here will partly agree and partly not. Pluralis concordiae finds its end in regard to personal individuation. Why are we here? This cannot be answered in some words, not be answered valid for all, even not applicable for myself on all days in an equal manner.

Looking back from here, you (maybe) can see that scientism is not able to give the answer since it seeks for general answers in so far as the accepted answers have to be valid for more than one person, for more than one moment. But while scientism tries to give the answer anyway, it destroys within yourself the sensitivity for that what I called transcendent. Of course we are bound to an environment of phenomena, but scientism sticks to it. This is as if you would try to get a better impression of a painting while putting your nose on the canvas. Okay, you’ll then find some interesting observations, but I doubt if you’ll get a better understanding of the painting alone by doing so. Instead of this alone I think it’s necessary to get a lot of different distances from the painting. Not to mention different angles.

Returning from the stars back to earth and to Steem, I’m inclined to state: ‚Why are we here’ is the question to differentiate between ‚us‘ and ‚them‘. I can have rational and explainable and unfoldable purposes, and I can have (or try to realise) beyond them some philosophical ones – or not. But after all –

[screenshot from the following video]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Destruction_%26_Creation.pdf