REDUCTIONISM
The reductionist description is priceless in physical sciences based on
empiricism. Knowledge of the component parts and interactions between
them gives us computable reality down to the subatomic level.
Mathematical tautology can be related to that reality by certain
approximations. It enhances the technological progress. Human genome and
space exploration can be the examples. Reductionism describes but it
doesn't explain. It only uncovers the complexity of things to a certain
level. A complete unified theory seems not possible although we know
basic laws that underline all of the chemistry and biology. Confronted
by the duality of the nature at the subatomic level the physical science
seems to be moving away from mechanistic worldview. We cannot predict
human behavior from mathematical equations.
The analytical sciences use primary formal reasoning, logic and math
rather than empiricism. The reductionist description so successful in
physical sciences fails in analytical sciences. Aided by tautological
logic and math, which are justified only by its convenience and
incapable of yielding the truth, analytical sciences tend now to
transform into empirical sciences. As Fernandez-Armesto put it: "If
logic and math are leaky, the world is a ship of fools."
PHYSICAL SCIENCES
Being in love, comforting a dear friend in sorrow, composing a symphony,
or the activities involved in negotiating a treaty between two nations
are different. Albert Einstein said, "It would be possible to describe
everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be
without meaning, as if you described Beethoven symphony as a variation
of wave pressure." Yet, armed with chemistry, our colleges still try to
describe feelings and emotions that way. The feeling of love, according
to one such academic research, is a brew of dopamine, phenylethylamine
and oxytocin in blood. It is simply a drug. That conclusion is based on
the examination of the component parts. That description is value-blind.
It equates the feeling of love with intoxication, a chemically induced
form of insanity. It draws no distinction between conscious inspiration
and the ordinary madness which is caused by disease. If reductionism is
commonly applied, it would not be possible to tell the difference
between self-deceit and truth.
Yet, the analytical reductionism cannot be easily relegated to history.
One problem is that while there are two distinctly different types of
feelings there is only one term to describe them. The physical
sensations of touch, pain, hunger, etc., are homeostatic emotions. We
feel them when our system is out of balance. Unfortunately, the same
term is also used for subjective emotions, for consciousness resulting
from sentiments and desires. In both cases, chemicals are the means but
the processes are entirely different.
In the first instance, chemicals invade our brain without an invitation.
In the second instance, chemical substances are "invited" by the mind.
Without the brain's conscious request these chemical substances cannot
enter the brain. If they could, they would produce chaos; we would fall
instantly in love with an assassin or exchange a horse for a donkey. In
fact, our judgments, desires and thinking are the condition precedent
and warranty essential for having subjective feelings. In other words,
emotions and feelings are about something and have intentionality.
Shakespeare's verses have intentionality and the homemade pasta doesn't.
Both are capable of producing 'feelings' yet a very different
awareness.
The sophists in ancient Greece didn't know about chemicals invited by
the brain, but they knew that our intentions and wishes dictate our
beliefs while we routinely suppose that our beliefs are derived from
rational ground. They were making good money by teaching how to argue
lost cases. Because consciousness results from our desires, to the joy
of modern politicians, people can be convinced of just about anything so
long as one does not employ rational argument. The campaign advisers
thus tutor our politicians how to avoid answering inconvenient
questions.
THE HUMANITIES
The earlier mentioned theoretical challenges caused biological sciences
to look for "scientific literacy," i.e., working with experimental
scientists and making use of the empirical findings. Biology has
transformed into empirical sociobiology which adopted an evolutionary
perspective. It lured some scientists into a gross simplification of
genetic effects. It has been said that human species lack any goal
external to its own biological nature; that the mind is a computing
device for survival and reproduction; that the human body is a wrap for
self-propagating genes. The Aristotelian view that the world is directed
toward some final purpose was removed from such scheme. Morality
established as the hallmark of human nature was said to evolve as blind
instinct - the counterforce for evolution.
The challenge was to show why self-sacrifice and empathy emerged at all
since it doesn't aid the survival of the beast which lacks any external
goals. The answer seems to be that new gentle traits -- empathy and
altruism - did appear because the species somehow "forgot" that
self-interest creates progress at the expense of the weak. Amnesia it is
called.
Why have simple organisms evolved into complex ones? A complex organism
has less chance of survival. Bacteria, for example, can survive extreme
conditions while human beings require a greenhouse-controlled climate.
Shifting from physics to chemistry and then to biology only brought more
examples of unexplained behavior. For example, the ammonia molecule
exists in apparent contradiction to the symmetry laws of nuclear
physics. Yet by passing the nitrogen atoms forth and back at frequency
of 30 billion times per second it self-creates the symmetry and
survives. Why?
Not surprisingly evolutionists look for explanations beyond the earth in
the hope that "the laws and conditions of righteousness are implicated
in the working processes of the universe." Somehow the Aristotelian
ancient idea of movement towards final purpose came back through the
rear door. The problem of logical contradictions has been dealt with by
simply saying that progress in the Western science allows contradictions
and that "the universe is not necessarily organized along logically
consistent lines."
CONCLUSION
Reductionism is the traditional instrument of scientific analysis but
now scientists agree that it is not sufficient for the purpose of
explaining nature. The pendulum swing away from simplifications and
biological sciences are moving away from the analytical reductionism.
This trend indicates greater scientific maturity. Yet selfish-gene
thinking is still with the general public which is unaware that
scientists are starting to see that although the universe might be a
field of scientific inquiry but it may not stop with what science can
see and measure. Scientists are suspicious that the answers may lie
beyond the realm of physical sciences. The leading scientist in the
evolutionary field, E.O. Wilson, ends up his Pulitzer-Prize-winning book
with Aeschylean Prometheus:
Chorus: Did you perhaps go further than you have told us?
Prometheus: I caused mortals to cease foreseeing doom.
Chorus: What cure did you provide them with against that sickness?
Prometheus: I placed in them blind hopes.
Jarosinski lives in Waitsfield.
