Einstein's
Enlightenment
We often hear that the truth is unknowable or that what
is true is a matter of opinion. As the possibility of
knowing truth is often doubted we are tempted to settle
for beliefs due to their psychological appeal. If
reality is unknowable this would be a rational strategy.
If reality is so ridiculously complex that all true
aspects of it are beyond our understanding, we should
not waste our time pursuing truth. If this is not the
case and we do have the capacity to understand
significant aspects of our true circumstances then we
should value systems able to convince us of their truth.
As discussed in previous chapters we are knowledge
machines from the ground up. I believe that our capacity
to know significant truths is a closed question. All
cells conduct the chemical symphony that creates energy
from glucose. Some reasonable definitions of the word
‘to know’ support a usage such as: ‘A cell knows how to
convert glucose to energy.’ A definition including this
kind of knowing, dissociated from conscious processes,
would also support usages: ‘A bird knows how to fly’ or
‘A monkey knows how to keep its balance.’ Daniel Dennet
has argued that consciousness may only be a negotiation
mechanism to arbitrate amongst the myriad unconscious
knowledge mechanisms. The definition of knowledge we are
developing here includes unconscious knowledge of the
kind noted above. According to this definition the world
is replete with instances of significant knowledge. We
are in essence entities that know a method of surviving
in the circumstance in which we find ourselves. This
knowledge has been embellished, honed and passed down to
us through each generation of living thing since the
beginning of life. As Henry Plotkin argues in Darwin
Machines, a work that has transformed evolutionary
psychology, intellectual forms of knowledge are simply
new adaptations evolved from earlier ones.
Man incorporates all types of knowledge produced by
Universal Darwinism. Knowledge associated with complex
chemistry, biology and culture are all components of
human beings. No other known being incorporates this
full range of knowledge.
In a sense the relentless production of knowledge by
Universal Darwinism represents an attempt by the
universe to come to know itself. Science is arguably the
most highly evolved mechanism providing this self
knowledge. The details of the working of science provide
insight into its ability to discover truth and bestow
power.
For our purposes we might define power as the ability to
cause the occurrence of phenomena at will. This
definition implies both physical and mental components
of power. The mental components are involved in ‘our
ability to cause something to occur at will’. The part
about ‘causation of phenomena‘ implies some physical
components.
People have a
predilection to understand power mostly from the mental
perspective. We seem to have built in mechanisms for
attributing human-like motivations to many aspects of
nature and we yearn to relate to nature in this manner.[i]
People often attempt to invoke power through purely
mental means. We implore ghosts, witches, saints and all
manners of spirits to intercede on our behalf. This has
gone on for millennia despite having virtually zero
measurable effect. Still it is our first impulse when
attempting to invoke power.
Unfortunately matters of survival seldom depend on the
purely mental. There has to be a physical component; for
survival takes place in the physical would and those of
us here today are descended from extremely long lineages
of beings that were able to make the right choices about
survival.
Perhaps a clear example is war. War is an arbiter of
power in that it clears the field of obstacles to ones
ability to expropriate the resources of an area. With
these resources in hand one can cause lots of phenomena
to occur. War is definitely about survival in the real
world, it can be a grinding, real, physical event that
produces a clear outcome. It can leave a group with
clear possession of some real estate.
War can also arbitrate ideas and mental traditions; it
can be a deciding event in the conflicts of cultures.
Many cultures cease to exist following a conquest.
War also involves the mental: tactics, strategy and
technology. These are mental constructs crucial to the
outcome. Often the day goes to him who has these kinds
of issues well thought out. Power is never wielded by
the mental alone; trying to influence spirits won’t do
it. Only when the mental is in tune with the physical
does it produce power.
Technological abilities may not be included in many
peoples catalogue of abilities required by successful
generals. Usually we think of abilities such as tactics
and strategy. This is probably only confusion in the use
of the word ‘technology’. If we had used the word
‘weapons’ instead no one would quibble unless with the
implication that weapons are a mental component. But
weapons are highly dependent on the mental. Whether one
learns their particular culture’s art of flaking arrow
heads or developing smart bombs, weapons require
understanding of the world; they are a type of
technology.
With science weapons arbitrating colossal power have
been devised. These weapons deliver awesome power: the
ability to cause intense phenomena at will. The energy
of modern weapons produce extremely intense phenomena;
they are extremely powerful. What is the source of that
power? How after hundreds of millennia of fruitlessly
invoking spirits have we in the last few centuries
stumbled, so ill prepared, onto this vast source of
power. How did it happen?
Well it happened because we have unlocked a new means of
putting the mental in tune with the physical; a means of
discovering truth and unlocking power.
A
brief example will help to clarify the relation amongst
scientific explanation, truth and power. At the turn of
the century the foremost physicist of the day, Ernst
Rutherford, believed he had disproved the theory of
Darwinian evolution. He reasoned that the sun, if it
derived its energy from any plausible physical source,
would have burned out long before the billions of years
required by Darwin’s theory to produce complex life on
earth. Therefore the sun and earth could not have been
in existence for the great length of time required by
Darwin’s theory.
A
scientific explanation of nuclear energy was not yet
developed. Some data had been collected by investigators
such as the Curies but nothing resembling our current
explanation was available. In 1905 , as part of
relativity theory, explaining the weird fact that the
speed of light is the same for all observers, Einstein
derived the formula E=mc2 , which means that
a little matter is equivalent to massive amounts of
energy. By the early thirties, a lot of data concerning
the behaviour of stars had been gathered. It was known
that they were composed mostly of hydrogen, with older
stars having a higher proportion of helium than younger
stars. In 1939 Hans Bethe explained that stars were
fuelled by nuclear fusion where four hydrogen atoms fuse
to form one helium atom. Four hydrogen atoms have
slightly more mass than one helium atom. In a star the
excess mass is converted to energy exactly according to
Einstein’s equation. Bethe’s theory explained all the
scientific data collected concerning stars and nuclear
reactions. Within twenty years, using this theory, the
hydrogen bomb had been developed and tested. We could
create a mini sun here on earth, at will.
Human history has probably developed thousands of
explanations, many of them religious, for the sun’s
existence and functioning. Only the one developed by
science conforms to the evidence, only science
successfully puts the mental in tune with the physical
and unlocks the powers of the sun.
It is the knowledge developed by Science that contains
the ancient truths. The phenomenon of suns,
replicated in scientific knowledge, has been in the
universe since there first were suns. We have only
recently developed scientific constructs, mental
constructs that are in tune with this physical
phenomenon. Scientific is discovery not invention. No
evidence has been found to support the possibility that
Religious knowledge predates culture. Religious
knowledge is invention not discovery.
The theory of memes claims that all cultural traits that
are learned from others or are imitations of behaviours
are created and modified by the processes of evolution.
Most systems of knowledge, for example theology, can be
said to evolve. Each theologian accepts a shared body of
knowledge, which is reproduced in her mind with some
variations (adaptations) from the consensus beliefs.
These adaptations may prove to have survival value and
be past on to other believers. Thus the body of theology
evolves.
All systems of knowledge evolve as they follow the
Darwinian algorithm. In this sense science is not
special and shares the field with other systems of
knowledge. But what gives direction to theology’s
evolution? What are the criteria that lend its
adaptations survival value? A major criterion must
simply be conformity to the believers’ (especially the
more influential believers’) religious intuition or
other types of subjective advantage. In the view of meme
theory theological adaptations have survival value
depending on how well they mesh with and how attractive
they are to the individuals’ existing meme complexes.
Confirmation by objective evidence plays little role in
the survival value of theological adaptations.
The difference between the evolution of science and
religion lies in the criteria that defines fitness of
adaptations and therefore determines what will survive
and be past on. Science demands that its knowledge
conform to the evidence. Religion does not. Faith, an
integral part of many religious systems, can be defined
as a commitment to believe regardless of the evidence.
Evidence is important because there are reasons to
believe it is our best guide to what actually takes
place in reality. Scientific evidence is evidence
confirmed by the senses. Our senses provide ways of
knowing honed to a high degree of accuracy by evolution
over geologic time. Knowledge that cannot bear the
scrutiny of the senses is rejected by science.
This process gives direction to the evolution of
scientific knowledge. Scientific explanations evolve to
more closely conform to data confirmed by the senses.
Over time they tend to agree to more decimal places. As
science unlocks the secrets of the material world
observed by the senses it becomes more powerful. In some
sense it is inescapable that the tremendous power of
science lends credence to its claim to be a ‘true’
system of knowledge.
Scientific theories are rational stories whose accuracy
is verified by experiments. Experiments produce
phenomena in the real world that may lend credence to a
theory. A valid experiment must be verifiable or able
to be reproduced by other researchers. Experimental
phenomena that can be reproduced by other researchers
may also be produced by technicians at will. This
explains the power of science; it’s ability to cause
phenomena at will. Experimental evidence binds science
to the ‘real world’ and is the source of its power.
The scientific explanation of the sun’s working evolved
a great deal in forty years. It grew in tandem with a
growing body of scientific evidence, evidence composed
of experiments revealing data to the senses. At every
step in its evolution the explanation was constrained to
fit the available evidence.
It seems clear that the scientific explanation of the
sun’s workings evolved closer to the truth. One group of
philosophers, deconstructionists, deny this. They
contend that science is only one amongst many cultural
bodies of knowledge and has no special claim to the
truth. Paraphrasing Dr. Johnson, Deconstructionists,
along with anyone else, are vaporized in the presence of
atomic blasts and are thus refuted. In some sense
science is not just another body of knowledge but one
that can claim to have unlocked truths and powers of the
world unmatched by any other system of knowledge.
A
nagging question remains. Why should we prefer an
accurate or ‘true’ system of knowledge over one that is
less so. Why should ‘true’ explanations have survival
value? Perhaps this preference is not new but is built
upon the survival value of accuracy in sensory
perception evolved in our ancestors from the earliest
times. Daniel Dennet makes this point:
Getting it right,
not making mistakes, has been of paramount importance to
every living thing on this planet for more than three
billion years, and so these organisms have evolved
thousands of different ways of finding out about the
world they live in, discriminating friends from foes,
meals from mates, and ignoring the rest for the most
part.[ii]
Our bodies reward our conscious minds when we behave in
ways the body approves of and the body punishes us when
we don’t. We experience pleasure and pain as part of a
feedback mechanism designed by evolution to keep us on
the straight and narrow. It’s why sex isn’t a pain.
On the pleasure side, endorphins are released into the
blood stream at appropriate times and stimulate the
brain’s pleasure centres. We gain pleasure from many
things, good food, sex, family and creativity.
Einstein’s claim that the cosmic religious experience is
at the root of all science provides a testament to the
pleasurable mental state induced by creative science and
goes some way towards explaining the motivation of those
who create science as well as those who strive to
understand and appreciate it.
Perhaps the most distinctive human biological
characteristic is our huge brain. This large size comes
at an extravagant cost. It poses increased risk during
child birth and consumes up to 20% of the bodies energy
production. Explaining why we have a brain of this size
and cost is a challenge to evolutionary theory. What is
its survival value? Explanations based on biological
evolutions are only partially convincing, it is
difficult to imagine our remote ancestors receiving a
biological advantage large enough to provide the
required enormous differential survival.
A recent suggestion
by Susan Blackmore, based on meme theory, is more
convincing[iii].
She suggests that our large brains developed due to
their ability to manipulate memes. Memes, a concept
introduced by Richard Dawkins, are:
"
tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of
making pots or of building arches. Just as genes
propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from
body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate
themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to
brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be
called imitation."[iv]
Blackmore postulates that selective pressure for large
brains increased due to greater biological survival of
those individuals best able to learn and manipulate
memes. She takes the concept further and identifies
memes as a second replicator, genes being the first.
Evolution of memes, such as science, is not strongly
tied to biological survival, but follows its own logic
of fitness.
Whatever their exact origins, we have both a large brain
developed by evolution and a mature systems of
knowledge, also developed by evolutionary processes.
Parts of the human brain are very similar to the brains
of those species who are our closest relatives. In
particular our sensory systems are very similar. Parts
of our brains are new and largely unique to humans, the
parts that handle higher intellectual functions and
memes. The explanations of science are clearly stored
and manipulated in these new areas of the brain as are
all other systems of knowledge. The distinctive
characteristic of science, as a system of knowledge, is
that it also utilizes functions of the old brain. The
construction of new variant scientific explanations is
performed in the meme handling centres of the new brain.
Judgements resulting in the differential survival of
these variants are formed on the basis of sensory data
supplied by the old brain. New variants live or die, are
passed on or ignored, depending on evidence revealed to
the senses of the old brain.
In terms of meme theory, the most accurate knowledge
tools produced by both types of replicators are
integrated into scientific methodology. Scientific
explanations, or memes, are replicated with variations.
The fitness of these memes are judged by evidence
supplied by the most accurate knowledge tools of genetic
replicators; the senses. This synergistic utilization of
functions from both the old and new brains powers
scientific evolutionary progress. This synergy allows
scientific explanations to be demonstrated in the real
world for all to see. Seeing is believing. Scientific
truth is thus believable in a manner unchallenged by
other system of knowledge.
Sense perceptions, functions of the old brain, straddle
the conscious/unconscious boundary. On the unconscious
side resides knowledge such as that involved with vision
translating photons and patterns of photons into neural
signals meaningful to other parts of the brain. On the
conscious side are mechanisms for providing these
signals with context and for altering behaviour
according to the content of the signals. Sense
perceptions have been evolving for eons as a useful way
of knowing. They have given power to those who possess
them and are almost universal within the animal kingdom.
Competitors lacking highly evolved senses are unable to
compete in almost all circumstances.
Clues abound that sense perceptions provide us with very
reliable knowledge as compared with the speculative
nature of higher intellectual mechanisms. For example
the Law rightly has a preference for an eye witness over
someone who witnessed the event in their imagination. A
fact may be defined as something having objective
reality or having been confirmed by the senses.
Of course the senses can be fooled. A group of eye
witnesses may disagree as to significant aspects of an
event. The claim here is not that the senses are
perfect, only that they are our best and most trusted
guide to many aspects of reality.
Science has been described as a mechanism for developing
explanations that best fit the scientific evidence
(Deutsch 1997, page 64). Scientific evidence is largely
produced by experiments designed to expose some aspect
of reality to the inspection of the senses. Measurements
are made, readings are taken, and information is
received in the conscious mind from the senses. These
data points constrain the artistic freedom of the
explanations and ultimately pronounce judgement on them.
Pre-scientific Greek philosophy extolled the virtue of
pure thought over sense impressions. Aristotle argued
that men had more teeth then women. This was accepted as
the truth by European experts for nearly a thousand
years. Aristotle arrived at this and many other beliefs
through a process of pure thought; it made sense to his
imagination. Truth existed in the human mind, everyday
reality was a poor imitation of the ideal world and not
worthy of study. Not until a more scientific era did it
seem appropriate to actually look in peoples’ mouths,
count their teeth and decide that in fact men and women
had the same number of teeth. Movements for human
equality may only flourish during scientific eras, when
some weight is given to evidence.
Evolution has increased the senses’ accuracy over
geologic time providing their bearers with a tool
promoting success. Knowledge from the senses is
available to our consciousness. Wouldn’t a system of
knowledge be most powerful if instead of denying the
power of the senses it leveraged this power? Science
does.
Evolution of life forms on earth has been going on for
nearly four billion years. An astounding variety of
complex designs have evolved during this vast expanse of
time. That this was accomplished by natural selection
without a plan or a designer is a central tenet of
evolution. Natural Selection is based on the
differential survivability of inherited characteristics.
Each generation inherits characteristics from their
parents and in each generation there is some random
variation in these characteristics. Some variations will
bestow greater reproductive success on their bearers
than will others. The individuals possessing these
variations will propagate more offspring, offspring
tending to have these parental characteristics as well
as exhibiting some variations of their own. In this
manner each generation tends to accumulate adaptations
that bestow reproductive success.
There is no plan. What can persist does persist. What
cannot persist passes away. In a sense it is very
wasteful to have a great variety of designs tried out in
each generation only to have most of them discarded.
Wouldn’t foresight give better odds for survival? It
would and evolution produced it when it produced
consciousness in animals. Consciousness allows us to
simulate actions or courses of behaviour in our
imaginations and see how they play out. Would attacking
that Sabre-Toothed Tiger really be a good idea? Many
courses of action endangering survival do not need to be
tried out, we can see they are bad ideas and try to
think of something different. Of course foresight is
good only if it is true to its name and is somewhat
accurate. Imagining totally inaccurate outcomes would be
useless. It is clear that our imagination is not totally
accurate. Aristotle could deduce different dental
configurations for men and women, we are quite often
surprised by things turning out different then we
foresaw. Fortunately our conscious simulations are much
better than nothing. Often we foresee important events
and are able to take steps to optimize our situation.
Science is interplay between our senses and higher
intellectual faculties. The imagination explores variant
explanations which must live or die according to their
fitness. Their fitness is in turn determined by their
ability to explain evidence gathered by the senses.
Science, a higher intellectual system of knowledge,
explains how things work in the ‘real’ world, the world
as revealed to our senses. In this manner its
explanations conform to the evidence, have power in the
‘real’ world and are thus confirmed to be ‘true’.
Science is a process integrating rational explanation
with empiricism. A scientific theory lives or dies on
its ability to rationally explain empirical data. This
may seem a bit fuzzy as surely we can construct theories
of nearly infinite variation concerning some given
subject matter none of which explicitly contradict the
collected data. For instance all explanations that do
not relate to the collected data cannot be ruled out by
the data. How are we to decide amongst them on the basis
of data? Decision theory is a mathematical framework
for measuring the quantitative fit between empirical
data and the theories competing to explain the data.
A
basic tenet of decision theory ties the validity of
explanatory theories to their ability to rationally
predict data:
A theory T is explanatory of
empirical data D if, had I believed T before collecting
the data, it would have been rational for me to expect D
(or other data of which D is typical).[v]
Decision Theory provides the mathematical machinery for
measuring the fit between a given theory and the data it
attempts to explain.
Pierre-Simon Laplace, a great scientist of the 16th and
17th centuries, was an early developer of decision
theory and used it most effectively to fill in the
details of Newtonian celestial mechanics. Celestial
mechanics is the study of the motion of bodies within
the solar system and has as its main theoretical
underpinnings Newton’s second law of motion: F=MA. This
famous physical theory relates the mass and acceleration
of a celestial body to the forces acting upon it. In the
case of celestial mechanics the force is Newton’s theory
of universal gravitation and the acceleration of the
body is usually described by its orbital path. The mass
is a constant and is a property of the specific body.
Data collected to test Newton’s theory usually focus on
measuring the position of a celestial body at successive
times. The body’s acceleration is the deviation of the
body’s motion from a constant speed in a straight line.
The body’s path is then predicted as a calculation
directly from Newton’s theory relating the acceleration
of the body to its mass, the mass of all other relevant
bodies in the solar system and the body’s distance from
them. The two results are then compared and close
agreement of the data with the theoretical prediction is
taken as experimental support for the theory.
Unfortunately the masses and distances required to
calculate the theoretical predictions are only known
within a margin of uncertainty. Measurements of these
quantities give a definite answer but successive
measurements do not give exactly the same quantity;
there is some uncertainty in the measured value. This
uncertainty usually is well described by the Bell curve,
where the values of most measurements are clustered
around some central value while measurements deviating
from that central value will be less common the further
they deviate from it.
One method pursued by Laplace to minimize the
uncertainty in the theoretical calculation was to try to
nail down the masses of the major celestial bodies in
the solar system: the sun, the planets and their main
moons, and to reduce the uncertainty in these values as
much as possible. One illustrative success he achieved
was with the mass of Saturn. First Laplace developed a
basic tenet of Decision Theory, now known as Bayes’
Theorem, which relates the probability of a theory being
true given some new data to both the support it has from
previously existing data and from the new experimental
data under consideration. He then specified the existing
data relating to the mass of Saturn, including the facts
that Saturn has sufficient mass to keep it rings from
flying off and that it has insufficient mass to perturb
the orbits of the inner planets beyond what is
observed. The new data he introduced concerned a series
of measurements on the mutual perturbations in the
orbits of Saturn and Jupiter.
Putting these
results into Bayes’ Theorem he was able to quantify the
level of support that the data rationally bestowed upon
his theoretical prediction for the mass of Saturn. He
calculated that the data shows there are less than a 1
in 11,000 chance that Saturn’s mass deviates from
0.000284738 solar masses by more than 1%. During the
subsequent 150 years since this theoretical claim, the
accuracy of measuring apparatus including orbiting
telescopes and atomic clocks have increased by orders of
magnitude and yet the current best estimate of Saturn’s
mass lies well within the narrow range of Laplace’s
theoretical prediction.[vi]
Laplace was the most productive researcher in the
history of celestial mechanics and we owe this
productivity, in part, to his understanding of Decision
Theory. Before investigating an area he would routinely
use Decision Theory to calculate the extent to which the
existing data supported accepted theory. Only when the
data suggested problems with the theory would he throw
himself into that area of research. By screening the fit
between empirical data and existing theories he could
identify those areas where his efforts could be
productive in developing new theoretical understandings
more explanatory of the data and/or new data that could
decide between the theoretical alternatives.
[i]
Boyer, Pascal (2001). Religion Explained.
Basic Books, New York
[ii]
Dennet D. (1995). Darwin’s Dangerous
Idea. Touchstone Publishing, New York
[iii]
Blackmore S. (1999). The Meme Machine.
Oxford University Press
[iv]
Dawkins R. (1976).The Selfish Gene.
Oxford University Press. P 192
[v]
Wallace David. (2002). Quantum
Probability and Decision Theory, Revisited.
Available online: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0211/0211104.pdf
