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Utility and the Experiment of Living
Action
The complexity of the world is such that thought experiments and abstract analysis cannot be relied upon to predict outcomes or real events. The puritanical reductionist might object to this statement and point to the descriptive power of science and the utility of is technologies. However if we accept that science, like mathematics will by definition remain logically incomplete then we are forced to to admit fundamental limitations of the belief systems that we can devise. As a result we should think of our cultures of science, technology, law, politics and religion as ongoing experiments into the unknown and sometimes the unknowable.
The full expression of our philosophical analysis should therefore comes not in the comparison of ideas but from our actions in the world. Our success comes from the experiments in living that we actually carry out. Nevertheless, it seems sensible to base our actions, important decisions and belief systems on carefully considered analyses.
Rather than be preoccupied by whether or not we have arrived at 'the truth' of a particular matter, I consider that it is better to determine whether our not our ideas have any utility, by whatever criteria we choose to adopt and whether or not they bring us satisfaction. We can of course act as if we have discovered a reliable proposition and still discard the idea that it is either true or false in any absolute sense. In so doing we can also dispose of some unnecessary metaphysical speculation and concentrate or more productive analyses. For me utility can only be decided on a pragmatic experimental basis either in the social, intellectual or practical domains of human activity. In other words, does the idea work in the sense that empowers action in the world? By an abstract metaphorical extension we might remember the notion in physics that when a book sits on a table it does no work. It is not engaged in changing the world of ideas or action.
Experimentation
If we were pessimists we might see the casting off of absolutes as creating a terrible tyranny of experimentation from which we could never escape. In our pessimism we might fear being trapped in a perpetual struggle for a better way to be, through experimentation of a moral, intellectual, technological, practical, political, and social nature. We should regard the well known religious slogan " the same yesterday, today, and forever" as a very bad piece of historical analysis although concede that it is a really 'flash' or 'cool' marketing idea designed to buy 'brand loyalty' amongst the devotees. We should be pleased instead to consider that our most cherished ideas, be they scientific or otherwise will be empirically improved on in the future through observation and experimentation of a physical or social nature. In this way we might come to view the central role of deductive reasoning as the formulation of new experimental tests.
In this experimentation we can not act alone for without the culture in which we are embedded we are naked and can achieve little. Indeed we do not act alone. Instead we are brought into the world as part of a family and live as communities of interest engaged in practical or intellectual enterprises. The transient paths of our short lives cannot be independent of others regardless of our power or weakness, our wealth or our poverty. Our experiments are communal and our sense of self is very strongly influenced by our culture. We have a tendency to celebrate particular thinkers in the history if ideas, be they religious, political scientific or philosophical and this practice can be tremendously uplifting and motivating. We should always however consider when identifying our personal heroes that individual ideas or authors are anchored in a network of related formulations developed by our culture. In the course or our analysis we are coerced into some degree of cultural relativism however it should remain uppermost in our minds that the experiments of tomorrow will be different from those of today.
If we approach the other side of the exploratory (or experimental) paradigm with optimism we can see both the necessity and rewards of experimentation. Through experimentation we become what we and our forebears have not been and present to future generations new styles of existence. It is then for the new generations to make of them what they will.
We will not, through our experimentation, knowingly approach any definite conclusions or any higher state of being or even stumble upon how things should be. We can merely seek to discover what is temporarily the most utilitarian and satisfying given our present and transient state of awareness. We will at times justifiably feel that we have continued to make the sort of cultural, technological and scientific progress that took us as a species from the Savannahs of Africa to the libraries, laboratories, courts and parliaments of today. The experiments that brought us to our present situation will at times leave us in strange places and give us bizarre ideas.
The culturally strange: 'Oil refinery' in the centre of Paris (Centre Pompidou)
If, as individuals, we attempt to cast off the bizarre, the inappropriate and the informal conjectures and rituals of religions and relinquish as much of the vulgarities of power as is possible, what then do we have except the freedom to experiment? This freedom entails the fallibility of error and the joy of discovery. That joy will, of course, be illusory at times and appear to create progress on occasions. So be it.
"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong."
RICHARD P. FEYNMANExperiment and belief are not two alternative options. We are all engaged in experiments whether we like it or not. Pascal envisaged us as Philosophical gamblers rather than experimenters. The idea of an experiment seems more appropriate for like the researcher we do not idly stand by while the race is run or the cards are dealt. We pursue a course of action. We simply experiment by being alive and by being part of a culture. We either formulate our own experiments or live those devised by others. We either channel this inevitability of existence into a belief in our cultural values or instead adopt many provisional faiths as motivations for our lifelong experiments.
Are the results of experimentation cumulative and even progressive
Willard Quine has argued that scientific examination is in some senses is cumulative. As we carry out investigation and experiment we feel that our understanding broadens since we develop more complex perceptions of the world. Quine asserts that even in this very limited sense we could at times be making progress. Any use of the dreaded 'p' word (progress!) is avoided amongst philosophers however since that would impose on them the need to come to decisions about the practical world rather than generate more questions. (Philosophers of course delight in the elaboration of understanding through the action of asking additional meaningful questions. By that strategy the philosophical and be safeguarded against the possibility of error.) Of course by contrast the empirical experimentalist sees that falsification or error in an analysis can sometimes be productively exploited.
Any assertion of progress or advancement has relativistic implications. Worse still 'charges of relativism' could be forthcoming from rationalist colleagues. Interaction with the world through action and experiment often lead to more complexity and the possibilities for new inconsistencies to emerge. This is the rationalist nightmare: analytical action leads to complexity, which risks insolubility. Instead it is better to be enveloped by the comfort blanket of formal logic which gives the spurious feeling of having arrived at a truth value for arguments given valid premises. It is not for the logician to be worried about the soundness of the conclusion as long as he can be assured that the formal method is rationally correct.
Experiment has for the philosopher the unfortunate property of producing sense data. Empirically obtained sense data tends to be messy, which would then not suit the self-appointed purposes of the philosopher. I agree with Quine when he envisages science and philosophy as one continuum of cognitive activity. However we should go further and envisage all of as experimenters in our daily lives.
Faith
None of what has been said so far should be taken to mean that we should lack faith for it is through instinct and faith that we are motivated to act in the world. This condition applies to the pursuit of science as it does to acceptance of particular religious or political beliefs. Our faith however should not be arbitrary but be rooted in observation of the world that we actually encounter. We also risk the possibility that our faith might serve little purpose unless we are prepared to test it by prediction and systematic investigation.
Tests of Belief
Although I have argued that the act of living and behaving within the context of a particular cultures are the ultimate experiments, be they scientific or political. There arises in the short term the problem of devising tests for our ideas. When we consider only the immediate, the most important consideration for the pragmatist or the empiricist is how to devise and carry out tests. We know from many academic disciplines, including clinical research in medicine, how very difficult it is to devise meaningful tests of belief and how easy it is for the charlatan to foist upon us the most ridiculous practices, motivations and ideas. It can be very difficult to distinguish between the deceptive conjurers of ideas and those who in retrospect will be regarded as innovative geniuses.
To truly understand the boundaries of the experimental testing we must turn to reductionism, for this has now become the grand philosophical project of our culture, whether or not philosophers and the philosophical care to acknowledge that state of affairs. Our analysis will be vacuous with respect to today's way of living if we fail to consider the nature of the reductionist project and profit by it. For me reductionism begins where the indiscipline of mysticism stops and where the solace of romanticism encounters its limits.
(I acknowledge the influence of a remark of Prof. Paul Chuchland in one of the 'Beyond Belief' conferences to the effect that 'culture is experimental'. )
On the Philosophy of Belief
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Scotland, 12th October 2007 and thereafter
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