Two Paths Converged in a Wood That Appeared Yellow

.
Two paths converged in a wood that appeared yellow . . .

(This post was actually written a couple of weeks before Stephen Hawking died, but I had not posted it before his death. Then he died and I lost focus and began to work on the essay prompted by his passing. I have pretty much finished with that post. But I will post this first as the two make more sense together. I’ll post the other in a couple of days. - RLS)

I have been encountering some new interest in an old discussion. Most recently the March 3rd issue of New Scientist reviews Angela Potochnik’s book Idealization and the Aims of Science and a collection of essays titled Science Unlimited?: the concept of scientism. Both works are epistemological in nature, focused on how we come to know and understand the physical nature of the universe and the philosophical nature of our own existence. Unfortunately the collection of essays seems, from these reviews anyway, to see the issue as some sort of contest. And they bring out the big guns, quoting Hawking as saying “philosophy is dead,” and Feynman asserting that a philosophy of science is as useful to science as ornithology is to birds. These pronouncements constitute a warning - and perhaps one to which we all should pay more attention - of how wrong even the brightest among us can be when they mistake their own expertise for a kind of global certainty. Potochnik, an unrepentant philosopher, appears to try to take more of a middle road, but is anything but oil on troubled waters when she declares that “science isn’t after the truth.”

I wonder why this intellectual cat fight seems to have nine lives of its own. But then again, having spent almost half a century on university faculties, I am really not at all surprised. The academic world is a world of competitive storytelling. It is the “best” story that gets published, that attracts grants, that gets you tenure. And so to elevate your own story, you must demean or destroy the stories of those others seeking the increasingly limited rewards the academy has to offer. When the storytelling contest takes place within the confines of a particular discipline the contests are usually bound by the canon of the discipline - those dominant stories that define the current beliefs of the tribe. Those narrative duels often tweak and expand the canon, but rarely challenge its central core.

However, when the fight breaks out across disciplines, things can get totally out of control. It is a shame that the “winner takes all” nature of intellectual debate in the academy has seen fit to cast scientists and philosophers as antagonists. Distilled Harmony reveals that nothing could be further from the truth. Academic cat fights proceed from the assumption that for me to be right, you must be wrong. Distilled Harmony proceeds from the mandate of its first tenet - Foster Harmony. In this context that means we should seek to learn what we can from the perspective of the other in order to increase our shared understanding of larger issues.

The truth is that at their most fundamental level science and philosophy seek to answer the same question: what is the nature of the universe and what is our place in it? The fact that we have arbitrarily given the first portion of the question over to science and the second part to philosophy is intellectually myopic.

It is true that to date science has concerned itself primarily with the notion of the mechanics of the universe: how it came to be, what it is made of, and how its various parts work together. The progress it has made down this path in the past thousand years is truly astonishing. Even now hardly a day passes without some new insight regarding the very large frontiers of black holes, distant galaxies, and gravitational waves. The same is true of the incredibly tiny world of nano particles, quantum mechanics and quantum computers.

Philosophy has been less overtly successful, perhaps because its focus has been less precise - seeking, often through religion, to answer those questions better left to its sibling science. But rather than railing against science’s success, philosophy would be better directed to turn its attention to the issues that blend more naturally with science’s investigations.

Science has made great strides in revealing what the universe is and how it works, and occasionally uses those advances to assert its intellectual primacy. However it is only able to tout these advances by quietly failing to address one of the questions that every first year journalism student is taught to apply: why? Why are the universe and existence so structured? And that should be the true calling of philosophy: seeking to understand the reason for, and the universal nature of existence.

If there is one great common theme between these cosmic twins of Science and Philosophy it is that notion of seeking. Both disciplines rest on the cornerstone of curiosity - always searching for the next set of questions posed by the current answers. Assuming certainly should be anathema to both. Certainty in science turns science to dogma and certainty in philosophy ends in fundamentalism. In each case the discipline stagnates and grows more concerned with staking out positions to be defended rather than creating paths to new knowledge and greater understanding. These are fatal flaws as the universe cannot be constrained in a terrarium nor can existence be finally explained with tracts of mystic, unquestionable, declaratory prose.

Perhaps a metaphor offers the best conclusion to this current rambling:

Consider four mountaineers attempting to scale the face of an unknown peak. They may choose to climb separately or together. The two youngest, most fit, and perhaps even the most skilled, sprint off alone on separate paths, determined to be the first to reach the summit. The remaining pair decide to climb together. They carefully check their equipment, study the few available maps and begin their studied ascent. Each takes the lead when the terrain favors his or her unique skills. The other leads when the situation is reversed. They move steadfastly up the mountain eventually gaining the apex from which they can see their younger colleagues, paths now crossed, bickering below. As the pair on the summit survey the surrounding vista, they see another peak nearby, even more beautiful and alluring than the one on which they stand. After a brief meal, and perhaps a nap, Science and Philosophy gather their gear together and, curiosity flaring, begin their next ascent.
.