Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Scientism

'Scientism' is a scare word. Its chief purpose is not so much to describe a position as to describe-and-attack. It is generally used by those who are ill-disposed to what they see as a narrowly scientific view of the world to suggest that there are other sources of knowledge than ordinary human perceptions and judgements and the empirical and deductive methods of science and mathematics.

Many thinkers take human consciousness (which of course incorporates value judgements, etc.) as a window into something like a spiritual or moral realm, but I would have thought that our perceptions and judgements are entirely the result of processes associated with individual organisms interacting with each other and the wider organic and inorganic environment in which we find ourselves.

The fact that mathematics seems to subsist in a world of its own - accessible to human reason and not empirical in the normal sense - poses problems for radical empiricism, but computational approaches to mathematics (incorporating the concept of information as something physical) may lead to a natural way of sustaining a physicalist, anti-Platonic outlook.

The very fact that we have so many alternative philosophies of mathematics and no clear way to decide which of them (if any) is 'true' suggests that the traditional categories and concepts in which these competing approaches have been framed might be the real source of confusion, and that radically new ways of addressing the questions are needed.

The trend certainly seems to be towards seeing mathematics as being rather closer to physics than has previously been thought to be the case.

Our knowledge of the world may conveniently be divided between ordinary, everyday knowledge (incorporating skills, commonsense, values and so-called intuitions) and theoretical knowledge. The latter is valuable in my view only to the extent that it is scientific (broadly interpreted).

If this is scientism, I can live with it.

2 comments:

  1. Mark, I just happened to run across this blog after my favorite blogger in the world (Ana F-B of "AnatheImp" fame) paid you a pretty compliment on it. My viewpoint on life is any blog Ms. Fitzgerald-Beaumont says is well done is certainly worth looking at (and of course she is correct - what I have seen so far has been interesting, accurate, and well written!)

    Getting to my response to THIS article, while I am very definitely a Christian, I also have a considerable background in science (undergrad degree from the School of Mathematics at the local Uni) - I very much sympathise w/Albert Einstein when he gave the reason he was a scientist: "I want to know how God created this world." From my studies I have learned that a number of sub-atomic physicists feel the same way - the deeper they get into their studies, the closer they are to actually seeing the hand of God at work.

    That being said, the viewpoint you call "Scientism", I have more often heard called "secular humanism", which I presume is another label for Atheism. While I disagree (due to some first-hand experience) w/the thought that God doesn't exist, I found your explanations interesting and well thought out.

    One item I where DO think you are incorrect is where you said "...seeing mathematics as being rather closer to physics...". To me it would be equally valid to say "...seeing English as being rather closer to Psychology...", because we [Americans] use the English language to describe a patient's mental behavior. Mathematics is used just like any spoken language would be, to describe the behavior of, say, sub-atomic particles - but I don't see how you can legitimately say it is "closer" to Physics.

    [NOTE: I have been out of Uni for a LOONG time, so I have forgotten anything I ever learned about the "philosophy of mathematics" (is there any ?) or what effect that it(?) might have on this discussion]

    All in all an interesting article, and I look forward to reading (and sometimes discussing) more of your thoughts. :-)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for the kind remarks - and for the challenging question. I first got the idea that maths may be coming to be seen as closer to physics than it used to be from Gregory Chaitin.

      I am not claiming expertise in this area, but I am very interested in it.

      Computational perspectives on physics suggest that discrete rather than continuous processes underlie reality. Continuous mathematics does seem to describe physical reality, but this may only be an approximation.

      My thinking on this is still undeveloped, but at a metaphorical level the universe can be understood to be a quantum computer. Many believe that this will turn out to be more than a metaphor. And I'm hoping that further reading and discussion will allow me to come to terms with these ideas and decide how significant they really are.

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