Good piece. I delayed in responding to give me time to carry it off to the coffee shop for proper reading.
The “Cartesian Split” is between that part of the world that is measurable and that part which is not. The scientist works at the edges of the measurable, chipping away, tugging on loose threads and progressively pushing the line ever outward.
The philosopher's job is to look beyond that, to consider that which is unmeasurable. I don't see them as competitors, I see it as a division of labor. The separation isn't hermetic, a scientist can never go beyond the journeyman if he doesn't have at least a sense of the transcendental context in which he works. And his work is grist for the philosopher's mill.
But any discussion of philosophy and the philosopher’s role gets muddied by the fact that philosophy is not one thing, it is not a specific area of knowledge. “Philosophy” would best be divided into the “pre-scientific” on the one hand, and the search for meaning and values on the other.
The “pre-scientific” is not really separate from science, it is usually related to its underlying discipline, it is what any scientist does at some point, or maybe he does so continually. Any scientist must formulate hypotheses, toward which he directs his efforts. Any scientist must periodically step back and try to make sense of the data he has collected, to try and package it into some kind of theory that makes sense. That theory itself then becomes the focus of further study and experimentation. A scientist would not consider himself a philosopher, because he keeps his flights of imagination focused, but it is his ability to project his findings and to use them to look out beyond the known that distinguishes an Einstein from a lab tech.
When you look out beyond the known, you are engaging in “philosophy”. The people who are best at “pre-scientific philosophy” are probably well grounded in their underlying discipline; one could suppose that the best cosmologist might be an astro-physicist after a couple of beers.
The line between the known and the unknown does not stay put, obviously. What was not measurable yesterday may be measurable later this afternoon. New tools emerge, and new ways of calculating the previously incalculable, and so the limits of the measurable press outward, and territory that was once the philosopher’s is quietly ceded to the scientist, and behind him to the engineer and the bricklayer.
Philosophy of this kind is not really separate from science, it is its precursor. It is a necessary part of the process. Some of what is imagined turns out to be wrong, which is par for the course when you step off the charts into the uncharted. But when you’re right, science is positioned for the next leap and you get a high school named after you.
When you're wrong, you're forgotten right along with everyone else. History is ruthless toward the mediocre philosopher, whose only hope is a book deal and a slot on Oprah.
The “other” philosophy, the search for meaning and values, is something we all engage in. Even people who reject the notion that life has any transcendental meaning find themselves getting up in the morning to go out and build careers, businesses, families, as if it meant something. But this kind of philosophy is really separate from anything that a scientist deals with on the job and isn’t really germane to this discussion.
Beyond that, I notice that most everyone has missed the two other points you made. There is more going on than meets the eye, and the work in quantum physics gives us a hint of that. To carry your point to the next level, it could be that some of what we experience as spiritual may have a physical component at the quantum or field level. The secularist might find that comforting, if the spiritual turned out to be material after all. It wouldn't change anything for us, we would continue to be amazed at the inner workings of the design, in awe of the sheer intelligence of the design, as we already are.
The other point people miss continuously is your point that information, the transmission of signals that keeps cellular machines working, the informational template that directs the cells into their proper place, the storage and transmissions of data that we recognize in our own machinery is a key marker that distinguishes life from non-life. This idea is only barely beginning to dawn, but if I could devote myself to any piece of research it would be this. Is the DNA the software code, it seems insufficient, or does it address other information stored elsewhere, in some other fashion? Figuring out how a cell knows how to organize itself and control itself will tell us a lot about how life itself works. Maybe that is the key thing we need to learn if we ever hope to reverse-engineer life.
What a magnificent post, full of wisdom! Thank you so much, marron.
Indeed. It's what I meant by "you can't run very far on only one leg."
When you look out beyond the known, you are engaging in “philosophy”. The people who are best at “pre-scientific philosophy” are probably well grounded in their underlying discipline; one could suppose that the best cosmologist might be an astro-physicist after a couple of beers....
Philosophy of this kind is not really separate from science, it is its precursor. It is a necessary part of the process. Some of what is imagined turns out to be wrong, which is par for the course when you step off the charts into the uncharted. But when you’re right, science is positioned for the next leap and you get a high school named after you.
Oh these are glorious insights, marron!
And I certainly would like to affirm this insight:
The other point people miss continuously is your point that information, the transmission of signals that keeps cellular machines working, the informational template that directs the cells into their proper place, the storage and transmissions of data that we recognize in our own machinery is a key marker that distinguishes life from non-life. This idea is only barely beginning to dawn, but if I could devote myself to any piece of research it would be this.
Beautiful essay/post, marron. Thank you oh so very much!
[The “other” philosophy, the search for meaning and values, is something we all engage in. Even people who reject the notion that life has any transcendental meaning find themselves getting up in the morning to go out and build careers, businesses, families, as if it meant something. But this kind of philosophy is really separate from anything that a scientist deals with on the job and isn’t really germane to this discussion.]
Very insightful and well said.