TRP and Science 2
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Mon Jun 17 09:24:49 CDT 2013
On 6/17/2013 9:53 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
> >> There simply is no agreement on how to derive prescriptive, "human values" statements of
> the form "this is what we ought to do (or not do) in the world" from
> normative statements of the form "this is the way the world is," or
> even "this is the way we humans are." The values have to come from
> authority, tradition/imitation (culture), intuition, revelation.<<
>
> But isn't science - in modernity, where "authority", "tradition",
> "intuition" and "revelation" have all become questionable - a kind of
> nowadays' equivalent to the pre-modern times' religion? Isn't that
> where the new authority does come from?
>
> Take brain research (especially in the nineties and early zero-years):
> In this country there are internationally famous neurologists who call
> for the complete abolishment of criminal law. Why? Well, they have
> those digital machines spitting out beautiful pictures of your brain.
> And on these pictures theycan even identify the region where it shines
> up when you're happy, or sad, or aggressive. This makes them - I don't
> know why - think that human action is determined by neurons to a
> degree of 100 %. And so they say: Down with criminal law! Nobody is
> responsible for anything he or she does. It's the neurons, nothing but
> the neurons, so please give us more money to find out all about it!
> Well, of course this is utter nonsense (consciousness takes place on
> an emergent level of operation where the internal brain data are
> externalized and - that's where human freedom comes into the game -
> reconfigured in a new context), and everybody - you don't need any
> college education for this - realizes it. Yet it's official science,
> and so even long time law experts among the politicians felt the need
> to comment on this.
Here we have the Big Question to Which There is no Answer. The
scientists DO have a claim: firing neurons DO determine what people do.
Humanists have an equal claim: We DO have free will.
No one can mesh these two claims--It's another one of those
contradictions or ambiguities Mark likes to talk about and that we all
have to live with.
P
>
> Being confronted with similar tendencies, Karl Jaspers coined the term
> "Wissenschaftsaberglaube" which means --- superstition in science.
> Monte, I know that you are not wissenschaftsabergläubisch, not
> superstitious with view on the 'wonders' of science. But the folks
> from so-called New Atheism are exactly into this. Richard "selfish
> gene" Dawkins is not a scientist in his fight against religion, he is
> a cultural warrior, or the anti-pope. This, of course, has nothing to
> do with science anymore. Thrown into the world, always communicating
> inside (and never ever outside) of society, we simply have no place
> from where we could overlook the universe and judge for sure. So
> agnosticism - We cannot really know! - is the only acceptable
> epistemological position when it comes to ultimate questions. To say
> "science proves there is no god" is not the tiniest bit more rational
> than any statement from the most obscure cult.
>
> And then science does derive 'values' but these are not human values
> yet the (economy-affine) criteria of transparency, efficiency, and
> control. And these criteria,we're entering GR territory, are, when
> applied to human beings (and - remember the Dodos? - living beings in
> general), not neutral. That's what I was referring to, when I -
> borrowing a term from Zygmunt Bauman - spoke of modernity's /war
> against ambivalence/. The best example for it from the 20th century is
> Eugenics which was an /international/ mainstream project. And this is
> not over; the Brock Vonds of the world still read their Lombroso, and
> handicapped people and their parents ("Why didn't you get an
> abortion?") are still treated ugly.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
>
> "The methods of implementing eugenics varied by country; however, some
> of the early 20th century methods were identifying and classifying
> individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill,
> blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous_women>, homosexuals
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuals> and entire racial groups
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28classification_of_human_beings%29>
> --- such as the Roma <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people> and
> Jews <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews> --- as "degenerate" or
> "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals
> and groups, their sterilization, euthanasia, and in the case of Nazi
> Germany, their mass murder
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_murder>.^[7]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-7> The practice of
> euthanasia was carried out on hospital patients in the Aktion T4
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4> at such centres as Hartheim
> Castle <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartheim_Castle>.
>
> Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and
> universities, and received funding from many sources.^[8]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-8> Three
> International Eugenics Conferences
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Eugenics_Conference>
> presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in
> London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first
> implemented in the early 1900s in the United States
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>.^[9]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-9> Later, in the
> 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization> certain mental
> patients was implemented in a variety of other countries, including
> Belgium <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgium>,^[10]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-10> Brazil
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil>,^[11]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-11> Canada
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada>,^[12]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-12> and Sweden
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden>,^[13]
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-wsws-13> among
> others. The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in
> the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%BCdin> used eugenics as a
> justification for the racial policies
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_policy_of_Nazi_Germany> of Nazi
> Germany <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany>, and when
> proponents of eugenics among scientists and thinkers prompted a
> backlash in the public. Nevertheless, in Sweden the eugenics program
> continued until 1975.^[13]"
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#cite_note-wsws-13>
>
>
> On 17.06.2013 04:42, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>> KFL >Ain't modern science - and I'm talking here about hard, or, as
>> Paul Mackin puts it, "real science" - a self-referential functional
>> system completely unreachable for something as old-fashioned as
>> values of the "real, important human" kind?
>>
>> Two angles of vision on this: one is via the is-ought problem
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem> or fact-value
>> distinction <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fact-value_distinction>.
>> That came up in philosophy and ethics independent of (in fact, long
>> before before) discussions of science and values. There simply is no
>> agreement on how to derive prescriptive, "human values" statements of
>> the form "this is what we ought to do (or not do) in the world" from
>> normative statements of the form "this is the way the world is," or
>> even "this is the way we humans are." The values have to come from
>> authority, tradition/imitation (culture), intuition, revelation. They
>> are not to be found in facts, or in the principles we come up with to
>> organize and distill our understanding of facts.
>>
>> NB that this applies to **all** knowledge -- but in my experience,
>> scientists live more comfortably with that, and are readier to
>> acknowledge it, than others. That may appear bloodless and
>> "value-free;" it isn't. They're every bit as likely to care, think
>> and feel strongly about "what we ought to do (or not do) in the
>> world;" but to the extent they're honest scientists, they're actually
>> less likely to claim that "the facts" dictate this or that ethical
>> (i.e. value-loaded) choice than others are.
>>
>> Second angle: Many aspects of scientific method and protocol "exclude
>> human values" as /prophylaxis/ against letting the researcher's
>> preferences (conscious or unconscious) distort the choice of what
>> data to collect and how to interpret it. As you know well, much of
>> statistics serves that purpose: we don't trust our "feelings" about
>> what's an adequate sample size, or how far from the null hypothesis
>> the results need to be to establish significance at what confidence
>> level, because there's a long, sorry history of bad science done
>> without statistical care. We're all too prone to see what we want to
>> see and stop looking as soon as it's "confirmed" to our satisfaction.
>> And a scientist taking precautions against that, like (say) a
>> journalist following her own profession's protocols to cover a story
>> as completely and objectively as possible, is likely -- again -- to
>> look cold-bloodedly methodical and "value-free" to a more passionate
>> or pre-committed observer. Again, I disagree: I think the scientists
>> are just as likely as anyone else to cherish and to and act on "human
>> values" ... they're just more concerned than others to doubt, test,
>> and be clear about what they know (and don't know) before deciding
>> what to do.
>>
>> *From:*owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]
>> *On Behalf Of *Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>> *Sent:* Saturday, June 15, 2013 6:19 AM
>> *To:* Monte Davis; pynchon -l
>> *Subject:* Re: TRP and Science 2 (was: Science Plays God)
>>
>>
>> On 13.06.2013 00:38, Monte Davis wrote:
>>
>> Is it possible that at the same time he is suspicious and
>> minatory and worried about science and technology (and he is,
>> like so many other writers), he is also (like very few others in
>> literary fiction) really /interested**/in it? Attracted to it?
>> Even fascinated by it? Concerned to show us some real, important
>> human values that come to us /through/, even /because of/, math
>> and science and technology?
>>
>>
>> How math, science and technology can bring us "real, important human
>> values", I do not see. I'm not saying this polemically, and there are
>> certainly good things - antibiotics have been mentioned - about
>> scientific modernity. Or, as Jesse says when Walter shows him how to
>> cook up the shit right: "WOW ... /Science/!" But "values"? How? We
>> do not have to come to a consent on this. But I really would like to
>> hear - and please note that I'm not Alice - from you a detail or two
>> on the criticism on science one can doubtlessly find in Pynchon. The
>> thing is that he's not simply "worried about science and technology
>> ... like so many other writers"; to Pynchon the pitfalls of
>> science-based control are a key issue. I don't find this in, say,
>> Philip Roth or Cormac McCarthy. It's plausible to say that Pynchon's
>> attitude towards modern science's war against ambivalence became more
>> relaxed in the second phase of his work, but in the first three
>> novels the theme is central, imo. Pointsman makes his points,
>> Schoenmaker finds his clients. And Dr. Hilarious can continue his
>> concentration camp experiments under civil conditions in context of
>> MK Ultra. These motives - all based in the real history of the 20th
>> century - do unfold a fundamental criticism regarding modern science
>> and its lack of values. I'm not discussing here - though we might
>> come to this - whether the loss of human values is a necessary
>> product of social differentiation, as Luhmann ("Modernity has more
>> advantages /and/ more disadvantages than any other society before")
>> puts it, or whether this could be avoided by different forms of
>> political organization. Just that much: "Keep cool and care!" won't
>> do. That Pynchon is "attracted" to modern science is certainly right;
>> even after the successful publication of /V/ he wanted to complete
>> his scientific education with a math grade from Berkeley. But, as
>> already said, how to get from Pynchon's fascination by science to any
>> kind of 'scientific value generation' to be found in the texts
>> themselves, is not clear to me. What I find instead, especially in
>> /Gravity's Rainbow/, is the tendency to connect the progress of
>> science to deadly war technology. Not only in the case of rockets or
>> nuclear weapons, yet regarding modern science as such. "There has
>> been this strange connection between the German mind and the rapid
>> flashing of successive stills to counterfeit movement for at least
>> two centuries --- since Leibniz, in the process of inventing
>> calculus, used the same approach to break up the trajectories of
>> cannonballs through the air" (GR, p. 407). It's not really "the
>> German mind", it's science ---
>>
>>
>
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