If I try to condense my readings and what I have learned on the essence of science, I’d say that it lies primarily in the indication whereby the most important results of research consist in achievements always modifiable. Sometimes reference is made in the literature to the opposition between ‘techno-scientific staticism’ or the dispositions whose manifestations involve no changes at all, and the occurrence of never-ending problems, replicated continuously, to be named: the ‘techno-scientific dynamism’.

Science exists only because of the enormous heritage of non-scientific thought and of first principles that support all types of rationality, logic, and knowledge and that are provided mostly by philosophy, epistemology, etc. Then science has been considered as an ‘intermediate’ knowledge and as such it does not possess the first or the last ‘word’ so that it is exposed to all sorts of interference and conditioning conferring only a partial and provisional worldview and to a series of components of an analogic, symbolic or metaphorical nature, varying according to time, disciplines and interpretations.

Current results of historical research and epistemological critique do no longer allow to consider the scientific assertions as definitive and indisputable truth. In science, cast-iron certainty is reduced to probabilities or issues generating problems and the logic of truth to the logic of error.

Popper has shown us that scientific research: wide-ranging, uncertain, tough, plagued by errors of all kinds can never cease nor reach final results because the facets of reality are inexhaustible to investigate as well as the scenarios for exploring them.

For these reasons sciences are forced to proliferate and diversify themselves, causing all rationalistic attempts to unification to fail. K. Jaspers, as a scientist and philosopher, remind us that experimental science, alone and with its method, cannot know the quality aspect of reality, nor sense its deep value.

Such a task should be and has been conferred to a category of ethics based on a spiritual as well as physical reality of man. The acknowledgment that the epistemological and heuristic principles of 1) error detection, 2) evaluation of the reasons of other people and 3) efforts for a better understanding of the problems showing the ethical nature of scientific rationality, brings truth to the foreground as an ideal norm. Then, a closer link between physical and natural sciences to human problems renders them more meaningful to culture paving the way to an ethical knowledge. Moreover, the old scientific rationality would be replaced by a new one, open to human and ethical values, attentive to the good of mankind and sensitive to the increasing human and social disruption. Such a new kind of rationality is required: 1) by the continuous broadening of the content of culture, with its increasing range of commitments, meanings and values and 2) by the necessity to modify knowledge previously acquired which gives the techno-scientific commitment its capacity to formulate new problems. It is just such a capacity the fundamental cultural and humanistic constituent of science.

I wish to elaborate further on my previous considerations regarding the relationships between science and culture by pointing out that new explanations of the concept of science offer the cultural discussion another set of useful features for all kind of knowledge. Specifically, we are confronted with the new scientific vision of a universe in which order, chaos and complexity are no more unique and absolute fundamental constituents, but components carefully set by an articulate information design.

The new episteme is based on complexity and systems. Detailed perspectives on both of them show how scientific research, technological innovation and their consequences are not autonomous and indifferent, but interact in a global socio-cultural system, well-found with its own meanings, aims and values, in which they shall be incorporated. Thus, the relevant frame of the global system of a spiritual and ethical nature represents the vital context of any scientific commitment.

Since scientific knowledge affects all other forms of knowledge and the very "roots" of culture, it is necessary to endorse it, taking into account what the current epistemological and historical critique has found about it. Such a critique considers scientific knowledge as: hypothetical, partial, temporary and refutable, always verifiable and never completely true. In addition, it highlights its limits, errors, omissions, inconsistencies and negative consequences. The perception of all that has not yet arrived to the general public and to the means of communication and is not yet part of a common understanding. Science continues to be considered as an adequate representation of the world, a type of knowledge organized according to the criterion of truth, an ultimate explanation of the origins of the universe and the functioning of reality.

Any aspect of it is "scientifically "presented with these totalizing and philosophically erroneous concepts, be it: 'universe, nature, life, man and society. The systemic perspective enables us to understand how science, considered as a "knowledge system", may spread these negative traits and their consequences in all cultures.

As a part of the global cultural system of all nations and societies, science interprets and transforms reality, always raising new problems. In this way it changes the "roots of culture ' that is: criteria of judgment, sets of values, points of interest, lines of thought, beliefs and ways of life. To produce these effects, it uses those operational tools particularly powerful represented by conceptual and symbolic systems that interpret reality, or technological means which direct work and action.

Dear Gianrocco,

One of the most 'beautiful' questions that I have so far come across in RG. Permit me to be blunt enough to say that it is so because the question has certain implied dimensions that are beyond the grasp of 'science' as we understand that term in normal usage. To that extent 'science' will always be a corollary or sub-stream of culture.

We must look at what possibly evolved first - culture or science? We were individuals living in wilderness hunting for our own food. Slowly we realized that bigger game can be hunted if we worked together. (you want to call this first step of evolution of man as society a 'science', well it is worth a debate!). Once we started living together then our needs increased. For example, the need to travel. We invented the wheel. Then we found from nature that we can transplant things and use them for our food. We developed agriculture. Then we made cloth. Then we made aircraft; and then we sent Armstrong to Moon. (sorry I have to jump few millennia, otherwise RG may decide to charge me for space!!). In each step of this process we developed 'science' to provide either answers to our needs or to whet our intellectual curiosity.

To do so, we first had to put a group of people together, develop norms for behavior, define relationships, assign duties and control their interaction in specified ways. In other words, we had to evolve culture first, in order to 'create' a need for discovery.

I personally feel that the relationship between culture and science is like that of the mother and child. The 'mom' gave birth to the child and she will continue to influence the way the child develops, interacts with the society and finds fulfilment of his pursuits. If the child turns out a prodigal or rebel, the mom suffers. If the child turns out to be a saint, the mom begets stature; if the child becomes a just king, mom becomes 'queen mother' and patron to the society; and if the child becomes a loyal son, the whole family benefits.

I think I went off on a philosophical mode. But I suppose, you would bear with me!!

Seasons greetings and best wishes, please.

This is a good question.

Scientist are people. People have culture.

Therefore, when making scientific assessments or in formulating scientific hypothesis people's culture will indirectly make influences; life outside of the lab, influences life in the lab.

Additionally, where scientist do research, the extent, and in what fields may be influenced by culture.

A perfect example is Ramanujan, mathematician, who said famously "none of his math conjectures meant anything unless there where signs from god."

Dear Srinivasan Rajamanickam,

while reflecting on your quite interesting and shareable comments, I wish to thank you for the opportunity you give me of extending very briefly my previous interventions in order to underline that science as part of the global cultural system understands and changes real life, rising new problems. It affects and constrains, for good or for bad, the ‘global system’ of society and culture. Affecting and constraining are quite different than interacting. They concern not only the formulation of the content of the research projects, the political and economic attitudes of public authorities or private enterprises in order to get the financial resources necessary for their implementation, but also the market structures to take advantage on the competition. The multi-faceted and capillary conditioning has influence on the roots of culture by creating, transforming or disrupting its various morphologies. These practices are normally referred to as ‘acculturation’, that is the process of cultural change due to permanent contact with people from different cultures. Moreover, acculturation - as a system of integration of reciprocal values - can enrich the different "cultural roots" with new ways of thinking, ways of life and standards of judgment criteria.

Dear Gianrocco,

Yes, there is hardly anything that you said of which I have a different opinion. So let me expand our agreement in these words:

'Acculturation' - the term you used means the process in which we absorb elements of an alien culture that we come into contact with. This also becomes a two way process. Take for example the arrival of 'Sufi' Islam in India in the late 10th century. While interacting with Indian culture, the essentially 'spiritual' Sufism absorbed certain physical practices followed in Hindu forms of worship (worship of God with flowers, chanting His name and singing His praise through specially composed songs, etc). Hinduism on its part absorbed the deeply spiritual expression of Sufism and manifested it in its dance, drama and poetry. Not to say that the elements absorbed by each of these faiths were not present in them before. But the mutual effect resulted in refinement. I would read 'acculturation' therefore as the process by which two cultures find and absorb their commonalities in their mutual practice.

Science is also a culture, in one sense. Take again India for example. Though Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages in the world, our cultural tradition was to pass on knowledge through word of mouth. Written scriptures and therefore exhaustive written analyses, theoretical deductions, as would the West do its intellectual pursuit in writing, were not followed in India. Though of robust intellect, even our grammar and vast knowledge of sciences in the field of geography, math, astronomy, chemistry, metallurgy, art of war etc were passed down from father to son; from master to servant; from teacher to students ONLY by word of mouth. Then Moguls arrived in India, followed by Europeans. Both these cultures had the tradition of written documentation. Well, now the Indian society is prolific in writing on paper! The so called 'scientific temper' has set in.

Science, as I mentioned earlier, is a product of the 'cultured' mind - not in the elitist sense, but in the sense of a 'culture' of thinking and analysis using logic, deductive or prospective reasoning etc of those things that surround us.

You are good at provoking people to think - I must thank you!

Dear All,

This discussion is similar to the https://www.researchgate.net/post/Where_creativity_is_more_important_In_science_or_art

A lot of its opinions and ideas can be used also in the culture and science question.

I think science is a part of culture. There is no sense facing them each other. They require each other: without culture science cannot exist and at a certain point of cultural evolution science appears and develops parallel with culture. Both are manifestation of human brain, creativity and human relationship to the environment as well as the universe of facts and ideas.

The subject itself is a good choice because one can discuss about it until the end of time.

After being intervened on several occasions suggested by previous comments on the RG , I want to focus my comments on these aspects that seem to characterize the current relationship between science and culture , emphasizing how they are experiencing a greater awareness of their role in relation to a quite recent past.

I believe to be proper to take note that today's science is in a different situation, covering all aspects of human life. The term science seems limiting as inadequate because, rather than science, one must speak of a scientific universe of culture consisting of the scientific disciplines , their problems , methods and results , and from the collection of thoughts and reflections that are part of them .

Currently , the world is still dominated by scientific rationalism , impregnated of instrumental rationality , limited and closed, rather than inspired by a reason wide open to various possibilities in an attempt to switch to other forms of rationality : instrumental , procedural, and so on , making us fully aware that this is necessary to give convincing arguments.

The natural and the human - social sciences become privileged partners for culture. After Popper , Kuhn and other critical epistemologists, thinking will be more credible if it can develop self-critical awareness of its own limitations , recognition of its temporary nature , partiality and perception of its own mistakes .

No epistemological and philosophical address is decisive and irreversible. The critical reassessment applies to all fields: science , epistemology , philosophy. It calls into question the principles , methods and results . In the present transition, the new ways of interpreting and implementing science must overcome old and tenacious prejudices . A more human science is involved , to the complete service of man, culture , new humanism and a new quality of life.

Specially, it must be determined if the scientific propositions are a base, an adequate cultural vehicle

or a conceptual tool useful for the development of culture. For this purpose we are investigating the possibility of a broader concept of science.

All this is linked to the difficulties involving all science : 1 ) the rapid evolution of scientific knowledge , 2) the continued fragmentation caused by the increasing specialization . The solution of these problems depends on the meaning that each discipline attaches to its own statements . In this regard, more useful than ever are epistemological proposals of the twentieth century (eg . Popper , Hempel , Rudner , Kuhn , Lakatos ) .

I believe that we should deepen the scope of certain structural limits without attenuating complexity and difficulties and in particular: 1) the scientific process and the results derived from it to build a new culture and humanism based on science , and 2) the logic of science, informative criteria its method and its techniques , and 3) the compliance of the techno- scientific activity to the most important needs of people and society.

It is necessary to examine the ways in which the language of life and culture give life to scientific propositions. Researchers act according to their attitudes and cultural beliefs . It is necessary to examine the relationship between their scientific hypotheses and representations of reality. It is essential to bear in mind the elements of the scientific process of analysis, its realism and objectivity working on the semantic complexity of the scientific language and the difficulty of converting the scientific expertise in culturally understandable expressions .

Elements for a supplementary intervention have come to my mind in the light of the development of studies and of the literature available. The topics cover the crisis of objectivity and scientific rigor. All this helps us to find outlines in an epistemological era still not yet well defined; meanings, roles, purposes and values of techno-scientific opinions are not quite clear; opinions on current science oscillate between an excesses of trust and a full distrust; the old dogmas and misunderstandings about the relationship between science, faith and ethics hinder systematic and constructive dialogue. Then, there remain radical contradictions and conflicts between the real and the many current possibilities and potential negative residuals inherited from the past. Furthermore, we cannot overcome those radical contradictions to solve cultural and social human problems; they are becoming increasingly complex and urgent, especially for the near future.

The modern man is well aware of being in a time that does not have yet well-defined contours. Sometimes, he realizes that he becomes a still evanescent entity, a presence lacking substance well conscious of being part of a world that is vacuous and only pleasure. Scant space is reserved for culture and values. Consumerism has become its new soul; no place is left for a spiritual life. The mental faculties of man, on the contrary, allow them to predict and organize the future almost anticipating it. This is the essential characteristics that differentiate humans from animals. For this reason the progressive evolution of human societies is based on the prediction and foresight that stimulate the research for acceptable living conditions.

Man lives in the eternal drama of knowing and not knowing; he is aware that he has the ability to think and try to recognize its own and others' mistakes, trying to shape its own future and that of people living close to him. The prospects appear favorable for learning complex situations especially when you have to draw on the experience of the past being placed in an attitude of anticipation of the future which you have to figure it out being quite unknown except for the experience of the past. Being able to discern what is permanent and what can vary, the modern man does not crystallize in an ideological narrowness.

Dear Gianrocco Tucci,

Though may not be directly relevant to your original question (but related to the last but one para of your comment above) is a story related to Ikkiyu, a great Tao guru:

Ikkiyu found himself near a temple in which hundreds of wooden Buddhas were worshipped. As it was severely cold, Ikkiyu asked the priest to let him in for staying through the night. The priest obliged. Finding the cold extremely unbearable, Ikkiyu broke three of the wooden Buddhas and made himself a roaring fire. The priest realised his act and cried in anguish-'you have burnt our Buddha..oh..how dare you do such a thing?

Instead of an answer, Ikkiyu got busy searching the ash from the site. The angry priest demanded a reply. "I am looking for the bones of Buddha", said Ikkiyu. The priest was livid. "First you burn the wooden statues, and now your making fun?"

Ikkiyu calmly answered: "If you know that they were mere wood, why dont you join me in burning some more to keep the Buddha in me warm? why make fuss over something that isn't?"

The need to find something to keep our self warm is like using science to discover things with which human life can be bettered. But to think that science is the panacea for problems of the world is to bury our heads in sand like an ostrich and refuse to see reality. The BBC ran a programme yesterday on how the entire ground water in parts of Europe have become un-drinkable due to the storage and destruction of thousands of tons of chemical weapons during World war I. This is what science, when misused, can do and it will take us hundreds of years to even realise its ill effects.

Culture on the other hand, helps us to find the Buddha in each of us. To respect each other as equals and therefore share our means and miseries for common good. Without culture, science will be like those wooden Buddhas, much worshipped and kept in temples, but useful only when burnt during cold nights for keeping living Buddhas warm!!

I'd like to add the following considerations as a crucial point in Man considering his concreteness and reflective capacity by resorting to hermeneutics as it is applied to language, human action and ethics. I believe It allows to articulate text and action. Action because life itself is narrated ; it presents possible narrative paths that highlights the subject which is examined while excluding others . Story and action also confirm the intersubjective dimension of the human being : action can be recounted because it is the same human life that deserves to be told . History has also proceeded in this way through the main stages of ethical reflection : description and prescription.

Write, read , just like life, are a continuous exercise of freedoms and opportunities it displayed : in each story , as in any action , you could not live without choosing . For this reason , action and morality are so closely interlinked that it is a condition for the possibility of the other , showing that dimension of " hermeneutic circularity " which has long been studied within philosophy.

Man considered in his concreteness and reflective capacity resorts to hermeneutics , as it is applied to language, human action and ethics. It allows to articulate text and action. Action because life itself is narrated ; it presents possible narrative paths that highlights the subject which is examined while excluding others . Story and action also confirm the intersubjective dimension of the human being : action can be recounted because it is the same human life that deserves to be told . History has also proceeded in this way through the main stages of ethical reflection : description and prescription.

Write, read , just like life, are a continuous exercise of freedoms and opportunities it displayed : in each story , as in any action , you could not live without choosing . For this reason , action and morality are so closely interlinked that it is a condition for the possibility of the other, showing that dimension of " hermeneutic circularity " which was so long studied within philosophy.

I appreciate all learned opinion regarding science and culture. Foucault (1991, p. 12) states the problem in these words, points out At the end of the colonial era, people began to ask the West what rights its culture, its science, its social organization and finally its rationality itself could have to laying claim to a universal validity: is it not a mirage tied to an economic domination and a political hegemony?

Science is culture, it arises out of our innate desire for knowledge just as much as our desire for personal experience. Science has for too long been seen as some sort of intellectual detachment from human experience only interacting with humanity when it develops into 'technology'. Until the industrialisation of the early 19th century science was part of the philosophies and its pursuit was not seen as distinct from the pursuit of aesthetics in the form of art or music. It is a good thing that such philosophy is re-emerging so that science can be a part of the humanities, rather than the dehumanised abstract that is became due to industrialisation and the replacement of human wonder with the materialistic world of technology.

The reflections that follow have emerged as a result of a summary of the most frequent questions that researchers at RG were asking about the relationship between science and culture; science and philosophy and science and ethics. These comments continue my previous discussions on RG .

I begin from the issue of rigor in scientific research. Sometimes it is preferred to follow the trend of the moment and its prevalent idea. But at the same time it is necessary to be open to dialogue because through it it is possible to appreciate the alternatives that are available in the interpretation of reality, which are often overlooked .I wish to settle on the fact that scientific knowledge influences the values of all cultures, especially those which are commonly 'shared' . However, scientific knowledge must always maintain its capacity to formulate new research perspectives, to arrive at new laws - defined as uniformity of behavior - the meaning of which tries to overcome the impediments deriving from the interpretation reported in previous studies .

In this process, now briefly outlined, we must not neglect the humanities. Becoming humanistic, scientific knowledge can push the various forms of knowledge towards new qualitative openings. Therefore, to understand what emerges in the world, every researcher should be aware of the meanings and values of human experience. In this regard, I am reminded of a thought by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who said: 'The art of questioning is not as easy as you think. We must have learned already a lot to know how to ask for what you do not know '.

After my recent intervention that stimulates the debate among the members of the research team investigating the economic consequences of malevolent envy, further thoughts came to mind regarding the alternatives that are available in the interpretation of reality. An interdisciplinary comparison can make its contribution to highlight the human and cultural meanings emerging from new discoveries , the problems that they raise, contradictions that cause hazards or risks. In this comparison space should be given to ethics and philosophy . Therefore, ‘ scientificity’ should not be identified with either a generic , rigorous rationality , nor with models derived from the physico-natural sciences . It is to emphasize and to bear in mind that scientific rationality is not unique. Its forms may depend on the disciplines that investigate reality. In this regard it is to warn that factors can intervene related to the possibility of ' infiltration ' of various ideologies . We need, therefore , intelligence, wisdom , insight, reasonabless to explore the cultural aspects of the scientific and humanistic activities, linking them to the new problems of human existence.

What is your opinion on the relationship between science and culture?

Well, you can get one hell of a lot of laughs out of it!

Science is a sub-culture of a global culture. It is a relation of inclusion. Science became a sub-culture of philosophy during the enlightment and philosophy then also changed radically from what it used to be since its emergenced in the axial period of humanity.

What is this scientific cultural activities? It is a communal activity among group of specialized scientists which send message about the aspects of the universe which is under their investigation. What is special about these messages is their clarity. A message is scientific if it is clear enough that testing its validity is possible within certain limits. Some prefer to say that a scientific message should be falsifiable. A message specific enough and clear enough can thus be tested and judge by a community of scientists. New science are alwys stemming from philosophical dialogues, a minority of them can further be clarified enough to become scientific. But when a science faces real obstacles, it oftern need to get new insight from philosophical , or artistic activities. In the limited domains where science can exist , science provides the best knowledge available. But lets remember that science is limited to knowledge and many activities of which science may have some knowledge are not knowledge based. Even scientific research is in great part taking placed within a realm of practices which play a major roles in the process of discovery. Michael Polanyi emphasized how practical tacit knowledge, a knowledge that cannot be communicate explicitely is crucial to science. Pascal was saying ''“The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know''. And Godel even proove that in the privilege language of science, the language where ambiguities have been eliminated, there are truths that can be found but never proven and there are contradictions. The opposition towards other forms of cultures that some scientists entertain is based on multiple confusions, the most prevalent is to assume that the ideals of these other forms of cultural activities is to know the way science does. When as a baby you learned to walk, you did not need a science of the body and you did not intend to create one but you intend to walk.

Gianrocco,

In your very long speech (much too long for my liking) you say "Then, only scientific knowledge is safe, credible, objective, indisputable, true and, conversely, everything that cannot be investigated scientifically is non-existent , irrelevant or devoid of sense".

Personally I would say that the main feature of the scientific knowledge is not that it should be considered as true for ever but instead that it can be (actually should be) permanently questioned as it is falsifiable.

Another feature of the scientific knowledge, IMO, is that it is unable to generate moral values and/or to give meaning to one's life.

Actually my main question to you is: what main message do you want to convey when asking your question "What is your opinion on the relationship between science and culture?"?

Dear all,

My first remark is that sicence has a purpose, assumed and shared by the community of people who call themselves "scientists". There can be many definitions of this purpose but, using one that Louis knows well and has bee used in another forum : the purpose of science f to provide a clear and efficient explanation of its field of interest, in order to act upon it. Usually the field of interest is the physical world.

Tthis definition entails that, in many ways, science appears and acts in an imperialist way. "Culture" (defined as a set of beliefs, practices, social organizations and values) has no purpose, and almost by definition is fragmented, without common measure, as opposed to the community of scientists which has a pretense to some universal purpose, common values measured according to some criteria of efficiency. Science provides an objective point of view, vs the definitively subjective perspective of culture. This is a fact. It does not mean that it is good or wrong. And it brings with it some problems.

Time and again this "imperialist" vision of science is critized. We have seen the "proletarian science" of Lyssenko, there are philosophers who tell that "science is a mean of oppression (by the west, by the men,...)". Whatever the grounds for some of these assertions, the scientific community has learnt the value to stick to its purpose : after all science in Europe (and as its is accepted everywhere) has been borne against the pressure of the Church. So far there is no better way to preserve science for the greater good, as imperfect as it is.

The scope of science if not limited to the physical world. And when it extends to the social sciences it becomes trickier. Marx, for those who have closely read his books, claimed to have founded a new science : history became predictable, and theory provides the way to speed up its necessary achievements. We know what happened, but if very few today have the same pretense, it reminds us the need to be careful when we deal with social science. From my own experience, as an economist and manager, I believe that those who hope to forget the basic rules of economic (or socilogy) theory (and not realities) are condemned to fail. But that does not mean that economists have all the answers, only some.

And the scientific community itself is not immuned to what some of them could see as "cultural bias". Science proceeds by theories expressed in a common language, supposedly validated by facts. But, and this is more obvious every year, there are more and more "commmonly assumed beliefs" (taken as validated thruths) and mysteries (QM, dark matter, big bang,...). When the "masters" tell that nobody can understand QM, that they teach and from where they get their own power, one can be rightfully concerned. Science (basically the academic world) has turned in some kind of "gated community" of beliefs, practices, social hierachy and power games. A culture in itself.

Jean-Claude,

I find your speech interesting although not concise enough.

When you say "The scope of science if not limited to the physical world. And when it extends to the social sciences it becomes trickier" you seem to limit what you call "the physical world" to what is usually called "physics" (i.e., the laws of physics?).

To me "the physical world" means throughout our world as I consider that the laws of physics also explain the biological phenomena and thus the psychological and social ones. By contrast, to me, the scope of science doesn't involve metaphysics, i.e., 'metaphysical' worlds.

You probably disagree with this viewpoint (?).

Marc,

How do you define the limits of this metaphysical worlds? Are the multiverse theories, and string theories which are mathematical constructs that are in the process of construction for decades which which in an foreseable future cannot be testes, maybe it will happen in an unforseable future part of this metaphysical world? If you answer yest then all cutting edge speculative science is metaphysical. I know that in your view of the world, being metaphysical is bad. But there are some thinker who are proud and should be proud to have contribute to metaphysics. It is my opinion that all sciences necessarily sits on a metaphysical basis: the set of assumptions which cannot be verified but which constitute the set of pre-accepted common belief from which real theories can be constructed and tested. Nobody explain to us these beliefs. You learn most of you mathematics much before you can understand on what basis the whole system is constructed. You learn to use analytical geometry in your work without undertanding what a priori assumptions such a conceptual tool is. You learn all we learn like the baby learn to speak in a given language and taking all the built-in rules as natural. All that are metaphysics consciously constructed thousand of years ago but that all of us naively assimilated and start to apply it and viewing the world through it and not seeing things in the world that do not fonform to it. The metaphysics we live by is totally invisible to us.

Louis,

Thank you for this useful intervention.

1. "How do you define the limits of this metaphysical worlds?"

By definition metaphysical worlds are beyond the scope of science.

e.g., a) String theories are beyond the scope of science because it is not possible presently to imagine any observation or experiment able to falsify them;

b) The multiverse hypothesis also seems beyond the scope of science presently although for Smolin's theory and perhaps for some others it is possible that there exist observations able to falsify the theory.

2. "I know that in your view of the world, being metaphysical is bad".

To me 'metaphysics"' is not "bad" as I am interested in this area. I just say it is beyond the scope of science by definition. As soon as a metaphysical question becomes testable it is no more metaphysical.

Moreover, as I have always said, it is not forbidden for scientists to be inspired by metaphysical thoughts to generate new hypotheses.

3. "You learn all we learn like the baby learn to speak in a given language and taking all the built-in rules as natural".

I agree with you that we learn without understanding at the beginning of our life.

However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't think critically as soon as possible.

Marc,

So a given hypothesis or theory is metaphysical until the time we can empirically test some of its predictions. The traditional way to make this distinction is by the hypothesis vs theory distinction. But it seems out of fashion since physicists are talking about string theory as if it was a theory. Falsification is not sufficient. In the case of the Lee's natural selection multiverse, it makes very few predictions. Strickly speaking it is a little bit falsifiable but!! We need more than that.

3. Try to be critical to the way you walk for a try. It is as hard than that in science.

Sorry if am not concise but the discussion is more interesting at each step.

First about the sciences other than physics. The key point in my definition of science is that each science starts with concepts, from which theories are built. There is no theory of everything. Each science has its own concepts and formal language. Look at chemistry : with a single chemical equation the chemist gets everything that he needs, based on the atomist theory and thermodynamics. In economy one has also concepts, they are less elaborate but they allow a minimum of predictions (one of the problem of social science is that it is difficult to make experiments). The failure of marxism comes, in particular, that its pretention to encompass everything was wrong : political order does not follow from the development of technologies..

From this point of view one can see metaphysics as a domain of knowledge which, from the beginning, does not accept the purpose and the constraints of science, notably efficiency and explanation, linked with its confrontation with facts.

So, for me, the celebrated Feynamn's assertion that nobody understands QM is an admission of metaphysics.

Scientific concepts and theories must be revised when confronted with facts, but we must be conservative. It is fashionable to introduce new mysteries, but scientists are paid to solve mysteries, not to invent new ones. The most pressing goal for physicists should be to remove them, notably to provide a convincing, simple and consistent explantion of QM tenets.So in this revision process I do not think that we rely on metaphysics : we can use hypotheses, which we strive to check. In metaphysics one does not have this pretense.

Falsification is not the only motivation to revise a theory. It can come from the need for efficiency. Galileao was rigth, not because the Earth circles the Sun (motion is relative) but because his theory was more efficient than the Ptolemaic one.

There a paper from Michael Polanyi which explain by many examples why science and mythological beliefs have an inherent stability. They have a tendencies to self-confirmation.

https://www.missouriwestern.edu/orgs/polanyi/mp-stability.htm

There is a world view which ended in the enlightment and another one which began. Even four centuries later we do not really understand what happens.

Thanx Louis for the very interesting Polanyi's paper.

Knowledge is the topic of epistemology. However it seems that in the XX° century philosophers have given up the idea that it should be related with science, and epistemology has become muddy. However they agree that knowledge does not equate "justified belief". So to be more precise than Polanyi I think that we should stay with knowledge (rather than belief), and, to stay away from skepticism, define knowledge as "shared knowlege", which implies that it is expressed in a language, with all the required properties. As such knowledge does not require any justification, and there can be metaphysical knowledge.

Knowledges are the bricks from which are built theories, meaning systems of explanations which account for what we perceive, and provide the way to act on the world. Theories proceed inside a logical system of deduction. Metaphysical knowledge can be used to this effect, the Zande tribe has a system of explanation based on magical knowledge, the communists parties had a system based on the class appartenance of the people involved. The logical system is similar to the usual predicates calculus, and can in both case provide "rational" answers to observed facts. Knowledge, and thus theories that they inspire, are not produced by deduction, and cannot, usually be refuted by empirical facts. So what are the specificities of science ?

Not all knowledge or theories aspire to be checked or improved. This is clear for metaphysics, and probably for the Zende's magic. It was also true for the communist dogma : before revolution, the only goal was to do it, after it sufficed to implenent the proven theories, and failures could only be the acts of saboteurs, to be dealt with appropriately. There was never any need to improve the theory (I have written an article on thiis precise topic in a 1982 issue of the Sartre's review 'les Temps Modernes").

Science on the contrary has a purpose, and a criterium to assess its progresses, which is efficiency, meaning cognitive efficiency. For the communists It was certainly expedient, and in some way efficient, to kill millions of people denounced as saboteurs, but eventually it did not improve the economy. This criterium is fundamental because in the long term the most efficient ideas prevail, but it can take a long time ! And clearly we cannot ignore the power structures that are involved in the management of knowledge. There are good reasons to be conservative in the reform of scientific knowledge, but also strong incentives to ignore the need for reforms in order to keep the established powers. For me this is clear in theoretical physics today.

Jean-Claude,

As you have probably noticed Polanyi's concept of scientific belief has similarities with the Kuhnian's concept of paradigm. It is not a coincidence. But it is much better. On the surface, Polanyi's terminology of ''belief'' seems to be a form of ''scepticism''. This is the strenght of Polanyi to fight adopt some of the concepts of those he opposed in order to use them agains them. Polanyi strongly opposed all forms of ''scepticism'' , the post-modernistic forms but he traced the roots of all modern scepticism in the anti-tradition stance that began in the Enlightment. He is very passionate about it as well as rational because he see the roots of all totalitarian in the west , especially nazism and leninism in this extreme anti overt tradition stance. He also see this stance as undermining also the scientific tradition. He is trying to promote an acceptance by the scientific community that they unconciously hold beliefs and is trying to encourage the community to overtly affirm these beliefs, to hold them consiciously and to defend them confidently.

The whole concept of progress, a enlightment conception of civilisation history going though stages of developments is a dangerous idea which justified all forms of colonianisms and is still at work in all form of cultural suppressions and dominations.

''So what are the specificities of science ? ... Science on the contrary has a purpose, and a criterium to assess its progresses, which is efficiency, meaning cognitive efficiency. ...

here are good reasons to be conservative in the reform of scientific knowledge, but also strong incentives to ignore the need for reforms in order to keep the established powers. For me this is clear in theoretical physics today.''

We cannot remove the scientist subjective judgement from science. We should acknowledge the necessity of it and not trying to hide it. Scientists are part of institutions and internal and external politic determine the allocation of resources and of positions and in all politic is not always done for the common good of the society funding this activities and for the common good of humanity. We can imagine better systems but all systems, all tax systems get totally circumvent in the polical game with times. The actors are too smart to be constraint for too long.

Polanyi denied the possibility to have an objective assessment of the scientific work. He was fighting the tendencies for funding science based on very utilitarian criteria. He promoted a scientific liberalism and a scientific community as a society of explorers.

Well, well,..."a scientific community as a society of explorers".

The greatest explorers were people wih some simple goals : gold, fame, power.

I am not as pessimist as you, and neither am I naive. I think that we should stick to the purpose and criterium of scientific knowledge. There is no obvious replacement. At least, that is something that makes the difference with metaphysical stuff.

To me economy, sociology and politics can be also matter of scientific enquiry, with the same ambitious purpose and criteria.

In many fields, many practical problems of common interest, such as security, health services, teaching, are investigated with this scientific state of mind, for rhe greater good. There will always be misconceptions and prejudices, but the best way to fight them is to confront them with facts and analytical scrutiny.

So progress can be conceived. This is more difficult and of course the influence of the powers that be is stronger. But we must keep trying.

I believe that not all cultures, meaning social and economic organizations are equivalent. I strongly believe that the "western civilization", based on democracy, the rule of law, individual rights, individual property, is superior to all the others that have existed. It is universal in that it can be implemented by any nation, without regard to the race, religiion or location, it is superior because with respect to any set of criteria it has achieved better results. It does not mean that it must be imposed to others, but we must stand our ground : we and our ancestors have paid a huge price to discover its merits. In political science this is an example of experimentation which validates a theory.

And conversely, in a democratic system scientists, whatever their field, should be reminded that eventually there are tax payers who pay their salaries. They are not priests, they are paid to solve mysteries, not to invent new ones, their job is to improve the whole community, not to entertain the egos of a narrow community.

Jean-Claude,

I do not see limits to what can be studied and understand. We have the moral obligation to be optimist.

'' I strongly believe that the "western civilization", based on democracy, the rule of law, individual rights, individual property, is superior to all the others that have existed. ''

Nothing is static. Just during my life time, the meaning of all these words has shifted. Globalisation is undermining all of this. We live on a small planet and globalisation is inevitable and living together harmoniously should be our ideal. But in practice the basis of democracy, right is being eroded.

Louis,

When, to my comment "I agree with you that we learn without understanding at the beginning of our life. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't think critically as soon as possible" you reply "Try to be critical to the way you walk for a try. It is as hard than that in science" I don't understand what you mean: do you mean using the trial and error approach?

Marc,

Like in most of the action we do like walking we are doing them mostly automatically without being conscious of most of what we do. Being critical demands to locate the weak points in this mostly unconscious science process. This feasible but difficult.

Louis,

Do you think possible to find new scientific ideas unconsciously?

Marc,

Like everything hyper complex, scientific discovery takes place mostly unconsciously, following our intuitions.

''The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing''

Louis,

Do you think possible to think critically unconsciously?

Induction, the process of finding new conept of new theory, is mysterious and puzzling.

By definition induction is different from deduction : so it does not proceed along a logical line.

And it does not come from simple perception: almost alays we integrate perceptions in our cognitive process by relating them to prior conepts, except some times we go beyond.

Is it conscious or unconscious? As far as we relate consciousness with perception or deduction, we should opt for unconsciousness.

And clearly the induction process is what differentiate humain brain from computers..

Marc,

Here is are a few references on how Poincaré conceived the process of discovery in mathematics.

Poincaré on intuition in mathematics

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Poincare_Intuition.html

Henri Poincaré: the unlikely link between Einstein and Picasso

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/jul/17/henri-poincare-einstein-picasso

Conceptions of intuition in Poincaré’s philosophy of

mathematics

http://cfcul.fc.ul.pt/Seminarios/Artigo_Poincare_final_Olga_Pombo.pdf

Thanx Louis to remind Poincaré. As a French student (at least in my time...) reading "la science et l'hypothèse" was part of the cursus.

Poincaré is more focused on the process by which new ideas appear, what he calls intuition, meanwhile for me concept or knowledge is the result of this process.

Of course mathematical logic has been developped mainly after Poincar's time. But his remark thatcognitice innocation does not come from logical deduction or from perception stays a deep truth.

One remark, because you associate the arts. In mathematics there is deep feeling of aethetic : a demonstration can be beautiful, and a beautiful demonstration seems always more convincing than a laborious one. There is thread on this site about "do people needs beauty" and I suggested this nalogy, without much success ! And I believe that it holds also in physics. Relativity is a beautiiful theory, the standard model is not.

Jean-Claude,

The preface of ''la science et l'hypothèse'' is very interesting as well as all the book. I am quite convince that mathematics is as much as science as a language and that the processus of discovery/invention in mathematics is essentially the same as in all sciences , especially mathematical physics. Herman Weyl, Von Neumann and many others have insisted on this sense of aesthetic in the process of discovery.

About the four phases process of Poincare.

A Description of His Own Creativity

http://www.is.wayne.edu/DRBOWEN/CRTVYW99/POINCARE.HTM

It fits well with recent Daniel Kahneman thinking model:. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, he calls these System 1 and System 2

System 1 is the involuntary, always-on network in our brains that takes in stimuli and process it. It’s the system that makes automatic decisions for us, like turning our heads when we hear our names called or freezing when we see a spider.

System 2 runs the voluntary parts of our brains. It processes suggestions offered by System 1, makes final decisions and chooses where to allocate our attention. The funny thing about how these system work is that we assume a lot of the things we do are purely conscious decisions made by System 2. In fact, almost everything we consciously decide on is based on automatic reactions and suggestions fed to us by System 1.System 2 is in charge of anything that takes willpower and self-control, and anything that’s too difficult for System 1.

Louis and Jean-Claude,

Thanks to Louis for the document "A Description of His Own Creativity" by Poincaré.

My comments:

1. New scientific ideas:

We agree that the unconscious can present to the conscious mind something new and possibly fruitful.

However, as specified by Poincaré:

- "What the unconscious presents to the conscious mind is not a full and complete argument or proof, but rather "point of departure" from which the conscious mind can work out the argument in detail. The conscious mind is capable of the strict discipline and logical thinking, of which the unconscious is incapable",

- "The unconscious can present the conscious mind with something that is not fruitful, but which is nevertheless elegant or beautiful",

Thus, conscious work is absolutly necessary after the unconscious work, to put the unconscious results on a firm footing.

Finally creations likely involve a period of unconscious work, but it is always followed by a period of conscious work.

2. Critically thinking:

Do you agree that such a thinking is necessarily conscious?

I fully agree with Louis about mathematics : it is a "science" in the meaning that we have defined.

The Ecole Polytechnique, where I have been a student, has one of the largest collection of old (XIX° century) books on mathematics and physics worldwide. Many demonstrations in these books, from prestigious mathematicians, seemed to me "false". Of course they are correct, but the language of mathematics has changed so much that I doubt that such proofs would be accepted today in any academic review. It is the foundations of mathematics which have changed (what I call the concepts), even if the deductive method (the logic) stays the same. And what is impressive is that, eventually, we find the same results,...almost. And this is the few critical problems which were the most fructuous in the progress of mathematics.

I have myself proven some (non unisgnificant) new theorems in mathematics. The most critical feature In such process is that you are not sure that what you want to prove is true. And all the more so whan you are an amateur. The first step is so one of intuition, and doubt. The second step is perhaps more automatic in that you use proven results and logical methods to get your proof, but even so doubt must always be present : one cannot brush anything "under the carpet". It is gratifying but also frustrating. From my experience new approaches come in the morning, and I am convinced that my mind was at work when sleeping. I start with something totally fresh and new, and I cannot tell from where it comes.

Jean-Claude,

You say "I fully agree with Louis about mathematics : it is a "science" in the meaning that we have defined".

Could you remind me the definition of 'science' you would have agreed on with Louis in order to assert that mathematics is a 'science'?

Besides, I would appreciate your reply about my comments from the document "A Description of His Own Creativity" by Poincaré (point 1.) and your answer to the question specified in my point 2.

Marc,

As for the definition of science, I developped some ideas that tou did not find concise enough... So, without too many repretitions : the purpose of science is to provide a clear and efficient explanation of its field of interest, in order to act upon it. This explanation is expressed in theories, built by logical deduction, from concepts which are basic beliefs shared by the community, and defined with respect to their features or properties, either in language, usually but not necessarily formal. Concepts, by themselves, are not justified beliefs, what give them a special status is that they are shared and can be used to build theories which are non contradictory, and, for science, provide efficient explanations. In mathematics the concepts can be assimilated to axioms. Concepts can be revised : in science the main criteria for this revision are efficiency and falsification. But this revision is not necessarily a recusation : atoms are more complex as what was assumed, but the concept of atom stays useful. But the concept of "phlogistic" or "aether" are be let down.

As for your comments about Poincaré's document (that I do not have) I think that personal experience is in itself an answer, at least for mathematics : the intuition, both for finfing new concept (or new theorem) and for finding a proof, requires more than logical, necessarily conscious, work. How far it is "inconscious" is a matter of discussion.

Marc,

''2. Critically thinking:

Do you agree that such a thinking is necessarily conscious?''

Nothing we do is fully conscious. When I am typing this, I am not conscious of all the movements of my fingers typing and if I would focus on this then my typing get compromised. When you are talking, you are not conscious of your tongue movements, not even fully conscious of why you choose a specific word. In general you do not care to be conscious of all that as long as you intuitively get a sense of what you type, of what you say please you in the sense that it approximatevely convey a message you agree with.

When reading someone else message, we are not concious of all the details of the reading process, not even of the words. Sometime I do not even remember in what language I learn something. When you read an explanation conveying a model of an aspect of the word, you can focus on the steps and check if each step follows from the previous one without hidden assumption. This is superficial critical reading. I remember in college and university following scientific and mathematical demonstrations taking place for 30 minutes, seeing all the steps in details. I never in my life been convinced by such demonstration because I do not understand something at the surface level. My critera for understanding has always been that it has to reach a level of self-evidence. That half an hour demonstration has to be assimilated in such a way that I can generate one image of it that is self-evident and obvious. The half an hour path has to be translate into a 30 ms path. Nothing else is understanding for me. Whatever does not reach this level will be forgotten and mostly lost. When I read a paper and a model is proposed. Much before I get the details of what is proposed, just by the choice of words the author is using I know , I do not know how, I know this author has something I need for my own understand, or this author does not has anything and I stop reading. Now when something is worth reading then I goes over the steps but not necessarily in the details because this take too much time. At this point I get a feelings directing me to what I like and directing me to what I do not like. These feelings comes from the unconscious vision of the world that I have built in the last fifty six years. I do not consciously know all there is there but what there is there is guiding me with these feeling and focus of attention. All that is taking place subconsciously. Now I am consciously aware of the place I agree and disagree and focus on that and other subconscious process starts from there and the results are consciously acknowledge.

The focus of attention is necessarily conscious because consciousness IS this focus of attention. It is like the fovea of the eye. Wherever you look, it is always in focus. But it does not mean that the whole visual field is in focus. Only the focus of attention is in focus.

Jean-Claude,

1. Definition of science:

Your above definition of science says nothing about observations and experiments: this is quite surprising! To me physics is the mother of the experimental sciences, not mathematics.

Moreover I would not call mathematics an experimental "science": only either a tool for the experimental sciences or a corpus of deductive assertions from different sets of axioms.

2. Pointcaré's document "A Description of His Own Creativity":

Louis gave us the iink in one of his previous posts (!):

http://www.is.wayne.edu/DRBOWEN/CRTVYW99/POINCARE.HTM

Jean-Claude,

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, one of the major trend in mathematics was to work on creating a solid logic foundation on which the building of mathematics could stand firmly. There were multiple school of thoughts on the issue. Hilbert was a champion of the logical reductionist school and Poincare was a champion of the intuitionist non-reductionist school. The logicist reductionists are like the atomists of physics. It sufficice to know the foundation and the rest simply a construction. Non reductionists think in science do not accept that all conceptual level can be totally reduced to lower levels. Godel showed that there could be theorems that are true and for which there is not construction of a proof from the basic axioms of arithmetic. An amazing results. There are famous conjectures in mathematics that have not yet been proven, and might one day be proven, but the fact that there are felt to be true by their originator is a testimony that discovery is possible without any knowledge of how we come to it. When we have flash of insights, it does not generally take us long before we can find an explanatory path to justify it. But in my case, some flash of insights took me many years of reseach to be able to find a path. Some of them I am working for most of my life.

Louis,

It is possible to discuss the relative part of unconsciousnes and consciousness in any mental or motor task to the point of nausea.

The main difference I see between us is that you find more interesting to focus on the unconscious part and me on the conscious part when considering complex mental or motor tasks which demand strict discipline and logical thinking (see Pointcaré's thoughts about it).

Thus, I would prefer you to reply about my comments from the document "A Description of His Own Creativity" by Poincaré.

I do not worship experiments and observations, even if of course they are important. There are sciences (such as economics) where you cannot do experiments. Moreover in many cases the pipe from the concept to the observations is a very long one (think to the Higgs boson) so one has to be very careful when claiming to have achieved an experimental verification.

I do not agree with Comte's idea of a hierarchy of sciences. Many fields can be subject to scientific investigation, notably in the social domains (such as economics). Each field uses its own concepts, whenever possible (but not necessarily) they use a mathematical formalism, because it is powerful, but it will be a long way before these concepts can be unified, if ever. As for mathematics, the failure of the Hilbert's program has lead to logical mathematics, which is the skeleton which is left when all the concepts have been removed. It encompasses, with logic of predicates, what philosophers and many others call logic. With it one can scrutinize formal theories, and notably mathematical theories. And Gödel has proven that in a formal theory powerful enough to account for arithmetics there will be predicates that cannot be proven (and thus theorems which are true and not provable). With a collection of axioms (which can be assimilated to concepts) one can build many consistent theories, most of them would be useless, and it is the merit of the past mathematicians to have chosen (even by a very indirect way) the most useful axioms. So here the idea of efficiency is crucial. From this point of view mathematics is a science.

By which means the human brain comes to discover these new concepts, or these proofs, is a matter of discussion, and as I said, from my personal experience, I concur with Poincaré that part of it involves some unconscious mechanism

Jean-Claude,

The fact that you dare say "I do not worship experiments and observations, even if of course they are important" really shocks me although I don't dispute most of what you say in this (again) long speech.

Observations and experiments are not only important, they are essential and unavoidable in science.

Besides, you didn't convince me that mathematics is a science, i.e., in the sense that science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") would be a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

I also don't dispute your last comment "By which means the human brain comes to discover these new concepts, or these proofs, is a matter of discussion, and as I said, from my personal experience, I concur with Poincaré that part of it involves some unconscious mechanism".

However, as Louis, you mainly focus on one side of the scene (i.e., unconsciousness) and still don't reply to my comments from the document "A Description of His Own Creativity" by Poincaré.

Marc,

The French language as many other sophisticated language has evolved not only through normal usage but was consciously build by linguists. Language building is a science. Computer language are constantly being build, new development frameworks are being developed and there is a science of how that has to be done. Much before the greek invented gradually the geometrical language, there were measuring tecniques for measuring fields, for building pyramids and big building. There were numerical systems and adding techniques and all that. These were not a language but techniques of building, of accounting, of measurements. What the greeks pre-socratic philosophers did is to abstract these techniqes into an axiomatic language. This was done gradually and culminated with a synthesis by Euclid. The axioms of mathematics are abstraction into a built language but these abstraction came from empirical procedures, empirical knoweldge build-in the fundamental of mathematics. Mathematics is a modeling language, it co-evolved with engineering and science. Differential calculus comes from Archimedes techniques to measure volume in curbed surface of ships. The inclusion within cartesian space-time of calculus by Newton and Leibniz are another empirical knowledge disguised into abstract contructs. Von Neumann said that if mathemtics would not be constantly supplement with empirical knowledge in the form of new structures, it would soon degenerated. When a mathematician is trying to systematized the language, when the mathemaician is able to unify some disparate aspect of mathemtics, he/she is in fact systematizing abstractions coming from different phenomenal word.

Those that consider mathematics as pure formal language that is so efficient into modeling the empirical world without realizing the empirical origin of these abstraction often fall in the platonic impression that the only explanation for such unreasonable effectiveness is that world is mathematicwhile in fact mathematic is our abstracted world. It is why it is the purest of all the science, the language of science.

Marc, to be concise : are economics a science ? psychology ?

Elements of economics and psychology are sciences in that they are searches for the truth. Where they claim to be the truth they are more akin to religion.

Jean-Claude,

You shift from one extreme to the other!

To answer your strange question I would say that, of course, economics and psychology can be studied scientifically like medicine and thus contribute to our knowledge on our universe, why do you ask this question?

You are still not replying to my comments from the document "A Description of His Own Creativity" by Poincaré, why?

Louis,

With regard to whether mathematics is an experimental science or not I agree that, finally, mathematics is not only a pure deductive language and can be fed by what are usually called experimental sciences, such as physics, the mother of all experimental sciences. Thus, there are fruitful exchanges between mathematics and the experimental sciences.

You, too, don't reply to my comments from the document "A Description of His Own Creativity" by Poincaré, why?

To Marc,

I don't understand what other answer you expect about Poincar'paper. I thought that I had anwer that, even from my personal experience.

About economics and other social sciences. They have their own concepts, and proceed according to logic to build theories, and from there strive to get predictions which can be checked with respect to data, with the difficulty that they cannot easily do experiments. They have a purpose, and are continuously improved. So for me they are sciences, of course not in the same state of achievement than physics.

"Where they claim to be the truth they are more akin to religion." What a joke ! I know of economists, I have been one myself, and no economist would believe that he concept of "homo oeconomicus", is the real thing or that his model is the truth. But almost all physicists go telling that particles can jump randomly from one point to another, or that the Schrödinger'cat is not a joke (sorry but a scientific magazine had an article about "quantic suicide" based on the same idea). And Nobel prizes be content with theories that nobody understand...

"The fact that you dare say "I do not worship experiments and observations, even if of course they are important" really shocks me " . These days one has to be daring, in the lands of the true believers. This is a fact that 90 % of papers in theoretical physics do not contain any data. However msst of them would, at some point, tell that they are based on verified facts. Think about the Higgs particle : there has been thousands of papers on the subject, and no more than a few on the real experiment, and I guess that there is no more than 500 people in the world who know precisely of it. I do not say that they cannot be trusted, but the point is that there is no lack of data, there is a lack of understanding. If, after 40 years, probably 40 b$ spent, all that the physicists can tell is that (I have read myself more than once) "so, once more, the standard model has been verified", leaving just another open mystery : how a particle, and a new field, can give mass to everything, all this based on a theory which ignores gravitation.

Observations do not appear as naked figures : they are formatted, processed, and represent concepts. The Cern can deliver billions of figures every second, but what is really important is what these figures mean.

Jean-Claude ,

With regard to Poincaré's paper at least do you agree that what the unconscious presents to the conscious mind is not a full and complete argument or proof, but rather "point of departure" from which the conscious mind can work out the argument in detail and that the conscious mind is capable of the strict discipline and logical thinking, of which the unconscious is incapable?

For the rest of your speech it is really difficult to me to reply to it.

With regard to quantum mechanics, gauge theories, Higgs field and Higgs boson, I am not competent to make any relevant reply to your critical speech.

With regard to economics I am not competent too.

However, with regard to medicine and psychology I know the methodology to follow much better. Well, I don't agree with you when you say that it is difficult to make observations and perform experiments in medicine and particularly in psychology.

Could you specify your point about it?

To Marc

1. About Poincaré : I agree with you

2. About experiments in social science : there has been these last years a renewal of interest for it, but the fact is that they are difficult.

Marc,

http://www.is.wayne.edu/DRBOWEN/CRTVYW99/POINCARE.HTM

'' The sterile combinations do not even present themselves to the mind of the inventor.''

''All goes on as if the inventor were an examiner for the second [academic] degree who would only have to question the candidates who had passed a previous examination.''

''At the moment when I put my foot on the step the idea came to me, ... , I felt a perfect certainty. ''

''One day, going along the street, the solution of the difficulty which had stopped me suddenly appeared to me. I did not try to go deep into it immediately, and only after my service did I again take up the question. I had all the elements and had only to arrange them and put them together. So I wrote out my final memoir at a single stroke and without difficulty."

What the sub-conscious present to the conscious is not into a rational/language articulate form. Freud tried to access the sub-conscious through dreams and through analysis of spontaneous narratives of the persons. The sub-conscious is not very good in providing articulated language form messages. Most of the sub-conscious contribution comes in the form of aesthetic pleasure that attract and motivate our attentions along certain paths. You do not consciously know why such a path seems promissing. Often multiple paths are pleasurable and the conscious and unconscious exploration of these multiple paths reveal a connection between them, a connection that was already discovered by the sub-conscious since it is the sub-conscious that attracted the reasearcher on these multiple path simultaneously. Poincaré mentioned that sub-conscious selection of the most fruitfull solution.

'' I drank black coffee and could not sleep. Ideas rose in crowds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak., making a stable combination.... It seems, in such cases, that one is present at his own unconscious work, made partially perceptible to the over-excited consciousness, yet without having changed its nature.Then we vaguely comprehend what distinguishes the two mechanisms or, if you wish, the working methods of the two egos. ''

I often have such experience and it might be related to a variation of bipolarity called hypomania.

An essay on the psychology of invention in the Mathematical Field by Jacques Hadamard, 1945

https://ia700506.us.archive.org/17/items/eassayonthepsych006281mbp/eassayonthepsych006281mbp.pdf

''In his book Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field, Hadamard uses introspection to describe mathematical thought processes. In sharp contrast to authors who identify language and cognition, he describes his own mathematical thinking as largely wordless, often accompanied by mental images that represent the entire solution to a problem. He surveyed 100 of the leading physicists of the day (approximately 1900), asking them how they did their work.

Hadamard described the experiences of the mathematicians/theoretical physicists Carl Friedrich Gauss, Hermann von Helmholtz, Henri Poincaré and others as viewing entire solutions with "sudden spontaneousness".[9]

Hadamard described the process as having four steps of the five-step Graham Wallas creative process model, with the first three also having been put forth by Helmholtz:[10]

Preparation,

Incubation,

Illumination,

and Verification.''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Hadamard

Louis,

I would like to come back to what I consider as being essential.

Following Michael Polanyi you question the relevance of the critically thinking which is one the main and major features of the Western culture.

You know that we disagree about it.

What I claim is that such a critically thinking is mainly based on conscious thinking which gives its relevance while I understand that you try to demonstrate that it is not the case, thus removing any relevance to such a thinking: is it what you mean?

To Marc,

I do not understand your line of reasoning. It seems that you have some deep belief, which is of significance here, but I do not see what it is.

JeanClaude,

I have the belief that 'critically thinking' is among the best values of Western culture.

Indeed such a value only finds its relevance if it is mainly established on conscious thinking.

Jean-Claude and Marc,

Marc and me have been discussing the topic of critical thinking on my question:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_Science_a_belief_system

Is Science a belief system?

''Science can never be more than an affirmation of certain things we believe in. These beliefs must be adopted responsibly, with due consideration of the evidence and with a view to universal validity. But eventually they are ultimate commitments, issued under the seal of our personal judgment. At some point we shall find ourselves with no other answer to queries than to say “because I believe so.” That is what no set of rules, or any model of science based on a system of rules, can do; it cannot say “because I believe so.” Only a person can believe something, and only I myself can hold my own beliefs. For the holding of these I must bear the ultimate responsibility; it is futile, and I think also ignoble, to hunt for systems and machines which will take that burden from me. And we, as a community, must also face the fact that there is no system of necessary rules which will relieve us from the responsibility of holding the constitutive beliefs of our group or of teaching them to the next generation and defending their continued profession against those who would suppress them.''

Michael Polanyi, Scientific Beliefs, Ethics, 61 (1)Oct. 1950, 27-37.

http://www.compilerpress.ca/Competitiveness/Anno/Anno%20Polanyi%20Scientific%20Beliefs%20Ethics%201950.htm

The first paragraph of ''Stability of Beliefs'', Polanyi wrote:

'' There are two ways of holding beliefs. Some are held by the explicit profession of certain articles of faith, as the Apostles' Creed when recited in the words of the Book of Common Prayer. The other form of belief is held implicitly by reliance on a particular conceptual framework by which all experience is interpreted.

The process of philosophic and scientific enlightenment has shaken the stability of beliefs held explicitly as articles of faith. To assert any belief uncritically has come to be regarded as an offence against reason. We feel in it the danger of obscurantism and the menace of an arbitrary restriction of free thought. Against these evils of dogmatism we protect ourselves by upholding the principle of doubt which rejects any open affirmation of faith. For the past three centuries the principle of doubt has been continuously at work on the elimination of all uncritical affirmations of faith.

Unfortunately, the protracted application of this cure has had results rather similar to those experienced recently in the therapeutic use of penicillin. The first dramatic successes could not be repeated in subsequent cases, for the diseases to which penicillin was applied have shown a tendency to transform themselves into forms that are resistant to the drug. Indeed, the net result of a continued process of antibiotic and chemical therapy may be merely to breed out a new race of germs completely resistant to all drugs known to man. Similarly, the continued application of doubt seems to have converted all forms of faith into implicit beliefs, ensconced in our conceptual framework, where they elude the edge of our scepticism.''

Polanyi's master opus is:

''Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy''

Polanyi was concerned with the rised of the totalitarian regime and nationalist in Europe and the destruction of the liberal europe and with the rise of communist regimes. A lot of people were concerned but what is interesting here is the analysis of this social phenomena by Polanyi. Polanyi located the root of this problem to the enlightment and especially with the critical philosophical mind set as described above.

I think that Marc takes this criticism of one aspect of critical thinking as a rejection of the scientific approach. But it is not. It is a rejection of a certain type of critical belief about how science is actually done. It is a rejection of scientism. It is a rejection of the narrow scientistic viewpoint of the Pinker, the Bennet, the Dawkins of this world, not of science as it is actually practice.

Nowodays philosophers seem to agree that knowledge is not justified belief, but do not agree about a clear definition. This has come in the 60s (so after Ploanyi's paper).

For me there are two features about knowledge which should be considered :

- knowledge (at least what knowledge is worth for scientific consideration) is shared knowledge : it can be learnt, and taught. And this requires thatit can be expressed in some language with basic properties. Whatever the individual responsability about endorsing a belief, this is meaningful only if it has some social weigth.

- knowledge is composite : there are basic concepts,(electron,...) or principles (least action,...) on one hand, and the theories which are built from thm using logical deduction. So the bricks (concepts, principles,...) cannot be justified by deduction. They can be justified only by the consequences coming from the theories that they found.

However even this faillibility process, which in science comes from confronting predictions with observations, is not enough. The magic thinking can always overcome these issues by involving more magic, and in sciences by involving more mysteries.

So for the progress of science we need more, and this where enters the efficiency criteriumcom. Without the set theory we would not have topology, and most of the mathematics that are used today in physics. Without relativity we would not have nuclear energy, and without DNA the present biological tools. In every case an old belief has been replaced, mainly not because the old ones were wrong (there are still many people who explain the Michelson's expreiment witout relativity) but because the new ones enable us to go beyond. And of course the concept of efficiency is truly a western concept (even if the western civilization is much more than that). And science is not only a belief : it has a purpose.

Jean-Claude,

I agree with what you said. The difficulty is always to bring under the consciousness focus the critical aspect of a question. Here the question is :

''What is your opinion on the relationship between science and culture?'' Something happens in the West to this relationship at the beginning of the enlightment. A drift between the humanities and the physical sciences was created. The physical sciences became empirical and geometrized in the space-time. The whole Aristotlelian based cosmology was rejected in the physical sciences and in many of the new philosophical thinking. Leibniz saw many of limitations of the new physical cosmology and proposed ideas how to invent an agent cosmology. The program he proposed has been partially accomplished in physics and in the life sciences. I do not want to go into the details into a discussion that can go in all kind of directions. I just want to point my finger to the central issue related to the relationship between and culture. First we need to unify not only the physical sciences but all the sciences. The major problem of this unification is to breach the humanistic science witht the physical sciences. They this is only a tiny part of the job because culture is much more than science. If the unity of all the science does not exclude real agency, morality, traditions then the second task of building an integrated harmonized culture could begin.

Louis,

I can tell you that, hatever is said about the dismal science, many economists take their job seriously, and with a scientific mind.

Just about culture. Science is shared knowledge, and Art is a shared emotion.

Jean Claude,

All human activities that requires a good dose of imagination are artistic activities. Ther sciences are the arts of knowledge creation which philosophy is the mother of all these knowledge art forms. The mother of philosophy is the mythological art, the art of telling stories about the world.

In one of my previous posting I mentioned and tried to define the term 'scientificity’. I’d like to explain more exhaustively what I meant. The recurring crises concerning the universality and the truthfulness of the sciences – concept different from technique - has allowed the latter to be autonomous, independent, even planning the future of humanity. The technique qualifies as a primary entity and as a system unifies the various sectors. His new role in society and culture has justified the change of the noun technique with the more complex and composite: ‘technology’.

The problem of the criteria of ‘scientificity’ and technology is related – according to me – to the phenomenon of the proliferation of knowledge, and in particular to those relating to the ‘human’ sciences, which has raised the issue of establishing criteria under which a certain procedure of investigation could be deemed scientific, or left to be judged in the context of empirical practice. It is clear that at this stage of the development of Western civilization, the characteristic of ‘scientificity’ is already a real guarantee of a sound knowledge on which to build technologies,

In the perspective of a culture oriented to a "technical-scientific humanism", to correct reductionism, it is necessary to trace and explain systematically the relations induced by 'Person to Person' (P2P), evaluating them from different points of view: legal, social, economic, and the protection of fundamental rights. Better yet would be, then, if such representations:’ P2P networks’ may become a public domain information (Open Data), accessible and distributable through the internetwork, in order to help to represent a quantitative view of the whole, which today is in fact missing.

As a provisional conclusion, I find that the problem of the ‘scientificity’ of an investigation is linked to the characteristic of the complexity of real world and the different cultures, topics which became the object of studies by cybernetics and systems theory. The whole theme has emerged and is being debated in the course of a trans-disciplinary investigation to the research of an equilibrium in the redistribution of financial resources, the lack of which generates envy.

These are the concepts that I want to underline in all those contributions that I had the opportunity to read and which were presented at RG.

Gianrocco,

Humans are uniquely cultural animals. Almost a banality to say this. Enculturation is the source of our success and uniqueness as a species but our most fragile aspect. We are totally forged by inculturation. We are the most plastic animal but intrinsically the most hollow one, the one that get its identity by inculturation. Our neo-cortex, the organ allowing inculturation and making us human supervenes on culture and all culture at the core intrinsical symbolic system that are sedimented into external cutlural forms and get internalized through living in culture. We scientifically know very little about that. The physical sciences and mathematics in particular are being forged as self-contained abstract systems as if they are not related to us even though they are our artefacts of our modeling of the physical world. The emphasis so far has been that they mirror the world. They are objectified. The modern period began with a total reformation of the physical science onto their mathematization with a separation from the humanities. The physical sciences have progressed with almost a total ignorance of the human process sustaining it. We are reaching a point where we are beginning the eploration of the human creative process in all aspects of culture and are now in a position to begin to bridge the two cultures gap.

Louis,

Again, I am puzzled by some part of your speech such as "Leibniz saw many of limitations of the new physical cosmology and proposed ideas how to invent an agent cosmology".

Does this sentence mean you have a deistic view of the reality?

Moreover you add "The program he (Leibniz) proposed has been partially accomplished in physics and in the life sciences": could you develop your point a little bit?

Marc,

Deism: The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

No Marc my vision of reality is not deistic. I am more inclined towards monistic style.

Leibniz is one of the most important founder of the mechanistic philosophy of modern science. His contributions are multiples and were not all understood by the people of his time. The arguments against the theory of gravitation of Newton are those that were later developed and lead to modern physics. Here is a paper that is very interesting about the relational physical project of Leibniz:

http://www.tau.ac.il/~agass/joseph-papers/Leibniz.pdf

Leibniz's ideas about the differences between living machines and human constructed machines are worth reading even today. The concept of umwelt and web of life developed by Uexkull is intimately related to the Leibnizian's monads.

Louis,

The paper on Leibniz is a bit frustrating. What is really different from the old Machianpoint of view on space ?

Actually, on these issues, the points that seem, to me, important, are :

1. In Relativity (GR or SR) material bodies travel along world lines. And the Lorentz metric is just a way to tell that they travel at a contant speed : dx²=c²dt². But if we take for granted thus assumption, what is the force behind this motion ? what is the kinetic energy ?

2. Motion is not only translation, it is translation and rotation. Rotation is always seen through a solid body or a frame, but actually we have physical phenomena (magnetism) which are sensitive to some rotational effect at an infinitesimal leve. So we have to represent rotation in another way than the rotation of frames.

3. The great addition of the beginning of XX° century is the field of forces, which occupies the void of space. But this concept rises many questions. It is defined everywhere, and propagates, but this propagation is related to the motion of matter, there is an equilibrium.. It is not easy to write the mathematical consequences of this propagatiion. And the idea that the field exists in our future is disturbing.

4. The geometry of the 4 dimensional universe is clearly related to the gravitational field. The preferred frames of GR correspond to observers who do not feel a change in the inertial / gravitational field. But it is assumed that the other forces impact the gravitational field, and the way to measure the field is similar to the measure of gravitation : through the deformation of a frame. But why shall we give a special status to gravitation ?

Jean-Claude,

The old Machianpoint of view on space came much later and is in this relational Leibnizian spirit althoug I do not know the details. Julian Barbour wrote a book on the topic of Mach's principle. http://www.platonia.com/books.html

From 1872 until his death in 1916, Ernst Mach (of the numbers) strenuously opposed Newton’s claim that the phenomenon of inertia proved the existence of an invisible framework – absolute space and time – of dynamics. He argued that bodies moving inertially do not follow straight lines in absolute space but move in a framework defined by all the masses in the universe. He postulated the existence of an unknown physical mechanism by which they control inertia. This daring idea is known as Mach’s Principle. It was the single greatest stimulus to Einstein in his creation of the general theory of relativity. However, the extent to which it is realised in general relativity is controversial. Mach’s Principle remains an open issue of great relevance to modern attempts to create a quantum theory of gravity and thereby reconcile Einstein’s theory of gravity with quantum mechanics.''

Louis,

Thank you for the philosopher Joseph Agassi's 1969 paper "Leibniz's place in the history of physics" I found interesting.

Have you noticed the following sentence, page 3 in "A Starting Point: Leibniz the Critic": "The most important and least easily dismissed part of a thinker's contribution is his criticism of current views"?

This is of course a nod in the direction of our discussion about what I call "critically thinking" which is, according to me, among the best values in Western culture.

Marc,

In ''critical thinking'' there is a bath water and there is a baby. I do not want to through the baby with the bath water. Any major revolution in human history involves a shadow part which is totally necessary to see in order to do the next major revolution. The shadow part of the enlightment revolution is the rejection of our emotions and of our absolute need of traditions and beleifs. I am not advocating a return to supertions, black magic etc. There is no scientific knowledge that I am not willing to accept within its limit of validity but none of that will make me beleive that the world as I experience and feel it is containt in the scientific constructs. This false belief is a form of unsaid religious belief that propulse their unconcious beleivers to try to destroy all that cannot be objectified. Their god is ''That Shall be No God'' and they are quite fanatic about it.

Louis,

How do you argue your opinion that present science neglects the importance of emotions?

The same when you assert that all human beings have an "absolute need of traditions and beliefs": could you develop this particular point?

Personally I don't think I have such a need. On the contrary I need new approaches and rationality.

Regarding the hypothesis of the existence of either a god or gods it is true that, personally, I do not for a moment believe in it: it would be like I believed in Santa Claus!

Louis,

Your remarks lead to the issue of the relation between science and truth. The purpose of science is not the quest for the truth, because science is a work in progress and doubt is a necessary condition for this progress. A striking example of this complex relation between science and truth is marxism : Karl Marx made very valuable observations about the relations between technology, economic and political organizations, and claimed to have founded a new science, which enables people to make history. The fact that his followers accepted his claims to be the truth had dramatic consequences

Jean Claude,

You say "The purpose of science is not the quest for the truth, because science is a work in progress and doubt is a necessary condition for this progress".

I find your formulation a little bit ambiguous.

I would rather say that scientists try to demonstrate what is wrong (i.e., falsified) by their observations and/or experiments.

When a given falsifiable hypothesis is not falsified by any observations and/or experiments it is considered as temporarily true by scientists.

Do you agree with this formulation?

Jean-Claude,

Scienceéphilosophy is a new form of mythology that emerged by a gradual naturalization of the old cosmogonies in the axial age. The older mythological styles did not attempt to be litterally true; truth is an invention of this new documentary mythological style. The true and only god, the true history, the true form of the universe, etc. Monotheistic religions, history, Philosophy and science were invented with the myth of the true story.

Louis and Marc,

Well,, of course this is a bit more complicated than that. I am working on a paper about epistemology, because the present philosophers do not seem really interested about science. Expect it iwithin some weeks. Truth is an important issue.

Anyway, a sensible way to look at truth is to compare what happens in a Court of Justice, and what happens in science. Before a Court of justice what you need is a plausible explanation which is acceepted by 12 (depends) people. In Science, except for the bureaucrats who believe that truth is a paper accepted for publication and supported by two boffins, in what is one of the moost corrupted systems, a law is deemed scientifc if it,is universal, in the meaning that any time you check it, it must be true : it provides the expected result. This is a powerfull tool (falsifiability à la Popper) : it suffices to have one failure to reject (or at least to have to modify) the law. But because this check option is always open, we cannot say that it is true : a scientific law is true until it is proven false, and certainly this is not what most people understand as Truth.

Jean Claude,

To my assertion "When a given falsifiable hypothesis is not falsified by any observations and/or experiments it is considered as temporarily true by scientists" you reply "Well, of course this is a bit more complicated than that".

Then, however, you assert that "a scientific law is true until it is proven false".

What is the difference between your assertion and mine?

It's OK

The point is that the topic of science in philosophy has been much studied, but seems to have stalled in thelast century, when it ismich needed. We have to be very careful and thorough if we want to go beyond the usual trivialese.

Marc,

I will try to answer your questions by short answers.

Marc: ‘’How do you argue your opinion that present science neglects the importance of emotions? ‘’

Louis: Science is the part of reason/philosophy which is sufficiently unambigious for being empirically testable. Philosophy/science is intrinsically a rational discourse which has eliminated the personal and the emotional. So the world as described by the philosophical/scientific discourse has no actors being moved by emotions. It is a necessity of the disourse style. This is the transition from the ancient mythic styles with human-like agent to the no-agent naturalized philosophical mythic style. All the gods/agents are eliminated. A change in a mythic style provoque a new psychological balance in humans. This balance is the unconscious religion. The passage from renaissance to enlightment corresponds to a change of unconscious religion, a new balance between rationality and emotion/imagination triggered by a revolution in the rational discourse by the creation of a new modeling methodology.

Marc: ‘’The same when you assert that all human beings have an "absolute need of traditions and beliefs": could you develop this particular point?’’

I have already in the preceding paragraph. The human animal needs to be enculturated for becoming human and this very process of enculturation is a religious programing process of our mind.

Marc: ‘’Personally I don't think I have such a need. On the contrary I need new approaches and rationality.’’

Louis: My previous answers should be sufficient.

Marc: ‘’Regarding the hypothesis of the existence of either a god or gods it is true that, personally, I do not for a moment believe in it: it would be like I believed in Santa Claus!’’

The ancients knew that the gods were the powers of our subconscious. All the poets, dramaturges create immortal characters by externalizing characters that we recognize as present in our subconscious. For me GOD is REALITY. I exchange one undefined word by another undefined word. Is the God, of the gods of the religious traditions anything to do with GOD/REALITY? I think so. But this is only visible through a metaphorical interpretation of these traditions. Although you ceased to beleive in Santa Claus, you probably told all kind of Santa Clauss stories to your children. I did. Why? Because these are nice stories and they metaphorically forges the mind of our children and although I do not beleive in Santa Clauss. A good illustration that we are a mythical animal.

Louis,

• You say “Philosophy/science is intrinsically a rational discourse which has eliminated the personal and the emotional”.

Personally, I don’t oppose rational to emotional. My thesis is that Darwinian evolution has favored the emergence of an emotional nervous system because this is the best solution for the survival of the species. Thus, most often, our emotional behavior is rather rational in the sense that it allows us to behave appropriately in our relations with other human beings (and also with other animals).

Moreover scientific disciplines such as psychology, sociology, history, anthropology, ethology etc. study that kind of emotional behaviors. In particular they may study how science is made under all kind of influences, emotional behaviors included.

You add “This is the transition from the ancient mythic styles with human-like agent to the no-agent naturalized philosophical mythic style. All the gods/agents are eliminated”.

I agree that in my way of thinking the physical reality “all the gods/agents are eliminated”. I admit nevertheless that I don’t regret the previous very long period when gods/agents dominated all our thoughts.

You assert that an “unconscious religion” has replaced previous religions. Perhaps you think of a kind of a Cult of the Supreme Being as Robespierre has imagined it?

Of course I totally disagree with this view that an “unconscious religion” has emerged while reason and scientific approach have become much more significant today in comparison with the past. Besides, artistic approaches have become much more significant too.

• You say “The human animal needs to be enculturated for becoming human and this very process of enculturation is a religious programing process of our mind”.

I don’t disagree that human beings need to live in a cultural world. Actually they build it themselves, unconsciously. However I disagree that such a cultural world should be religious. Personally I much prefer a cultural world based on secular values.

• When you claim “For me GOD is REALITY” what does that mean practically speaking?

Marc,

I do agree that we are a product of biological evolution. I do agree that the emotional and the rational are not intrinsically opposed. I do agree that science has begun to understand emotions. What I was saying was different. I was talking of psychological balance between the imaginary and the rational and how these are related to culture and how our culture era began with an imbalance in the direction of rationality and how the unconscious root of culture as it is live are religious in nature. Not religious in the external and formal sense. Secular society is as religious in the fundamental sense where I locate this reality like many anthropologists. I do not think that it is possible to remove the religious dimention at the core of the cultural dimension. It is not a matter of type of culture, it has to do what it is to be a human being. My interests in science and philosophy have be integral to the maturation of my religious life. My interest in evolution, all evolutions, started when I realized around 14 years old that it was necessary for the possibility to conciliate all kind of humanistic religious traditions resonating in my experience and the world as I was discovering as revealed in the discoveries of sciences and history.

Very concisely put, Louis: Secular society is as religious in the fundamental sense. Irrespective of official orientation of a State towards religion, religion has always been of fundamental influence over the culture of people. Here I must rush to clarify that the word "religion" should not be read as Christianity/Islam/Buddhism/ Hinduism etc. It should be read as the quest for self-actualization; the search for an answer to the most fundamental of all questions that man has ever asked - who am I? It is this quest that has made man to understand his relationships with animate/inanimate things around him and in the process evolve. Much before the messiahs of modern religions arrived on earth, this quest had started in the minds of man. The messiahs (be it Krishna, Jesus, Nabhi (PBH), or Buddha) were in one sense, the summary or conclusion of all human thoughts on the subject. In the centuries after these messiahs, we have chosen to identify their teachings as distinct schools of thought (classified as they are as 'religion') in the sense that we practice them today.

It is, in my opinion, impossible to separate culture from religion. It is also not possible to separate it from science, since science also essentially seeks to arrive at the relationship between man and other components of his universe.

1. There are fundamental questions such has : why is there something ? what is consciosness ? what is death ? to which Sciences have no answer, but all Religions have answers. Science do not claim to have answers to everything.

2. Culture is a general word for a set of beliefs, traditions, social relaions, ... Religions are part of them, but not necessarily. There was a communist culture, in USSR, and religion was not part of it.

Louis,

you don't answer my question: when you say "For me GOD is REALITY" what are the consequences for you practically speaking? For example does that mean there may be for you an answer to a given question that would be: God?

Marc,

I told you that Reality is as undefined in science and philosophy as God is in any religious tradition. Scientific models are limited description of aspects of reality as they appeared within the framework of the model. What is reality in itself is beyond any model, not because science is not sufficiently advanced, but in principle. Kant have made the argument of the unreachable reality/noumenon. More recently, quantum physicists denied in principle the possibility of a complete quantum description, a description that would predict the behavior of a single particle. What GOD=REALITY does for me is not practical but it change my view of reality. It set my rational search on a different mythological view. I see absolutely every phenomenal domain as evolution which are all creative processes. God/Reality is Creation. But as any creation, it is totally invisible, only the products of creation.

Srinivasan ,

You said it better than I could.

Louis,

You say "I see absolutely every phenomenal domain as evolution which is a creative process. God/reality is Creation".

Do you mean that there is a teleonomic process in any kind of evolution and particularly in Darwinian evolution?

Marc,

The concept of teleonomic process in evolution (evolution tending towards some ends) did not cross my mind. Didt life evolves on a single planet in the whole universe? There are not enough evidences to answer this question, but there is a possibility that life has evolved on billion of planets in this galaxy. So lets assume that we have found through astronomical observations all the evidences that life has emerged on billion of planets in our galaxy. Then we would have to conclude that the emergence/evolution/creation of life would be more than an freak accident. But even if we assume that life is not an accident, the abiogenesis process surely contain a huge amount of contingent aspects related to the particular conditions where it is taking place. The same reasoning on biological evolution can be made. Right now, we can observe only a single case, but if life emerges on billion of planets then there are billion of biological evolution and empirical observations of several cases would allow to find universal feathures of such evolutions and that would allow us to discriminate the purely accidental aspects from the universal aspects.

Jean-Claude,

''1. There are fundamental questions such has : why is there something ? what is consciosness ? what is death ? to which Sciences have no answer, but all Religions have answers. Science do not claim to have answers to everything.''

Religions in general do not claim to have litteral anwers. Yes , some religious persons will do claim to be able to interpret the tradition and comes up with definitive answers but none of the founders of the major religious tradition made such a claim. The sacred books are not science books.

''2. Culture is a general word for a set of beliefs, traditions, social relaions, ... Religions are part of them, but not necessarily. There was a communist culture, in USSR, and religion was not part of it.''

The russian orthodox chuch did not have a good relation with the communist state because of incompatible ideologies. A social ideology such as neo-liberalism or marxist lenist has an external part, a doctrine. Those adopting this doctrine are psychologically transformed and I call such psychological balance the internal religion of the person. Any social ideology is a religion. It does not need to have supernatural agent in the ideology for it to create a psychological balance. Look at the passion some communists had in suppressing competing ideologies. Does not resemble some religious zelout.

Louis,

You say "if life has emerged on billions of planets etc.".

As you know I don't consider the concept of 'life' as scientifically relevant.

But then you add "If there are billion of biological evolutions etc.".

Well, I suppose you mean "darwinian evolution" (what I call level-4 evolution) by "biological evolution"? If so, of course I would be very much interested in so many occurrences of level-4 evolutions, particularly in their products. However I am not sure that such products would allow us to find universal features of level-4 evolution but that anyway would be very much informative!

Marc,

We are diverging from the thread topic.

Louis,

Yes and no.

IMO, a culture which ignores Darwinian evolution is unable to understand a crucial part of the physical reality, in particular related to us, while the one which neglects the concept of "gods" has no problem to understand most of it.

However I admit that everything related to the "sacred" is deeply rooted in the human psychology!

Jean Claude,

You have said "There are fundamental questions such has : why is there something ? what is consciousness ? what is death ? to which Sciences have no answer".

Well, regarding "death" I think there is a scientifically sound answer:

- all 'living' systems, or preferably 'products' of Darwinian evolution (I now call 'organisms'), are far-from-equilibrium systems which maintain themselves far-from-equilibrium because of their ability to be fed with energy and matter by their environment;

- any given system is subject to the second law of thermodynamics which states that its entropy can only increase with time;

- even if organisms are able to maintain themselves far-from-equilibrium for some time their entropy increases nevertheless with time;

- thus, there will always be a time when the entropy of a given organism will be beyond a threshold from which it is no more possible for the organism to maintain itself far-from-equilibrium: then the situation has become irreversible and corresponds to its "death".

Science is culture!

I think science itself is a part of the culture.