Thursday, January 29, 2015

The Treadmill Trap of the Scientist

                                                           2. Making Ends Meet

The approach to size up occurrence significantly explains its dynamism, no doubt. It can also lead to a compulsion to find reasons when there may be no reasons at all. It is quite possible that the occurrence has randomness as its basis. When it comes to sizing up an occurrence there is measurement at play (as discussed in the essay, The Scientific Outlook or the Well Defined). Let us suppose that you are given a scale to measure the length of a line. How do you know the end points of a line? Is it merely through observation? You do not know the length accurately without a scale. How do you know that the scale is accurate? Where did the scale come from? Who made the scale? The line if it has to do any better remains as it is and the need to measure it brings a scale to the purview. If the scale is correct your measurement will be correct. You may try to find out as to how a scale is made. You would invariably realize that in the ultimatum it is devised out of a consensus or an accepted standard.

You then have what is called 'standard' which is also a feature of the scientific outlook. Standards fail you only when there are no limits. A standard is devised to reduce the enormity of a problem without which definitions and descriptions would be impossible. Then you find that definition has become a consequence of description. A description gives more space to view an object of observation than definition. It is not quite as precise and lacks the standards of accuracy that definition demands. You may describe an event more accurately than you would by narrating it. When you narrate, you employ free-wheeling sentences drawn out of free-format constructions to particularize your observation or experience of an event. Description has focus point at its disposal. Narration gives you the liberty to not only particularize an event but also personalize it in broad terms.

The ontology of narration is subject to instability but this is known a priori. You may narrate your experiences off the semantic record by exaggerating your style a bit now and then. The listener expects that you would do so not at the expense of the victim who is the listener. Do not be concerned because the insistence on accuracy is not exacting in terms of precision. In simple words, the listener may like to be amused or stretched. Accurate descriptions of objects that you observed in your experience are not sought after. What is lost in patience is more than recovered from amusement. Of course this low tolerance towards ambiguity is not only prevalent in measurements but also in critical situations where the subject can only afford to be 'as it is' and nothing more. For obvious reasons when you describe an object or narrate an event differently from or more than it actually is, you are 'stretching' the subject of description or narration. 'Stretching' we must remember implies exaggeration and not lying at least in the blatant sense. It has validity in Science when you zoom in on the object.

Dale's 'cone of experience' illustrates this aspect vividly in the form of a pyramid. But how does stretching happen here and if at all it happens how is it relevant? It happens when the frame on which an object is captured itself gets enlarged. When that happens automatically the object that was embedded on it in the first place also gets enlarged. This is what I meant by the relevance and place of 'stretching' in the scientific parlance. In graphics, this can be observed as a simulation and in perception it may have sense and meaning depending on the observer. The observer is the one who holds the frame and depending on the nature of the frame, the object 'automatically adapts' in proportion to it. In detail, it is the same number of elements that constitute it but in perception the frame changes along with it. This in theory holds true for a painting or a portrait as well. In practice it is impossible. This explains why there can exist a seemingly illusory disparity between theory and practice even in Science. One of the approaches in the outlook is to take into account the difference so that science as a whole is not limited by pragmatic approaches.

Discussing the difference between description and definition is not verbal jousting but rather an active microscopic observation. There is more to description than it seems at the outset. Definitions are fixed and suffer from the possibility of extinction depending on the thoroughness that went behind its formulation. Coming back to the pen and paper, definition of a pen is not restricted to one object. It naturally invokes other objects that it needs for it to present its functional value. Its description can do without other objects. Here, counter intuitively description is restrictive because nothing else is needed to be invoked and therefore it is self-sufficient.

From the above we can say the following:

1. Definition is fixed but it may not be restricted to the object. It can and tends to cover function. Description can be restricted to the object. It tends to be more spatial and may not cover function at all for it may simply be visual.
2. Description is greater in volume than definition in terms of words. It covers more ground than definition but it can be ironically more self-sufficient. It may cover less ground in terms of words. A definition does not succumb to stretching while description can. Therefore it cannot fail to be the case that a description is more transcendental.

1. Narration is neither fixed nor focused. It describes the narrator along with the narrated.
2. It covers more dimensions than description and definition. Narration can succumb to stretching.

To get out of the treadmill trap the scientist would do well to employ the technique of narrating a principle or law. In so doing, larger grounds would be covered and a clearer picture would be outlined about the otherwise misconstrued universe.

The next essay would discuss 'the nature of claims that cannot be verified'.

Why Scientists Cannot Replace Philosophers



(Perspectives of a philosopher-poet)
Scientists are noted for their persistent attempt to arrive at correct conclusions about ‘nature’. For every drive towards being correct there is an equal and opposite anxiety about going wrong. The scientist would like to understand the universe thoroughly and state precisely in a manner that would be consistent with the implications and consequences which affect species at large. If you try to question the theoretical assumptions of the scientist you tend to find a trail of thought embarking on the speculative. You suddenly see that the basis of the scientific versions of ‘truth’ is determined unusually by what works. If you see it, it is not enough. If you understand what you see it is not enough either. If you predict the behaviour of what you see and if the prediction is met successfully you are half way done, but you are a scientist all the same! If you manage to change what you see to suit yourself and those of your kind, you are an inventor or a technologist. 

Invention does not always resonate with a scientist. The scientist may stay content with the understanding that he/she is able to reach about the laws of nature. You may not want to manipulate them to make human ends meet. A scientist depends on instruments to understand the laws of nature. The instruments are in themselves the result of manipulations. In order to understand fundamental laws you look around your environment and arrive at generic conclusions through the frame of reference that binds you. This could be a labyrinth! In order to step out of the frame of reference you would have to defy it. To do so, you would have to understand it in the first place. You try and use the scientific approach to find your way out of the labyrinth. If you follow the trails paved in the labyrinth you could well be on a royal road to a dead end.
The scientist deep down is aware of this. You would have to start ‘somewhere’. Where is this place that you are referring to as ‘somewhere’? Is it anywhere? To what extent can you stake your efforts on man made rigors? Wouldn’t a speculative dimension stop you from working your way to a corner? You find this to be one of the major difficulties with the scientific approach.

In Science, there can be no rules for asking questions. Can doubts have limits? Doubts not only expose the limits of the nature of the subject but also bring to the surface new perspectives opening doors to newer possibilities. While exhibitions on Science are conducted, it would be imperative to highlight the need to raise doubts and point out the absurdity of taboos with regard to questioning. Those who popularize science ought to understand the fact that the examination system in schools deprives students of scientific learning when they fail exams altogether. It is utterly useless for all intellectual and practical purposes to attempt to popularize science when the education system is its real enemy. Empirical science is impossible to pursue without any access to instruments and the necessary infrastructure. 

Speculation exposes the limits of science. The focus cannot be narrowed down arbitrarily towards accomplishing a task for convenience. Speculation is the devil’s drug as far as pragmatism goes. Philosophy is unhindered by speculation which functions as the agent of intellectual intoxication. In philosophy, all you need are thought, books and experience. Denial is an obstacle in science which philosophy is insulated from. Philosophy can be pursued as a study outside the university settings as well. Philosophic investigation can be used to generate interest in science through witty narrations and presentations. In Alice and the Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) the reader comes across a remark, “I see nothing there.” How is it possible to see nothing? Although this appears as nonsensical to the prosaic nature of common sense, it raises a pertinent question. Can nothingness be defined? 

Philosophic approach extends beyond the rigorous barriers that limit the scope of science. It is said that you discover truth, you do not invent it. It is correct as far as language is concerned because when you invent truth, it is not discovery. The word ‘discovery’ implies that the truth in question was always there but it was discovered by someone or something later in time. In fact in an argument between two people, one participant questions the other. The reply was rejected because the former accused the latter for ‘inventing reasons’. There is indefinite scope for being original. Originality and innovation go hand in hand. Scientific rigors when adhered to dogmatically impede original thinking. Scientific discoveries and breakthroughs are lost as they appear as loose associations confined to the space of fiction when in fact they have the potential to transform banal existence that has hitherto curbed progress and refinement in thought with equal measure. This is where philosophy comes to the rescue. The limits of artificial rigors can be exposed by the philosopher as it strikes a man over the superstructure more than anybody else. The vocabulary of stale rigors is inadequate to communicate novel insights. Please reconstruct the glass!

You need both the thinker and the executor. It is rare to find a thinker. A thinker struggles to execute because the space of thought implies significant investment of time which implementation cannot afford. The executor cannot afford this and his/her dexterity comes in handy while implementing. It is practically impossible to find an executor with some potential for original thinking as a result of the time consuming nature of implementation. The philosopher, as a result of not being stifled by instruments, naturally can make a better thinker. Implementation often is not the philosopher’s cup of tea but to get the sword out of the stone, you need the mind of the thinker and the hands of the doer.
Every scientist has a philosopher in him/her. Without the dimension of thought what can the scientists hope to find? No questions can be raised. Without asking questions you cannot get answers. The philosopher and the scientist share the same curiosity. This curiosity inspires scientific advancement.
Science as history has it is the extension of philosophy. At the time when Sir Isaac Newton pursued studies, Physics was referred to as ‘Natural Philosophy’. Instruments that are available to us are enablers. They are hopeless substitutes for human thought and imagination. Retaining the essence of what Sir Isaac Newton once said: If a scientist has discovered significant truths, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants. 
Science begins in philosophy and ends in philosophy.

                        
Published in IIT Newsletter(Journeys)
-        Ajay Seshadri


                       

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Couplets in confusion


Couplets in confusion

Calls from unknown cables
Patterns of life’s tables
The numbers they revealed
A mystic code concealed
In hesitation cold
Voices imagined bold
That whisper ‘delusion’
Laughing in confusion.


Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Verse by the Graveyard

Past the graveyard down the road,
Lives or dies a man out cold
Every minute is a burning desire
For him to feel there's nothing higher.
Hope he knows is also despair,
The lie of the land begins to stare
Every minute is a burning desire
For him to feel there is nothing higher.
Will any hand rise from the many dead?
Maybe it's time to be quiet instead
Breath continues no more so
The dead is the living let the dying grow
The man with nothing in him to feel
A sorrow or regret meaningless to conceal
Yet every minute is a burning desire
For him to feel there's nothing higher! 


(http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/verse-by-the-graveyard/)