The Role of Science
Nicolas,
I am not saying that science can choose for us what kind of society we want to live in. Science cannot choose anything by itself. Science is simply a way to know the rules of the universe. It does not tell us what technology we should deploy. Science makes technology possible, and tells us what the effects will be when deploy a given technology.
We can (and often do) choose to deploy a technology without analysing the consequences or by ignoring the predictions of science. This happens all the time.
Should we colonize the galaxy? There are advantages and disadvantages. Science can tell us what they are. It cannot choose for us. However, science can tell us what strategies or actions are consistent with our goals.
Logical positivism doesn't command us to create a communist or fascist society. Not at all. It is a false argument to place blame on science and logical positivism for the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The fact that much of the scientific rationale claimed by the Nazis wasn't science is beside the point. Science is completely neutral when it comes to intent. Science provides technology to facilitate intent.
So how do we decide to make "value" decisions? For any given objective, we will probably have many possible courses of action. Each course of action has a cost and a reward. We must incorporate human emotion in our model when we evaluate each possible course.
To me, this is plainly scientific. There is a lot of uncertainty involved when assigning a "weight" to human emotion. We cannot completely ignore human emotion - science predicts failure in these cases. We also cannot assign infinite weight because many goals (including survival) can never be met when assigning infinite weight to our emotions.
Transhumanism aside, you are correct that science cannot "control" emotions in a personal or social sense. However, science tells us the price we pay for placing emotions above other factors.
In summary, science tells us what the facts are, how the world works, and what will be the consequences of our actions. What we do with that information, science does not say (though it may still provide an explanation for our choice).
doctor(logic)
posted by Doctor Logic @ 8:53 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Yes, 'Science makes technology possible' but does it really 'tells us what the effects will be when we deploy a given technology' ? I do not believe that. First, there are countless instances where a given technology came to be used in entirely different ways (good or bad) than originally predicted. Look at computers, for example. But there is a more funtamental reason : most physical systems seem to be chaotic. Even the solar system is. Once you are out of the lab, the tiniest differences can lead to completely different outcomes. Science is powerless in front of this massive complexity. Take the environment, for example. You can predict the immediate outcome of an oil spill, or what would happen if the ozone layer were not there anymore. But what the environement will be in 50 years, utterly destroyed or still muddling through as right now ? There is no way to know. Doing so would require to model the whole of humanity and its gigantic feedback loop to the environment...
Now, regarding communism and nazism. I do not think science is to blame. But I definitely believe that scientism, and positivism in particular, is. I do not say that totalitarianism was a direct product of it. If one is to understand such phenomenon, it is necessary to abandon such straitforward causality. As we have seen, scientism has a corrosive effect on the belief systems that hold society together. Once the corrosion has reached a sufficient stage, anything can appear to fill the void. When you feel you are drowning, you are bound to reach for the first piece of junk that comes along and hold on to it. This is how Germans felt in the early 1930s (economic collapse, WWI lost, all sorts of political gangs roaming the streets) and probably also Ted Kackzinsy in his little dorm room at Harvard in the late 1950s.
'We must incorporate human emotion in our model when we evaluate each possible course'. But we CANNOT. This is science fiction. We are nowhere near being able to do that. We are not even close to understanding human metabolism (Aubrey de Grey's talk at TV'04). I guess we will be able to do that, one day. But we will no longer be human by then. And this feels to me like it might be something more than just a human limitation. Once you fully understand what you are, whatever kind of creature you may be, you are no longer what you were. For example, if you use augmentation techniques to understand your psyche you are no longer just that psyche. You are it plus the augmentation. And then you do not fully understand what this new combination is.
'science tells us the price we pay for placing emotions above other factors'. Science can tell us of certain costs (like environmental damage) but cannot tell us about others (like that positivism will "pollute" our societies so much that Nazism will appear), which may be worse. When someone can tell you in great detail about certain things but not others, you will listen to him as a consultant. But when the time comes to make a decision, you will follow your intuition and the established practices and traditions of your society. It may not be perfect. But it is the best option available.
'science tells us what the facts are, how the world works', 'Science is simply a way to know the rules of the universe'. Should we really believe that ? Let us admit that the universe does follow rules; how are we going to know them ? The only thing we can do is observe regularities. As it has already been said by many (including Hume, I think), n regular occurences, whatever large n might be, do not guarantee that occurence n+1 will conform to the same rule. Science works, for sure. But HOW does it work ? When we observe it, we see that it is made of rules, norms of behaviour, traditions, rituals, that apply obviously to human behaviour : that of the scientists themselves. It is pretty safe to say that theses social practices guarantee that those who follow them will be able to make very accurate predictions in certain domains. But is it safe to try to say more ? to harden that statement into a full blown belief in human decipherable, yet mysterious, 'laws of nature' ? I do not think so. If you do, the risk of falling into 'blind faith' looms large. Is it reasonable to take such a risk ? I tink that what the history of the XXth century tells us is that it is not.
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