Interstitial Realism: Science in Perspective

Jochen Szangolies

Science, and fundamental science especially, has been widely diagnosed to be in crisis. Methods that seemingly used to guarantee perpetual progress now appear to have ground to a halt, and cherished guiding principles have come under suspicion. I contend that it is not science, as such, that is in crisis, but that we are facing the limits of a set of background assumptions—atomism, realism, and the view from nowhere. Luckily, these are far from essential for the scientific endeavour, and I propose a notion of interstitial realism to put science on more flexible footing. Along the way, I describe a tabletop experiment that can be performed at home to recapitulate creation out of (nearly) nothing, and an argument demonstrating that ChatGPT and its ilk don't know what they're talking about.

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Vladimir Rogozhin

Jochen Szangolies
Extremely important essay and ideas.
You write:
<<I propose a notion of interstitial realism to put science on more flexible footing.>>

This is an important conclusion for finding a way to overcome the conceptual and paradigm crisis of the metaphysical / ontological basis of fundamental science, which manifests itself as a "crisis of understanding" ("J. Horgan "The End of Science", Kopeikin K.V. "Souls" of atoms and "atoms "of the soul : Wolfgang Ernst Pauli, Carl Gustav Jung and "three great problems of physics"), "crisis of interpretation and representation" (Romanovskaya T.B. "Modern physics and contemporary art - parallels of style" ), "loss of certainty" (Kline M. "Mathematics: Loss of Certainty"), "trouble with physics" (Lee Smolin "Trouble with Physics").

But I suppose, in search of "more flexible footing" and a more solid basis, one must turn to the good old dialectic and ontology. Only new breakthrough ideas are needed, taking into account the development of science and problems in the foundations of "fundamental science", helping to build a New Expanded Ideality - an ontological basis of knowledge: ontological framework, carcass, foundation.

Further:
<<In other words, our competence in navigating the world seems to presuppose comprehension of its workings.>>

Understanding is "events of grasping the structure" (G. Gutner "Ontology of Mathematical Discourse"). So we need to grasping the "structure" (super-structure, primordial generating structure). It suffices here to recall the whole story of the "hundred-year-old beard" - the foundations of mathematics.
The construction of an ontologically substantiated "Primordial Generating Structure" is relevant both for mathematics, physics and cosmology (the structure of the "physical /metaphysical first-beginning").
N. Bourbaki has a good idea of "les structures mère". But they do not give a single "La Structure mère". When constructing the "first-beginning" as an ontological holistic first process, we need a methodology for the dialectical-ontological construction and representation the "first-beginning" in a mathematical symbol.

Next you write:
<<We've already encountered a few hints to guide us: if science no longer allows us to view nature uncovered, it can still aid us in finding the best way to engage, to interface with it; if we can't look down to ever more simple fundamental atoms, we can instead turn our gaze upwards, at the whole instead of the parts; if there is no single, all-encompassing story to be told, we can instead learn to appreciate the plenitude and diversity of this glittering jewel of perspectives. >>

I believe that it is necessary to go immediately both "up" and "down" to the most remote semantically distinguishable depths of the existence of the Universe as an eternal holistic process of generating more and more new meanings, forms and structures (material and ideal).
First of all, Heraclitus, Plato, Cusa, Galileo, Whitehead, Einstein, Wheeler, Florensky give us hints for building a new ontological basis of knowledge.
John A. Wheeler: “We are no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself."
A.N. Whitehead: “A precise language must await a completed metaphysical knowledge.”
To understand the EXISTENCE itself means to "grasp" (understand) the nature of the primordial TENSION of the Cosmos. And for this it is necessary to "grasp" the primordial ontological structure of matter. That is, to build a model "being-nothing/other-being-becoming" and introduce a new concept, the semantic core of the model - ontological (structural, cosmic) memory, "soul of matter", its measure.
A. Einstein “I like to experience the universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified."
P. Florensky: “We repeat: worldunderstanding is spaceunderstanding."
In a word, in order to overcome the conceptual - paradigmatic crisis of the metaphysical basis of fundamental science, a Big Ontological revolution is needed. But who wants it?

Alaya Kouki

So science will not have an end. Always humanity needs theories otherwise the luck of such theory push all to war.

Jochen Szangolies

Alaya Kouki War, one might hope, is not just avoided through theory, but through a praxis of mutual recognition. But science indeed will not come to an end.

John Crowell

Hello CornTuna I enjoyed your essay. I think the goal of finding “…all encompassing notions..”is key and I agree that getting rid of wrong assumptions is needed. There is a essay in this competition that claims to be all encompassing and gets rid of a/the basic assumption of science. I think you will find the paper interesting. The title is: “Could Science Be Different And Improved? Yes. A Specific Proposal.

Jochen Szangolies

John Crowell Thank you for reading and commenting. In a way, my essay is about how science, so far, has only exhausted a small fraction of the available parameter space, and yet been rewarded bountifully. One might thus have hope for future discovery---but of course, it is the nature of higher-order terms in an approximation to be, typically, smaller.

I will go have a look at your specific proposal.

Sue Lingo

Thank you for rigorous inquiry as to WHY Science should be different.

"Scientific realism is the attitude that our best theories and models get something right about the world —what they tell us is not merely true, but true of an objectively existing external reality."

_sl The truth is that "object" was defined, in undefined terms, by lexicographer Noah Webster over 300 hundred years ago, and those terms are still undefined.

Object

A thing that can be seen or touched; material thing that occupies space.
What is "space"?
Ref: "Physical Space and Physical Time: What are they?"- D. Oriti ](
Anything that can be known or perceived by the mind.
What is "mind"?

Objective

Of or having to do with a known or perceived object, as distinguished from something only in the mind of the subject, or person thinking.

"Objective" is defined in terms of a term... i.e. objective... that is defined in undefined terms.

Being or regarded as being Independent of the mind; real; actual.
UHHH??... what!!!

_sl Perhaps we should, as proposed in FQXi Essay: "Science in Search of Neutral Ground", "wipe the slate clean".

"Thus, it is rational to believe in the entities postulated by successful, mature scientific theories, even if those entities —like atoms or electrons— are not directly observable.

_sl In that observables are perceived to be disturbed/displaced by underlying mechanisms of momentum, it is rational to believe that there are unobservables, but it does not necessarily follow that the underlying unobservable producing the perceived disturbance/displacement in the observable, is the system momentum mechanism.

"...implies that our perceptions —and by extension, experimental data and the theories built on their strength— ought to be regarded as interfaces representing ways to interact with the world, rather than representations of the world itself.

_sl And therefore we pursue a "theory of everything" to demonstrate "how Science can be different" Ref: 2023 FQXi Essay: "Proposal for an ontological view of the Universe".

"While providing us with useful means to navigate our daily lives, we take their representations literally."

_sl Which may well be generating an illusion of inherent disorder/chaos which deprives humankind of its innate ability to perceive and apply fundamental processes... i.e. Quantum Mechanix... that can facilitate development of the Star Trek Replicator, proceduralize Self Healing, and promote Social Stability?
Ref: Digital Science: Emergence and Application of Quantum Consciousness (https://www.uqsmatrixmechanix.com/2023FQXiEssay4pdfconv.php)

May your essay's disclosure of why Science SHOULD change, be utilized as a guideline to establish criteria for change.

S. Lingo
UQS Author/Logician
www.uqsmatrixmechanix.com

Sue Lingo

Sue Lingo
Link correction:
(http://www.uqsmatrixmechanix.com/2023FQXiEssay4pdfconv.php)

Vladimir Fedorov

Dear CornTuna,
Among the many essays I read “almost about nothing” I found your wonderful essay “on the case” - congratulations! I give my position, which echoes your views (given in quotation marks).
Most essay writers discuss various ideas for the transformation of science, but do not deal with experiments in which the concept does not pay attention to the main phenomena, in an attempt to find the phenomena expected and predicted by theories. In my opinion, everything is very simple, what the concept stubbornly refuses to see, these are the elements of a harmonious system of the new science of reality.
“Theories must faith-fully represent something ‘out there’, otherwise, the competences they afford us seem inexplicable”.
“Scientific realism is the attitude that our best theories and models get something right about the world—what they tell us is not merely true, but true of an objectively existing external reality”.
Fundamental theories must begin with discovered phenomena that show up in experiments, not vice versa.
Therefore, my essay is devoted to phenomena and entities that the generally accepted concept stubbornly refuses to see in experiments and in its abstract representations.
“The scientific observer is a detached entity, capable of surveying the world from an objective vantage point, impartially cataloguing experimental facts. By postulating this view from nowhere, GOFSci seeks to ensure that the scientist can be removed from the business of science, permitting a focus on objective reality freed from any subjective tilt”.

I wish you success!

Andrew Beckwith

quote
Science, and fundamental science especially, has been widely diagnosed to be in crisis. Methods that seemingly used to guarantee perpetual progress now appear to have ground to a halt, and cherished guiding principles have come under suspicion. I contend that it is not science, as such, that is in crisis, but that we are facing the limits of a set of background assumptions—atomism, realism, and the view from nowhere. Luckily, these are far from essential for the scientific endeavour, and I propose a notion of interstitial realism to put science on more flexible footing. Along the way, I describe a tabletop experiment that can be performed at home to recapitulate creation out of (nearly) nothing, and an argument demonstrating that ChatGPT and its ilk don't know what they're talking about.
end of quote
I am not surprised at this outlook. But here is my work around. First, how well do scientists know how to solve NON LINEAR equations. Spoilers alert, non linear ODEs and PDES confront engineering and are monsters to work out. Secondly, as an example if we do travel in the solar system, cosmic rays and other such issues will be confronting us with entirely new issues
The crisis in science I see is that we have for POLITICAL reasons slammed the door shut on real space exploration of the SOLAR system. In a sense, partly due to precise computation, we are getting bogged down on an Earth based RUT as far as how to solve CLASSICAL problems. BASED ON EARTH.
Secondly, due to this Earth bound RUT we are being plagued with the modern counter part to the Greek philosophers who discourage empirical exploration but whom try to model a lot of things by COGNITION.
It will take a massive JOLT to get people to as an example go to MARS, ( and I do not mean Musk's hair brained table top exercise of his Mars colonization) If we commence exploration, many problems related to non linear equations which plague Earth bound science will be shown to be unworkable, Hence some of our problem solving methodologies will be hauled out of the stone age
We are in a RUT. Its time to realize it. In some ways this is similar to the stasis which lead people at the end of the 19th century to pre suppose that we had completed MOST scientific advancement. Little did we know in 1900 of the 123 years of transformation which happened.

James Hoover

Good term for title, Interstitial Realism rather than the atomistic focus of LHC particle physics. In my Externalities essay, I also mention a focus on the whole when I criticize the failure to look at the future science that must be built into UFO performances as seen by military pilots not the limits of current or past science. Discounting such phenomena because it doesn't square with what we currently know and might invite ridicule ruins a quest for the unexplained. Your answer to how science could be different is in changing our perspective, our approach. My answer and solution is a science which the science-minded turn to neurological and social discoveries of how to guide humans toward a more rational state that produces more pure, non-agenda-based science for democratic and authoritarian governments. Your essay of rebuking GOFSci for a interstitial realism is GO Fer endeavor.

Alaya Kouki

"But the problems run deeper. Ultimately, all data are subject-object correlations: the subjectiveexperience of an audible ‘click’ of the detector is taken to indicate a certain event—say, the decayof a particle, ‘out there’ in the world. But a correlation on its own does not convey any information.Suppose I have two colored sheets of paper, a red and a blue one; and I slip each into an envelope.There is a perfect correlation between the slips, but that alone tells me nothing about the color ofeither. Only if I open up one envelope and find the red paper can I say that the other one mustcontain the blue slip.
Drawing information from a correlation requires ‘fixing’ one of its constituents. To be able tothink of data as objective ‘facts of the world’, the subjective ‘pole’ has to be taken for granted—tobe universal for every possible observer. But what grounds could we have to do so? After all, whatgoes on in your head is not directly available in my world.
But the greatest challenge for the one-size-fits-all conception of the world in GOFSci comes fromquantum mechanics. For nearly a century now, it has been widely felt that the quantum revolutionentails a profound departure from classical concepts. However, there has been little consensus onwhere, exactly the two part ways: Schrödinger saw the essential novelty in entanglement; Feynmanpointed to interference. But in recent times, a certain kind of perspectivalismhas emerged as aplausible candidate.
The world of GOFSci is one where, in principle, everything can be brought under a single umbrella, told in a single story. A precise formulation of this intuition goes back to the father of modernlogic, George Boole, who in 1862 formulated what he termed the ‘conditions of possible experience’: ‘When satisfied’, he proposed, ‘they indicate that the data may have, when not satisfied,they indicate that the data cannot have, resulted from actual observation’ [9].
These conditions come in the form of constraints that the probabilities of observed events mustfulfill. Today, Boole’s conditions (a certain subset of them, more precisely) are more famous underthe name Bell inequalities5, and their violation—indicating the reality of what Boole thought aconceptual impossibility—was honored with the 2022 Nobel prize in physics."
It is now necessary to change the paradigm of science from the split of object-subject concept by René Descartes as advanced by @Amanda Gefter in this Competition (the 1st winner) to return to a new concept the unsplit of object-subject thinking (return to develop science with erasing the split of object-subject proceedings).
I propose to began with Restreint Relativity and the 4-vector identity which I had introduced in my comments in the article of @Amanda Gefter .