“Hard” science could adopt some of the self-questioning exemplified in social science and an organismic view of the world implicit in biology. It could scrutinize assumptions and concepts that linger from its religious and idealist heritage and become more reflexive. Science in general could play a bigger role in guiding human destiny.
Softening Hard Science
Hello PlumHoverfly. I enjoyed reading your essay. I thought your description of what science needs to do (- question its assumptions, equate knowing and being, add internal agency as a component of nature, etc.) was clear, understandable and “right on”. The question then becomes how can science and scientists successfully self-organize themselves. There is an essay in this competition that discusses how science can add the qualitative aspects of consciousness, intelligence, life and creativity to its physical (quantitative) search for truth. It seems to fit with your essay The essay is: “Could Science Be Different and Improved? Yes. A Specific Proposal.” I think you will find it interesting.
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Dan Bruiger
In conclusion, you write:
<<The dangerous social deficit of wisdom compared to technical mastery has implications for the future of science. The current scientific worldview may threaten survival because it is ultimately too parochial and short sighted. It may also restrict the scope of research and the definition of science itself. Science must shift from the traditional values of prediction and control, which focus on the world as a resource to manipulate and exploit, usually for shortterm goals. It must now focus on long-term human survival, which involves adapting our attitudes and practices to nature as well as conscripting nature to our use. Science must shift its purview from the external world to reconsider its own place in that world and to consciously embrace its role as a survival strategy. That is a hard lesson for a mentality that is genetically and historically conditioned to look outward at what is, rather than looking at the perspective from which it looks.>>
<<The fact that science has kept aloof, not only from political and moral decisions, but also in ivory towers, works against its promise as the basis for a united humanity.>>
An excellent critical essay with deep ideas that are aimed at overcoming the modern conceptual - paradigmatic crisis of the metaphysical / ontological basis of fundamental science (mathematics, physics, cosmology), 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"), "loss of certainty" (Kline M. "Mathematics: Loss of Certainty", D. Zaitsev "True, following and modern logic"), "crisis of interpretation and representation" (Romanovskaya T.B. "Modern physics and contemporary art - parallels of style") , "trouble with physics" (Lee Smolin. "The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next")
But I don't fully agree here:
<<The shift from a reductive science of parts to a science of the whole would imply a shift from the notion of transcendent, eternal laws externally imposed on passive matter, to the notion of a universe that actively orders itself from within.>>
Yes, the paradigm of the World (the Universe) as a whole should come to the aid of the "science of parts". But the paradigm of the whole should be based on the eternal Law that governs the Universe - the Logos (in the spirit of Heraclitus).
A new look at matter is also needed: matter is that from which more and more new meanings, forms and structures (material and ideal) are born. "Soul of matter" - ontological (structural, cosmic) memory, its measure, what preserves, develops, directs to new meanings, forms, structures.
Disagree with this:
<<Science should abandon the remaining vestiges of its religious heritage.>>
I agree with the philosophical testament of the Fields Prize winner mathematician Vladimir Voevodsky "(1966-2017):
"What we now call the crisis of Russian science is not only a crisis of Russian science. There is a crisis of world science. Real progress will consist in a very serious fight between science and religion, which will end with their association."
I think that the main "serious fight" will be here: Meta Axiom "In the Beginning was the Logos…/ Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος..." VS. Hypothesis "In the Beginning was the "Big Bang"..."
Only then will there be "softening hard science", which will better help and serve Humanity and Nature, their new Dialogue and mutual understanding.
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Dan Bruiger i agree with what you write, you avoid mentioning words or syntagma like for example ecology, endangered species or changed as result of human actions . Preventive Science, i have faith , would pay in the long run, if there is patience; centuries not decades or years.
You seem to be arguing that hard sciences should become less objective, and more like soft sciences. However there are hard sciences like quantum mechanics where the observer has a role in the measurement, and soft sciences where the observer does not. So it seems that you want to make science less objective, rather than to soften hard science. And it is not clear what is gained by making it less objective.