I. Issues in the Diffusion of Paradigms

<1>
Perhaps the notion of paradigm SHIFT gives the wrong impression about how new scientifc views of the world are accepted. Rather, paradigm DIFFUSION as a description for the dynamics of belief system acceptance would be a better notion.

<2>
Thomas Kuhn has distinguished several phases in the cycle describing the shift to a new paradigm. Let me paraphrase these phases.

o General acceptance as a frame of explanation.
o Stretching to explain new phenomena
o Reaching the elastic limit, where faults or failures in its integrity appear.
o Breaking down into many fragments, each group offering its own new interpretation of the frame of explanation.
o Recognition of the reasonableness of a particular fragment, where interest focusses.
o New experimental results support the new approach.
o A long period of accommodation and gradual acceptance of the new frame of explanation.

<3>
Some examples of Lack of Acceptance of a Paradigm Shift

o Ernest Lawrence, the father of the cyclotron, did not believe in Einstein's special relativity. In 1945, he built a huge cyclotron -- not a synchrotron -- in California, using silver from Ft. Knox. When he turned it on, it melted. Lawrence was a broken man.

o Einstein's general relativity was published in 1912. He was ridiculed for imagining space-time to be curved. It took the solar eclipse of 1919 to convince the scientifc community, through the correct prediction of the advance of the perihelion of Mercury. The headlines in the New York Times proclaimed the paradigm shift.

o The discoverer of tectonic shifts in geology was long dead when his "crackpot ideas" were vindicated by observation and were recognized as completely correct.

<4>
The use of the notion of social diffusion of the impact of a new scientific paradigm emphasizes its gradual and, in some cases, its incomplete global acceptance. Some factions never believe.

<5>
A theory of the dynamics of social diffusion can be established in terms of the familiarity of individuals with the pertinent frames of explanation. Acceptance of viable new ideas by a group of specialists using their jargon is almost immediate, all participants being totally familiar with their area of specialization.

<6>
As familiarity with frames of explanation is reduced, i.e. from specialists to a more general audience, the time period for acceptance increases markedly. For technical ideas, the layman never accepts by criticism, but falls back on acceptance by authority. For multi- disciplinary topics, total familiarity is lost, so the rate of diffusion within an inter-disciplinary group is markedly reduced.

<7>
New scientific phenomena at the end of the 20th century tend to be multi-disciplinary. Hence, the notion of paradigm SHIFT, implying wide acceptance, is, perhaps, not useful. Instead, the notion of paradigm DIFFUSION might be more useful.

<8>
The role of philosophy in modern science has been minimum at best, and is considered irrelevant by most practicing scientists. Given the complexity and wide spectrum of human knowledge contained in current frames of explanation in science, the binding role of philosophy can no longer be ignored.

II. Case History of Philosophical Inertia Hindering New Frames of Explanation

<9>
I would like to describe a personal concern involving a philosophical error perpetuated in physics and biology due to philosophical inertia. I must go into detail to make my case. The situation is as follows.

<10>
Information theory, originally confined to communication channels used by the phone company has been elevated to a fundmental status in science. Within its original frame of explanation, band width, redundancy, signal-to-noise ratios were notions unaffected by philosophy.

Only with the promotion of the frame of explanation to science in general did the philosophical basis of the notion of information become important.

<11>
I have described this issue in depth on my web site <www.tiac.net/users/knowweb>. Here, I will try to summarize sufficiently to make my point.

<12>
Let me exhibit two examples of philosophical inertia causing error, one from physics, the other biology.

The Science Times of 4/7/98 had an article, "Physical Laws Collide In a Black Hole Bet," by George Johnson. The subject was the black hole information paradox. Johnson described the situation thusly,

<13>
"What happens to the information sucked into those bottomless pits said to lurk within galaxies across the universe? Dr. Hawking and Dr. Thorne bet that the information -- whether consisting of letters, numbers, the binary digits on a computer disc or even the arrangement of atoms in a rock -- is gone forever."

<14>
The issue here is the mis-identification of the notion of *information* with code/symbols, instead of the proper identification with the relation between code/symbols and their referents, conceptual categories. Messages have two components, the set of transmitted/received symbols and their meaning in terms of interpretation by human transmitters/receivers, through conceptual referents. Shannon left out *meaning* because, being a communications engineer, he strictly confined himself to phone lines. He neglected meaning BECAUSE IT WAS PART OF A LARGER CONTEXT OUTSIDE HIS NARROW TECHNICAL AREA.

<15>
When the proper context of information is recognized to extend beyond telephone lines, it naturally includes meaningful referents. Here is where philosophical inertia enters. The mis-identification is the result of objectifying human conceptualization; confusing what is part of the "map" with the "territory." Tacitly, scientific philosophy is Aristotelian, attributing artifacts of human thought to territory . For this philosophy mind is an epiphenomenon, while*objective* matter, events and even information are external. The *hidden agenda* associated with objective science forces intelligent scientists to ignor the philosophical basis of information and thus leads to its mis-interpretation .

<16>
Clearly, letters, numbers, the binary digits on a computer disc are code/symbols. When particular code/symbol replicas are lost, the generic symbol with its referent remains in the culture. To repeat, the inclusion of referents with code/symbols is necessary, since the context is not just telephone lines but scientific frames of explanation. From a philosophical point of view, confusion of code/symbols used by their nervous systems with detached verbalism, where code/symbols and their conceptual referents are taken as independently existing.

<17>
Alfred Korzybski, in his book, *Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-aristotelian Systems and General Semantics* Fourth edition, The International Non-aristotelian Library Publishing Co., has noted this confusion. In the section The Attidudes of 'Philosophers', Etc., he points out,

<18>
" 'Philosophers', 'psychologists', 'logicians', mathematicians, etc. are somehow unable to comprehend that their work is the product of the working of *their own nervous systems*. for most of them it is only detached verbalism such as we often find in mental hospitals for 'mentally' ill. For instance, a very gifted, well-minded mathematician and professor of 'philosophy' wrote to me: 'I do not, however, think that neuro-psychology is relevant to the analysis of the nature of meaning. . . . . I do not believe in confusing logic with neuro-psychology'. These professionals would be shocked if they would study the many volumes of verbal rationalizations by patients in hospitals. They would find very quickly that the words interplay with other words somehow, but they have very little, if any, connection with the facts, and that is one reason why the patients are confined. Why speculate on acadenic verbal definitions instead of investigating the facts in such hospitals, where patients also pay no attention to the functioning of their own nervous systems? Even a gramophone record undergoes some physical changes before words or noises can be 'stored' and/or reproduced. Is it so very difficult to understand that the extremely sensitive and highly complex human nervous system also undergoes some electro-coloidal changes before words, evaluations, etc., are stored, produced, or reproduced? In the work of general semantics we deal with the *living neuro*-linguistic reactions, not mere detached verbal chatter in the abstract. In our experience we have found that even seriously maladjusted persons benfit considerably if we can succeed in making them 'think' about themselves in neurological electro-colloidal terms." Gregory Bateson has emphasized this point by citing Korzybski's phrase *the map is not the territory*.

<19>
In black holes, far from human influence, only detached verbalism insists that generic code/symbols and cultural conceptual referents disappear. When "the facts" of a neurological electro-colloidal approach are taken into consideration, there is no information paradox.

<20>
The inclusion of "the arrangement of atoms in a rock" as information is a mis-interpretation with a slightly different explanation. Order in structures can be measured in terms of statistical mechanics, which uses a mathematical measure called negentropy. Negentropy and information happen to have the same mathematical form. The entropy of a macrostate in statistical mechanics varies as the logarithm of the number of microstates it contains. The amount of selective information in a string of code/symbols in Shannon information theory also varies as the logarithm of the number of conceptual categories in the ensemble of referent messages. This parallel mathematical form has stimulated a fashionable program that seeks to replace the notion of energy "out in the world" with information "out in the world." Considered in the light of Korzybski's phrase *the map is not the territory*, both are seen as human conceptions -- part of 'maps' of the world, not to be confused with their 'territory' -- the world itself..

<21>
The same error is made in Guenter Albrecht-Beuhler's article, "Is Cytoplasm Intelligent Too?" in the journal *Cell and Muscle Motility* v6, ed. Jerry Shay, Plenum Press 1985. "Shannon developed a method of quantifying information based on the degree of unexpectedness of the next character or event in the message-carrying structure. Ever since, information can be treated as a quantity and measured in amounts.....organized matter must contain a certain amount of information...."

<22>
Again, meassage carrying structures -- code/symbols -- are taken as the whole story. Attributing meaningfulness to structures is a jump of logic forced by Aristotelian philosophical inertia.

<23>
However, here a very interesting possiblity can be entertained. Suppose we introduce a new philosophical frame of explanation, call it an epistemological frame (a non-Aristotelian form of philosophy), where acquisition of knowledge -- creation of a 'map' -- by cytoplasm is considered. Then, a form of meaningfulness CAN be associated with biomolecular structures. We, of course, cannot use Shannon's notion of selective information, since there can be no code/symbol cum conceptualization on the part of basic organisms. But if an alternative form of knowledge, call it a presentational mode -- where 'map', standing for 'territory' use the same medium, quantal frequency--, rather than a re-presentational mode -- where 'map', using code/symbols, stands for another 'map', using quantal frequency, a differnt medium. (The jargon conveys the notion that the cytoplasmic 'map' presents its environmental 'territory' using quantal frequency, so no code/symbolic, conceptual map is involved.) Here, presentational or structural information, introduced by Donald MacKay, is invoked. Cytoplasm can then have a non-conceptual form of intelligence.

<24>
We are planning an experiment to observe whether quantal frequency can act as presentational information for a cell's cytoskeletin. The motility of the cell would be its *behavior*, using its quantal frequency *map* to act back on its *territory*. A successful outcome may lend credibility to this non-Aristolelian approach.

[Joel E Henkel
email <knowweb@juno.com>]