Back to an interesting future
Chaos, complexity or incomprehension (Pt.1)
No one can fail to recognise that there is a myriad of entities that make up the body of knowledge and understanding of our existence. Everyone is likely to agree that humans, and other living things, may also conceive that their survival might be linked to differences and changes in the overall context they inhabit. For living things, there is at least a need and a possibility to react to changes.
The universe we all inhabit is made of matter and energy that is possible for us to sense, explore and understand. There are, however, many phenomena that we are unaware of, or that are incompletely understood, such as the force of gravity. The latter entity belongs, as do many other important issues, to the realm of metaphysics: Oxford Languages (languages@oup.com) defines metaphysics as ‘Abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, and space.’
Science tells us that matter can be converted to energy and vice versa. We have also recognized that all the material we are familiar with and can see is made up of progressively smaller particles of matter – atoms, and beyond that, sub-atomic particles.
It seems clear that we are continuously influenced by large numbers of interactions affecting entities such as falling rock due to gravity, as well as the tiny subatomic particles such as electrons and photons giving us light and electricity. Are these effects and forces that are chaotic, variably and immensely complex, beyond human comprehension? How much progress have we made in understanding how such phenomena actually make differences to us and our lives? We do not know what gravity is, we know quite a lot about electrons and photons, but what about our bodies, that look and feel so solid. Our bodies that, to our unassisted eyes, normally appear continuous and solid, in reality consist of atoms that move all the time, interacting, going back to the environment and being replaced. Those atoms with their subatomic particles will look like highly magnified press photographs appearing only as dots forever moving and changing places.
All our research so far has not told us much about how subatomic particles interact, but we do know that the interactions between atoms can vary enormously, because they form molecules. We do know that molecular content makes measurable differences to materials, but under what circumstances? Sometimes we do have some information, but far from always. As an example, we have only a small amount of the needed information to connect the full effects, positive and negative, of chemicals on living creatures. The information we do have is usually simplified to narrowly specific, easily testable research contexts.
What about all the possible interactions that may occur at different levels, that we only have hints about – not only between ‘simple’ chemicals but also the complex molecules of food and drink. Perhaps physical change such as temperature, decompression (e.g. air crew), acceleration and deceleration, lifting, dehydration may change material objects through effects on our atomic make-up. Think of metal fatigue. For living things, the various issues affecting possible internal and external influences on the body chemistry are simply immense and need to be considered as an interactive whole.
The philosopher Karl Popper made an important step forward in our attitude to scientific findings when he suggested that, instead of asking for our research hypotheses and findings to be confirmed, we should ask, ‘Can those findings also be falsified?’. If you can’t prove things wrong, you cannot be sure they are right.
There are very many studies that claim to find exceptions to obvious ‘norms’ in living things, but do we usually find out why there are exceptions? No, and therefore we fail to understand anything other than when there might be exceptions to the norm and only occasionally, why. Popper’s proposition is important as a first principle to critical analysis of science, but it seems clear that determining falsifiability must include a complete analysis and repeat of the original findings in exactly the same context.
There are so many studies that affect our lives that do not include considerations outside the norm. Seats in cars and aircraft are usually based on the assumed norm of a180 cm. male. There are many men that don’t fit that norm. And what about the generally smaller women? Those people who are overweight? Very tall or wide? All that, and the leg space in aircraft seems to be to be shrinking all the time! We often think of science as the truth even though it assumes that norms fit everything even when there are many obvious exceptions, and in reality, scientific research is limited and bound by the narrow contexts and methods used.
The postmodern world is deeply concerned about the use of ‘material evidence’ which, as suggested above, is usually piecemeal and related to/interpreted by, human observation and opinion. As soon as we say ‘interpret’, we must consider ‘inexperience’, ‘bias’, ‘external influence’, ‘carelessness’ even ‘mood’ and more. These are metaphysical concepts that may become actual and will affect consideration of outcomes. They need to have critical evaluations before acceptance of results. There must also be an acknowledgment that, although there may be evidence from studies, we do not know whether the study was performed well and in the right context to produce results relevant for the situation/context in which it will be used – should aircraft seats be generally the same size and construction in Japan, Greece or Nigeria? My ‘intuition’ is that many general assessments of experimental science do not usually have such scrutiny!
My strong feeling is that at a time when we are supposed to be concerned with provable evidence and logical analysis, the world is becoming less accepting of such a situation: quick answers that suit the moment are what is common now, plus a populism and worship of ‘influencers’. I think that this may be due in part to the hubris and lack of forethought with which science is often promoted. We should not just do science but also be more attentive to ethics and consequences of its use. A typical need for such a cautious approach is to be seen in the over-rapid and over-propagated uses of artificial intelligence (AI) for the interpretation of science and in many other sensitive areas. The results are said to be valid and useful, but for whom; and what kinds of evaluations of results have been reported and by whom?
Postmodern science deals with physical evidence: naturally including what happens in clinical trials and laboratory experiments. In most of these situations the experiments are carried out in very specific, defined contexts and then later those results are interpreted and re-used in much broader, more variable, complex, and even contaminated situations. Some of those so-called real-life situations are often selected and limited even when considering broader conditions. Outlying results are also omitted by some – when there is no obvious explanation for them.
As a practicing medical scientist and editor of scientific papers, I have seen many examples of all of the above shortcomings and pondered over them. There are many clinical papers in which a person in one country repeats a study originating elsewhere in the world and produces a very similar result. My dilemma has always been: ‘Is this similar (but not exact) result a kind of confirmation of the findings of an earlier paper or are the minor differences important? Is it possible to falsify the results in a Popperian context? Or is it simply impossible to repeat experiments precisely because all the constituent factors will have changed? How do we approach this situation?’
We do much of our science in silos of narrow expertise and in a standardized, limited physical context with the result that the actual short- and long-term impact of the research in the unlimited global environments is not fully and objectively assessed.
The metaphysical was once bluntly dismissed for me by a scientist with his exclamation, “Gut feeling is measured in loads of bulls..t, only hard evidence counts”. It seems to me that many and even most matters of importance in human needs and views of the world are decided with the involvement of some metaphysical ‘shadow’. As current examples, war seems to have been most often started because of ‘pride’, ‘greed’, ‘hate’, ‘fear’ or some other emotion ignoring ‘logic’ and ‘reason’ and the consequent deaths of soldiers and the exorbitant costs. Many of the so called ‘facts’ considered have nothing to do with a motivation that will improve the world.
Chaos, complexity or incomprehension (Pt.2)
An eminent physicist and philosopher, Prof. Alfred North Whitehead believed that creativity and change is the core of all existence. He said “There persists … fixed scientific cosmology which presupposes the ultimate fact of an irreducible brute matter, or material, spread through space in a flux of configurations. In itself, such a material is senseless, valueless, purposeless. It just does what it does do, following a fixed routine imposed by external relations which do not spring from the nature of its being. It is this assumption that I call “scientific materialism.” Also, it is an assumption which I shall challenge as being entirely unsuited to the scientific situation at which we have now arrived”.
His view was that everything changes, be it a human being, a tree, a rock or an electron. Because of that, interactions with other entities will occur in ways not fully determinable. Whitehead was of the view that perfect prediction is not possible by causal or mechanistic laws: any changes, as they occur, may be variably fast or slow (be neither detectable for long periods of time or be instantaneous), and they may follow unpredictable degrees, or types, of outcome. I interpret this to mean that even over any short periods, things may have changed even as we describe any dispositions they have. Whitehead, in my understanding, rejects the idea of separate and unchanging bits of matter as the most basic building blocks of reality, in favour of the idea of reality as interrelated events in a process. He conceives of reality as composed of processes of dynamic “becoming” rather than static “being,” emphasizing that all physical things change and evolve and that changeless “essences” such as matter are mere abstractions from the interrelated events that are the final real things that make up the universe.
Whitehead was a co-author of one of the most important books considering mathematics, logic, and physics. He wrote the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), with his former student well known Earl Bertrand Russell. Later, he became the Professor of Applied Mathematics at Imperial College, London and, rather unusually, he was then invited to join the Faculty of Philosophy at Harvard University in the USA, as Professor. In spite of that, Whitehead’s works are not widely known, but his best known book profoundly questioning our approaches to the philosophy of science makes interesting reading[1]. He initiated the field he called ‘Process Philosophy’ and argued that it is not perception of particles of matter that form reality, but their continuous change and interactions. Reality for Whitehead is made up of “actual occasions” which are “drops of experience” and relate to the world into which they are emerging by “feeling” some kind of interaction and translating it into the occasion’s concrete reality.
I have problems in understanding quite what is meant by ‘drops of experience’ since, while these drops can be imagined by us, they are abstract in this context. Certainly, this phrase seems to be an obscure, confusing explanation until one thinks differently about what the universe might be – just vast unimaginable different entities (feeling, ideas, stone, space) that can be perceived, interact and produce whatever. Whitehead points out that we are intrinsic conscious entities in all this and have the potential to grasp and understand – perhaps – what ‘it is all about’. He called this ‘prehension’.
I am not sufficiently familiar with Whitehead’s full works, and I wish only to make some links with his overall view of reality and my own thoughts on the current considerations of scientific evidence. I am inclined to think that Whitehead was trying to use commonplace wording here to avoid the difficulties of specifying the ‘drops of experience’ when he is referring to the currently unknown. I might suggest the old term coined by John Duns Scotus in the 13th century who used the word haecceity meaning a thing’s ‘thisness’ which might refer to any individualized entity.
This quote from Oxford University Press’s Academic Insights for the Thinking World (OUP Blog:, ‘John Duns Scotus – The ‘Subtle Doctor’ – Philosopher of the Month’ September15th, 2019) hopefully may clarify the point that, “Scotus is also considered a realist on the core issue of the universal. He believed there are universal realities (concepts or things that exist outside the mind), endorsing the Arabic philosopher Avicenna’s theory of the “common nature,” according to which essences or nature have their existence and priority in the mind or singular outside it. But he also believed that they only exist in the particular things that they exemplify once they are contracted (made individual) with the haecceity (thisness) of the things to create the individual.” To Whitehead, contexts are very important since an ‘experience’ in its totality is transitory, though taking any possible time period for prehension.
Any possible constituent energies and sub-atomic particles are changing in vast numbers of formulations including any number of repetitions in different molecules. These are recognised by human senses only as different material entities that occur both outside and inside our prehensions.
Such a view of Whitehead’s work seems beyond science fiction, but our discoveries in the cosmos, particle physics, chaos theories, and more findings in standard science and philosophy do seem to lead us in ways that stretch the imagination well beyond the material world.
Sub-atomic science seems far removed from normal experience, but Whitehead might have it right, and to think about our ‘atomic existence’ may allow us to concentrate on our togetherness and to value our ‘drops of experience’.
Why have I written this stuff?
The world around us seems chaotic – change all the time, fake and misleading news; poor science and crazy technology; strife and war. Everyone believes they are right, but based on what? An increasing number believe they have rights above others, but how are those rights earned? And we hear more grumbling and hate apparent, rather than seeking love, beauty and peace.
To change our viewpoints.
Change is everything must have an aim: change for the better that is well considered for possible consequences. Both current science findings about matter being bunches of atoms and Whitehead’s ‘process philosophy’ suggest to me that there is much that we simply don’t comprehend and that in science, and life in general, anyone with belief only in obvious material evidence is being misled. We know that we change – our thoughts and material bodies – nothing around us is the same from one moment to the next, though the changes are subtle and even unmeasurable with our current knowledge.
· We have lots of stuff that is important and NOT material: love and care, dreams, excitement, interests, cares, fears etc….The metaphysical, like Whitehead’s proposals which are currently almost incomprehensible science issues and haecceity, are all affecting how we manage material things. So, let’s try to gain more good ‘experience’ by always considering a different world by always considering them.
· What is good? Things that make us feel happy, not scared or jealous. We can recognize beautiful things, stop producing rubbish and ruining the ecology. We can use our senses, but also consider the metaphysical and Whiteheads prehension, that might lead us to a more thoughtful and modest view of the world, so let us hear good discussions about change for the better, and use both philosophy and new ideas in science for real discovery and not the repetitions/extensions of what we already know – and often use for warfare or pure trivia.
· In our daily existence we can see and value beautiful flowers and colours; and to make and listen to happy music. We can smell and taste the natural environment and not always artificial smells. We should be able touch the softness of each other’s personalities and stroke our pets with care without fear of hurt and/or retribution.
Think!
Alfred North Whitehead was brought up in a family that was both religious and academic his father leaving a teaching career to be an Anglican minister. On his mother’s side he was introduced to well-known English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists (the Bloomsbury Set, in London. His background could be considered as a good example that we are all related and we can share knowledge, share thoughts, use wisdom and care for each other.
If we really wanted to, we could turn all our differences to benefit instead of harm to cure the mess we are in. Whitehead was no stranger to the metaphysical in trying to understand the world we live in.
Currently, religious differences seem to be doing more harm than good. Many people believe in and worship ‘a God/ Creator’. Nearly every religious grouping has given their Creator a name, human or animal physical qualities, gender, both metaphysical and physical qualities and much more. The major challenge is that some think their particular god/creator is based on unassailable truths which lead to competitive violence on a large scale.
Individual killing, intolerance, suppression, and open warfare has been, and still, is due to 3 main religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Surprisingly all 3 now claim to be peaceful and caring to all humanity. Isn’t it time that their leaders should get together and discuss their differences and learn to not only compromise but also never to condone hate and violence to others. Above all it is time for them to discuss and agree some common ground on metaphysical beings. After all nobody has ever seen a god and the ideas of messages from God/a Creator need reconsidering for proof, or at least some common understanding amongst religions. Neither side in the current wars have anything like evidence to support their views other than old ideas, books and records that have not been updated for very many decades. Christians have had one major update of the Bible long ago, but I think that the evidence once again needs reconsideration.”
Conclusion – Move to a different future.
Let’s stop this madness and accept that we only exist as an apparently humanly defined bunch of visible and tangible atoms, and that those atoms move and change. In the future, both our existence and that of all other material objects, will continue to be in continuous state of change too.
We really know nothing about consciousness, but let’s see if we can mold our energy flows into making the future better through our knowledge and interactions. Let’s be firm about best interactions (‘experiences’) for us all instead of petty greed and competition leading to destruction and chaos. Let’s join our energies and find out more if we can about how we change and the delights of interplay in attempting to see how right Whitehead might be, and to join the interchange of energies and haecceities that might determine a good future. Let us not pretend that knowing and using the material world has brought us true happiness. We need to understand more than just our material world: we must nurture all those things we can all agree are good.
Like Whitehead we should consider the unseen metaphysical world and create or find good experiences and interactions. Those good things we relish and cherish, we must also understand and use to achieve positive changes for the better and not just for more and more material gains.
It would help for religious leaders to make their joint statement against killing and warfare.