Postmodernism: Profound, or Gibberish?

[Sunstone]

A modern philosopher once said: "Only a God can save us now."

Yes, the only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the cosmos.

This notion only a god can save us really irks me when it's taken in the vulgar sense of an actual deity. I find it so annoying. Like being constantly harped on by some brat that we need to go to McDonald's every day of the week because McDonald's is the only place -- says the brat -- that serves "real food". In fact, we do not need a deity to root us. We need a predictive model. If that model includes a deity, so what? If it doesn't, so what? The key isn't the deity, but the predictive value of the model. Or, more properly, the models. [/rant]

I really need more coffee this morning.

 

[doppelganger]

This notion only a god can save us really irks me when it's taken in the vulgar sense of an actual deity.

Let's be clear on this: Vaclav Havel is not talking about any of the various "God's" of theism. I'm a little troubled that that's the line in that excerpt that jumped out at you, Phil.

I really need more coffee this morning.

You and me both, brother.

 

[Sunstone]

Let's be clear on this: Vaclav Havel is not talking about any of the various "God's" of theism. I'm a little troubled that that's the line in that excerpt that jumped out at you, Phil.

Not to worry, Brendan. I know very well Havel is not talking about any of the various deities of theism. I was just having a random moment when I made an undisciplined association between what he said and the silly notion we need a theistic god for epistemic certainty that I've heard so often over the years. Made the association mainly because I felt like ranting.

You and me both, brother.

Doubtless. I've got some brewing now. Why I didn't put some on earlier is a mystery.

 

[Sunstone]

I think it's also interesting to note that as the post-modern paradigm has filtered down to the level of public consciousness it has stimulated what appears to be a pre-modern reactionary counter-movement, with the traditional forces that opposed the Enlightenment in the first place re-asserting themselves because the primacy of science no longer holds them in check as well as it once did. For evidence and extensive detail of this as a global phenomenon, I highly recommend Benjamin Barber's book Jihad v. McWorld.

Yeah! That's another thing that really irks me. The return to barbarism. By which I mean a pre-modern opposition to the Enlightenment. [/rant]

 

[lunamoth]

Good point, Laurie. These shifts happened a long time ago and are only now cycling into the general public consciousness. Biology is gradually being replaced by Ecology. Though Einstein clung vigorously to his desire for objective certainty, quantum mechanics established that God does indeed play dice. Innovations in psychology, neurology and computing were opened up by a shift to post-modern paradigms in science.

To view scientific knowledge through the lens of Enlightenment-era idealism is no longer as useful to us as it once was. I love Vaclav Havel's explanation of how:

The System won't let me frubal you but thank you for sharing that quote and your comments above. Meshing well with my thoughts these days.

 

[doppelganger]

The System won't let me frubal you but thank you for sharing that quote and your comments above. Meshing well with my thoughts these days.

Thanks, Laurie. That compliment means a great deal to me coming from you.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Hi doppelganger,

Thanks for the response. This is a very interesting discussion!

Generally, yes, it is useful. But I explained that above. It is not always useful though. And scientific progress requires that we recognize that despite the usefulness of assuming we've described reality "objectively" at no point have we actually done so.

I would agree that at no point can we be certain we have described reality accurately. But I do not see how you can know, with certainty, that we have never and will never describe reality accurately. Whence comes such certainty?

I have a couple of problems with this one. First, usefulness is inevitably a product of purpose, and purposes are narrow and malleable. Since we assume we are tinkering with an "objective" reality, but really aren't, it makes it easier to charge headlong into new useful technologies without being wary of the potential unknown effects on ourselves and our environment.

How do you know we "really aren't" tinkering with an objective reality? If you're simply saying that we cannot be certain that the results of empirical experiments are all in our heads, I agree. But how do you go from there to stating *categorically* that we have never, and can never, strike upon a construction of reality which accurately describes (to some degree) a hypothetical "objective" reality?

Second, this is a potential barrier to communication between people, because it treats the models, symbols and words we use to describe things as the things themselves.

I agree that would be a problem, but I don't think we have to reject statement #2 from my last post to avoid it.

In some areas it is considerably less useful to do so.

What would be an example?

And in science generally, it is counterproductive to do so as the method itself depends on not making that assumption.

I think the scientific method does depend on assuming there are such things as "objectivity" and "truth". This is different from assuming that our current descriptions are accurate, or that we will know it if/when we happen upon accurate descriptions.

Today's dogma is yesterday's insanity and heresy. That's applicable in every field of human endeavor - whether religion, art or science.

A priori, there is no logical reason that today's dogma *must be* yesterday's heresy, although that is a pattern we may notice in history. So I think that statement can only happen to be true, at best, and in cases where it happens to be true the reasons lie in the details. But it doesn't happen to be true in many cases, and I would say these cases occur frequently in science. For example, Newton's theory of gravity is not insanity or heresy, and likely never will be, unless we start observing tennis balls hovering in the air and satellites executing square-shaped orbits.

Science is fundamentally uncertain and must remain so. That is its sine qua non. When one settles on certainty in one's ontological propositions, it becomes belief.

Oh, I agree. I think we misunderstood each other. I wasn't saying we can be certain of anything. Assuming that there is an objective reality out there, and that it is possible to construct a description of it that is more/less accurate, is not the same as assuming we can ever be certain that we have hit upon an accurate description. On the other hand, it would seem to me to require unwarranted certainty to state categorically that we do not have an accurate description, or that we will never have one, or that the accuracy of our description never improves.

 

[doppelganger]

Hi doppelganger,

Thanks for the response. This is a very interesting discussion!

Yes it is. Thanks to you as well.

I would agree that at no point can we be certain we have described reality accurately. But I do not see how you can know, with certainty, that we have never and will never describe reality accurately. Whence comes such certainty?

It comes from the undeniable fact that we are not omniscient and can never conceptually model every aspect of reality - not even every aspect of a discrete piece of reality that we've abstracted away from everything else and identified.

Order is not intrinsic to the universe. It is, however, intrinsic to a conscious ego's engaging the universe. So much so, that a leap of faith is almost invariably taken that the universe would be ordered according to the forms and the relationships in our thoughts, without anyone doing any ordering or thinking.

If you're really interested in post-modern philosophy of science, an Internet discussion forum is not the place to learn about it. I'd recommend starting with Alfred Korzybski's incredible work Science and Sanity.

How do you know we "really aren't" tinkering with an objective reality?

I'm pretty sure we are tinkering with reality - though "objective" is a bit misleading, I think. The mere act of imposing forms in thought and experiencing the universe in fragments or things and relating them to one another is the act of tinkering. There is a reality - a substance there even without an ego to think about it - but it is beyond all the forms and models we project on to it, no matter how suitable those forms and models are to achieving our purposes.

If you're simply saying that we cannot be certain that the results of empirical experiments are all in our heads, I agree. But how do you go from there to stating *categorically* that we have never, and can never, strike upon a construction of reality which accurately describes (to some degree) a hypothetical "objective" reality?

Because language doesn't do that, and it takes an enormous amount of faith in opposition to mountains of evidence to the contrary to continue to believe it does. Language is for ordering those limit pieces of reality that I can experience and to which I can relate and place in context.

The other book I highly recommend, if you're serious about post-modern philosophy of science, is David Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Bohm was a theoretical physicist and a pioneer in the field of quantum mechanics and neuropsychology.

I think the scientific method does depend on assuming there are such things as "objectivity" and "truth". This is different from assuming that our current descriptions are accurate, or that we will know it if/when we happen upon accurate descriptions.

It's different yes, because it grafts belief into the models. But the fact remains that we have no model by which to measure objectivity other than usefulness. And usefulness, however useful, is neither objective nor "true." If you've solved the problem of induction in ontology . . . congratulations . . . you're God.

A priori, there is no logical reason that today's dogma *must be* yesterday's heresy, although that is a pattern we may notice in history.

It's an induction. But yes, that's the typical pattern.

For example, Newton's theory of gravity is not insanity or heresy, and likely never will be, unless we start observing tennis balls hovering in the air and satellites executing square-shaped orbits.

Or we learn that the even more fundamental substance out of which all the bigger stuff we see is composed doesn't obey Newton's laws.

 

[doppelganger]

Here's a sample of Bohm's Wholeness and the Implicate Order. As a physicist and neuroscientist (and an extremely important one), he provides specific examples of this in the progression of modern science beyond the Newtonian certainty of the Enlightenment, so I very much recommend reading the whole book.

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If we supposed that theories gave true knowledge, corresponding to 'reality as it is', then we would have to conclude that Newtonian Mechanics was true until around 1900, after which it suddenly became false, while relativity and quantum theory suddenly became the truth. Such an absurd conclusion does not arise, however, if we say that all theories are insights, which are neither true nor false.

... Man is continually developing new forms of insight, which are clear up to a point and then tend to become unclear. In this activity, there is evidently no reason to suppose that there is or will be a final form of insight (corresponding to absolute truth) or even a steady series of approximations to this. Rather, one may expect the unending development of new forms of insight (which will, however assimilate certain key features of the older forms as simplifications, in the way that relativity theory does with Newtonian theory). Our theories are to be regarded primarily as ways of looking at the world as a whole ('world-views') rather than as 'absolute true knowledge of how things are'.

What prevents theoretical insights from going beyond existing limitations and changing to meet new facts is just the belief that theories give true knowledge of reality (which implies, of course, that they never change). Although our modern way of thinking has changed a great deal relative to the ancient one, the two have had one key feature in common: i.e. they are both generally 'blinkered' by the notion that theories give true knowledge about 'reality as it is'. Thus, both are led to confuse the forms and shapes induced in our perceptions by theoretical insight with a reality independent of our thought and way of looking. This confusion is of crucial significance, since it leads us to approach nature, society and the individual in terms of more or less fixed and limited forms of thought, and thus, apparently, to keep on confirming the limitations of these forms of thought in experience.

 

[lunamoth]

Or we learn that the even more fundamental substance out of which all the bigger stuff we see is composed doesn't obey Newton's laws.

Rut-roh.

I recently encountered the term 'Critical Realism,' which seems to forge a way between modernism and post-modernism. Will this be the next step?

 

[doppelganger]

I recently encountered the term 'Critical Realism,' which seems to forge a way between modernism and post-modernism. Will this be the next step?

Bertrand Russell, I presume? That's an old step. The problem is that it doesn't solve the basic problem of induction - the criterion for inductive validity is usefulness rather than objective truth - even with first sense impressions.

 

[lunamoth]

Bertrand Russell, I presume? That's an old step. The problem is that it doesn't solve the basic problem of induction - the criterion for inductive validity is usefulness rather than objective truth - even with first sense impressions.

I've not read much by B. Russell yet, but I did see his name associated with CR. I really don't know much about it yet, but at first glance, even if it is an old way, it seems to present a balance between 'objective truth' and 'subjective truth.'

What is the problem with induction? As you say, the usefulness of the model is the criteria. As soon as it loses its function in predictability a model needs to be changed or discarded. Is that somehow in conflict with CR?

 

[lunamoth]

The wiki article on this is not great but here is part of it:

The implication of this is that science should be understood as an ongoing process in which scientists improve the concepts they use to understand the mechanisms that they study. It should not, in contrast to the claim of empiricists, be about the identification of a coincidence between a postulated independent variable and dependent variable. Positivism/falsification are also rejected due to the observation that it is highly plausible that a mechanism will exist but either a) go unactivated, b) be activated, but not perceived, or c) be activated, but counteracted by other mechanisms, which results in it having unpredictable effects. Thus, non-realisation of a posited mechanism cannot (in contrast to the claim of positivists) be taken to signify its non-existence.

 

[lilithu]

Yeah! That's another thing that really irks me. The return to barbarism. By which I mean a pre-modern opposition to the Enlightenment. [/rant]

Post-modern criticism of the Enlightenment is not the same thing as pre-modern opposition to the Enlightenment.

The problem with Modernists is that they think the Enlightenment actually answered everything, and so any criticism of the Enlightenment is assumed to be "backwards."

 

[Paroxys]

Order is not intrinsic to the universe. It is, however, intrinsic to a conscious ego's engaging the universe. So much so, that a leap of faith is almost invariably taken that the universe would be ordered according to the forms and the relationships in our thoughts, without anyone doing any ordering or thinking.

I think the more proper way of phrasing this is that we do not know if order is intrinsic to the universe. We do, however, assume it for the purposes, of well, just about everything.

It's different yes, because it grafts belief into the models. But the fact remains that we have no model by which to measure objectivity other than usefulness. And usefulness, however useful, is neither objective nor "true." If you've solved the problem of induction in ontology . . . congratulations . . . you're God.

Again, I think the more proper way of phrasing this is the models we use to measure reality are also subject to the very constraints that we have.

It's not that "objective reality" doesn't exist, its that we have no way of knowing whether it does exist, and if it does, if our representation of it is accurate. Yea, I know, I'm being nitpicky, but I feel precision is important.

Plus there's always the paradox of post-modernity. =D

 

[doppelganger]

I think the more proper way of phrasing this is that we do not know if order is intrinsic to the universe. We do, however, assume it for the purposes, of well, just about everything.

Order is an assessment of forms. It necessarily requires relationships in thought.

Again, I think the more proper way of phrasing this is the models we use to measure reality are also subject to the very constraints that we have.

That's not a more "proper" way, though it's not incorrect. It is quite a bit more vague, however.

It's not that "objective reality" doesn't exist, its that we have no way of knowing whether it does exist, and if it does, if our representation of it is accurate. Yea, I know, I'm being nitpicky, but I feel precision is important.

I think you are being imprecise, however. "Objective" reality, used to refer to forms, cannot refer to an "existence" independent of thought. Reality without forms ("the Tao", "Brahman", occasionally "God", etc.) might be there without an observer and hence might be carelessly thought of as "objective". But to name it and think about it is to give it form - and then you've broken the very wall you were trying to construct.

 

[Paroxys]

Mmm... perhaps...

Assume the following thought experiment however, that some supernatural being exists and he/she/it created and ordered universe. Wouldn't this be a case in which order and objectivity exist independent of thought?

Hence my typically vaguer re-interpretations of your words to allow for this possibility.