Ron Edge

Department of Physics

Tel. 803-777-6830

Fax 803-777-3065

e-mail address: n530010@vm.sc.edu

Interest in Science Studies:

Figures - Paul Davies

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Synopsis of Presentation:

Our presenters at the Science Studies meeting on February 12th, 1998 were Christine James (doctoral student in the Philosophy Department) and Ron Edge (Physics). They were both concerned with the problem of objectivity: What are we to make of the fact that our own minds appear to be inextricably implicated in our understanding of the world? For Christine, this question defines her area of research as a Historian and Philosopher of Science. In contrast, it represents an occasion for cosmological wonder and puzzlement to the physicist who still finds himself confronted with more questions than answers. Here is a brief synopsis of Ron's presentation:

Ron's presentation took us past a series of delightful and stimulating images and quotations, from the Liar's Paradox ("This statement is a lie") to one of Escher's twisted staircases, from Warty Bliggens, the toad (from the lives and times of archy and mehitabel by don marquis) to the direction of the universe, from Paul Davies's The Mind of God to John Wheeler's Final Anthropic Principle.

Both of these statements are obviously true: "We behold ourselves in the universe" and "the universe beholds itself in us." How are these statements related? Is the first of these statements merely about mind and knowledge, the second one merely about quarks and atoms, DNA and evolutionary principles? We refer to DNA- sequences as information or our genetic code; our attempts to map the human genome therefore appear like reading and writing. And looking from the other side of the mirror, our mind may just be a particular evolutionary stage of matter. Such considerations have led Davies, Wheeler, and Ron to reconsider questions which have long been considered taboo in modern science, questions of metaphysics and teleology, culminating in the Final Anthropic Principle: "Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the universe, and once it comes into existence, it will never die out."

When confronted with statements like these, philosophers typically ask in which sense the word "must" is used here: Are we talking about logical or conceptual necessity or about physical destiny -- and how might we distinguish the two? [The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote that in the world (defined as "everything that is the case") solipsism coincides with pure realism. While he, too, is considered a mystic by some, but he was able to give clear meaning to this thought that, strictly speaking, "the world" is identical to "my world" and vice versa.]

Is there no way to break the (vicious?) circle and step outside the interdependence between self and world, mind and matter? Ron suggested that this ought to be possible when he told, on his handout, the tale of the drunk and the lamp post:

Someone came upon a drunk hunting around under a lamppost. "What are you looking for?" he said. "I lost my keys," was the reply. They hunted for a while and the passerby said, "Are you sure you lost them here?" "No," replied the drunk, "I lost them over there. Bu there is no point in looking there, it's so dark you can't see anything." Even though our vision is improved, we still have a long way to go before we are no longer in the position of the drunk.

Alfred Nordmann