By Tom Kando
I just read David Deutsch’s The Beginning of Infinity (2011). It is impossible to do justice to this masterpiece in a brief review.
Deutsch has written a compelling opus about humanity, our role in the Universe, our future, what is true and what is nonsense among the things we believe, and most importantly, the hope that through science we shall continue to create true knowledge and thus progress ad infinitum.
Not only is Deutsch a genius. He is also eccentric and he has enormous chutzpah, as some reviewers have noted (e.g. David Albert, New York Times, August 12, 2011). The people he dismisses with sleight of hand as being plainly wrong include Niels Bohr, Jared Diamond, Paul Ehrlich, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Leibniz, Thomas Malthus, Karl Marx, Plato and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Some whose ideas he accepts include Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrodinger and Socrates. Others are criticized, while not rejected altogether, for example Steven Hawking. And one philosopher can do no wrong: Karl Popper - clearly Deutsch’s great mentor.
Deutsch appraises most of the philosophies of science which compete to define what true knowledge is. Again, the author boldly tells us which approaches are correct and which ones are wrong. Here is a partial list:
Errors/misconceptions include: Behaviorism, empiricism, inductivism, instrumentalism, Lamarckianism (87), Positivism (especially Logical Positivism), Post-modernism , reductionism (123) and relativism. On the other hand, correct approaches include: criticism, emergence, fallibilism, neo-Darwinianism (89), optimism, rationalism and realism.
Even though the book is quite focused and offers a very clear message, it is impossible to summarize it in a couple of paragraphs. For now, let me just share with you the main thesis. Here it is:
Deutsch’s single-minded focus is on EXPLANATIONS. Science, knowledge and LIFE progress through good explanations, that is, explanations with REACH, explanations that are UNIVERSAL rather than parochial. Problems are inevitable, and problems are soluble (64-65). Their solutions and good explanations are the product of conjecture, criticism and creative imagination. True knowledge is NOT the product of empiricism, positivism and induction, as so many people mistakenly believe.
Deutsch describes how Karl Popper used to begin his lectures in the philosophy of science by asking the students simply to “observe.” Then, “he would wait in silence for one of them to ask WHAT they were supposed to observe.” This was his way to show that scientific observation (pure empiricism) is impossible without pre-existing knowledge about what to look for, how to look, and how to interpret. “Theory has to come first, and it has to be conjectured, not derived” (403).
PEOPLE are creators of universal explanations and knowledge. Humans are people who live on earth, but there may be other “people” in the Universe. Biological evolution also creates knowledge, genetically via the DNA, but it is parochial knowledge.
We, humans, have made the Jump to Universality. In this sense, we are the center of the Universe. We have produced good explanations, i.e. explanations which can account for the same phenomenon whether it be here or on Sirius, even though we can never observe it empirically on that star, 9 light years from us (my example). We can do this, because we have discovered the universal laws of physics.
All evil is caused by insufficient knowledge (212). Along with better knowledge, we achieve moral, institutional and cultural progress. “Morally right values are connected with true factual theories, and morally wrong values with false theories.” (121). Deutsch debunks many false theories, including intelligent design and Lamarckianism.
The evolution of culture and creativity occurs through memes, i.e. ideas which are replicators and which therefore survive (105). Just as biological evolution occurs through genes, so cultural evolution occurs through memes.
Learning does NOT occur through parrot-like imitation of something we merely OBSERVE. Learning represents the replication of MEANING (402) and meme acquisition. This is a CREATIVE process. For example, scientific theories (which are a category of memes) are CREATED (412), and they guide observation.
People, including humans, are able to IMPROVE ideas through creativity (399). We are now engaged in the history of universality. The future of creativity consists of creating new knowledge.
The total amount of knowledge is infinite, and scientists will always be merely scratching the surface. In the 20th century, several scientists have said that science has just about discovered most of what there is to know - say 90%. They are very wrong. In fact, we are poised at The Beginning of Infinity, i.e. the beginning of the unlimited growth of knowledge in the future.
This trajectory only took permanent form in the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment (390). That is when true progress began, and it took place in the West (387), which was a uniquely DYNAMIC society.
There had been several mini-enlightenments before (for example Athens in the 5th century B.C.), and many scientific departures, including Euclid, Pythagoras, Archimedes and others. However, they all aborted. On the other hand, the scientific revolution which began in the 17th century continues to accelerate, three and a half centuries later.
In my next posts, I will give you more details about Deutsch’s analyses of the Enlightenment, abstractions, the human mind, artificial intelligence, computers, Quantum theory, the Multiverse, beauty, morality, politics, environmentalism, and a host of philosophical positions, including intelligent design, neo-Darwinism, empiricism, reductionism, emergentism and optimism. The man knows everything.
If this review seems biased, that’s because it is. I happen to share Deutsch’s interpretation of truth and knowledge. (See also my Science Fiction novel: Humanity's Future: The Next 25,000 Years, in which I describe the future history of humanity, and which shares Deutsch’s optimistic perspective, www.tomkando.com).
15 comments:
Based on this blog I ask the following question, "How much of what we learn or know is TRUTH? I think that very little of what we learn and know is 100% TRUTH. I think that our transformation as humans may be in accepting this TRUTH. Perhaps our words, meanings and lives are to serve another purpose, but what could this be? I read a book entitled,"The Meme Machine" and felt that all knowledge was really about word games and the minds ability to memorize thoughts, phrases and sets of images, pictures, etc.,. Perhaps, we are evolving and because we are still in process we are part of the wheel that keeps turning into an ever evolving process of TRUTH seeking. Thus, infinity resides in the process of our constantly evolving humanity.
Regardless, I am still looking for Nirvana.-
Gail
Okay, I will look forward to your upcoming posts on Deutsch’s analyses. I will more than likely frame things from a sociological perspective but I will try to be critical of my biases.
Gail
I too am reading this incredible masterpiece. Deutsch himself is an example of a good explanation of why we are able to think in the first place. There is a clarity of thought in this book that boggles the mind.
Here is a short video on TED showing Deutsch discussing: A new way to explain explanation.
thanks for your comments.
Madeleine, that’s a good video about Deutsch.
Gail’s point about the “Meme Machine” is interesting. Does all knowledge consist of words?
Having read your blog and watched the TED video linked by Madeleine, I think I know enough to say that David Deutsch’s view is pernicious nonsense.
I would call it "neo-scientism". He rightly eschews empiricism and positivism but enshrines the idea of progress by way of "enlightenment" reductionism that was born of neo-platonism and the numerology of Christian Cabala. (Read books by F. A. Yates)
Mathematics he avers, is the "language of nature".
Disaster! Nature knows nothing of our mathematics and does not follow OUR "laws". .
At every juncture of discovery about the nature of human consciousness, he turns the wrong way, imagining that the 200,000 yrs of human SUCCESS by way of consciousness weighs lightly when compared with the past 300 years of "rational" inquiry and concomitant technological "advance".
He suggests that we approach truth by way of "good explanations", ie explanations that work. In this he blindly touches on the real crux of the human condition. He confounds "what works" with "goodness".
Human consciousness is not rooted in a "meme" of aspirational motivation "in order to" know and control the world -- to progress, advance, and better survive. Human consciousness is rooted in moral relation between community members of a uniquely eusocial species. What has been "selected for" over 200k yrs is a capacity to self-contruct mythos in which that which binds us together altruistically is DEFINED and practiced as "good" and that which drives us apart is "bad".
When we, in reduction, deconstruct our shared sense of moral relation that enables OUR eusociality (symbolic) we undermine the mythic foundations of consciousness, taken for granted, that guide our collective ACTION moving forward in temporal space.
Like other Scientistic scientists, Deutsch sets us on drunkard's walk. The process of creating working knowledge, divorced from the moral relation that binds us, results in one thing leading another. Disaster!
We are first and foremost, a eusocial species who by means of symbolic behavior, bind ourselves into a whole that is greater than the parts. Our moral relation, so constructed, is the cornerstone of OUR method. Our moral relation amongst ourselves as we act forward in the world, cannot be reduced to genes or memes or neuronal synapses and theories and practices to the contrary are entropic.
Paradoxically, the challenge today, in the age of global Scientistic reductionism and economic aspirationalism , is to re-discover and purposefully shape our irreducible moral mythic foundations that enable our eusociality. We'd better get ourselves TOGETHER -- and soon!
FWIW - See A. O. Wilson's recent paradigmatic shift. Also read "Aping Mankind" by Tallis, a very interesting book.
PS - Sorry for the length violation :-)
Marc’s comments are, as always, incredibly stimulating. I am happy that he has returned.
While there are some real differences between his perspective and Deutsch’s, I believe that he has in some ways misunderstood Deutsch, and that the two are in many ways reconcilable. Marc relies on my clumsy summary of the book, instead of reading the book. I can only touch on a few errors:
1. Deutsch is precisely the opposite of any sort of reductionist, a position which he abhors. For example, there is no reductionism whatsoever to “genes or neuronal synapses.”
2. Deutsch never claims that math is the “language of nature.” To the contrary, he repeatedly stresses the distinction between Math (abstract) and Physics (the laws of nature, concrete).
3. I already wrote that Deutsch may have underestimated earlier “knowledge revolutions,” such as the Neolithic Revolution and mini-enlightenments such as Periclean Athens. But this is a minor transgression, in my view.
4. Confounding “goodness” and”what works:” This issue is at the core of Pragmatism (William James, et. al.). I have always seen a great deal of merit in Pragmatism (George Herbert Mead, et. al.), but Deutsch is much smarter and more subtle than I am. There may be a dose of Pragmatism in his perspective, but he is far too sophisticated to be pegged as a Pragmatist simpleton. Who can disagree with him that what does NOT work (e.g.. The Easter Islanders’ actions, the theory of Intelligent Design, as opposed to neo-Darwinism) should be discarded for better options?
5. Scientism? There can be no question that science is humanity’s greatest hope. But there are many different conceptions of science. That is why we have the fields of philosophy and the philosophy of science. We have logical positivism and people like Wittgenstein and we have Karl Popper and David Deutsch. What makes Deutsch so incredibly refreshing is his particular deductive, creative conception of science.
6. Morality: I like Marc’s words about our “eusocial species” and our “self-constructed mythos defining good and bad...” But this is not antithetical to what Deutsch says. True, in the great current divide between “Modern” vs. “Post-modern,” Deutsch is clearly more on the “modern” side (as I am) than Marc. But who can disagree with Deutsch’s statement that “good moral values are based on factual theories, and bad ones are based on false theories” (again, think of such falsehoods as Intelligent Design, and the denial of current climate change)?
All in all, Deutsch is far too smart to be reduced to any “-ist” or “ism.” The book must be read. Also, look at some of the reviews of the book by people who are far more knowledgeable than I am. No one dismisses it with sleight of hand as “pernicious nonsense.” To do so shows ignorance. To me, the book is life-changing. It restores my realization that something CAN be done.
Tom,
Thanks for the effort to reconcile and/or rebut. I can certainly be faulted for not having read the book, but having watched the video I do think I get the thrust of his argument.
As tempted as I am to challenge the wisdom of each point you make, I will cut to the chase in the interest of brevity.
Let's be clear that geniuses, as special causes, have throughout history led humans down disastrously wrong roads.
Assuming we agree that knowing is exclusively a human faculty wrought in symbolic interaction and is a social product rather than the product of this or that brain, a knowledge revolution in no way implies an advance. Paradigmatic shifts occur in the context of our intentionally practical activities. We construct our world in practice, transforming it, and so transformed it transforms us, turn and turn about.
If we live in the forest and hunt and forage in teams, our collective system of knowing takes a certain form. If we make our lives on a isolated pacific island it takes another. And if we live in a community in which we employ our fellows and the stuff of the world as means to individual ends, yet another.
Each system of knowing can only be judged in terms of the conditions in which it emerged and is perpetuated in practice.
You say, "But who can disagree with Deutsch’s statement that “good moral values are based on factual theories, and bad ones are based on false theories”
The error of this Scientistic assertion should be blindingly clear. Moral values, or better said, our shared moral stance, cannot be derived from factual theories. There is nothing out there in the world that can tell us the difference between right and wrong. The truth of our theories and the "facts" we "select" to populate those theories are irrevocably rooted in our self-constructed and self-perpetuated moral stance.
While Scientism purports to reveal the law abiding forces that determine us, the laws so revealed are a product of our moral stance by which we define our relation amongst ourselves as active agents in the world.
There is simply no means beyond ourselves by which discover a "true" or "correct" moral relation. This can only be done amongst ourselves and given our stance, we are free to contradict the so-called "laws" of nature. In fact, given a particular moral stance, our laws of nature will be changed.
Today we are stuck in a closed-loop of reductionism, seeking truth and lawfulness in nature. But the laws we find are a product of our belief that the immutable laws a nature determine us. This is of course, a sneaky form of Platonism.
The task at hand in today's circumstance is not to harness and control ourselves and the world at large more efficiently. The central problem born of our faculty for creating self-knowledge is to see the whole of the process by which we come to know.
In short, all knowing is rooted in a moral stance that is shaped during the earliest stages of development of self, in which mothers, fathers, others and the whole of the knowing community, call us forth into consciousness. Once we understand how deeply rooted our foundational moral stance is, we can come to terms with the fact that irrespective of any physical laws of nature, we are free to choose. Indeed, we are compelled to choose.
Absent this understanding of the roots of consciousness in knowing, we have become captured by a closed-loop method in which one thing leads to another.
Tom,
As I read over what I posted, the opportunity for revisions are many. Let me add just one.
You correctly refer to knowledge revolutions. It is vital to recognize knowledge systems cannot be explained using Darwinistic evolutionary thinking. Paradigmatic transformations are revolutionary in every sense of the word -- practical, political, moral, etc.
When I mentioned various systems of knowing I used the term "forms". This is quite incorrect. Knowledge "regimes" would be much better, with all that is implied by that term, because these knowledge systems both enable and constrain what can be known from within their fuzzy theory-based boundaries.
A moral stance only has meaning in the context of peoples' relation to one another. In this sense, all other active relation in which morality is implied -- God and gods, animals, the earth --- is corollary.
My interest here is in pinpointing the crux of today's most pressing problem for the human enterprise, that is wrought of the reductionism that has enabled us to see as never before, the crux of the problem itself --- turn and turn about :-)
This is of course, a dialectical formulation.
Marc,
Thank you again for your elaborate reply.
Just like you, I am unable to comment specifically on your many interesting points.
The 16-minute Deutsch video is not very strong. It’s a bit disappointing. He fails to make many of his crucial points found in the book, and those that he touches upon are not expressed nearly as well.
Be that as it may, here are a few corrections:
1. Deutsch’s book is only very marginally about morality. So we are getting side-tracked by engaging in a protracted debate about that topic.
2. Again, to show how sophisticated and all-embracing Deutsch’s views are, and how NOT guilty of simplistic “scientism” he is: He quotes supportively Hume’s famous statement that it is not possible to derive an “ought” from an “is.” He also quotes Hume supportively on causality, as an example of something non-reducible.
3. Deutsch is the opposite of a reductionist - constantly stressing the reality of emergent properties.
4. Free will, choice, and an irreducible consciousness are at the core of Deutsch’s conception of man.
5. No one rejects the notion of “Paradigmic shifts” and Thomas Kuhn’s analysis of scientific revolutions. Again, the question should not be “Science or not Science?”, but “what SORT of Science?” Scientism is a misguided form of science, one based on pure empiricism, and one which Deutsch emphatically rejects.
Tom,
Okay, I will put Deutsch at the top of my reading list. You might want to move Tallis up on yours.
There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!
Tom,
If you are still tuned into this frequency...
As I reflect upon our exchange here and prepare to read genius Deutsch's book, I want to call to your attention some thought that have caught my fancy.
I find the idea of the "genius" very curious. As an attribute ascribed to exceptional individuals supposedly in possession of psyche powers far beyond those of mere mortals, I suppose it could be likened to other exceptional abilities such as strength, agility, and fleetness of foot. But unlike physical attributes that are easily observed and quantified, the quality of genius is rather insubstantial, don't you think?
Our sense of the difference between those with exceptional physical abilities is basically linear. For example, the fleetest of foot is really just a bit faster than the average runner. But the delta between the genius and non-genius is seen in terms of orders of magnitude. We usually don't hear, "I want to be a genius when I grow up."
This is important for many reasons as you can probably see. The locus of the stories we construct that delineate our particular history, is punctuated by biopics of those to whom the quality of genius we ascribe. And since we ascribe genius in retrospect to the likes of Aristotle, Newton, Darwin and Einstein, for example, we assign high value to our contemporaries whom we believe possessed of similar exceptional qualities, and constantly seek to contrive measures by which to single them out. We revere the genius of Jobs and Hawking, as well as to any number of idiot savants who rise to notoriety.
In our homo-economicus cultural milieu, Social Darwinism continues to reign supreme and those we deem geniuses are granted high status at the top of the fitness scale. This exceptionalism is deeply embedded in our educational system. We systematically measure individual fitness from day one and begin sorting individuals accordingly thereafter. Is it any wonder we find our so-called democracy bereft of able citizens?
When the muse is with you, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this topic.
Your point is clear: You feel that there is something social-Darwinistic about even using the concept of “genius” to characterize certain people. It’s elitist, etc.
But you latch on to one silly word, and make too much of it. It’s just a passing compliment from me to Deutsch, same as if I said that Mozart is a genius, because I like his music. Nothing ideological or profound.
I agree that Social Darwinism and elitism are bad, as are labeling and tracking.
We could get into a huge discussion of IQ, but let’s not.
It should be permissible to admire someone’s intellectual achievement, and say “Wow, what a genius!” Same thing as if I called Lance Armstrong a superman. Both of these guys do things far beyond my own abilities, that’s all...
Tom,
You're right, had you presented Deutsch's book by saying here's a clever author with some very interesting ideas that challenge everyday assumptions in helpful ways, I would probably have been more receptive.
I understand that you used the term "genius" as a shorthand endorsement. You are also correct that when I see a master sociologist such as yourself, employing this device, I fret that a certain view of how humans work is, perhaps inadvertently, perpetuated and reinforced.
Having taken your enthusiasm for Deutsch to heart, I have already ordered the book (thank you) hoping that I will find that he too is at war with the modern and very popular brand of reductive Scientism that is no more than Social Darwinism in sheep's clothing.
You see, my view is that knowledge and morality are fully entwined. There is no amoral (objective) knowing. Underlying every thought and every treatise, however dispassionately constructed, is a moral premise about the nature of our relation amongst ourselves as actors in the world. Today's breathless reports about finding the "God" particle is overflowing with a moral vision.
Even more disturbing to me, is the trend toward a materialist's "objective" view of human experience in consciousness that is giving rise to a neo-Eugenic vision in which bio and neuro engineers aspire toward diagnosing and repairing abnormal and dysfunctional brains and enhancing underperforming brains.
The quaint idea that knowledge is the accumulated product of a CPU in our heads that processes an imperfectly sensed but mathematically tractable neo-Platonic reality , has regained a lot of "scientific" traction.
Some time ago I mentioned to you a little book that I liked very much by the clever Alva Noe (Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain). I have just finished reading Tallis's new book, Aping Mankind. Neither are works of genius but both seek to challenge the current "hard science" that asserts we are our brains.
This is of course, old news from the POV of SI, but these guys definitely opened some new doors for me.
I will comment further after I have finished reading Deutsch.
Respectfully!
Marc
Thanks for the references. I’ll check out Alva Noe (Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain) and Tallis's Aping Mankind. I myself published an article titled “What is the Mind? Don’t study Brain Cells to Understand it,” in the June 2008 issue of the International Journal on World Peace.
I know! I read it and loved it!
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