Science: the unifying factor for humankind in the future by Alexandre Serge François de Pomposo

Alexandre de Pomposo

Hi. When I mention the idea of a "disappointing science" I am not referring to science itself, but rather to the way many scientists, mainly along the 20th century, have interpreted the terms of doing science. As an intellectual effort sciences have been from the very beginning a tremendously successfully explanation of the world, at certain levels, not all of them. The scientists who get deeply into the making of science know that, even though we can establish many facts, we still miss the main point, namely, the role played by human nature of thinking reality and the effects of all that onto consciousness. So, in few words, the difficulty does not come from science itself, but from the attitude of many scientists who uncritically believe that deterministic science guarantee humans future and happiness. Science is, as a matter of fact, unthinkable without scientists.

Well, not only am I not against science but I think that science is one of the more important issues for humanity, as soon as we assume scientific though on a revisionist basis, I mean, reviewing all the root concepts of physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, dominating as far as possible all the epistemological perspectives on nature. I hope these ideas will be helpful.

Regards

Alex

Petio Hristov

Dear Mr.Alexandre de Pomposo

Your essay greatly excited and imprested me.

I support your idea that reality is diverse and complicated, but is regulated by clear principles. It makes me very happy that in the disclosure of reality you mention not only the second law of thermodynamics and the Prigogine theorem, but Hermeneutics and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), as well and the idea of the meaning and perfection of the circle.

I agree with you that in the understanding of entropy one must have in mind the evolution of nature, but I believe that a new physical decision could shed some light on its secrets.

I suggest the answer given by the General theory of Unity: in the moment before the occurrence of the thermal death due to entropy comes conversion. (Life under ground Cosmic mystery and physical reality by Petio Hristov ) This process was known in some ancient cultures. The cycle of nature was also known.

Entropy is one of the manifestations of the law of Conversion. The law expresses the encrypted idea of the prevention of the thermal death due to entropy. It is important to understand that after the occurred conversion entropy continues... in a different direction and in a new way (in a different configuration).

Entropy is a continuous process, which changes its direction, as well as its magnitude in the different moments of its own development. It changes its own configuration. The point of this conversion with which the thermal death due to entropy is prevented some scientists perceived as the Big Bang.

I consider that your essay deserves a high rating.

Petio Hristov

Alexandre de Pomposo

I am extremely sorry for I took so long to answer your very interesting reply. You are mostly kind about my writing and, it seems to me, we agree in more than one point: I find specially exciting the idea of a "conversion" process upon which entropy itself depends. It reminds me a little bit the situations facing the multiverse theory, namely, that it either is a pure mathematical possibility, or a purely phenomenological facet of mental reality. That doesn't mean that we should simple brush it aside. It seemingly points out a projection of brain structure, like most of our scientific constructs.

Reading your paper I frankly enjoyed a lot that you didn't fear a bit considering ancient models. You are absolutely right: ancient peoples were much less stupid than we might think: they had that extraordinary capability of observing reality, while we rarely do that because we usually "see" things. In order to recover such skills, we should look beyond our scientific stuff and start rethinking the same scientific action as the pristine concern of how nature does the wonderful masterpieces we should observe everyday.

Best wishes.

Alex

Alexandre de Pomposo

Dear Mr. Petio Hristov,

Best wishes.

Alex

Mohammed Khalil

Hi Alexandre,

Great essay! I agree with you; In my essay , I argue that science can lead humanity's future, and we have to make the conditions right for science to do so.

Good luck in the contest.

Mohammed

Alexandre de Pomposo

Dear Mohammed,

I cannot but say that your essay is gorgeous too! Even we argue in different styles and even with different sorts of conceptual backgrounds, we agree on the main topics. I would like to underline, since I myself pointed it out too in my paper, that improving education not only is very important, but it is indeed urgent. However, I shall disagree that the only fact of owning a laptop guarantees education (there exist many educational programs trying to do so). No doubt that computers can be extremely useful tools while learning about new horizons in knowledge; just to mention one aspect, it is amazing the amount of good books on science, arts, philosophy, and so on, one can download for free (I have thousands of such e-books which I share with my students). Nevertheless, the marrow of knowledge still depends upon personal yearnings, hard work trying to understand concepts and feeling overwhelmed by beauty in nature. Well, I suppose I sound like a grandpa talking to his grandson: I assure you that my intention is to support initiatives like yours and mine. Best regards.

Alex

Aaron Feeney

P.S., I will use the following rating scale to rate the essays of authors who tell me that they have rated my essay:

10 - the essay is perfection and I learned a tremendous amount

9 - the essay was extremely good, and I learned a lot

8 - the essay was very good, and I learned something

7 - the essay was good, and it had some helpful suggestions

6 - slightly favorable indifference

5 - unfavorable indifference

4 - the essay was pretty shoddy and boring

3 - the essay was of poor quality and boring

2 - the essay was of very poor quality and boring

1 - the essay was of shockingly poor quality and extremely flawed

After all, that is essentially what the numbers mean.

The following is a general observation:

Is it not ironic that so many authors who have written about how we should improve our future as a species, to a certain extent, appear to be motivated by self-interest in their rating practices? (As evidence, I offer the observation that no article under 3 deserves such a rating, and nearly every article above 4 deserves a higher rating.)

Ajay Bhatla

Christine,

Your emphasis on "should empower the individual's mind" is precisely the point of my essay (here).

So, I am very surprised when you say "This is not a proposal for steering humanity."

I look forward to your comments on my essay.

- Ajay

Ajay Bhatla

Alexandre,

My sincere apologies for posting a comment not meant for your essay on your essay.

Please ignore it.

Thank you

- Ajay

Ajay Bhatla

Alexandre,

I completely agree that science is only one of many forms "of telling the world."

I also agree that the more forms used the better the chance of reaching every one.

If your goal using the many forms is to make "general intelligence" more powerful, I agree with that.

What's a bit vague to me is what you specifically want everyone to know or be able to do.

- Ajay

Alexandre de Pomposo

Ajay,

I appreciate your comment on my paper. I thoroughly read yours and I must say it was a joyful experience. In order to answer to your reply I shall say that what I want everyone to know is restlessness of intellect: the essential "sickness" of being unsatisfied by our poor understanding of reality as it is, not as we would like it to be. In concrete this means that a scientist, for instance, has to be more than interested in other sorts of knowledge, anthropological, artistic, metaphysical, philosophical, political, etc., even religious realm should be appealing to him, just because such a subject has to do with humans yearning, fears, behaviors, etc. I imagine that in doing so, a scientist can do his or her scientific work much better, with the consciousness of being for and with the other in thee planet, isn't it so? The whole stuff is in the attitude and humbleness with which we pretend to know something about the world, including us. Best regards.

Alex

James Putnam

Dear Alexandre de Pomposo,

Very good essay. Several lines are worth quoting, I chose this one:

"Human history, particularly the 20th century history, is filled up with stories of blood, hunger, injustice, nasty social contrasts, amazing technologies usually sponsored by and oriented for armies, medical techniques of astonishing precision and, at the same time, millions of people, mainly children, dying of preventable infectious diseases, and so on. The solution starts down here, amongst humans, learning to learn from others and declaring from their inner part of their minds, that it will never again happen to humans to set over human dignity the ambitious perspective of racial superiority, of fanatic wrights, of apocalyptic views. No, the future of Humanity must take into account the open unity in diversity."

Humanity needs to achieve a better world. I think you expressed this need, the importance of 'open unity in diversity', and, your view of 'Science: the unifying factor for humankind in the future' beautifully.

From your abstract: "Scientific language is extremely powerful but it is not almighty; therefore, we review the serious limitations of proclaiming a unique code of expression about the real world, humans within, and instead we propose a polyglotism which not only recognizes there are other forms of telling the world, but opens its own horizon, accepting its needs, assuming then the unifier role that science is called to play, so that Humanity steer the future in an adequate way."

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

James Putnam

[deleted]

Dear James Putnam,

Thanks a lot for your encouraging words; sincerely, I don't think I am worth of being quoted but, still, Thanks again. On my side, I confess I had to read several times your paper, not because it is not well written, but because of the axes you fix: they are all fundamental and forced my mind to review most of the basis I considered already clear. Aren't articles meant to be for that? Yours plenty fulfill that goal! Just to mention a brief comment on the topics you highlight:

i) The teacher: to me teaching is just "sharing" questioning about reality, all reality, at every level, from strings and superstrings, al the way to galaxy clusters and the big-bang, passing through woods, cows, butterflies and men. Of course, the least thing to do for students, and I consider myself an eternal pupil, is to help them putting some hierarchy in all that questioning.

ii) Innate knowledge: there is, no doubt, a "pre-existing" structure working as a filter to perceive reality. But such aprioristic knowledge cannot be a conditioning obstacle for freedom and happiness in thought.

iii) Emotions: they are the gateway in human existence. Knowledge and sense of mystery are the motors of sentient intelligence; both affective and effective elements are mandatory in ethics and moral behavior in lifetime.

iv) Innate meanings: similar to innate knowledge, but with the hermeneutics always changing initial data. Therefore, unique meaning is never achieved on anything. Far from being a pitiful idea, I think it shows why scientific knowledge, like every single knowledge, is worthwhile.

v) Free will: what a tremendous subject! I don't know if free will is just a subjective impression of doing what I want, or if it is rather a universal law. However I do know that perfect freedom has to do much more with wanting what one does, than doing what one wants. Whether there exists or not a free will residing inside humans, it is most certainly true that nobody can take away one's power of decision: even error owns its logic.

vi) Leadership: how can we orient spirits through the baffling truths of nature? Well, I suppose that getting older makes one responsible for younger people. In fact it is a fair business to share our experience, our doubts, even our transient certainties. To me, being a leader is first of all a matter of self-critique. Don't you think so?

Best regards.

Alex

Alexandre de Pomposo

Hi Aaron,

I carefully read your paper and, I shall say, I agree with you as far as the title is concerned, since "seeing" the future does not imply "understanding" it and even less being capable of "dealing with" it. I would add to your punctual conception about future-viewing machines, that even phylogenetic aspects might be taken into account, namely, how the eyes in lots of species, including humans, tended through millions of years to move forward, so to become able to "predict" immediate movements. That obviously was a double-edged sword since knowing in advance is a good thing, but seeing nothing behind is a bad thing for us, a weakness so to speak.

On the other hand I think that not being able to know deterministically the future is enough reason to open the door to the language of complexity, in a very serious sense. I mean by complexity a particular concretion of phenomenology, leaving a place for mankind in the description of reality: both epistemological movements, from effects to causes and from causes to effects are important, however the second way requires more intellectual fineness, don't you think so? That is why I recognize myself in your article, as I hope it will be the case all the way around. It is, perhaps, one of the most relevant subjects one could think about. Best wishes for the contest.

Alex

Chidi Idika

Dear Alex,

Its a rich essay you have here (although I found my comprehesion often hampered by a certain syntax).

I figure that what prevents polyglot-ism in science is that scientists in every field take themselves TOO seriously. If every field of study is able to see itself as only a language/idiom/model for articulating nature we would build bridges more easily as you noted children are wont to do.

For practicals you say: "It is easily noted that the common "zone" of these three dimensions (ontological, epistemological and ethical) is reality itself, and its foundations are in the concrete manner the human brain perceives and interprets such reality."

This above thesis underlines the approach I take to the subject at hand; on which approach I will appreciate your valuable judgment.

As you put it: "...the future of Humanity must take into account the

open unity in diversity."

Also I did check up your link on dissipative systems.

Best (and I'll certainly be back here to rate),

Chidi

[deleted]

Dear Chidi,

Thanks for your kindly talk. I appreciate your point of view since, as I could read in your beautiful paper, we truly agree on many aspects of what sciences should have in mind while descanting about nature. I apologize for my syntax, as you already noticed, is not very good in English; however, I assure you, I'll do my best.

The approach you take argues that "There is no good reason for us to regard that the laws that govern the human body is fundamentally different from that which governs the cosmos except the historical reason that classical physics as represented by Newton's laws and those of thermodynamics simply would feign no hypothesis." Well, such Newtonian hypotheses non fingo you extend to thermodynamics breaks down as soon as we take into account Boltzmann's H-theorem, with a definitely irreversible behavior. As a matter of fact, it is possible to say something not to stupid about a living body, either healthy or sick, from thermodynamics standpoint. It is just there, and I am very happy that you did realize this turning point, namely, the rather "mysterious" puzzle which asks how is it possible that such elegant assumptions about absoluteness of both space and time, in Newton's views, don't make the cut when dealing with living reality.

Now, my friend, I am quite sure that every single human being needs reality, but not so many of them are aware about such need... I know that sounds like a sort of gnostic idea, asserting that just the few understand while the majority ignores everything. However that perspective frequently looks true, I rather think that every single human being possesses a glimpse of truth within.

Your considerations about body and organism reminded me a book I read several years ago, Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Fﾃｩlix Guattari. They talk about a primordial stage in the genesis of consciousness, the body without organs, this is to say a body which is not an organism. You said it well; signs are already there in Quantum Physics, where indeterminacy is the rule. Now, as I said in my paper, the fuzziness we notice in nature is not a matter of technology so that the more precise become our measurement instruments the sharper our knowledge will be. No, fuzziness is a property of reality. Nevertheless, I declare myself overwhelmed by the nature of the key constants in Physics as, for instance, the fine-structure constant

ﾎｱ=1/((4ﾏ\ﾎｵ_0)) e^2/(邃縦)

which seems to indicate an intimate property of nature, depending on the adiabatic or non-adiabatic conditions at big-bang? On the other hand, even if such a problem looks deeply complex, in fact it is trivial compared with human nature, which is not susceptible of being put into an equation, of any kind.

You mention much more subjects I would like to discuss with you, but duration and space are terrible dictators in our contingent reality. So I hope sometime...

Best regards.

Alex

Alexandre de Pomposo

Hi Petio,

I tried to inscribe my e-mails into the link you put in your message about a discussion group, but I couldn't (I am not as good as you on digital expression). So I put my e-mails here:

e_mc2_alex@yahoo.es

alexandre@edgarmorin.org

I'm looking forward to start reading your text and debating ideas. Thank you for your invitation. Regards,

Alex

Vladimir Rogozhin

Dear Alexandre,

I read with great interest your depth analytical essay in the Cartesian spirit of doubt and specific suggestions and direction for mankind. Very close to me your ideas and conclusions:

«Among the best accomplishments of mankind we recognize science, art and Philosophy, as they have in common, all three, that they can bring in question the blindly accepted state of things in the world, at any level. Art and philosophy, being extremely relevant, as they justify most of the peculiar characters of humans, they hardly generate new technologies for human living; that doesnt mean that art and philosophy are simply useless, certainly not.»

I would also add the Tradition (the idea of the Absolute, Faith, Hope, Love, Justice, Goodness).

These thoughts are talking about the necessity of nominating Philosophy in the first place for a more reliable steering the future of Humanity: Philosophy-Art-Science-Tradition. Science as a global idea, but within a certain framework.

I fully agree with your conclusion.

Mathematics and Physics - two fundamental sign systems but ontologically is not justified. However, like all Knowledge. Fundamental science is experiencing a "crisis of representation and interpretation" (T.Romanovskaya «Modern physics and contemporary art-parallels of style»), "crisis of understanding", methodological crisis of philosophical foundations. As a result of the crisis - the concept of "multiverse" and misunderstanding of "TIME". How can mathematics be able to "close the physics" (mathematician Ludwig Faddeev an interview «The equation of the evil spirit»)? Solving the problem of substantiation of mathematics is a solution of the problem of substantiation of Knowledge.

At the time Henri Bergson wrote a good book "Matter and Memory". But unfortunately, he not found a deep connection between these two fundamental categories. Physics was on the way phenomenological unification, but now need deep ontological unification of matter to "grab" the structure of SPACE and then "grab" TIME as multivalent phenomenon Ontological (structural, cosmic) Memory. In the physical picture of the world no deepest meanings of the "LifeWorld " (E.Husserl). Physicists and lyricists must have the unified picture of the world rich in meanings of the "LifeWorld".

Fundamental science needs "general framework structure" (David Gross, an interview "What is in the space-time"). We have a good idea of N.Bourbaki - "mother structures". Going to the "absolute mother structure" ("general framework structure") should start from "Architecture Mathematics" Bourbaki, Cartesian «Cogito ergo sum» and Wittgenstein's idea that the structure of language is the structure of the world. "Event held in grasping structure means understanding" (G.Gutner "Ontology of the Mathematical Discourse"). As is well said A.Zenkin in his article "SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS": «The truth should be drawn with the help of the cognitive computer visualization technology and should be presented to "an unlimited circle" of spectators in the form of color-musical cognitive images of its immanent essence.»

But in order to "draw" the truth, it is necessary to understand more deeply the Cartesian "Cogito ergo sum". Physics must continue on the path of geometrization, but geometrization ontological,gnoseological. "Science formulas" is not an assistant, need "Science forms" and "The General Theory of structures."

Physics must take the path of ontological unification of matter and not continue on the path of the phenomenological unification forces. Necessary deeper "digging" in the "Dialectics of Nature". You are absolutely correct about the need to write a better understanding of the dialectic. It should be redone and a deeper look at the "law of Nature" and "fundamental constants".

Unified picture of the world for physicists and lyricists - then management of the future of humanity more reliable, because there will be understanding. A broad competition of ideas in science and society. Already clear that the time has come "Democracy 3.0 ". In science and society. Here are just a big problem "closeness" and "openness." Problem of "closeness" in Science was well demonstrated Lee Smolin in «The Trouble with Physics».

The world situation is very alarming (politics, ecology, science and all existential risks) and therefore our responsibility to future Generations requires action. We need to hear the voice of the Earth, voice of the People to give up Hope to New Generation of Earthlings. We need a new "Big Common Cause" to save Peace, Nature and Humanity. Time has come and we start the path together with the new Generation of the Information age, going ahead.

I invite you to comment and appreciate my ideas and my essays from Contests FQXi Essay 2012-2013, in which I give a new conceptual structure of the Universe, based on ontological unification of matter at all levels of being of the Universe as a whole, model of the Universe, unified for physicists and lyricists.

Best regards,

Vladimir

Alexandre de Pomposo

Dear Vladimir,

How I thank you for your encouraging words! I'm deeply honoured for the comparison you made vis-à-vis de Descartes! However, unlike him I doubt about everything, even I doubt about doubt... I mean I aspire to become a rebel with a cause, namely, reality including man as an important part of the whole context of things.

You are certainly right, Tradition is extremely important, as far as it contemplates the Interpretation of tradition as Gadamer considered it in order to constitute a "hermeneutical circle", otherwise tradition can be easily trivialised as mere repetition of the same, brushing aside the marvelling of reality's perpetual renewal. We should discuss here the nature and the eventual role of evil, so to speak, for I must confess that two thousand years of teaching about loving one's neighbour and turning the other cheek, it seems to me, have been quite useless as I observe people despising other people, decreeing superiorities of any kind, wars, holocausts, etc. No, I think that is an abyss I cannot probe without a certain feeling of fear and frustration; I've got the impression that our achievements pale on such a slippery slope. That is a debate in itself, one of the most serious.

It is true, mathematics and physics, among other disciplines, are passing through a deep crisis of representation and interpretation. However, I think crisis is equivalent to development, as the good functioning of machines needs that something locally goes wrong. That is the inevitable trace of the second law of thermodynamics, as well as the pillars of self-organizing systems. The problem of ontology in mathematics goes back as far as Pythagoras, since he thought that numbers could by themselves create and harmonize the world. Judaism added the ingredient of letters and words, so that mathematics could be seen as a sort of poetical discourse on reality.

The great idea of Bergson comes out from his masterpiece L'évolution créatrice, Creative Evolution, namely, that time is the only explanation for the fact that reality is not given once and for all on one stroke. In that sense, time is the brake permitting the margin for the adapting of systems. For this to happen, open systems shall resist change, but eventually they succumb and "simply" become. I agree with you that the weak point in Bergson's thought is that he prefers the term durée, duration, rather than time, because he knows quite well the tremendous difficulties he would have to face on scientific grounds. He wrote a book criticizing the concept of simultaneity as Einstein utilised it in his special theory of relativity (1905)...

Wandering on your very interesting papers, those of the period 2012-2014 for FQXi, I notice a deep interest in ontology: I think you have reason and make the point consulting Husserl's Ideen. The father of phenomenological philosophy, like Lévinas, is particularly critical on Heidegger, because the sole thought of the study of being as being is unable to produce an ethical or moral philosophy. Therefore, the ontological concern of physics shall take into account ethical issues in scientific tasks. That's why I appreciate your ideas and essays; nevertheless I have to recognize I don't quite understand the range of your concepts. However, I have read the text by Lee Smolin, it is fairly interesting; I would though add Paul Feyerabend's ideas in Against Method, where a quite critical view is presented not only about physics, but about the whole institutional organization of sciences. I think that author is right, unfortunately, since most of the ways science is done obeys to the internal politics of National Research Systems, which decide about the "good" and "bad" sciences.

I will, for sure, be rating your paper with a very high score. Best wishes!

Alexandre

Vladimir Rogozhin

Dear Alexandre,

Many thanks for your deep and very important answer for me. I completely agree with your conclusions and additions according to Gadamer, Husserl, Levinas, Heidegger, Feyerabend, Bergson, Lee Smolin. Today overcoming of "understanding crisis" (K.Kopeykin) requires Mega Synthesis ("over generalizing") all knowledge accumulated by Humanity, their extremely maximum compression, interpretation and representation in a new synthetic eidos of the Universum. Here's how to understand the "eidos" Bergson in «Creative Evolution»:

"The word eidos, which we translate here by "Idea," has, in fact, this threefold meaning. It denotes (1) the quality, (2) the form or essence, (3) the end or design in the sense of intention) of the act being performed, that is to say, at bottom, the design (in the sense of drawing) of the act supposed accomplished. These three aspects are those of the adjective, substantive and verb, and correspond to the three essential categories of language. After the explanations we have given above, we might, and perhaps we ought to, translate idos by "view" or rather by "moment." For eidos is the stable view taken of the instability of things: the quality, which is a moment of becoming; the form, which is a moment of evolution; the essence, which is the mean form above and below which the other forms are arranged as alterations of the mean; finally, the intention or mental design which presides over the action being accomplished, and which is nothing else, we said, than the material design, traced out and contemplated beforehand, of the action accomplished. To reduce things to Ideas is therefore to resolve becoming into its principal moments, each of these being, moreover, by the hypothesis, screened from the laws of time and, as it were, plucked out of eternity. That is to say that we end in the philosophy of Ideas when we apply the cinematographical mechanism of the intellect to the analysis of the real.»

Mega synthesis need "crazy" Mega Idea. Information age requires "Open Science"

Your essay and your way of the scientist speaks that the Philosophy is how very important today for Science and Society, for more reliable steering in the Future. Write, please, what phrases in my essays were unclear. Probably, it because of the low-quality translation. Many thanks for an appreciation of my ideas!

Best Regards,

Vladimir

Jolanta Klyszcz

Dear Alex:

Let me to invite you and more colleges to discuss an interesting aspect of your concept of polyglotism which involve the communication as a condition of culture, and only the human culture. In next I am going to explain my posotion then link it to poliglotism of culture.

In quantum physics the causal structure is not assumed but emerges in the right conditions. The right condition is the momentum of taking a measure. In terms of conscience it is the awareness of becoming. In other words, one fined herself as a possibility. How we learn about it out of physics speculations?

In any moment one remembers, dreams, or just thinks, but it doesn't mean that she is aware about it. But when the thought is pronounced, what makes her listen to it, she becomes conscience as the person who knows what about is speaking. The act of symbolic communication originates awareness.

To define the object in any code, which let as to socialize it, produce the momentum: the person or animal becomes aware of her presence. It means she is here and now, produces the present time. Is there another time? Yes, it is in this precise moment as the object of pronouncement. Then the past wasn't and the future won't be: we do not know the future and the past is in oblivion.

Likewise, there is no reality we share and refer to in our communication; instead we refer to symbols of a code; for example, a word "red": we repeat the same word meanwhile we can't know if we share the same experience of colour. Or, in other case, when we communicate with our pets calling their name, when animals don't know about the meaning of words, even if they react as we expect them to.

Now the investigation about animals let us to loom ahead the astonishing ability of reasoning of primates , memory of birds and others. What we assumed previously about the determinism of instinctive behaviour today is in ruins. Then results that reason is a structure of thinking which we share with others animals. More, it looks like we are not the best in it because we privilege intuition more than reason in our decision making process , meanwhile â"€as we recently learnedâ"€ some animals make their decisions by reasoning without this kind of inference.

Then, there are not only different languages exposing human knowledge in traditions of different sciences and arts, customs and rites; but we meet other animals and we communicate with them some way even if we do not know their language. What I want to suppose is that the act of communication is independent from the language and, over all, is not linked to the image of a world that is impossible recognize as common to all beings, which --however-- sustain reciprocal communication.

The polyglotysm, idea of Alexandre De Pomposo, Ph.D., suggests the possible collaboration in the platform of meaning inside the communication web. This one, which makes human beings and other animals, and plants, to become (eventually) aware --in her momentum-- of cohabitation in the same entangled structure we call our world. So, polyglotysm became a metaphor of a misunderstanding, which we "domesticated" as an indispensable part of our communication. It is because the communication always links individuals in spite of everything: it is an awareness of presence in spite of all contradictions of misleading language.

With high regards,

Jolanta Klyszcz

Alexandre de Pomposo

Very dear Jola,

I am very sorry for I send my comment to your interesting reply just now. Anyhow, I could not just say something politically correct, as there are truly original points in your text. For instance, you say, "In quantum physics the causal structure is not assumed but emerges in the right conditions. The right condition is the momentum of taking a measure" and you're right; consciousness seems to play a crucial role into awareness on reality. Of course, needless to say that I don't believe in the equation "consciousness = intelligence", of course not; animals, for instance, possess some degree of consciousness about the surrounding medium; it only depends on the existence of a central nervous system which, from a phylogenetic point of view means the notochord. It is a question, minimally, of irritability vis-à-vis of the environment and it meant a huge step in evolutionary systems. Of course, you may argue, your phrase has to do with quantum physics, not with biological systems; I think, it is a "must" in physics that reality is one and that's why I expect there exists a depth, a chasm where everything unifies... Pity we do not know how!

It is down there, perhaps, where symbols play their essential role. A big WARNING is necessary at this stage: symbols pretend to say the world and we cannot avoid them, true, however they are only what they are, symbols. Therefore, symbols do not exempt us from looking deeper into the real world. You know, my dear friend, we already should have learned this lesson in sciences, namely, that mathematics is but an aid to facilitate the symbolic expression of the world and, in such sense, it is totally licit as a searching process. Nevertheless, to pretend that the real world is exactly that seems to be a little risky, isn't it? We are called to describe the universe around us, with us inside, not to invent it... Confusion on these aspects has leaded us to a profound conceptual crisis in the scientific thought.

There is a beautiful example of that in the history of physics. Everybody accepted at once the beautiful advances in differential calculus, derived from the works of Newton and Leibniz, since they provided us with an appropriate language to express the dynamical reality of the word, BUT the same differential calculus was totally unable to explain the beautiful complexity of that world. Michael Faraday, a genius without an advanced training in mathematics, agreed with Newton concerning gravity, namely, that an object can't exert its influence without being there, at the exact point where that influence should change reality (even Newton warned about this "void" in his theory, but the general enthusiasm on quantifiable results provoked, particularly through the 18th century, that almost nobody paid attention to it). So the things, Faraday introduced a brand new idea, the field as the only explanation for "action at a distance". As a consequence, mechanics looked less embedded in a discrete description than before and closer to the realm of optics, this is to say the continuum of waves. We all know what was the issue: Maxwell showing the electromagnetic nature of light and Einstein proving that simultaneity demands time as a fourth dimension, stuck with space coordinates. But still the very depth of field stays in the dark.

You see, polyglotism is not the ultimate solution to our problems, but it opens a horizon of possibilities that, the other way around, the very same way we have been using for the last three centuries, otherwise is nothing but sameness. In a certain manner causality is some sort of neurosis; that is the main consequence of quantum physics.

Well, dear Jola, I hope we will be able to discuss all these issues, and many others, personally one of these days. Would you agree? Thanks once again.

Best regards.

Alex

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