Science's First Mistake

Front matter

Delusions in Pursuit of Theory lan O. Angell and Dionysios S. Demetis

Delusions in Pursuit of Theory by

IAN O. ANGELL and

Introduction

Individual Allusions that Limit Sensory Overload Patterns of Categorical Delusions

Tidy Minds, Technology and the Myth of Control Systems Theory

The Frame of Observation and the Functional Differentiation of Science

Higher-order Observations Asymmetry and Self-reference Collapsing Systems ix

141 161 175 187

203 217 221 225

Ix

8.1 9.1 9.2 9.3

10.1 10.2 12.1 12.2

12.3

List of Figures

A schema for observation

Observation via a frame

Falsification of a communicated frame Notational hyperlinks and

the differentiation of science

A first-order observation?

A second-order observation?

The emergence of an interference pattern

(a) The crest of one wave meets the crest

of another; (b) the crest of one wave meets

the trough of another

Results of a double-slit experiment performed by Dr Tonomura showing the build-up of an interference pattern of single electrons. Numbers of electrons are 10 (a), 200 (b), 6,000 (c), 40,000 (d), 140,000 (e)

145 156

157 166 167 190

O sancta simplicitas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering once one has acquired eyes for this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple! How we have been able to give our senses a passport to everything superficial, our thoughts a divine desire for wanton leaps and wrong inferences! How from the beginning we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, lack of scruple and caution, heartiness and gaiety of life — in order to enjoy life! And only on this now solid, granite foundation of ignorance could knowledge rise so far — the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will: the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its opposite, but as its refinement! Even if language, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees and many subtleties of gradation; even if the inveterate Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to our unconquerable ‘flesh and blood’, infects the words even of those of us who know better — here and there we understand it and laugh at the way in which precisely science at its best seeks most to keep us in this simplified, thoroughly artificial, suitably constructed and suitably falsified world — at the way in which, willy-nilly, it loves error, because, being alive, it loves life.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part Two: The Free Spirit, Section 24.

XI

Preface

Human historyis onelongaccountofthe success of our species, in that we have managed to survive and prosper in the surrounding hostile ‘real’ world. It is a tale of continuous experimentation with various ways and means of coping effectively with whatever that world has to throw at us. We approach the task by synthesizing information about things in our vicinity, and systematically applying it for our benefit, both as individuals and in groups. The latest stage in this venture has seen the use of computer-based technologies infiltrating most aspects of socio-economic and political life, and automating as many operations as possible. Consequently we find ourselves enclosed on all sides by computerized information systems. Governments worldwide are setting up huge databases to store the personal information of their citizens, all with the best intentions, albeit predicated on the most naive understanding of the implications and consequences. Despite decades of numerous highly expensive failed projects, and the many detrimental outcomes, their faith in this particular form of information technology remains undiminished.

Granted there are many benefits, however, our lives are now severely constrained, confined by the automated preconditions these systems lay down, admittedly not always in our best interests. Closed circuit television scans city centres and motorways to watch for what is labelled antisocial behaviour. Businesses profile their customers with impunity, and then inundate them with junk mail. At the same time the corporate sector is compelled to comply with government regulations, having its technology resources drained in what is the ultimate denial of service attack. More recently, the global banking system was brought to its knees by the rocket science of computerized financial instruments. Meanwhile the Internet is welcomed into our homes and schools despite the many monsters that lurk within. Etcetera, etcetera.

Information systems are all pervasive, but what exactly is an information system? More specifically, just what is information? This book will consider such questions but from a sceptical viewpoint. Readers are provided with a theoretical description that characterizes not only the utility that comes with these technological systems, but also the futility and what the authors claim is the absurdity in much of humanity’s undiminished faith in them. The authors will go much further than an analysis of mere computerization, and characterize science itself as the definitive information system. Science, supported by various types of technology, promises the Holy Grail: an

XII PREFACE explanation of all that happens in the physical reality that is the natural habitat of humankind.

As two committed sceptics, the authors take issue with the scientific approach, pointing out some of its shortcomings. They will show that the various systems spawned by that approach, each with its own modus operandi for dealing with the manipulation of the vague concept of information, are confined by some basic restrictions that too often remain masked. For these, information systems produce constricted explanations: a form of tunnel vision that delivers a clear central focus, but with the ambiguity of paradoxes at the periphery. Any identified paradox can be clarified by pulling it into the tunnel with a further sophistication of the mechanisms that is used to develop the system itself. However, this process will introduce yet more paradoxes. Should these intrinsic paradoxes prove non-problematic, we can, and do, deny them. This is particularly the case if the approach taken proves nonetheless useful. Then with that denial, faith in the explanations is reinforced as we become convinced of their validity. However, step outside the tunnel of our comfort zone, and no longer in denial, the explanations will soon start to appear absurd.

By exposing the reader to the intrinsically paradoxical nature of human observation and cognition, the authors embark on their sceptical journey to describe how the absurdities behind the systems of science and technology take shape. They note that every system must include an information system in the broadest! sense of the term; that is, every system must contain information about itself. At the same time it collects information about its environment, and uses that information to direct its actions so that it can survive and prosper. Without this gathering of information the system would be incapable of adapting to its constantly changing environment, leading to instability that could prove detrimental to that system’s performance, possibly even to it becoming terminal.

The concept of information entailed within the term information system still remains one of the most obscure in our vocabulary. Perhaps the reason for the elusive natures of both information and system can be found in the ontological stratum wherein we perceive the existence of all systems and information?

In biological systems, for example, some information contained in (and about) the systems themselves is hardwired: encoded in the form of a genetic code, the double helix ofits DNA. This particular form of information contains the basic mechanisms through which these systems gain the capacity to

PREFACE XIII replicate themselves, albeit with some variation and mutation. This type of information, through what Darwin described as evolution by means of natural selection (Darwin, 1859), changed and developed over time to a degree where now it supports functions far beyond the mere reproduction and the self-sustaining of biological systems. The evolutionary process has not only sustained the primary biological instincts of organisms, but also allowed for the emergence of more sophisticated abilities in some species, and in particular that of observation and cognition: two emergent abilities that this book identifies at the core of its analysis.

CHAPTER ONE Introduction

Theory and Paradox

This book grew out of the authors’ concerns over the popular, almost casual, use of the term ‘information’. Added to that was their aversion towards the obsessive use of theory in the mainstream academic study of Information Systems (IS), and the way that enforced consistency with such theory masquerades as rigour: Structuration Theory, Neoinstitutionalism, Actor Network Theory, the Technology Acceptance Model, Systems Theory etc. The authors were concerned that despite all this theoretical overkill, and possibly even because of it, the history of computerization was (and still is) one of the highly expensive failures marching alongside the computer’s domination of business and society. However, the deeper they looked into the issues, the more they began to suspect an enigma, although one that did not lie with IS per se. They now see it as implicit in every field that makes a claim on the production of knowledge, including every scientific endeavour, and every technological development.

This book then is the authors’ catharsis. Both of them eventually came to accept that all theories are limited by intrinsic paradoxes, and not just those theories favoured by their own IS Community. Consequently, this book is intended to have relevance for researchers and students of other subjects far beyond IS, by pointing out that the control the scientific establishment attempts to exercise over a myriad of human activities is both fanciful and misguided. In principle, the book reflects on the limitations in the processes of constructing knowledge, as well as in the methods used to gain that knowledge: epistemology. It sets out to describe both how the processes by which knowledge is created are infested with paradoxes and howthese paradoxes come to undermine all epistemological endeavour.

In expressing their dissatisfaction with all the pretence of profundity in their own subject, and in others, the authors are not trying to undermine the utility of theory per se, far from it. This book itself is nothing if not theoretical. They simply, but paradoxically, want to reflect upon the processes that tend to weaken critical thinking whenever theoretical positions are treated as an incontestable reality, when at best those positions exhibit a mere internal consistency. As Einstein observed: ‘As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality’ (Einstein, 1922).

Often trapped within the vast abstract realms of individual theories, the human species has created conceptually rich yet limited theoretical streams, which appear to grow, and grow, and grow in scale and influence. From such a continuing expansion springs the belief of having achieved a deeper understanding of the world of phenomena in which we are constrained to operate, rather than merely a different, albeit a more detailed and more sophisticated, description; or as Nietzsche would have it, a more ‘granite foundation’ of ‘refined ignorance’.

To demonstrate the validity of their concerns, in this book the authors consider how scientific knowledge comes to be constructed, showing how that construction is fundamentally flawed. These flaws are not contingent on each theory in itself, rather they are a precondition for each theory to exist. Despite being flawed, communities nevertheless arise around the application of such theories. Why? Because kept within limits, each communityaccepted theory is an excellent means of temporary communication within that community. There each theory, as the chosen one, bestows the benefits of legitimacy on any consequent analysis. However, take any theory beyond its limits, beyond its life span, beyond its utility, beyond its community, and claim for it an absolute truth, then it becomes absurd; and hubris beckons.

In order to illustrate these ideas, this book will dip into an eclectic mix of deeply theoretical issues that propagate across many disciplines, and not just those popular in study of IS, or more generally in the social sciences. Indeed, examples from physics and mathematics will be used liberally to make the point. These latter examples, guided as they are by specific theories, and with their predictive aspects, are the envy of the mere normative theories prevalent in the study of the social sciences including the so-called management sciences. However, the authors concur with Nietzsche’s introductory quotation above, taken from Beyond Good and Evil, and insist that physics and mathematics too have ‘feet of clay’. In pointing at such an irony, this book acknowledges the debate raging within the IS field, and more widely in the social sciences: namely whether the testing of hypotheses in quantitative research is ‘more legitimate’ than in qualitative research: a position taken by a good majority in the social science communities, at least until recently.

In a detour, the book rather grandiosely, and with not a little irony, challenges the endeavour in physics of searching out a Grand Unified Theory (science’s ultimate dominion over the human condition), and toa small extent considers what such a contradiction might entail. The main message of the book itself encapsulates a paradox, entailing the rejection of the proposition that a movement towards a deeper understanding is possible, because for the authors there is no understanding, only a description constructed for the sole purpose of utility.

The authors will not be restricting themselves to physics, or for that matter to the natural sciences, which to them are far from natural. Nor are they mostly interested in the mathematical framework that supports the efforts for a Grand Unified Theory. Much more interesting is the projected purpose behind such theories, and particularly the underlying epistemological contradictions that theories inevitably entail. Actually, the authors propose that such contradictions, far from being problematic, are a necessary prerequisite for theories to evolve in the first place. They will argue that there can never be a theory of everything, for reasons based on the fundamental epistemic nature of human observation and cognition. The authors insist that there can be no separation between sensing and the making sense of things in the world. Observation and cognition are inextricably linked; they are structurally coupled. This they claim will impact the nature and scope of every scientific, indeed every theoretical endeavour that insists on such separation, and so will have profound implications for any consequent research.

Even though the authors recognize that some philosophical similarities can indeed be drawn to Gödel’s Theorem of Incompleteness (Gödel and Feferman, 1986), conceptually they still argue that their thesis stretches beyond strictly formulated mathematical implications and logical consequences. This book considers how every scientific construct is formulated from interpretable observations, and the premises that guide them. Much of the work is based on an analysis of ‘self-referential systems’, as portrayed in the seminal works of Professor Niklas Luhmann: Social Systems (Luhmann, 1995), Essays of Self-Reference (Luhmann, 1990) and Theories of Distinction (Luhmann, 2002b).

The authors will postulate that there is no way out of several of these paradoxical contradictions, and describe each scientific construct as a multitude of intrinsically paradoxical and co-evolving self-referential systems: a phrase that hopefully will come to mean much more to the reader after absorbing the analysis of the major concepts involved.

The Delusion of a ‘Theory of Everything’

The human urge to uncover the ultimate information about how ‘reality’ functions remains as strong in us as ever. For example, Hungarian philosopher Ervin László (László, 2007) introduced the notion of the Akashic’ Field: the field of information that unifies all things. Many highly reputable scientists (physicists in the main) have been, and are still, optimistic about eventually uncovering such a ‘Theory of Everything’. Just before the turn of the twenty-first century, one of the authors (Dionysios Demetis) was present at a physics colloquium where the distinguished professor Stephen Hawking was a speaker. Hawking outlined his vision of such a Theory of Everything, saying that we might be very close to fulfilling this promise. A decade later that promise looks equally remote; but few scientists have given up on that dream.

The authors’ aim in this book is not to undermine that aspiration, but instead to demonstrate that a belief in such unification can considerably restrict other perspectives. They are not alone in claiming that humanity is incapable of articulating such a Grand Theory. Many have expressed doubts over such an endeavour (Hayek, 1952; Lindley, 1994), although most recent attention has been supportive of the notion. The authors intend that the justification of their stance will gradually become apparent as this book proceeds; all the while their treatise on self-reference, paradox and observation, and various interrelationships, will hopefully approach the subject matter in a way that will clarify the issues, although they will be the first to admit that their own underlying substance is also paradoxical.

To the authors, a Theory of Everything is the grandest manifestation of a delusion; they use the word delusion here to denote an epistemic position, a state of mind, and not as a derogatory expression. An epistemic position automatically implies a description of how we humans know what we know (Crotty, 1998), but this they argue occurs via a delusion that is constructed to be personally convincing; a delusion that arises from the necessity of observing, and yet all the while observing leaves much unobserved. Socrates summed it all up in his famous quotation: ‘All that I know is that I know nothing.”?

This book presents the drive towards a Theory of Everything as a demonstrably impossible dream, and implies that science does not uncover ‘truth’. The fundamental premise is that observation in general is an a priori requirement for the formulation of any theoretical construct. However, there can be no observation without a distinction, but with that distinction other things go unobserved. Therefore a Theory of Everything, by definition, cannot take into account any difference or distinction, because then something would be left outside of the scope of the theory, and therefore would not be included in the theoretical construct itself.

Residual Category and Non-reference Professor Niklas Luhmann captured the power of this fundamental concept in the following quotation:

When observers continue to look for an ultimate reality, a concluding formula, a final identity, they will find the paradox. Such a paradox is not simply a logical contradiction (A is non-A) but a foundational statement: The world is observable because it is unobservable. Nothing can be observed (not even the ‘nothing’) without drawing a distinction, but this operation remains indistinguishable. It can be distinguished, but only by another operation. Or to say it in Derrida’s style, the condition of its possibility is its impossibility (Luhmann, 2002b).

‘The world is observable because it is unobservable.’ ‘The condition of its possibility is its impossibility.’ These two apparently nonsensical sentences actually make perfect sense. What Luhmann is saying is that observation is not, cannot be, what we think it is; hence the present authors’ (over)use of the word delusion. Observation of a part is only possible because the whole is unobservable. Not that the whole in this respect can be defined, for then that whole would need to be distinguished from everything but the whole itself: namely, distinguished from nothingness. Such separation is intrinsically problematic for reasons that will be investigated in this book, starting with the impossibility of defining nothing, as noted by Luhmann. The whole therefore takes on two different meanings in itself, introducing yet another distinction: (1) the whole defined by an observation that separates that whole into what is being observed, and what is not; and (2) the whole as the external reality that cannot be investigated without the operation of observation.

By necessity, the act of observation actively involves the observer in the world so that he? has choices, and is not at the mercy of inertia. It becomes evident that in observing, the observed part is distinguished, separated. That very act implies that the separation between what can be observed and what must be left unobserved is more of a necessity than a mere compromise. However, such a necessity comes with problems and paradoxes. What is observed is not the thing itself, but an internalized representation of that thing, which has to fit into categories constructed for it by observation, cognition and delusion.

The cognitive sampling and categorization of things observed in the world is both the result of observation and the means whereby observation is possible. We don’t observe categories, rather through categories. The very act of categorization remains an obscure selection process that is guided by the success or otherwise of previously chosen categories. Each observation categorizes things in the world via the imposition of linear distinctions. These things are separated within the observed scene, but they still remain structurally coupled to the rest of the world. These couplings are lost to the particular observer, but they remain part of a non-referential system created by the self-reference imposed by original observation (as the unobservable part of the distinction). However, they may appear as other-referential systems within the self-reference of other observers.

Whatever the scenario that comes into play, an observer creates a distinction that always leaves something unobserved as a precondition of observing the something that has been selected. Here, the word linear is used to mean the categorization on which cause-and-effect processes are insinuated, and that exhibits a directly related change; it is where action always ends with a reaction. Thus, from this perspective, linearity is unavoidably imposed by both science and technology, which derive from, and function under, the causality hypothesis. All methods are linearity imposed on a non-linear world: all observations likewise. However, the ensuing paradoxes will necessarily introduce uncertainty; should this prove disruptive then we are back to the problem of structuring the observation, which leads to yet more paradoxes.

It is erroneous/absurd to insist that a categorical representation of a thing is identical to the apparent thing-in-itself, because ‘the map is not the terrain’. And yet this is accepted as an all too common position. Not that there is necessarily such a thing as a thing-in-itself, only that somehow an intellectual process is triggered that convinces the observer of the thing’s existence. The concept of something in-itself, of something per se, or however that concept is stated, is merely an abstraction that removes all observers from the existence of that thing. The notion of a thing-in-itself denies the variety of categories that may be imposed on it by the existence of different observers, and thereby allows the delusion of objectivity to enter the arena of knowledge.

Luhmann exposed the shaky basis of objectivity with his recognition of the fallacy of treating the remainder of any one thing as a separate residual category. For such treatment would imply that the structural couplings have simply disappeared in the separation, and that the two parts no longer comprise the original whole. Thus observation, by its very nature, must introduce asymmetry: couplings are made to disappear from within what is by necessity the linear representation of that observation; but those couplings are still there in the world. The couplings constitute a non-linear phenomenon existent both in what we abstract to be the thing-in-itself and in the unobserved remainder; however, they will have disappeared from the corresponding abstractions. The two artificially separated parts will continue to operate, and perhaps interact within the unobservable whole; but not in the observation. Hence, observation is conditional, but those conditions are necessarily unobservable, unappreciable, uncertain. Hidden in paradox, beyond observation, beyond cognition, beyond memory, beyond logic, steeped in uncertainty, they are necessary preconditions of observation, cognition, memory and logic.

But observe we do. As humans, we continuously observe the paradoxical residual categories of previous observations, and store them in memory. By observing, we introduce and pioneer new connections amongst our ever-expanding set of artificially introduced constructs. Piling them up, memory upon memory, paradox upon paradox, albeit each kept artificially separated. All thought of the fundamental asymmetries is conveniently ignored in our tidy linear descriptions, deluding ourselves that through observation we ‘understand’ the ‘real world’ of phenomena. However, as Lewis Caroll remarked: ‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards’ (Carroll, 1994). Consequently the authors shy away from using the word ‘understanding’. Instead, they prefer to use ‘cognition’, which for them implies only the grasping of a limited description of what is perceived. In this book, understanding is treated as an umbrella-term that represents the shared-delusions of those individuals who suppress the paradoxes they have each created in their individual observations, and who forget about the structural couplings that each has severed.

Perhaps some comment on the nature of paradox is called for here. The issue of paradox is often illustrated by reference to Bertrand Russell’s village barber who shaves all and only those men in the village who don’t shave themselves. There is a paradox in ‘who shaves the barber?’4 If the barber shaves himself then he shouldn’t, and if he doesn’t then he must. It is possible to get out of this pickle by imposing restrictions, like making the barber a woman, or making him live outside the village. A pedant could even say that shaving and being shaved are different acts. However, none of these mental gymnastics can avoid the potential for paradox in the unrestricted and unconditional situation.

The authors, however, don’t want the reader to be thinking of a paradox as a mere logical conundrum. Paradox is housed partly in both what is observed and its residual category, and also partly as a non-referential component hiding in the gap between, subsumed in an assumed boundary, but with a latent potential to disrupt. This part-observed/part-unobserved and non-referential quality means that any interpretation arising from an observation will have something missing. This unavoidable misinterpretation initiated by every act of observation can and does interfere with the logical tidiness of any consequential analysis. Effects of that interference will be vaguely recognized by the observer, but will be inexplicable to him. Another observation is required to clarify the situation; however, that too will introduce new distinctions and new severed couplings, bringing with them new partially unobserved interferences.

The Point/Line/Plane Paradox

The nature of what the authors mean by paradox may be illustrated with reference to the humble ‘point’, ‘line’ and ‘plane’: abstractions at the core of geometry and mathematics, ‘which would certainly not have originated if it had been known from the beginning that there is no exactly straight line in nature, no real circle, no absolute measure’ (Nietzsche and Hollingdale, 1996); and indeed, no point. We both live and are trapped in three dimensions. There can only be imaginary and thus paradoxical excursions into lower or higher dimensions; all are flights of fancy.

A point must be imagined into existence as both a spherical (more or less) dot (albeit a very small blob), and for the practical purposes of calculation one that has no size, no dimension, no substance. How absurd? The point is simultaneously there, but not there: a paradox. A line is imagined as a very thin rectangle in an imaginary two-dimensional sheet, and that too must itself be imagined as a rectangular block in three dimensions, with length but very small breadth and depth; for if it had no breadth or depth it would disappear. The trick for the mathematician is to keep all the images in mind;

to remain in three dimensions with the dot and the block in order to stop the objects from disappearing, but to move seamlessly among the lower dimensions to undertake calculations without being dismayed by transdimensional travel.

Mathematicians consider the set [0,1] on the real line of all real numbers between o and 1, but not including zero; whereas [0,1] includes zero. Not that there is such a thing as a line, but we let that pass. How easily they drop in the number zero. Zero is simultaneously treated as both a discrete object (a thing) and a no-thing, without substance, which can be tacked onto the front of a line without extending its length. In other words they treat that zero as if it is both the presence of nothing and the absence of something.5 To achieve this trick, these mathematicians resort to their ‘get out of jail free cards’, using phrases like ‘tends to zero’, thereby avoiding confrontation with the paradoxes. However, if such ritual incantations do not work for you, and you are troubled by such paradoxes, if you can’t do the necessary mental gymnastics to somersault between the two situations, if in the paradoxes you cannot ignore the absurdity of two contrasted and yet inconsistent situations, then mathematics is not for you. John von Neumann summed this up nicely: ‘in mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them’ (Zukav, 2001).

However, those who can do the trick are confronted by, but ignore, some very awkward questions. It also begs the question of whether anything else has been imagined into existence when denying the paradoxes. Thankfully, repeated use of the trick breeds contempt for the paradoxes; and the utility that comes with the trick only serves to justify the contempt. Of course the originators of each trick were only too aware of their paradoxical nature, but over time, at first the majority of users forget, and then eventually most latecomers never learn of the trick at all. Thus the paradoxes lie buried deep beneath familiarity.

But what if the context is such that the paradoxes cannot be ignored? Particle physics is a case in point. Researchers in this field are operating at such a miniscule scale that the notion of dimension is destabilized as the difference between nothing and something becomes fuzzy. It is apposite here that we mention the Planck length (roughly 1.616252 x 10735 metres), the smallest measurement of length with any meaningful interpretation. Apparently ‘any device that tries to beat the limit will be crushed into a black hole of its own making’ (Calmet et al., 2004). So how then can calculus include distances that tend to zero, other than by inferring lengths that are meaningless? Paradoxically, calculus itself was involved in calculating the value of the Planck length.