On Shaky Ground
I came across a tweet by Richard Dawkins a few days back which irked me. It read:
‘Science is not a social construct. Science’s truths were true before there were societies; will still be true after all philosophers are dead; were true before any philosophers were born; were true before there were any minds, even trilobite or dinosaur minds, to notice them.’
To which he added as a linked tweet:
‘OBVIOUSLY by “science’s truths”, I meant the truths about the real world that science aspires to find, NOT scientists’ beliefs during any particular historical era — phlogiston, etc. My point was only that there’s such a thing called objective reality — denied by postmodern pseuds.’
Richard Dawkins is, of course, a renowned evolutionary biologist and one of our prominent public intellectuals today, with a huge following across the world. His books on natural selection — such as The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, Ancestor’s Tale, River out of Eden — are outstanding. My initial response to the tweet was a disappointment that someone of such high intellectual regard could show a basic lack of interest in some fundamental metaphysical questions. Going by how he picked on philosophers in his tweet (a favorite punching bag of people like Dawkins, Steven Weinberg and some other major scientists), my sense is that he dismisses any metaphysical investigation as a waste of time, pursued by ‘pseuds’. This is why children should be introduced to philosophy in school, I thought, not just to mathematics and the sciences. Would someone who has read — and seriously introspected on — Kant’s writings (for instance) be able to confidently claim what Dawkins did? Would they be able to dismiss all subjectivity when it comes understanding the world? Would they be so glib about some standalone ‘truths’ of science, which Dawkins helpfully claims were true before any philosophers we born? And I pick Kant to start making this point because Kant tried to strike a balance between the subjective and objective lenses of truth; here is a philosopher who was deploying every argument he could muster to build a system that had place for science as an (extremely successful) empirical pursuit, while still accepting that ultimate reality transcends that, and is unknowable (more on Kant’s metaphysics in a bit). A person of Dawkins’ temperament or bias might not have time for, say, Berkeley, an empirical idealist who claimed that there is no such thing as an objective world, or pure rationalists like Descartes. But not only was Kant trying to strike a balance (whether he succeeded or failed is a different matter), he went about laying out his argument is as robust, and yes ‘scientific’, a manner that he could. The very minimum one would expect, 200 years post Kant, is that a leading intellectual of our times will pause for thought before talking confidently about ‘objective reality’ completely independent of the minds of trilobites and philosophers.
There are a few different claims in these couple of tweets that I want to pull out and examine in more detail. I want to understand better why I instinctively disagree with his statement, with his sentiment. So let us think about this shall we? It seems logical and commonsensical to say that there is this thing called objective reality; that this objective reality always existed, and always will, regardless of the presence or absence of anyone to observe it. When we leave one room and move to another, we are still pretty secure in our knowledge that the chair in the former room still exists right now, though nobody is looking at it, right? Isn’t what Dawkins is saying analogous to this chair, but magnified to a cosmic scale? We humans came into existence very late in the universe’s lifespan — the universe existed before us, and will continue to exist after we have departed the stage; the principles of mathematics and logic (the language in which science is written) are ever-existent — by definition they do not come into existence at a certain time and then change into something else down the line, correct? Their reality is certainly not dependent on any minds; math and logic are not created by observers; the fundamental laws of physics are there, and we observe them as they are. What could be more straightforward?
Well…
Without even invoking quantum theory (where, to put it crudely, things cannot be concretely said to exist one way or the other until an observation collapses probabilistic wave functions), let’s ask how we can know with certainty that anything exists.
What are our modes of perception? By what mechanisms do we go about knowing and understanding the world around us? We have our sense organs, the receptacles of light and sound that bounce off the things around us — this is the first level of perception. But of course when I perceive the Empire State building next to me, it is not the case that the building itself is reproduced inside me. Then what is it that I am seeing when I see the building? Not the building itself (whatever that might be), but some internal representation. So then that is the second level of perception — something that makes this internal model.
There should then be an observer to see the model, isn’t it? Of course. But let us not even go there for now. Let us say that the model built in the brain is somehow self-perceived. But then, even if you discount the Observer, there must be a third layer in the perception chain — that of Reason. Something that can make sense of the images or models created by the brain; something that can run the rules of logic to present the works to us in a coherent, consistent manner. So three layers: sense organs, internal image builder, and a reasoning layer. This framework seems quite basic to me, and not too controversial. We cannot know about the world without some chain of transformation from the ‘world’ to ‘us’, and this 3-step transformation seems reasonable for a start. Of course, this assumes that there is a world out there that is separate from the mind. But let us make this assumption. As we will see, there are enough difficulties in comprehending the ‘commonsensical’ view of the world itself, without having to bring in idealism into the mix.
For the purposes of this argument I am assuming an empirical view of the world. That is, one where all knowledge ultimately comes from experience — i.e. in our formulation, sense perceptions of the world. In traditional Western philosophy empiricism stood in opposition to a rationalist view of the world — one where all knowledge ultimately comes from reason. My assumption is that Dawkins and others similarly minded would be partial to an empirical worldview, hence I would like to reason this out on that terms, play it out on their home turf.
Let us take our 3-step chain then. Our sense organs are different in almost all ways from, say, a species of fish that lives in the very deeps of the ocean. There is hardly any overlap in the range of signals (auditory, visual, or others) that humans and this fish take in. And bear in mind that these signals are the fundamental elements of experience — all perception and knowledge comes in layers above this. Even if this fish does not have conscious understanding of anything, it still needs to navigate through the world, for which it needs to build an internal model of the world; any model of the outer world is ultimately built on top of these sensory signals, and these signals are completely different for these two species. What validity do we have to claim that there is a common object which is being perceived in both cases, when there is no overlap in the fundamental elements of experience? In response let me say the following. It is not just our biological sense organs that interface with the world — we can build tools that operate at different ranges, that pull in signals that human senses are not directly open to. So we have telescopes, microscopes; infra-red, ultra-violet, sub-(and super-)sonic detectors. We will never be able to perceive these signals directly — they will never be objects of our experience — but we can read the measurement numbers on our screens instead, and use these to build our understanding of these objects. We are now in a position to try and answer my question — since multiple perceptual lenses (my eyes, the image on the infra-red monitor) are providing a ‘similar’ picture, we can say that they are indeed indicating the same object. Thus we will assume (for now) that the signals that we receive from our senses are an accurate reflection — in some way if not fully — of the ‘world out there’.
Fine then, over to the next step in the chain. There are raw signals (light, sound, etc.) coming in. Some sort of magic needs to happen to turn them into images that make sense to us. How are all the various cacophonous signals coming in through my eyes, my ears, my nose right now being built into this wonderful, multicolored representation of the room I am in? The room itself doesn’t come and sit inside my head, so what I am ‘seeing’ is a model of the room, correct? A representation of the room that — we assume — reflects the room out there. There is then something in us that builds this model.
Now let us ask this — can you be certain that the model builder accurately reflects the world out there? We only have the model to go with, we do not have the option of placing the model and the ‘real world’ side by side and comparing the two. The answer is of course that we can have no way of knowing for sure. Similar to the line of reasoning we took with the sensory signals, the best we can say is that our model seems to corroborate with the models that everyone else has built. When I go about the world interacting with people, we seem to be speaking about the same objects, our reference framework seems to be the same. So while there is no way of me knowing if their model ‘looks’ to them the same as what mine ‘looks’ to me (is what I see when I say ‘green’ the same as what they see), both the models seem to correspond similarly to some objective world.
But think about this — if we only have our mental models to go with to get any idea of the world, then all these ‘other’ people I am talking about are also part of the model. I am assuming their reality (i.e. the fact that they exist as independent entities outside of my mind) in order to prove the validity of the rest of the model (i.e. the objects of the world at large). In other words I am assuming the validity of my mental model in order to prove the validity of my mental model. Circular argument, right?
How about the third layer, then? The reasoning one? Let me try making a bit more clear what I mean by that. We have this model, which somehow gets built from the sensory signals that we receive. But if there isn’t a layer of comprehension on top of this, then the model is just an inert, powerless ‘picture’. There needs to be a way of making meaning out the model; a way of applying rules of logic, comparison, continuity. Where do these fundamental rules come from? For we have reached the end of our 3-step chain; we do not have any other layer on top of Reason. There is nowhere we can go, no further crutches we can use to explain Reason, no further eyes to look at — and make sense of — this Observer. Or we could keep adding additional layers to make sense of the preceding one, and then it is turtles all the way down. The bottom line is that there is no way to be certain of the validity of these models; there is no way to even be certain about the existence of anyone or anything else apart from yourself.
What then is the stance of someone like Dawkins? They might dismiss any talk about the impossibility of certain knowledge as loony talk; they might say that instead of wasting time over things that cannot be proved one way or the other, let us accept the world as it seems to us. My observations of objects seem to be match others’ accounts (they will of course not even want to entertain the thought that these others are figments of my own imagination); events in the world seem to follow very repeatable patterns; the laws of physics that we discover are validated by each and every observation; cause and effect seem to be in a tight embrace through eternity. This being the case, you might ask, why dwell on imponderables, why not instead take the world for what it so clearly seems to be — as a system governed by unshakeable laws, that can be probed objectively, that is a common ground of truth for all of us, that is not observer dependent. Strong argument, but let me bring Hume onto the stage for just a minute.
I mentioned ’cause and effect’ just now. The notion that every effect has a cause — that causes lead to effects — is absolutely fundamental to any scientific comprehension of the world. There would be no way for us to write down a single law of nature if not for (what we take to be) the axiomatic principle of cause-and-effect. That is why, when David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding came out and started to be read, circulated, and understood, it caused quite a tremor in philosophical circles. Hume takes some of the our most fundamental, axiomatic concepts and puts them through a wringer. One of the themes he takes up is causality.
We drop a porcelain cup, it breaks. We drop another cup, and that one breaks too. You throw a tennis ball to the wall, it bounces back to you. Do this one hundred times, and it bounces back a hundred times. Throw it to the wall a thousand times — it bounces back each time. All through your life this is what you have observed. Seems like straightforward cause-and-effect, right? The ‘cause’ (you dropping the porcelain cup form a certain height), will lead to the ‘effect’ (it shatters). Let us generalize this to any two events — event A is the cause, B the effect. The A → B relation seems quite fundamental. You don’t suddenly find the porcelain cup rebounding off the ground and bouncing around the room, do you? You don’t find the cup hit the floor and then transform into a cat; you don’t find the ball disappearing through the wall. ‘If A happens, then B happens’ seems to be a statement on extremely solid ground.
Hume pushes us to think a bit more about this. All we know is that each time we have done A, we have found that it results in B. But what gives us certainty that this relationship will hold in the future as well? How can we be sure that A will result in B for all eternity? For we are saying that A and B are two discrete events. And let us not respond by saying that the cause-effect with the porcelain cup is a macro abstraction of finer and finer cause-and-effect relationships between the molecules that make up the glass, the molecules in the air, the forces such as gravity, etc. It certainly is; but keep breaking it down as fine as you want, you ultimately get to a series of discrete cause-effect events. Let these micro events be our A → B. So to ask the question again: we know that in our experience — and in everyone’s else’s recorded experience through history — B follows A; but why does that mean that B must necessarily follow the next time A happens? There is no reason it must. There is no third element connecting A and B that is ensuring the effect. (If there were a third element C, then there must be a fourth element D connecting A and C, and so on unto infinity).
It doesn’t help to argue that microscopic reality is not a collection of discrete physical interactions but a continuous wave of some sort — for if this is translating to the ordered world that we observe, there has to be a tight relation between the properties of the wave at one portion of space-time and another; there have to be changes in the wave over time, which account for the events we see in the macroscopic world before us, and these changes — we assume — are causally linked; in other words we are still in the A-causes-B situation. Unless you want to say that the whole of existence is so intimately connected that there are really no discrete events, which brings us deliciously close to a sort of monism — which I assume is not what Dawkins was hinting at.
Thus regardless of how we view nature at the microscopic level we are assuming causality, and thus we do need to address Hume’s questions. And what Hume is saying is that there are no grounds to claim with certainty that B will continue to follow A in the future. All we can say is that B has followed A whenever we have observed it in the past, so we are psychologically conditioned to see a tight causality. There is nothing sacred, in other words, about causality. All we can see are discrete events, one following the other, but we do not see anything actually connecting the two events. In other words, causality itself cannot be empirically proven.
One common response to this might be to say that everything happens as per laws of nature; that these laws are fundamental and ever-present; and thus B will continue to follow A because it is to ordained by these laws. But what are these laws if not merely a codification of what we have observed in the world? We look at the world around us and identify patterns, and based on these patterns we come up with generalized theories of how the world might be. And we test these theories rigorously by making further observations, until we are sufficiently satisfied that the theory seems to hold. In some cases the seed for the theory comes from a moment of creative inspiration (instead of from observation directly), but then it is again tested against observations of the world. The laws that stay are the ones that seem to hold every time we check; we assume these laws will always remain so, because the world seems to be regularly structured on these laws whenever and wherever we look. But ultimately the laws are statements representing what we have thus far observed in the world; there is nothing in the laws themselves that say they should apply for eternity; they give us no special license to believe — with certainty — that the world will always continue to run on these lines.
Where are we now with our line of argument? All empirical observations of the world — the basic units of a scientific comprehension of the world — are ultimately subject-dependent; and causality itself — the mechanism that enables us to build a coherent comprehension of the world — is ultimately not provable. How then does any talk about sacred scientific truths (that are observer-independent) make sense?
Hume’s arguments had a catalytic effect on philosophers like Kant — it shook them out of the comforts of their preconceived ideas. Hume was questioning the very foundations of all the knowledge we had built; if we wanted to retain and build on that knowledge, then we had to take his objections head on. Kant conceded Hume’s arguments that causality cannot be proven empirically; but he also wanted his philosophy to provide a firm grounding for — to be compatible with — the Newtonian physics of his time, for which causality needed to be fundamentally true. Kant thus argued that causality is true, but it is brought in to play — ‘a priori’ — by the observer. It is part of the frame of reference that we use to make sense of the world.
In other words causality is not a property of the world in-itself, it is something that observers such as you and I bring with us — part of our frame of reference — when we engage with the world. We structure our sense perceptions in causal patterns. Kant is not saying that causality doesn’t exist — like I mentioned, one of the major objectives of his philosophy is to reclaim stable footing for causality (and morality, etc., but more on that later); it exists, he says, but in the subjective gaze. This means that it doesn’t make sense to talk about causality as a property of things in themselves. The world that we perceive requires both the empirical signals from ‘outside’ and the reasoning framework from ‘inside’.
I take Kant as an example because here was someone striving to accommodate the great successes of the physical sciences into his larger metaphysical framework, and then concluding that it did not make sense to talk of scientific truths or knowledge independent of the observer. He agreed that science had made remarkable strides in his time, but he railed against those who took this as reason to write elegies on metaphysics. He wanted to bring resurgence into metaphysics — the quest for ultimate reality (the reality behind appearances) — while not dismissing the physical sciences. He tried to bring together rationalism and empiricism — for ultimately, in Kant’s philosophy, all knowledge starts from experience, but it then needs to be processed by reason.
We might have taken a bit of a detour, but where does this leave us? We have argued that it would be incomplete to talk purely of the world ‘in itself’ — of scientific truths independent of our gaze; we have argued that we cannot ever claim to be certain of the knowledge we have of the world. So the best that can be said is that Dawkins’ perspective is a very commonsensical one — an assumption about the nature of the world that we all instinctively make as we go about our days. We do live our lives assuming that the physical laws will persist, that causality will hold true. You might concede that yes, if you keep probing the fundamentals of our knowledge, we quickly reach murky ground; but does that mean one should ignore the obvious messages streaming in from the world around us — a world seemingly full of patterns and laws that hold like clockwork? No, of course not. The successes of empirical science are all around us, and our lives would be unrecognizable without it. Even the Advaita Vedantin, to whom the phenomenal world is maya, does not dismiss the world as a delusion — what she says is that the world is illusory only from the standpoint of ultimate reality; the phenomenal world is not real (since the only reality is the non-dual Self), she says, but neither is it unreal; the phenomenal world — maya — holds true for us until we have attained experiential knowledge of absolute reality; the world is empirically consistent and cannot simply be dismissed away.
Thus one need not start doubting everything we see around us — that would be lunacy. But — in my opinion — one must refrain from snobbishness when talking about absolute scientific truths. If we unshackle our minds a little bit, we might gain new perspectives on the world and ourselves — a perspective that will not negate science but instead place it within a much broader canvas. Is too much to ask, when faced with the ultimate questions, for a little bit of humility?
