[Fis] Scientific communication (from Mark)

Tue Oct 11 16:21:06 CEST 2016

Dear Mark, dear Pedro, dear colleagues,

On 10 Oct 2016, at 19:50, PEDRO CLEMENTE MARIJUAN FERNANDEZ wrote:

> ________________________________________
> De: Mark Johnson [johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com],
>
>
>
> Dear Dai, Rafael, Loet and all,
>
> Thank you for your comments - the theological connection interests me
> because it potentially presents a paradigm of a more vulnerable
> and open dialogue.
>
> Loet, clearly the redundancy is apophatic, although one has to be
> cautious in saying this: the domain of the apophatic is bigger than
> the domain of Shannon redundancy. At some point in the future we may
> do better in developing measurement techniques for 'surprise' in
> communication (I wonder if Lou Kauffman's Recursive Distinguishing is
> a way forwards...). Shannon's formulae have served us well because
> we've constrained our digital world around them. "Surprise", from a
> phenomenological perspective, is a much more slippery thing than the
> measure of probability. There are, as Keynes and others identified,
> fundamental ontological assumptions about induction which do not
> appear to be sound in probabilistic thinking. These questions are not
> separable from questions about the nature of empirical reasoning
> itself (Keynes used Hume as his reference point), and by extension,
> about the communication between scientists. I still don't know what
> information is; I've simply found it more helpful and constructive to
> think about constraint, and Shannon redundancy presents itself as a
> fairly simple thing to play with.
>
> Back to scientific communication, I've been looking at David Bohm
> whose thoughts on dialogue are closely related to his thinking about
> physics, and to my own concern for constraint. He writes:
>
> "when one comes to do something (and not merely to talk about it or
> think about it), one tends to believe that one already is listening to
> the other person in a proper way. It seems then that the main trouble
> is that the other person is the one who is prejudiced and not
> listening. After all, it is easy for each one of us to see that other
> people are 'blocked' about certain questions, so that without being
> aware of it, they are avoiding the confrontation of contradictions in
> certain ideas that may be extremely dear to them. The very nature of
> such a 'block' is, however, that it is a kind of insensitivity of
> "anaesthesia" about one's own contradictions." (Bohm, "On Dialogue",
> p.4)
>
> The blocks are complex, but "published work" and "reputation" are
> important factors in establishing them. I was at a conference last
> week where a highly established figure castigated a young PhD student
> who was giving an excellent but challenging presentation: "have you
> read ANY of my books?!". The student dealt with the attack elegantly;
> everyone else thought it revealed rather more about the constraints of
> ego of the questioner (confirming a few suspicions they might have had
> beforehand!)
>
> Our practices of "Not communicating" in science are, I think,
> well-demonstrated by considering this encounter between Richard
> Dawkins, Rowan Williams and Anthony Kenny.
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bow4nnh1Wv0
>
> I think it's worth pointing out the constraints (or "blocks") of their
> respective
> positions, which (particularly in Dawkins case) are very clearly on
> display. My reading of this is that they attempt to communicate by
> coordinating terminology/explanations/etc. All the time they are aware
> of the fact that they have fundamentally different constraints: there
> is no overlap of constraint, and really no communication. The medium
> of the discussion is part
> of the problem: it structures itself around the 'topics' for debate,
> and then it becomes a matter of not making oneself vulnerable within
> that frame (this is what Bohm advocated avoiding). Yet for
> communication (or dialogue) to take place between
> these people, mutual vulnerability (I suggest) would have to be the
> starting point. The discussion is also framed by the history and
> reputation established through the each participant's published work.
>
> One of the reasons why I mentioned the theological work (and why I
> think this is important) is that it is much harder to talk about
> theology without making oneself vulnerable - or at least, an
> invulnerable theology comes across as dogmatism... of the kind that in
> this instance, is most clearly exemplified by Dawkins!
>
> What's missing is usually our vulnerability.

We have separated theology from science since about 1500 years.

This makes theology, the science, vulnerable, as reason is no more  
allowed in, and that leaves the place for emotion and wishful  
thinking, which are quickly exploited by manipulators, usually to  
steal our money, or control us in some ways.

This makes also science partially into a pseudo-theology, or pseudo- 
religion, or pseudo-science, making people believing that somehow  
science *is* truth, when actually science is just modesty and doubt,  
avoiding any pretension of truth, but proposing as clear as possible  
theories and means to refute them.

I defined the theology of a machine by the set of (arithmetical,  
extensional and iontensional) propositions true about the machine,  
including its first person views (definable thanks incompeletness  
refuting Socrates'  critics of Theaetetus' defifinition of knowledge)  
but not necessarily justifiable by the machine.

This with theoretical computer science and mathematical logic leads to  
a very precise (mathematical) universal machine theology, when we  
limit ourselves to sound machines. It is close to the theology of the  
Neopythagorans (like Moderatus of Gades) and to the Neoplatonists  
(Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, ...). It is testable, as such theologies  
have their physics entirely build-in in the theology (it is platonist:  
the physical reality is not the fundamental reality as the physical is  
reduced entirely in the universal machines structure of the  
observable). Up to now, thanks to Quantum Mechanics "without collapse"  
it can be said to fit rather well with both the first person and third  
person facts (that is not the case for physicalist theories, as I have  
shown in some papers).

Fundamentally, we are still in the Middle-Age.

We have not transformed the Enlightenment Period: the most fundamental  
science has not yet came back to the faculty of science. We still  
disallow the practice of doubts in the fundamental and human fields.
It is rather normal, given what we know of human history.

 From a (neo)platonist rationalist view, Dawkins seems to be more  
Christian than the pope. That is a common feature of strong, non- 
agnostic form of Atheism: they share with Christians the conception of  
Aristotle first God, even if it is only to deny its existence, and  
they share the conception of the Creation (Aristotle second God:  
Primary Matter). They often appeal to science as an argument of  
authority (which is, I think, the very opposite of science).

The institutionalization of religion (like the politicalization of  
health) is a human technic to prevent the research in theology (or  
medicine). It means ruling by gangsters.

I cited the domain of Health, as this last century has seen medicine  
summing up the mistakes of theology/religion, like allowing politics  
to decide on content.  Again, when we look at the details, it is  
mainly the usual human question of controlling and stealing money in  
relatively short run.

I like to provoke a little bit by saying that in Occident, science is  
born in -500, with Pythagorus, and ended in +500, with the closure of  
Plato Academy in Athene and the banishing of the rationalist mystics  
and the Platonist non confessional researchers in theology, in Plato's  
sense (where God is only a nickname pointing to the ultimate truth we  
might search).

I was commenting your interesting previous post, Mark, but this one  
will be enough I think, for the time being.

Best,

Bruno

>
> Best wishes,
>
> Mark
>
> --
> Dr. Mark William Johnson
> Institute of Learning and Teaching
> Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
> University of Liverpool
>
> Phone: 07786 064505
> Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
> Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com
>
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