KARL JASPERS FORUM

TA 62 (Mikes)

Commentary 2

WE BUILD OUR UNIVERSE FROM SCRATCH
by Herbert FJ Müller
2 August 2003, posted 23 September 2003

<1>
John Mikes' paper on reductionism versus wholism deals with an important aspect in the theory of knowledge. In fact this is a sort of battleground in the philosophy of science at the present time. He starts with a central point of knowledge, namely that reality is established by investing belief [2] in the structures we create from nothing (zero-derivation), in all areas including religion and science. In the following I will comment briefly on a few of his points, for his opinion.

<2>
In my estimation, the most important aspect of JM's exposition stays somewhat in the background. In [6d] he writes that the notion of mind-independent reality (MIR) is an oxymoron, since we, our mind, are part of the world. And in [4Ae] "The universe is a process and we are part of it." This is quite true but it would profit from a more central emphasis (schärfere Profilierung), even in addition to his emphasis on active choice [4Aa] : we are not only a passive part, nor do we discover the universe (or nature, or ourselves) in a pre-fabricated form. What JM calls "observable changes" [4Af] are also our structures. The universe is our process and creation insofar as we structure it inside the unstructured and undivided ongoing mind-and-nature experience with which we are confronted.

<3>
Thus JM's argumentation in fact proposes a major change in the scientific point of view as it has been used since Descartes and Newton. But without that emphasis, the discussion can remain or become ambiguous, because terms like "system" and "universe", and even "the whole", are commonly understood in MIR-objective fashion (such as in objective "theories of everything"). Despite a growing awareness that MIR-belief must be abandoned, most discussions in science and concerning its conceptual basis do not clearly focus on this question. As a result they either remain ambiguous on this matter (see for instance [8a]), or fall back into naïve MIR.

<4>
The two points of view - wholistic versus topical - can, among other things, be understood as developed respectively from those of the apeiron of Anaximander and the atomism of Demokritos (the latter combined with the ontology or (MIR)-"is-ness" of Parmenides). The plenitude [4Aa, ff] of zero-information [4Ab] corresponds directly to the apeiron, and to what Feyerabend has called "abundance", with which we are faced. We try to conquer it by structuring it from within. The topical or system aspect [6c] corresponds to the atomistic view.

<5>
Since it is whole and unstructured, the plenitude cannot be a system, not even a simple one [4Ab]. Systems are structures, and we develop structures starting from a circumscribed or focused or atomistic view. We can devise structures and techniques only piecemeal, for circumscribed aspects of experience, or of the universe, not for everything. Then one tries to extrapolate from there, such as from Hubble's red-shift to the big bang [4b]; but of course this has competing theories, such as floating 11-dimensional membranes (Science 292, p.189, 2001).

<6>
Comprehensive systems are bound to have a self-contradictory nucleus, because they try to structure the center or background of ongoing experience which always remains unstructured. The unstructured center or background cannot be avoided or structured by any means simply because the structures are built inside the unstructured experience (but mysticism or magic can provide an irrational structure). Religions have to try to come up with an overall structure (because their purpose is to provide an overall verbal-ritualistic-behavioral structure for guidance), and consequently they have a self-contradictory center. Theistic religions in particular offer complete MIR-systems, and their irrational nature is more or less acknowledged. The same happens of necessity to pseudo-religious systems that try to take their place, including scientism with its oxymoronic MIR, but here the contradiction tends to be implicitly denied.

<7>
In particular, the terms "whole" and "wholism" [6] and "inter-connectedness" [2] are strongly affected by a shift of emphasis to the subject (individual and collective), who is the source of the wholeness for any mind-and-nature understanding (even if the subject is extended in a theistic fashion). It seems to me that such a change can help in assessing the total [2] as a simple unit [6c]. In contrast, wholeness cannot come from outside, except in a self-contradictory or mystical manner. But each of us can only start from whole experience, which is unstructured and undivided to start with. That is, we build the structures of self-and-world inside the unstructured experience. The total is more than the sum of its parts [3e], but also : its structures are incomplete or in part self-contradictory (and thus largely outside our observation [4Ag] and "unspeakable" [3g]).

<8>
Now it may be objected that on a TV screen many pixels can produce a complete visual experience, and that something analogous happens on the retina and in the visual part of the brain. But "we" subjects are (our experience is) neither a TV screen nor are we our brain (nor a network of networks, which JM presents as a compromise [2,7] but it still would probably tend to be understood in atomistic terms). These concepts stem from objective, focused, circumscribed, enterprises like technology and physiology that try to explain the mechanisms underlying experience in objective terms. "Complexity" and also "networks" can be understood in objective terms, therefore objectivity is essentially atomistic, not wholistic, and this is, if understand him correctly, what JM wants to convey.

<9>
Once the ongoing subjective individual-and-collective mind-and-nature experience becomes the central and encompassing concept, it is clear that all the mental structures inside it are circumscribed (topical, limited) even if they are extended to a whole TV screen, or to all of experience. The theistic extension of the subject can on the other hand deal with the complete range of experience, at the price of having an irrational center.

<10>
Concerning the definitions in [6d] I would like to suggest two small changes. Mind is better understood as ongoing experience with its unstructured background or center (but not only human; the difference from animals is mainly in language, word-fortified concepts). Brain is objectively needed for mind to happen, but like all objects it is nevertheless a content inside mind (see TA45). Reality is what we construct and believe in, inside experience. The impact occurs via feedback when we try the structures we have produced and may have to adjust or change them.

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Herbert FJ Müller