Part 2: An Opinion
On The Primacy of Observation
by Catherine Kavassalis
On mind and body:
I wonder how different it would have been if Descartes’ argument had gone something like this:
I
think therefore I am.
But
I am imperfect, for I cannot think without input from the external world.
Without
information that comes through my senses, I have nothing to think about.
Without food to eat or water to drink or
air to breath, I cannot think at all.
Therefore
there is a physical world; it is real.
And
I can only know the world when I am ‘one with the world’.[108]
Great damage has been done by the
acceptance of the idea that humankind is somehow separable from the physical
world, that mind is separate from body.
It is an artifact of culture, a little chaotic manifestation that has
brought us to think of the earth as distinct and usable. It has also compelled some to doubt the
reality of the physical world and therefore to doubt their senses. The senses
give us knowledge of an external world, but our mind can imagine other worlds –
which do we trust? Seeing the senses and
the body as separate from the mind is an unfortunate cultural misconception.
Humans have evolved as organisms
dependent on the physical world. Our
sense perceptions have evolved as part of our mind. The mind-body is a gestalten, a whole, for mind cannot function
independently from the body. We can look
at the processes of the body and at the processes of the mind independently,
but must recognize that they are inextricable.
I cannot say how human thought arises from the neural arrays within our
brains or how we are able to perceive the world around us as if it were a
seamless whole and not a collection of sense datum, but it does and we do. Perhaps science will one day solve the puzzle
of how.
We learn about the world through
our perceptions of that world. Plato, and Descartes doubted this. Like many, they did not see perceptions as
reliable sources of knowledge. It seems
to me that they drew this conclusion before the means were at hand to
understand the nature of perception. They did not understand that our senses
have evolved to give us reliable knowledge. If we could not trust our senses we could not
move, and in fact when our senses fail we must adapt other ways of knowing or
rely on others (human or animals e.g. seeing eye dogs) to help us. This is not to say that our perceptions can’t
be wrong, or that our knowledge is not susceptible to change. These are points I will discuss later.
First, consider that from which we
have evolved, or perhaps more fairly, consider other organisms which share this
world. Recently, I came across a series
of articles on a particular amoeba, Dictyostelium discoideum.[109]
Figure 1: Life of Dictyostelium discoideum[110]
This single cellular organism demonstrates
a remarkable behavior. On the external
cell wall of the amoeba are chemical sensors, specifically evolved to detect a
particular molecule, cyclic adenosine 3'5'-monophosphate or c-AMP. How peculiar, one might
think. Yet these sensors perform
a very interesting function. When a
single amoeba finds itself in an area without food, it releases c-AMP. Any amoebas in the vicinity detect this
molecular message and in turn begin to release c-AMP while moving in the
direction of the signal. It has a
cascading effect, for soon amoebas begin to converge and form a collective,
which is sometimes called a slime mold or slug.
This collective is a relatively stable entity, which can move to a new
location and produce spores, which hopefully will spread to areas where food is
more prevalent, (good support for Dawkin’s
selfish gene theory). Think about the
behavior illustrated by this primitive organism. It observes -“no food”,
communicates this information and then forms social alliances in order to survive. Now I recognize that I a playing a language
game, (a la Wittgenstein) and we should not deign to compare this simple chain
of chemical events to the complex interactions between humans and their
environment, but then again why not? We
choose not to, because we are so often told that humanity is distinct from the
physical world not part of it. We doubt
the reality of the physical world; we doubt our senses. Why? The answer is simple. We make mistakes.
On Perception
Our own experience and research on
perception has shown us that we can be wrong.
The Ponzo illusion is a typical example of how
our visual perception can be fooled.
Figure
2: Ponzo
illusion (1913)
We assume that horizontal lines between two converging
vertical lines are not the same size, when in fact they are. How do we know
they are? We observe them to be so, when
we measure them. That is somewhat paradoxical, we perceive them to be the
different in size, but we observe them to be the same. However, the point is, our senses can deceive
us. Are we therefore to conclude we
should not trust them? Let us again look
at the Ponzo illusion from another perspective. Our eyes collect reflected light from objects
in the real world, and convert that data into another form accessible to mental
processing. We understand a great deal
about the rods and cones that receive the various frequencies of light, and
understand that the light energy is converted into an electrochemical code and
stored in such as way that retains the special relationships between
objects. The sense we make of that data
is in part innate (just as the amoeba’s response to c-amp is innate) and in
part is learned. Converting a three
dimensional world into a two-dimensional representation is problematic, as any
artist who is learning to draw in perspective can tell you. Some information is lost and has to be
conveyed in terms of relationships between lines. The Ponzo illusion
occurs because in the three dimensional world parallel lines appear to converge
in the distance and objects appear to be smaller in the distance. We are ‘programmed’ to consider this two
dimensional picture as a representation of the three dimensional world and
therefore assume depth. Thus although we
observe that the lines are the same in size, we infer that the lines ‘in the
distance’ must in fact be larger.
How can we
know we are not being regularly fooled by such illusions? Nature is self-correcting in a variety of
ways. Have you ever tried to write
looking in a mirror? At first you feel a
sense of confusion. You have to
concentrate on your tactile sense and your sense of balance, and ignore your
visual input. With practice your mind
will accept the visual data and form new associations. This is a minor correction that would allow
an individual to adapt to a new environment.
Corrections can be far more visceral and or lethal. I am quite
near-sighted and have severe astigmatisms.
I was once given the wrong prescription and lost my depth perception.
The pain of tripping over objects and misjudging steps, made me wary of my
visual input and quite dependent on my other senses to navigate. My mind was
unable to adapt. An organism in a less
protected environment might not survive.
I am of course arguing that evolution has built in a degree of certainty
into our perceptual system, and we would not have survived, as a species were
it not so. I will clarify what I mean by degree of certainty later.
Every organism has some means of
sensing and interacting with the physical world. Whether it is for the identification of food
or the identification of mates, sensory systems provide information necessary
for survival. Do they provide the
organism with complete or absolute knowledge of the world? Surely
not. They do however connect us
to our world in a very real way and can give us very particular knowledge about
the world. Those things that are
immediately accessible to our senses, things that we can see, feel, smell,
hear, taste, we can know. That is not to
say that those things cannot be known in a different way. For instance, we may hear a bat flying
through the air above us but be oblivious to the high- frequency echolocation
calls that it emits. A housefly’s image
of the world is quite distinct from our own visual image. Many aquatic animals have electro receptor
cells that can detect weak electric fields.
The list of different ways of sensing and perceiving the world are
immense. The very fact however that we
as humans are able to recognize these other ways of knowing gives us access to
this knowledge and a greater cumulative understanding of the physical world.
Let me now return to the fact that our perceptions can be wrong, and therefore our observations fallible. This is often given as an argument against naïve realism, and I would have to agree. In fact I would suggest that we are naturally programmed to test and question our perceptions. Our multiplicity of sensory systems act as back ups, as self-checks, beyond and above which the human mind has the ability to store information, check it against experience, communicate information and check it against the community experience. The very process, which we call science, is a means of checking perceptual information. Of course science is more than that, science is a quest for knowledge and perhaps for the power that knowledge brings.
On Knowledge
The fact that our perceptions are fallible has been used to dissuade
the scientist from relying solely on observation to obtain knowledge about the
world. Rightly so.
From the time of recorded thought, we
have known that our observations and cumulative experiences can only give us a
partial understanding of the world. Stan Rosenthal describes the early Chinese
understanding of this phenomenon in his introduction to the Tao Te Ching:
… for
understanding stems from one of the two forms of knowledge.
It stems
from that which is called cognitive knowledge, the knowledge born of words and
numbers, and other similar devices. The other form of knowledge, conative knowledge, needs no words or other such devices,
for it is the form of knowledge born of direct personal experience. So it is
that conative knowledge is also known as experiential
knowledge. Cognitive and experiential knowledge both have their roots in
reality, but reality is complex, and complexity is more of a barrier to
cognitive knowledge than it is to experiential knowledge, for when we seek
cognitive knowledge of a thing, that is, understanding of it, the knowledge we
gain of that thing is understanding only of its manifestations, which is not
knowledge of the thing itself.[111]
As is clear from the examination of “the role of
observation in the history and philosophy of science” there has long been
contention between kinds of knowledge and the relative value of various forms
of knowledge. I have seen four kinds of
knowledge discussed: innate, experienced, received, and reasoned. All knowledge
begins with innate knowledge. When we
are born, we need not be taught how to breath, how to get our heart to beat,
how to perceive light with our eyes and how to organize those first
experiences. Some have argued that even
our predisposition for language is innate. This is so, because we have evolved
‘to know’. As soon as we are born (and perhaps before), we begin to experience
life (through our senses) and some of this becomes part of our knowledge. At the same time, we receive knowledge from
our community (specifics of language, known observations and explanations,
religion, etc.) and some of this we add to our knowledge. Unlike, my little amoebas, humans and other
higher organisms are able to collect large amounts of data and store it. Our brains begin to store, organize and
process information from birth in ways that are initially innate, and moreover
we are able to reason with this data. The knowledge we gain from external
inputs (experienced and received) is processed internally with reason and
imagination- fascinating manifestations of our neural network. As soon as we begin accumulating information,
we are reasoning with it, rejecting bits that don’t fit, building new
associations, constructing our understanding of the world and creating new
knowledge of our own making. Thus,
knowledge is an intimate combination of inherent, received, experienced, and
created knowledge. Although I speak of them as separate entities, they are
inextricable and intimately entangled.
On Language
Much
has been said about the role of language in observation. Is language a construct of society or an
innate construct? I believe that language like knowledge is an entanglement,
partly innate, partly experiential, partly received, partly
created. There are those like
Wittgenstein who have suggested that language is a game with rules set by the
community in which its used and with meaning only
relevant to that community. There are others, like Robin Allott,
who see language as intricately attached to
nature. The following are excerpts from Allott’s The Natural Origin of Language (1980):
language was not invented but emerged as part of evolutionary development, in parallel with the physiological, behavioral and social evolution of the human being and human communities the 'deep structure' of language is not linguistic but is in fact the structure of reality (as experienced in perception and action).
the key to the evolutionary survival of the animal and of the human is the effective organization of action (action appropriate to the environment). Perception developed from action and to serve action
language, as a further stage, developed in groups and communities of human beings as a system for precise and flexible communication at a distance of the contents of perception of one individual to another i.e. language developed to serve perception and thus at one remove to serve effective action.[112]
Although like Allott, I
see language as bounded by evolution and perception of the world, I understand
Wittgenstein’s dismay. There are
certainly times when language does not seem to serve effective action and times
when the bounds of language prevent or constrain our understandings, (e.g. matter
waves). However I am not so cynical,
that I do not believe that language does not convey meaning beyond its own
community for that meaning has fundamental roots to the physical world. Language is a tool for action, forged by the
individual and the community from fundamental elements that limit its shape and
use. A community binds our thoughts and
observations, and although this binding may be restrictive its intention is to
allow individuals to interact with each other in such a way as to ensure
survival within the physical world.
Consider, as well, knowledge separate from
language. It is a highly anthropocentric
view to think that only humans who control oral language can think and know
about the world. Early hominids observed
their world and communicated, not through words, but through actions and
pictures. They were not prevented from
observing or knowing about their world because they did not have the oral
language, (though their knowledge was limited).
Sometimes, we can only understand things when we
step away from oral language. (Einstein claims he did this to understand
relativity. Research on dyslexics
suggests that language may be more limiting for some than others). Our ability to do this gives us freedom from
the limits of one particular language and we can explore other
possibilities. Artists and musicians
step away from language and convey a unique understanding of such things as
color, texture and sound.
Earlier, I made referenced to the ancient Chinese
Tao philosophy. I have done so not
because I am a Taoist (I am not) but because it offers an alternative cultural
perspective (a bit of strangification as Wallner suggests). The point I am trying to make can be
seen from a different cultural perspective as reflected in the Tao Te Ching:
Through knowledge,
intellectual thought and words,
the manifestations of the Tao are known,
but without such intellectual intent
we might experience the Tao itself.
Both knowledge and
experience are real,
but reality has many forms,
which seem to cause complexity.
By using the means
appropriate,
we extend ourselves beyond
the barriers of such complexity,
and so experience the Tao. [113]
The Tao is “A road, a path, the way by which people
travel, the way of nature and finally the Way of ultimate reality.”[114]
On Observation and Induction
Science is about finding the ‘way of nature’.
Scientists do so in part by observing the natural world. Observation is not simply the acquisition of
sense data. More specifically
observation is attention to specific sense perceptions. That attention may be a conscious choice,
e.g. I am going to observe ice fractals; or it may be an unconscious choice,
e.g. I was looking at the picture of the life cycle of the amoeba (Figure. 1)
when my attention was drawn to the fractal nature of aggregation. To make an
observation requires prior knowledge, that illusive combination of
factors. We begin to observe at birth,
we innately know to seek specific sensory information: as a baby I need to
know: my mother’s arms? my mother’s nipples? my mother’s
eyes? Unlike, a chick that will ‘imprint’ on the first moving object it
observes, a human baby is more flexible-dad’s arms feel safe too. None the less, the primacy of observation
begins at birth, (hence the title of this paper). The first method used to fulfill the ‘need to
know’ is observation.
Observation is not an isolated mental process. Although our attention may be focused on
particular details, we can notice and refocus on other details. We are constantly processing and analyzing
new information, testing it for a fit.
There are various theories of learning and theories of the mind that
suggest how we organize and select information.
I lean toward Goertzel’s ‘evolutionary’ theory
of the mind and see the process of selection and organization as being
underpinned by the need for stability and utility. Further I believe that our knowledge grows
and develops as we attempt to the ‘fit’ our ideas or mental construct to the
reality of our environment. Thus knowledge is not an absolute fit with reality
but it is a progression towards the best fit possible.
Hume and others have noted that the process of
induction appears to be an “instinctive mechanism.” Induction allows many species to make
decisions based on previous experience. Goertzel believes that “Intelligence is induction.” He explains:
“induction requires analogy, which requires structurally associative
memory, which gives rise to deduction as a special case. … When an animal makes
a decision as to what to do in a given situation, it responds based on
induction with respect to previous situations (thus based on appropriately
accessing its memory)”.[115] Although, I do not agree with all of Goertzel’s conclusions about intelligence, I do think that
probabilistic inductive algorithms are a good place to start when modeling
thinking processes. Jeffrey’s, probabilistic proof for induction supports what
we instinctively feel, that although we cannot know with Absolute Certainty
that our generalizations based on observation are True, we are able to say they
are probably true.
I don’t think, ‘probably true’ would be enough for
Popper who was uncomfortable with the idea that induction should play a
fundamental role in acquiring scientific knowledge. This is somewhat paradoxical because Popper’s
scientific method is based in part on an ‘evolutionary epistemology.’ Popper sees science as a trial-and–error
progression. Knowledge grows and
develops by “conjectures” and “refutations”.
Theories must be “falsifiable” and able to undergo selection. Thus, knowledge is essentially evolving
toward knowledge that is the most stable or best fitting. Goertzel summarizes:
“Evolutionary epistemologists contend, simply, that
(exosomatic) scientific knowlege,
as encoded in theories, grows and develops according to the same method as (and
is, indeed, adaptationally continuous with) the
embedded (endosomatic) incarnate knowledge shown ...
in other organisms, including man. In the second case there is an increasing
fit or adaptation between the organism and its environment.... In the first
case there is an increasing fit or adaptation between theory and fact.” [116]
Popper did not see induction as a valid means to secure
knowledge and yet he viewed knowledge, even knowledge tested by deduction, to
be “provisional, conjectural, hypothetical.” Here is then is the paradox; induction also
provides provisional knowledge. I would therefore argue that it is a perfectly
valid method for scientists to use, as long as it is recognized that it is
probabilistic in nature. It is consistent with an evolutionary epistemology.
Kuhn recognized that the evolution of scientific
knowledge was discontinuous and argued that the evolutionary model that Popper
offered was not consistent with the historical account. An interesting analogy can be made between
Kuhn’s recognition of discontinuities in science and with Michael Denton’s
recognition of discontinuities in nature.
On The Scientific Method
What does this say then about scientific method and
the validity of scientific knowledge? That
fact that individual scientists are influences by prior knowledge does not
concern me. In fact it is the unique
combination of knowledge that each individual brings to science that results in its ultimate progress. Science begins with an individual’s decision
of what to look at or observe, where to focus his or her attention, (I am using the
word ‘observe’ broadly). I am not going
to argue that the scientific process enacted by each individual scientist
begins with observation. That is clearly
not the case, but each scientist begins by considering both known observations
and known theories or hypothesis and from there either makes new observations
(directly or by experimentation) or proposes new theories and hypotheses to be
tested by observation. An individual
scientist may only formulate theories and mathematical models, but I argue that
these are underpinned by knowledge of observation, (regardless of whether those
observations are ‘theory bound’). Thus although the overt methodology of
individual scientists (micro-methodology) would appear to those like Feyerabend to be ‘anything goes’, I would argue that there
is macro-methodology that reflects the evolutionary nature of science, and of
the human mind and that it relies on the primacy of observation. When scientists cease to consider
observations, then they are no longer practicing science.
Science is not the only way on understanding the
world. Nor does scientific practice
guarantee certain knowledge of the world.
However through observation and induction science offers probable
knowledge. It is only by recognizing the primacy of observation that we
continue to test our knowledge against its source, the physical world.
A Final Comment
I want to note that although I have applied ‘evolutionary
thinking’ throughout this paper, this paradigm has its limits. While evolution describes events on a
macro-scale, there are finer processes occurring on a micro-scale. Perhaps Carnap’s
attempt to incorporate enthalpy and entropy into his probability theory
reflects his recognition of these finer processes. The recognition of a quantum level, does not
dissuade me from believing that there is a rhythm to this world, an underlying
unity (that paradoxically includes chaos), which can be understood in part
through science.
Just as the finest swordsmith
tempers the finest blade
with his experience,
so the sage, with wisdom,
tempers intellect.
With patience, tangled cord may be undone,
and problems which seem insoluble, resolved.[118]