Knowledge and Paradigms, I
What kind of knowledge is possible across paradigm shifts?
Imagine a very simple closed system. The system contains 3 things: a bog, a log and a frog. The frof sits on the log in the bog. Once an hour the frog jumps off the log, into the bog, swims around the bog, and climbs back onto the log.
We could fairly easily build a computer model of such a system in which all the same elements exist, and the same event occurs on an hourly basis.
Just this simple case of modeling highlights something important. There are some kinds of knowledge that are true across even closed systems, and some kinds of knowledge it makes no sense to compare across the boundries.
The former knowledge falls out in terms of measurements and relative scales. The log is 18 frogs long. The bog is 16 frog lengths by 25 frog lengths. The frog displaces X amount of bog water. The ripples in the bog caused by the from move at some pace Y and dampen to nothing at some pace Z (where the hourly frog dive is the standard measure of time). Questions based on these kinds of facts are true of both systems.
Now, if we start asking other finds of questions, such as "what is a frog" and "what is the phenomenal feel of the log?" and "How much colder does it feel like to be the frog in the bog as opposed to being the frog on the log?" These questions are from the ontological and phenomenological class. The answers to these questions are very different across the closed systems. We can assign numbers to represent the phenomenal components of these questions, sure, but in doing so we are only going to be answer abstract relational versions of the questions, and not the question as asked.
Scientific knowledge "at its best" (physics and chemistry) is more like the former kind of knowledge.
This is not meant either to disparage the other kinds of knowledge (they are indeed important factual components within a paradigm) nor is the thought experiment meant to completely disuade the pursuit of non mathematical/logical forms of thought across paradigms. (We can know something of what it must be like to be the frog in and out of the bog based on what the modeled math tells us about temperature fluctuations ... we just can't say exactly, in the same sense "exactly" as we can give the volume of water in the lake, we can't say exactly what it is like to be the frog in one state or other in the organic world.
The Duhem-Quine thesis talks about the kind of knowledge that crosses scientific paradigm shifts. "f=ma", for instance, is not thrown out as we move into the Einsteinian paradigm, but we descibe it differently (mass becomes a variable instead of a constant). Mach's theorums are not thrown out, the math comes through. Even Newton's older 3 laws of motion are kept, mathematically, though they are now described as special cases of other physical theories. And science at the cutting edge ... theoretical scientists barely belong in the science department of the universities, their ideas look so bad from hindsight. Yet there is nothing wrong with their intelligence or logic or the facts they are describing, it is just that the right questions have not yet been asked, more-or-less been provided with a proper answer. (We are thinking of cosmological theoretical sciences here mostly, like a Hawking or a Bohm might put forth.)
more to come ...
Imagine a very simple closed system. The system contains 3 things: a bog, a log and a frog. The frof sits on the log in the bog. Once an hour the frog jumps off the log, into the bog, swims around the bog, and climbs back onto the log.
We could fairly easily build a computer model of such a system in which all the same elements exist, and the same event occurs on an hourly basis.
Just this simple case of modeling highlights something important. There are some kinds of knowledge that are true across even closed systems, and some kinds of knowledge it makes no sense to compare across the boundries.
The former knowledge falls out in terms of measurements and relative scales. The log is 18 frogs long. The bog is 16 frog lengths by 25 frog lengths. The frog displaces X amount of bog water. The ripples in the bog caused by the from move at some pace Y and dampen to nothing at some pace Z (where the hourly frog dive is the standard measure of time). Questions based on these kinds of facts are true of both systems.
Now, if we start asking other finds of questions, such as "what is a frog" and "what is the phenomenal feel of the log?" and "How much colder does it feel like to be the frog in the bog as opposed to being the frog on the log?" These questions are from the ontological and phenomenological class. The answers to these questions are very different across the closed systems. We can assign numbers to represent the phenomenal components of these questions, sure, but in doing so we are only going to be answer abstract relational versions of the questions, and not the question as asked.
Scientific knowledge "at its best" (physics and chemistry) is more like the former kind of knowledge.
This is not meant either to disparage the other kinds of knowledge (they are indeed important factual components within a paradigm) nor is the thought experiment meant to completely disuade the pursuit of non mathematical/logical forms of thought across paradigms. (We can know something of what it must be like to be the frog in and out of the bog based on what the modeled math tells us about temperature fluctuations ... we just can't say exactly, in the same sense "exactly" as we can give the volume of water in the lake, we can't say exactly what it is like to be the frog in one state or other in the organic world.
The Duhem-Quine thesis talks about the kind of knowledge that crosses scientific paradigm shifts. "f=ma", for instance, is not thrown out as we move into the Einsteinian paradigm, but we descibe it differently (mass becomes a variable instead of a constant). Mach's theorums are not thrown out, the math comes through. Even Newton's older 3 laws of motion are kept, mathematically, though they are now described as special cases of other physical theories. And science at the cutting edge ... theoretical scientists barely belong in the science department of the universities, their ideas look so bad from hindsight. Yet there is nothing wrong with their intelligence or logic or the facts they are describing, it is just that the right questions have not yet been asked, more-or-less been provided with a proper answer. (We are thinking of cosmological theoretical sciences here mostly, like a Hawking or a Bohm might put forth.)
more to come ...
posted by Thomas F. Schminke at 10:02 PM
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