The End of the Mechanistic Worldview
Disclaimer: this thread is inspired by recent interviews by Prof. Dr. Mattias Desmet, which raised questions about the limits of the mechanistic worldview. The ideas and questions I present here are for the most part my interpretation of what he has said, and not my own.
The Mechanistic Worldview
The mechanistic worldview, also the scientific worldview (though not the same as the scientific method), found its origin during the Age of Enlightenment, during which it can be said that the dominant method of understanding the world went from religious and spiritual beliefs, to scientific theories and rationality.
Through observation and calculation it was found to be possible to understand the complex phenomena that underlie our reality.
Great strides were made in many fields of human understanding, confirming the validity of this (mostly) new way of looking at the world.
Today, the scientific worldview is dominant. We have narrowed our understanding of reality down to elementary particles and quantum physics, and the prevailing view is that every phenomenon can be understood as long as we can understand the way these elementary particles interact with one another.
The Allure of the Mechanistic Worldview
In an era where men were thought of as slaves to God, the scientific worldview raised them to masters of reality. One by one, "God's" secrets fell at the hands of increasingly thorough and complex scientific study.
The mechanistic worldview contains within it a promise of power. A promise of complete control over our reality. A promise of certainty - of complete understanding.
Man, trapped as he is in a complex and uncertain reality, desires this security of knowing above all else, and the mechanistic worldview promises that.
The nature of morality changes when its basis is no longer fuzzy debates over thousand-year-old scriptures, but instead reason, rationality and hard facts and logic.
Therefore the power that was promised did not limit itself to the physical world, but extends also to the world of thought, offering new, supposedly conclusive justifications of our ideals.
The Limit of the Mechanistic Worldview
The scientific method has brought mankind very far indeed, and it has made good on many of it promises.
However, today we are also increasingly confronted with its apparent limits. Complex systems theory, chaos theory and quantum mechanics are examples of fields of study that bring man close to what is ominously called the edge of chaos - the boundary between predictable order and unpredictable disorder.
Concepts like the Lorenz system and the Malkus waterwheel show us that chaotic systems, while still possibly deterministic, as evidenced by the fact that plotting its movements seems to yield all kinds of geometric shapes (reminiscent of Plato's forms, perhaps?), may yet be inherently unpredictable by man.
The Need for a New Worldview
While science suggests that we ought to be humble about the extent of our current knowledge, the mechanistic worldview, where it has mostly been faithful to scientific methods and principles, now has departed from it.
It clings to past promises, but no longer seems to require a scientific basis for any of them.
Instead, it assumes that all of these things are 'right around the corner', and when science will (soon) make good on these promises, its conclusions will definitely coincide with today's preconceptions.
We may observe this mode of thought when it comes to complex systems such as the human body, the human brain and psychology, human societies and politics, virology, climate, etc.
Increasingly we see that, where once the mechanistic worldview was a source of progress, humility and scientific rigor and critical thought, it instead is becoming a source of arrogance and wishful thinking.
Especially in the realm of politics we see how governments eagerly seek to turn the mechanistic promises of power over reality, into power over people. The slightest scientific hint or statistic is enough to justify the most far-reaching conclusions, and through it, the most far-reaching intrusions into the lives of citizens.
Citizens, meanwhile, are seen as little more than soulless objects, not unlike the machinery that once instilled us with trust in the mechanical worldview. Given the right input, the citizens can be made to exhibit the politically desirable output. Through processes of social engineering man can be constructed to suit the purposes of other men. Man has become a machine.
So, what is the alternative?
If you believe I will now suggest a return to the days of scripture and dogma, and of the selected few who by their extraordinary faculties had the ability to tell us of the nature of God, you are wrong.
In fact, I will argue we are already back at this unfortunate state of affairs.
The mechanistic promises of absolute power over reality and life and death is the new God and paradise. It's dogmas the theories that provide nigh-unbounded power over citizens and promises that have yet to find any grounding in our observed reality.
And its clergy? No, not the scientists themselves. Indeed it were never the religious philosophers or theologians that went on turn their intellectual fruits into a tool for subjugation. Politicians are the new clergy, appointed by the masses (if even that) and thereby divinely qualified to interpret the facts and distill from it exactly the kind of power they may now wield over the unknowing 'common folk'.
They have churches which we now know as 'media outlets' in which their gospel is preached and the followers faithfully sing along.
I could carry on this simile for a while, but I think the image I am sketching is clear.
They even have an inquistion - legions of ideologically possessed fanatics that have a special knack for rooting out heresy and other 'dangerous' ideas that may challenge their worldview. Obviously people are no longer burned at the stake upon suspicion of heresy. The days of such barbarity are far behind us(?). Instead today we practice 'cancel culture', but in addition to bullying disobedient individuals into silence, we allow them to live.
Oh, how far we've come.
So, the alternative? I don't presume to answer such questions for others. I'll leave that up to you to discuss and decide.
The Mechanistic Worldview
The mechanistic worldview, also the scientific worldview (though not the same as the scientific method), found its origin during the Age of Enlightenment, during which it can be said that the dominant method of understanding the world went from religious and spiritual beliefs, to scientific theories and rationality.
Through observation and calculation it was found to be possible to understand the complex phenomena that underlie our reality.
Great strides were made in many fields of human understanding, confirming the validity of this (mostly) new way of looking at the world.
Today, the scientific worldview is dominant. We have narrowed our understanding of reality down to elementary particles and quantum physics, and the prevailing view is that every phenomenon can be understood as long as we can understand the way these elementary particles interact with one another.
The Allure of the Mechanistic Worldview
In an era where men were thought of as slaves to God, the scientific worldview raised them to masters of reality. One by one, "God's" secrets fell at the hands of increasingly thorough and complex scientific study.
The mechanistic worldview contains within it a promise of power. A promise of complete control over our reality. A promise of certainty - of complete understanding.
Man, trapped as he is in a complex and uncertain reality, desires this security of knowing above all else, and the mechanistic worldview promises that.
The nature of morality changes when its basis is no longer fuzzy debates over thousand-year-old scriptures, but instead reason, rationality and hard facts and logic.
Therefore the power that was promised did not limit itself to the physical world, but extends also to the world of thought, offering new, supposedly conclusive justifications of our ideals.
The Limit of the Mechanistic Worldview
The scientific method has brought mankind very far indeed, and it has made good on many of it promises.
However, today we are also increasingly confronted with its apparent limits. Complex systems theory, chaos theory and quantum mechanics are examples of fields of study that bring man close to what is ominously called the edge of chaos - the boundary between predictable order and unpredictable disorder.
Concepts like the Lorenz system and the Malkus waterwheel show us that chaotic systems, while still possibly deterministic, as evidenced by the fact that plotting its movements seems to yield all kinds of geometric shapes (reminiscent of Plato's forms, perhaps?), may yet be inherently unpredictable by man.
The Need for a New Worldview
While science suggests that we ought to be humble about the extent of our current knowledge, the mechanistic worldview, where it has mostly been faithful to scientific methods and principles, now has departed from it.
It clings to past promises, but no longer seems to require a scientific basis for any of them.
Instead, it assumes that all of these things are 'right around the corner', and when science will (soon) make good on these promises, its conclusions will definitely coincide with today's preconceptions.
We may observe this mode of thought when it comes to complex systems such as the human body, the human brain and psychology, human societies and politics, virology, climate, etc.
Increasingly we see that, where once the mechanistic worldview was a source of progress, humility and scientific rigor and critical thought, it instead is becoming a source of arrogance and wishful thinking.
Especially in the realm of politics we see how governments eagerly seek to turn the mechanistic promises of power over reality, into power over people. The slightest scientific hint or statistic is enough to justify the most far-reaching conclusions, and through it, the most far-reaching intrusions into the lives of citizens.
Citizens, meanwhile, are seen as little more than soulless objects, not unlike the machinery that once instilled us with trust in the mechanical worldview. Given the right input, the citizens can be made to exhibit the politically desirable output. Through processes of social engineering man can be constructed to suit the purposes of other men. Man has become a machine.
So, what is the alternative?
If you believe I will now suggest a return to the days of scripture and dogma, and of the selected few who by their extraordinary faculties had the ability to tell us of the nature of God, you are wrong.
In fact, I will argue we are already back at this unfortunate state of affairs.
The mechanistic promises of absolute power over reality and life and death is the new God and paradise. It's dogmas the theories that provide nigh-unbounded power over citizens and promises that have yet to find any grounding in our observed reality.
And its clergy? No, not the scientists themselves. Indeed it were never the religious philosophers or theologians that went on turn their intellectual fruits into a tool for subjugation. Politicians are the new clergy, appointed by the masses (if even that) and thereby divinely qualified to interpret the facts and distill from it exactly the kind of power they may now wield over the unknowing 'common folk'.
They have churches which we now know as 'media outlets' in which their gospel is preached and the followers faithfully sing along.
I could carry on this simile for a while, but I think the image I am sketching is clear.
They even have an inquistion - legions of ideologically possessed fanatics that have a special knack for rooting out heresy and other 'dangerous' ideas that may challenge their worldview. Obviously people are no longer burned at the stake upon suspicion of heresy. The days of such barbarity are far behind us(?). Instead today we practice 'cancel culture', but in addition to bullying disobedient individuals into silence, we allow them to live.
Oh, how far we've come.
So, the alternative? I don't presume to answer such questions for others. I'll leave that up to you to discuss and decide.
Comments (84)
IMO, the new worldview can be found at the intersection(s) of science and mysticism.
We can see it as an intersection both disciplines, indeed. But sooner or later you would need to pick one or other. Mysticism stills lack of demonstrative practices. It is good to debate about some theories related to knowledge and how the world should works but we need to put them in practice or at least show it both empirically and physically.
For example: The distance between the earth and the moon is 384.400 km. This is not a mystery but a solid evidence proved thanks to science.
Quoting 180 Proof
:100:
Science can help you to build better and destroy better, but it cannot tell you what to build or what to destroy.
Science can increase life expectancy, but not fulfilment.
If you need a tool, science is the best, but if you need a friend, it is worse than useless; science can only tell you how to manipulate people as tools. And anyone can see that friendship is what is needed tomato best use of science for everyone. If we we were friends, we would not be polluting each other's world. One need not reject the great tool that is science, but one needs to learn how to be a friend.
Reasonable suggestion. But...this also depends on the criteria of what is considerred "adaptive," which to a large extent are enmeshed with the objectives and methods of science. So a bit of a vicious circularity there.
A quick Google search indicates that Dr. Desmet is primarily concerned with The Psychology of Totalitarianism. And I infer that he views the current trend toward Fascist politics as a return to the ruthless top-down control of the Catholic Church, that eventually led to the Protestant rebellions and to the Scientific emancipation from Inquisition-enforced dogma. One ironic result of the rise of sectarian & secular worldviews was the emergence of NAZIism in Germany a few centuries after the Enlightenment era. The Industrial Revolution, built upon scientific knowledge, but allied with top-down Capitalism, fostered the rise of robber barons, and allowed Hitler to produce the most powerful war machine the world had ever known. His radical worldview was a sort of secular revival of the "glory that was Rome", including the imperial Roman Church. Hitler's implementation of that dream of world dominion was also based on a belief in essential superiority & purity of the Chosen People. A pseudo-religious political worldview, based on strict obedience to authority.
Although that kind of Totalitarianism was tamped-down for a while, it is currently resurgent in the secularized & scientized Western democracies. Donald Trump, among others, has revived the spirit of Totalitarianism, by synthesizing politics with a religious inclination to worship a higher power, as embodied in an all-powerful Father Figure : the Fuhrer, the King, the Pope. Apparently, some people are not comfortable with free-thinking; preferring to be told what to do, and to believe. Such top-down control systems -- in both Fascist & Communist forms -- tend to emphasize the collective "Folk" over individual persons, and conservative traditions over progressive innovations. Yet it utilizes the fruits of Science -- technology; weapons, etc -- while ignoring the free-thinking philosophy underlying its Mechanistic Power over Nature.
Perhaps it was the observation that Totalitarian Politics is based on a Mechanistic Paradigm of centralized power, that roused Dr. Desmet to call for the End of the Mechanistic Worldview. I'm not sure what alternative egalitarian political system he has in mind, but I doubt it requires submission of Science & Philosophy to Politics & Economics & popular Media. Tzeentch, do you know what he envisions as a Non-Mechanical Worldview to guide a multi-cultural & querulous planet, that is about to conquer new worlds beyond Terra Firma? :smile:
ok. well if we're adapting to nature, and there is more to nature than fits in the current scientific worldview, then it wouldn't be so virtuous. Since the history of science is full of paradigm shifts, this would seem to be a reasonable hypothesis. The scientific method has evolved, who is to say that it isn't still evolving? A thousand years from now, our science may be as unrecognizable as alchemy.
This is of critical importance. Reminds me of Jacob Bronowski : -
Sure, but science "a thousand years from now" will not be inconsistent with, or refute, science today (which, btw, will never be comparable to "alchemy") but will extend it as e.g. Copernicus extended Ptolemy and Einstein extended Newton.
The trick would be intolerable by human standards. How does the AI ensnare you to believe that everything you are doing as a contributor to the grand plan of a better future is what you want to do? And is it allowed to "assassinate" anyone or perform acts of God. How could it transcend the current limits of human powers to enforce its mission?
When does your freedom become one with global servitude (all for one and one for all)? What is it allowed to take from you that you currently feel you are entitled to now? Aren't you afraid of this? How will it mollify your paranoia?
But maybe this is the utopian dream of the power of the mechanistic world view, the very kind of thinking that is dangerous (because nobody will know what is really going on to futilism, crippling paranoia). The mess of human affairs is a mess, due to the blindness inspired by local needs/fulfillment, entropic trade-offs, resource limitations, the void of eternal unsatisfaction in the being of all creatures, short term versus the long term thinking. Catastrophe, soft or hard, is probably likely.
Desmet recently became known for that work you named, which deals primarily with societal dynamics during the covid epidemic.
The mechanistic worldview is connected to totalitarianism, perhaps even caused its rise in the early 20th century, in that it suggests man is able to find a singular truth, including to those complex systems such as how human civilization should be ordered.
Totalitarian states have been characterized by such beliefs in singular truths; a belief that complex human systems and problems can be solved like scientific or mathematical equations.
I'm not sure if Desmet makes the comparison to the church as explicitly as I did in my post, but I thought it was a striking metaphor.
Quoting Gnomon
I think this problem goes deeper than the political tribalism and demagoguery our world is currently plagued by. Desmet argues that what seperates totalitarianism from a dictatorship is that totalitarianism arises from within the population, so in that sense it is actually 'bottom-up', though to classify it as such would be too simple.
It arises from a desire within the population for certainty and security, and their willingness to abdicate power to the political figures that promise it.
I think your observation about the synthesis of politics and religious inclination is striking, though I would add to that worship of higher power also the worship of ideals, which in totalitarian societies often were much stronger than the worship of a single person or party.
Quoting Gnomon
That might be pretty close. You might find his works interesting. He has also given many publically available interviews in English. I probably do a poor job at conveying all the details and nuances of it. All in all I found Desmet to be a very clear and nuanced thinker.
Quoting Gnomon
It goes beyond my current familiarity with his work to give you a precise explanation of what he believes the alternative might be.
It might be as simple as instead of ignoring the boundaries of science, we acknowledge them and adopt a more humble attitude towards the human relation with reality. If we are able to acknowledge our own limited understanding of reality, we may also be less inclined to follow demagogues down the primrose path when they profess to have all the answers.
For clarification; the mechanistic / scientific worldview is not the same as science or the scientific method. Desmet is obviously not calling for the end of science!
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that our current societal application of the scientific method is, ironically, unscientific.
I don't think so. Propaganda works. Terrorism works. This is the appliance of science to the mechanisation of humans. If you want to control the temperature, use an air-conditioning unit and a thermostat, if you want to control people, use propaganda and terror.
The problem, is in that conditional "if you want..." - there is no mechanism to control that control mechanism, and it is caught up in its own propaganda and terror.
I can understand where you're coming from, at least I assume I do. But what seems to be missing from your response is an appreciation for how mysticism already plays an integral part in modern science. From the periodic table to the speed of light to the discovery of the shape of DNA, mystical states of consciousness are responsible for sudden understandings of many great scientific truths.
I would go as far as to say that (for example) Einstein was a mystic of his time; given that his habits for contemplating new and revolutionary ideas involved masterful hypnagogic daydreaming. It is the non-ordinary state of consciousness that brings about truly innovative thinking. But I could be wrong.
Probably I am wrong but I personally think that you are misunderstanding mysticism with researching or critical thought. I even these concepts are contradictory or opposed to each other.
According to Encyclopaedia mysticism is defined as the practice of religious ecstasies (religious experiences during alternate states of consciousness), together with whatever ideologies, ethics, rites, myths, legends, and magic may be related to them.
As you see these "rites" depend on someone's practice of faith, thus religious ecstasies.
This is why I do not see mysticism as a complement to science but literally the opposite.
You put as example the periodic table. Oxygen is a chemical element which is there in the periodic table. It is not a "myth" or a "legend" that the we the humans need oxygen to live. Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen by the thermal decomposition of mercuric oxide, having isolated it in 1774. During his lifetime, Priestley's considerable scientific reputation rested on his invention of carbonated water, his writings on electricity, and his discovery of several "airs" (gases), the most famous being what Priestley dubbed "dephlogisticated air" (oxygen).
As you see in this examples the discovery comes thanks to scientific research. Priestley didn't have mystical thoughts... but a good knowledge and work in chemistry.
Naturalistic science is the best tool with which to do naturalistic science. Go figure. :100:
Maybe I phrased it wrong, but I don't think those things are all that scientific. Defining the means and ends of propaganda and terrorism into scientific equations that produce consistent results seems like an impossibility.
I see your point though.
The issue seems more that we have the illusion that such a thing is possible. We're increasingly unaware of the limitations of science, luring for example politicians into believing they can engineer society to their liking.
Quoting 180 Proof
I think that we need to acknowledge the boundaries of science, instead of throwing them aside and letting wishful extrapolation, that is to say: fantasy, take over. Ignorance and delusion aren't all that productive in and of themselves, but in the hands of the powerful they're downright dangerous.
One "singular truth" of the Mechanistic worldview may be the assumption that humans in a "state of nature" are completely selfish, and always in a "war of every man against every man", as Thomas Hobbes put. So his solution, like Plato's, was to appoint a "philosopher king", presumably from among the aristocracy, to rule over the unruly masses. But history shows that "philosopher kings" are in short supply. Which is why Democracy eventually seemed to be the least-bad option for controlling the irrational urges of human animals. And that common-people-rule premise may be based on the "wisdom of crowds" postulate, which mathematically averages-out extremes in favor of moderate positions. Yet again, reality reveals that not all crowds are wise : e.g. stock market stampedes & crashes.
What then are we to do? Today, many Western societies seem to be leaning toward the sovereign king solution. Technically, Hitler was not elected to his position, but he was popular in some segments of society, frustrated with the debacles of Democracy. And his simplistic mechanical logic seemed to promise a more orderly state. Unfortunately, that group order was purchased at the cost of diminished individual rights. Ironically, his avowed goal to Make Germany Great Again had popular appeal to both aristocrats & plebeians. So, it seems that societies tend to vacillate between the poles of loosely bound Liberty and rigid mechanical Order. And the statistical political math usually produces a muddled middle state that is not acceptable to either pole of the political spectrum.
Organized state religions have always been integral to the political purposes of ruling factions. For example, the Pagan Romans had an official chief priest, called a "Pontifex". And that political role was transferred to the Christian Church after it became the official state religion. However, over the years, the top-down rule of the secular & sacred Empire varied from Liberal (weak) to Totalitarian (strong), depending on internal & external circumstances. When economically & militarily stable, it relaxed the rules. But when threatened from within & without, it tightened the reins of the reign. Consequently, it seems that a simple singular solution to social order has not been found by the heuristics of history. :smile:
This is, in fact, how science works (e.g. peer review, experimental testing and repeatability, defeasibility, etc).
This seems like a good opportunity to clean up our view of science, refamiliarize ourselves with its limits, and hopefully in the process make a step towards depoliticizing science, which I think is starting to become an increasingly large problem.
It seems to me the more man is aware of his own ignorance, the more free and pluralistic a society can become. However, I'm not so optimistic we will get there soon, since we are still going to have to deal with the death throes of a dying, technocratic system.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes. That's why I sought to distinguish between what Dr. Desmet calls the 'mechanistic worldview' and science itself.
This (quite long) essay, which I posted on another thread, is most excellent, and makes the issue rather clear, with plenty of evidence, but it has little to do with power, and is more related to the limits of understanding. You may want to take a look at the history involved in the collapse of the "mechanistic" worldview:
https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/ChomskyMysteriesNatureHidden2009.pdf
These opinions are not about things that science can do or prove (that would just be science), but about things we believe science will be able to do in the future, or perhaps illusions about things science is already able to do (which would be a misuse of science).
In my view it is characterized by attempts to oversimplify systems that science has shown to be complex, thereby characterized by a disregard for the boundaries of science and thereby unscientific.
Very interesting! When I get the time I will give it a thorough read.
Perhaps, the "mechanistic worldview" you are referring to is the philosophical faith labeled "Scientism"*1. It seems to consider mechanistic Classical Physics as a final revelation of the absolute Truth about Reality. That worldview envisions a Newtonian clockwork universe, which runs reliably until human egos & passions (and religions) interfere to knock the smoothly-running system off course. However, that simplistic model of reality was called into question by two parallel developments in the early 20th century : Quantum Physics and Information Theory.
Quantum Physics undermined the ancient Atomic dream of a firm foundation to reality by revealing that particles of matter, hopefully labeled "Atoms", were actually composites of even smaller bits of stuff. Scientific slicing & dicing of matter has continued to the point where now the foundation of the material world is considered to be merely matter-less mathematical fields of abstract potential*2. At the same time Information Theory was revealing the ubiquitous role of Information (Ideas) in the real world. That led physicist John A. Wheeler to conclude that we live in a "participatory universe", where the minds of men can interact with the physical world*3. He wasn't talking about Magic though, but about Meta-Physics*4 (ideas & intentions).
Wheeler was re-interpreting Classical Physics in terms of Information Theory. And that novel concept is also at the root of my personal worldview : Enformationism. Such analog holistic views (e.g. Systems Theory) are already beginning to fill some of the gaps in digital reductive science. This development does imply an "end of the Mechanistic Worldview", in the sense of outdated physical models. The information-based approach doesn't do away with the reliability of physical mechanisms though, it merely learns to control them more accurately, with meta-physical understanding, to allow us to work with the Fuzzy Logic, and spontaneity, of the quantum foundation of reality. :nerd:
*1.What is the Difference Between Science and Scientism :
Conclusion. The main difference between science and scientism is that science is the study of nature and behaviour of natural things and knowledge obtained through them while scientism is the view that only science can render truth about the world and reality.
https://pediaa.com/what-is-the-difference-between-science-and-scientism/
*2. Quantum Non-Mechanics :
"One of the least mechanical aspects of QT is the wave/particle duality. What Schrodingers wavefunction equation refers to is neither a wave in a medium, nor a particle standing alone, but BothAnd. In fact its not a wave that corresponds to any concrete physical property. It is just a mathematical abstraction . . . Surprisingly, the equation that is the primary tool of QT includes Imaginary Numbers. And its solution is not a description of an entity, but a prescription for a future measurement. It doesnt refer to a physical thing, but information about a possible thing. Which is why Ball says that QT is "a theory about Information." quotes from___Philip Ball, Quantum Weirdness
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page43.html
*3. Participatory Universe :
Wheeler divided his own life into three parts. The first part he called Everything is Particles. The second part was Everything is Fields. And the third part, which Wheeler considered the bedrock of his physical theory, he called Everything is Information.
https://futurism.com/john-wheelers-participatory-universe
*4. Meta-Physics :
This is not the scholastic topic of gods & ghosts, but the Aristotelian observation that human intentions can make a difference in the physical world. For example, the Panama Canal was nothing but a dream in imaginative minds (1513), until their designs were implemented in money & machinery to literally move mountains (1914). What Nature (physics) had left undone after millions of years, Culture (metaphysics) accomplished in a few generations.
Examples would help clarify exactly what you mean by this.
The science is great tool assuming one could overcome the hurdle of an uncoordinated pluralism (many states acting independently) to implement global coordination toward sustainability and human welfare. But let's not kid ourselves.
Choloroflurocarbons used in refrigerants degraded the ozone layer. Luckily it was reversible and there was enough universal agreement to implement a fix.
Just read that all rain fall on earth is contaminated with PFAs at levels that pose risk to human health.
Maybe someone will try geoengineering if the planet gets crazy hot but there could be unforeseen trade-offs with that also.
No matter what the prevailing dream is, it's depressing. :shade:
In typical mechanistic thinking some seem to believe something as complex as an individual's mental well-being can be reduced to a chemical imbalance and cured with antidepressants.
I go to the doctor, I take a pill, and my ailments are gone.
The reality is often a lot more stubborn, and antidepressants can have serious adverse effects even in relation to the things it supposedly cures.
That doesn't mean there's no scientific basis for its use, but it seems a mechanistic worldview draws doctor and patient alike into believing that basis is more conclusive than it actually is.
I've studied this very issue for a long time. And as an ardent holist and organicist myself, the great irony has been to discover that life and mind representing the highest levels of "organismic complexity" came about by semiosis, or the ability to organise nature by employing the constraints of a mechanistic causality.
This is a still recent revolution being absorbed in the biological sciences. And Exhibit A would be the motor proteins that move stuff about on tiny filament tracks inside every cell. On the smallest scale of molecular biology, you have these little protein gadgets with legs that run up and down paths to deliver gobbets of this, that and the other, to tagged destinations.
We used to think stuff just diffused in random fashion to get where it needed in cells. But no. It is delivered door to door by a nanobot technology, complete with a system of cellular highways and traffic control machinery.
So biology is engineering. And that then makes the modern scientific obsession with seeing reality itself as engineering just a simple natural extension of the central trick that allowed life in the first place.
It is the "right" causal perspective from our embodied point of view.
Metaphysics hasn't really caught up with any of this yet. But meanwhile check out the cool videos of kinesins and dyneins at work.
Another point Desmet makes is that while the mechanistic worldview has brought us many positive things, it has also taken things away.
Essentially, it has put man in a very unnatural environment, towards which we lack an intuitive understanding. Desmet describes this as a lack of resonance, which man would otherwise have in their natural environment.
While a departure from the mechanistic worldview may close some doors in terms of which problems we believe will be solved by science, it also opens doors that science had previously closed.
Consider a depressed person who could not be cured by pills, but was cured by a more holistic approach to their psychological well-being.
I just mentioned something about mechanistic view in the Life Sucks thread. I think a great example of this view is the idea of evolution (Richard Dawkins type emphasis) vs. Schopenhauer's idea of Will.
Will is a constant craving that when manifested in the experiencer, reveals itself as dissatisfaction. Well, the mechanistic view would "poo poo" this "internal-ness" of the idea of Will and craving. Rather, it is the organism's environmental fit, variation of mutation, and population statistics that drive evolutionary change in organisms. For science to "stay in its lane" it should just focus on these empirical things. However, the downfall of just focusing on the mechanistic is not that we focus on scientific findings, but rather that we only focus on scientific findings. But science has nothing to say on something like the concept of desiring/willing/craving/BEING. A mechanistic/scientistic approach IS its own philosophy. That is to say to ONLY focus on scientific findings whilst disregarding any other considerations. And this is the troubling part.
Rather, in this Schopenhauer case, for example, it seems science is simply reinforcing the idea of Will.. That is to say, organisms that need to maintain metabolic functions, work against entropy, find homeostasis. An organism with all these mechanical functions can be said to be a being dissatisfied. And thus, here is a philosophy beyond the science, but makes existential claims. Things science cannot touch, but are important considerations for being a thinking human that has values, has aesthetics, self-reflects, etc. The fact that we put value on science is itself a value, and thus, negates the idea that it is a de facto and sole consideration.
Very interesting topic! And an excellent description! :up:
Both are among the best I have ever come upon!
Below are some points that I liked especially, I can share without reservation and want to stress.
(They belong to the first part, i.e. up to the "What is the alternative?"
- "Today, the scientific worldview is dominant."
- "We have narrowed our understanding of reality down to elementary particles and quantum physics, and the prevailing view is that every phenomenon can be understood as long as we can understand the way these elementary particles interact with one another."
- "The mechanistic worldview contains within it a promise of power. A promise of complete control over our reality. A promise of certainty - of complete understanding."
(Comment: In which it has failed.)
- "The nature of morality changes when its basis is no longer fuzzy debates over thousand-year-old scriptures, but instead reason, rationality and hard facts and logic."
- "The scientific method has brought mankind very far indeed, and it has made good on many of it promises."
(Comment: Indeed, this deserves a big acknowledgment.)
- "However, today we are also increasingly confronted with its apparent limits."
- "While science suggests that we ought to be humble about the extent of our current knowledge, the mechanistic worldview, where it has mostly been faithful to scientific methods and principles, now has departed from it."
- "Increasingly we see that, where once the mechanistic worldview was a source of progress, humility and scientific rigor and critical thought, it instead is becoming a source of arrogance and wishful thinking."
(Comment: Excellent point. I also talk about scientits' arrogance. Very characteristic!)
- "Citizens, meanwhile, are seen as little more than soulless objects, not unlike the machinery that once instilled us with trust in the mechanical worldview."
(Comment: Quite inspiring!)
- "Given the right input, the citizens can be made to exhibit the politically desirable output. Through processes of social engineering man can be constructed to suit the purposes of other men. Man has become a machine."
But all the other therapeutic modalities would do well to find evidence to back up what otherwise would just be a mess of testimonials/anecdotes. What gets in the way of this evidence, the gap between the consumer and the understanding of science, is consumer marketing/propaganda among other things. An understanding of mechanism is also what protects us from harming ourselves even more. If we all looked at the statistical evidence of pills versus lifestyle changes we might be surprised at how little pills have to offer aside placebo. What if we had honest drug commercials, showing the statistical effect aside other therapies?
It seems Desmet is drawing concern for the popular narratives and beliefs about science shaped by a profit incentive and public ignorance but it is strange to label it in such a way: "The End of A Mechanistic Worldview." I wouldn't doubt that the public is generally a lot more skeptical of the idealistic promises of for-profit science given current global crises compared to decades ago.
[quote=Leo Aprendi, Amazon Book Review of Psychology of Totalitarnism, Mattias Desmet]Part 3, Beyond the Mechanistic Worldview, explores how our societies can supplement sciencewhich needs serious reform to eliminate corruption, biases, flawed findings, and outright capture by powerful and monied interestswith both traditional and alternative ways of knowing and attaining meaning (community, spirituality, mastery of craft, etc.) and to further develop the humble and mystery-respecting frontiers of science as articulated by giants such as Einstein, Bohr, and Planck.[/quote]
Apples and oranges. :roll:
Um, that was my point. Don't focus on apples only. There are also oranges. Apples don't exclude the oranges. Apples can inform the oranges and vice versa. In fact, the oranges may be transcendental to apples.. If so, there would need to be oranges to understand the apples. However, from the perspective of apples-only, it would seem you would never even need to learn about oranges.. But that's some bad apples.
I can't and won't argue against generalized swiping and griping at me. Drive by griping...
What particularly is the problem?
The mechanistic view (not just "science" in general.. but "scientism"), excludes everything but science as truth-bearing. That's how I interpreted it anyways..
So science vs. scientism.. It's similar to other debates I have seen on the forum.
No, this is an erroneous view of mechanistic worldview. The scientific community does not approve of this view. It's a view of a handful of philosophers, not science. It's even at odds with the discipline of science because it purports to reduce everything into formulaic existence.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Ok, now that I read it again all the way through.. Yeah it's more about the posture of using science as if it can solve all problems and its use in public policy.. The potential of science versus the reality.. It's more modern statistical/chaos/complex variant versus the more straightforward logic of the Enlightenment Age. Using it as a weapon against ideological opponents, and instilling a worldview.. Got it. Not sure where Schop might fit in there. He avoided politics mainly. Carry on.
There isn't even a "they who never suffered". Only being in the condition of born does the condition of harm apply :wink:. And we can intelligibly talk about preventing birth (and suffering) being that we are already born.. All works out there.
Yeah, that's where all the action is, at the limits, oui? It's a trope we often see in movies and novels - machiness, people, animals are stretched to breaking point and only those that/who survive are considered worthy (of love, respect, whathaveyou).
As far as I can tell, science has been by and large an enterprise in thinking to the exclusion of feeling. That in a nutshell is the nub of the issue (ref. Xin aka heart-mind).
I wouldn't say the mechanistic worldview is held only by a handful of philosophers.
It seems a large part of western societies have come to view the world this way, whether they fully realize it or not. Perhaps it is precisely their lack of affinity with science that leads them down this path of wishful thinking. To be fair, it is a very optimistic way of viewing the world, however optimism is no safeguard for folly.
It also explains why we see science manhandled to suit political purposes, attempting to use it to explain complex systems. The rampant abuse of statistics for example, and that doesn't limit itself to the political arena, but we also see it used in advertisement to great effect.
I would argue such things could never be so effective if we didn't have a population that readily believes science is capable in proving things that most scientists would raise their eyebrows at.
According to the definitions of scientism I was able to find, I can imagine these topics are related. Feel free to discuss such things, and also alternative worldviews which may be synthesized with the mechanistic worldview to produce something more satisfying.
This is oxymoronic. The mechanistic world view is simply the deterministic view. What it really says is that we have no power over the world, that we are doomed to our fate.
(Links provided for clarification )
Fantabulous!
Ultimately I don't think it's specific scientific theories or philosophies that lead to a mechanistic worldview, but rather a failure to acknowledge their boundaries.
NB: Though a pedantic point, it's significant to note, as the article linked in my last post makes clear, that I referred to methodological physicalism a criterion for evaluating scientific theories and not the "all is physical" of metaphysical physicalism.
Then you've gone the wrong path in this thread. Bowing out. Thanks.
This is slightly off-topic, but I just read a book review in Philosophy Now magazine (issue 150), which reminded me of this thread. The name of the book is Organicity : Entropy or Evolution. Written by an Architect & Urban Planner, the book proposes an attitude of "organicity", to guide those involved in trying to deal with cultural entropy by aligning with the organic-systems-approach of Nature. This is not a new idea --- in the early 20th century, Frank Lloyd Wright called his design-with-nature approach "organic architecture" --- but the book uses some novel terminology. For instance, he labels Mechanistic Thinking (dominant & competitive) as "machinic" to contrast with "organic" (cooperative & mutual aid).
His political and economic philosophy seems to be openly socialistic. Yet he refers to it as "anarcho-communism", and says its socially-responsible adherents are "communists who won't wait for the state". He also insists, ominously, that "Nature is going to compel posterity to revert to a stable state on the material plane and to turn to the realm of spirit for satisfying man's hunger for infinity". That latter remark doesn't sound like Marx's atheistic prescription for the ills of industrial & mechanistic society. So, I suppose he's merely acknowledging that the human "spirit" cannot live on mass-manufactured bread alone (Matt 4:4). :smile:
The physical world is already organic in that it is based on self-organising structure that develops by Darwinian selection. This is what was discovered via chaos theory and far from equilibrium dynamics. Physics and chemistry are already organic in the sense of being instability stabilised by emergent informational structure some evolved set of global constraints.
And then life and mind become the mechanical addition to this base layer of "pure organicism". You get actual encoded information as a machinery of control. Life and mind are a set of switches that get dropped over the top of the natural physico-chemical fluxes, directing them towards the purposes that the biological has in mind.
This is all OK in the end as life and mind are still part of the world in which they must live. They can only exist as the intelligence that breaks down barriers to entropification. They get to exist as the extra little trick which gets the Cosmos over bumps in the road on its way to its Second Law destination.
So the traditional categories are inverted. That is what really does people's heads in.
Ironically, the emergence of Life & Mind from the heuristics of evolution, is what resulted in Human Culture. And intentional artificial culture is now evolving much faster than the blind groping of the natural process. Anyway, I think the Simplistic Mechanistic products of techno-culture are merely the low-hanging fruit. We may have to climb the organic tree to get at the more functionally-organized systems. Systems Science is still waving a rattle in the cradle. So, there's hope that holistically-designed systems might eventually reach the sophistication of self-organized organisms that took billions of years to create. You might call it "alloyed organicism" :cool:
Evolutionary Design :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution limited only by local restraints to the original programmers goal or purpose.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_programming
Ouch! Is that why I feel so itchy & drippy around artificial organisms? :joke:
You are welcome!
OK
Methodological physicalism is applied metaphysical physicalism.
Imagine if someone said "I don't hold racist views, rather, I just apply a racist methodology."
Edit: Unless the person's field of study is racial differences...which would mean they are studying the differences between races. That's not racist. But if they then say that the ONLY valid way to differentiate people is by their race, then they are being like the naturalist who says the only criterias that matter are physically observable ones.
In both cases you reduce people to their physical characteristics.
That out of the way, what about psychology, a soft science as of now but let's not forget it's slowly but surely going to be mathematized fully in the coming few decades, completing its transformation into a hard science?
[quote=Neil deGrasse Tyson]So we're just bags of chemistry?[/quote]
I would disagree that the mechanistic world view is an inevitable consequence of science. It essentially departs from science by extrapolating scientific achievements into the future.
The idea that through science everything can be reduced to a mathematical equation, and the things that seemingly cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation will be reducable in time.
Essentially, that everything can be reduced to a machine or a mechanism.
If you're interested in hearing more, I would look up some interviews or books by Mattias Desmet. I can provide links to those.
Worldviews tend to give rise to narratives. I would call it "the mechanistic narrative".
This is a caricature of what most scientists and scientifically literate laypersons actually believe. For instance, a cake recipe cannot "be reduced" to the wavefunction of the cake's quantum constituents. Desmet is strawmanning modern science. :roll:
:up:
These did register but only fleetingly and that explains why I failed to mention their implications. The chaos in Chaos Theory says it all, doesn't it?
Desmet does not claim that this world view is particularly prevalent among scientists, nor is it meant to be an attack on modern science. I've tried to make that clear on multiple occasions in this thread.
The mechanistic world view as described by Desmet seems more prevalent in politics and the semi-scientifically literate masses. Scientists usually are aware of the limitations of science, and a lot more nuanced. I think nuance is one of the things that is so lacking in the mechanistic world view.
Horkheimer & Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) or Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) or Ellul's The Technological Society (1964) or Marcuse's One Domensional Man (1964) or Guattari & Deleuze's Anti-Oedipus (1972) or Feyerabend's Against Method (1975) ... etc.
The title "the end of the [...]" was just plain and simple rhetoric then? Nevertheless, it does put the reader in the right frame of mind to process the rest of Desmet. Perhaps we're too enamored of the mechanistic world view, enthralled by it as it were, to see its flaws and hence the title had to be crafted (most carefully) to break the spell. Good job!
But if you're not interested in discussing the topic don't let me keep you.
The title was meant to tickle, of course. Thanks!
You nailed it! :up:
In other words, derivative dumbing down for "ease of use" by middle-brow consumers. (or maybe undergrad litcrit / humanities courses). The works I've cited have philosophical import and should be studied in order to make explicit what is implicit yet still operative in "contemporary issues".
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you've never read anything by Desmet, nor watched any of his interviews.
So what is it really you're doing?
[quote=Galileo Galilei] Eppur si muove![/quote]
That's exactly right!
Here is a commercial that might encapsulate how the contemporary world is too much for the individual, especially with respect to the proliferation of technologies. It creates anxiety which makes us more vulnerable to whatever the fall out of "mass formation". From here we could travel down a thousand rabbit holes in a paranoiac wonderland about our techno mediated future. But maybe I'm just unnecessarily activating my amygdala at the moment.
It's this aggression and anxiety that can find an outlet through political narratives, for example.
One of the reasons for the increase in free-floating aggression and anxiety that Desmet observes, is the increase in people who feel lonely and socially isolated or 'atomized'.
It's very interesting stuff.
Listened to couple of interviews. Unfortunately he is associated with pandemic controversy, since his term "mass formation" came out of the mouth of Robert Malone on Joe Rogan's podcast and caused a stir.
Quoting Tzeentch
Yes, am very interested in anxiety/aggression with respect to the irrationality/frenzy of crowds.