Dear Yasminers,
I'm usually a happy lurker on this mailing list but for whatever reason this discussion has got my hackles up.
If you love and care about science it is easy to be lulled into forgetting that Science has two intertwined histories. One is a beautiful quest for knowledge using a method of reasoning that over time leads to deep insights into the nature of our universe. This is the one we talk about most of the time. The other is a secular religion that worships a historical-social conception of technological progress and power - knowledge being a particularly potent form of power. This is history we would like forget or at least ignore.
One of those histories gave up Darwin. The other gave us Social Darwinist who measured skulls to scientifically prove that European Men were "more intelligent" than women or their colonial subjects and created human zoos right up until WWII for scientifically curious public. The Social Darwinists are not isolated incident but part of reoccurring historical pattern that stretches back at least to the Renaissance.
I having been working art project in which I have been doing a lot of reading from European historical record. This whole discussion thread reads like Church fathers discussing heterodoxy. And yes this discussion also reads like many 18th and 19th scientific journals that I plowed through filled with culturally biased pseudo-science alongside real research about the natural world.
I don't believe in ghosts and gods, prayer, miracles, eternal life, predestination, faith-healing, exorcism, burned witches, winged humanoids, sin, punishment, heaven, hell, voodoo either. Unfortunately Science is riddled with its own superstitions not the least of which is desperation for certainty. It easy to forget in the euphoria during periods of technological progress like today that in reality it has taken centuries of work by some of the greatest minds ever to understand how little we actually know.
For example how little we know about even basic material processes. Look at the Standard model in physics. In order to make the equation work and explain the universe requires the inferred existence of something on the order of 68.3% dark energy and 26.8% dark matter Realistically, we can only measure a small portion of the rest. Forget biology, we don't even understand completely how cancer works much less the brain. Neuroscience, although exciting, is in its infancy, the number and complexity of connections in the brain being orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms in the known universe. You can quibble with me about using wikipedia as a easy source or percentages and exact numbers but that doesn't add a drop to the small sum of human knowledge. When Physics the HARDEST of the sciences can only possibly measure around 5% of the universe isn't time for some humbleness in the face of reality?.
I believe that eventually we will, with the scientific method, discover those answers, but that is a belief. It is a belief every bit as superstitions and illogical in its own way as those of ghosts and gods. The universe may be filled with black swans of all sorts that may mean the scientific project itself is a fool's quest. Let us hope for better.
There is also another uncomfortable truth lurking here. Most of the major problems we face as humans, ranging from global warming, environmental degradation to still constant threat of nuclear war arose from the superstitions of science not from the superstitions of ghost hunters and UFO quacks. Those problems will need science to fix. Yet how can scientists speak with credibility about these problems, if they refuse to knowledge the elephant in the room? Attacking the relatively harmless, if illogical, beliefs of others without acknowledging the consequences of your own illogical beliefs isn't just inconsistent, it could now potentially threaten our ability to survive as a species.
I don't believe that those posting in this discussion are ignorant neo-Social Darwinists, or lobbyists for the weapons and petrochemical industries either. I believe this discussion is meant in good faith. Faith here is a key word. However the way scientists generally learn the history of Science contributes both to scientific progress and to a certain groupthink. The bulk of the history of Science is resides in nasty blind alleys of cultural prejudice which science majors are rarely taught about or are taught in a way that minimize the impact on the triumphant march of scientific progress (now there is a fairytale.) Unfortunately that groupthink often makes it difficult for scientists to understand how the rest of the world sees them as a group. Even how their rhetorical methods actively discourage many rational people from accepting any or certain parts of the good scientific evidence available. If there is any point in an artist who cares about science contributing in a discussion like Yasmine, it is because artists do not approach the history of ideas from that same blinkered perspective. Our blinkers are entirely different, but that is another discussion.
Thanks for your attention to such a long, heated post.
work too hard, think too much and have way too much fun,
Aprille
Aprille Best GLOVER
22, la grand rue
41800 Lavardin
France
+33 (0)6 47 95 28 76
blog (english et français) http://le-grand-livre.com
www.aprille.info (english)
www.aprille.fr(français)
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Re: [Yasmin_discussions] The Plight of the Supernatural ...
Thank you for your thoughts, Fernando -- great question. I'm so pleased you're on board, it is indeed an absorbing topic!
If by "the transcendent" you mean some hidden truth that is beyond any possible knowledge, well -- I don't know if there's something that transcends our ability to know. Its a possibility, I guess. But i don't equate that possibility with the supernatural. I think there needs to be different word than "supernatural" used to describe a concept of the unknowable. Because the word "supernatural" is already taken and in my opinion ruined beyond repair -- it is owned by ghosts and gods, prayer, miracles, eternal life, predestination, faith-healing, exorcism, burned witches, winged humanoids, sin, punishment, heaven, hell, voodoo, desperation for certainty -- our exquisitely mysterious cosmic existence reduced to a banal soap-operatic morality play subject to the capriciousness of fantasy magic. That is the pervasive cultural meaning of the term "supernatural." Any attempt to retrofit it to apply to the epistemological limits of science will only be corrupted, I fear, by the trem!
endous baggage it carries.
If by "the transcendent" you mean a personal experience of transcendence, I would propose that concepts such as transcendence and spiritual are not like wormholes to some alien dimension. They are valid not as evidence of an otherworldliness, but rather they are valid as sensations -- quite wonderful sensations, -- that are based in human biology. Is that a letdown -- a plundering of the magical, stripping it to a mere material process? I don't think so. I'm reminded of Richard Feynman's quote which was an almost direct response to Walt Whitman's poem "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" ( http://www.bartleby.com/142/180.html ). Whitman's experience of transcendence looking up through "the mystical moist night air" to stare "in perfect silence at the stars" should not have been available to an analyzer of charts and diagrams, but Feynman responds thus: "It does no harm to the mystery, to know a little about it," he says. "I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel!
them. But do I see less, or more?" "What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" I guess for me, transcendence is an oceanic sense, a feeling of connectivity, a poetic, a strong emotion that I have experienced, like may people, numerous times. I am not convinced that my sensation of transcendence is but a low-resolution version of some sort of higher order of transcendence that is connected to supernatural forces.
/stephen
________________________________________
From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr [yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of Fernando Espinoza [espinozaf@oldwestbury.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 4:08 PM
To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] The Plight of the Supernatural ...
Dear Yasminers,
I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this discussion. I find
the topic absorbing and of enormous interest. I have dealt with the issue
of whether scientific knowledge has limitations in discovering the nature
of reality (a loaded term no doubt), in my book on the nature of science. I
would like to ask Steven, doesn't an attack on the concept of the
supernatural constitute an attack on the transcendent as well? or does he
make such a distinction?
Thanks
Fernando
Dr. Fernando Espinoza
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Education Programs
School of Education-Department of Chemistry and Physics
Link to The Nature of Science: https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-1-4422-0953-4
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If by "the transcendent" you mean some hidden truth that is beyond any possible knowledge, well -- I don't know if there's something that transcends our ability to know. Its a possibility, I guess. But i don't equate that possibility with the supernatural. I think there needs to be different word than "supernatural" used to describe a concept of the unknowable. Because the word "supernatural" is already taken and in my opinion ruined beyond repair -- it is owned by ghosts and gods, prayer, miracles, eternal life, predestination, faith-healing, exorcism, burned witches, winged humanoids, sin, punishment, heaven, hell, voodoo, desperation for certainty -- our exquisitely mysterious cosmic existence reduced to a banal soap-operatic morality play subject to the capriciousness of fantasy magic. That is the pervasive cultural meaning of the term "supernatural." Any attempt to retrofit it to apply to the epistemological limits of science will only be corrupted, I fear, by the trem!
endous baggage it carries.
If by "the transcendent" you mean a personal experience of transcendence, I would propose that concepts such as transcendence and spiritual are not like wormholes to some alien dimension. They are valid not as evidence of an otherworldliness, but rather they are valid as sensations -- quite wonderful sensations, -- that are based in human biology. Is that a letdown -- a plundering of the magical, stripping it to a mere material process? I don't think so. I'm reminded of Richard Feynman's quote which was an almost direct response to Walt Whitman's poem "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" ( http://www.bartleby.com/142/180.html ). Whitman's experience of transcendence looking up through "the mystical moist night air" to stare "in perfect silence at the stars" should not have been available to an analyzer of charts and diagrams, but Feynman responds thus: "It does no harm to the mystery, to know a little about it," he says. "I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel!
them. But do I see less, or more?" "What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" I guess for me, transcendence is an oceanic sense, a feeling of connectivity, a poetic, a strong emotion that I have experienced, like may people, numerous times. I am not convinced that my sensation of transcendence is but a low-resolution version of some sort of higher order of transcendence that is connected to supernatural forces.
/stephen
________________________________________
From: yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr [yasmin_discussions-bounces@estia.media.uoa.gr] On Behalf Of Fernando Espinoza [espinozaf@oldwestbury.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 4:08 PM
To: yasmin_discussions@estia.media.uoa.gr
Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] The Plight of the Supernatural ...
Dear Yasminers,
I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this discussion. I find
the topic absorbing and of enormous interest. I have dealt with the issue
of whether scientific knowledge has limitations in discovering the nature
of reality (a loaded term no doubt), in my book on the nature of science. I
would like to ask Steven, doesn't an attack on the concept of the
supernatural constitute an attack on the transcendent as well? or does he
make such a distinction?
Thanks
Fernando
Dr. Fernando Espinoza
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Education Programs
School of Education-Department of Chemistry and Physics
Link to The Nature of Science: https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-1-4422-0953-4
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[Yasmin_discussions] the supernatural
Dear Stephen,
By way of understanding your position, I am wondering
to what extent you would agree with this famous
passage by Loren Eiseley which concludes his
"Immense Journey", and the first part of which was
cited by Carl Sagan in his synoptic article "Life"
for the 15th edition of the Britannica:
"I would say that if 'dead' matter has reared up this
curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows,
and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most
dedicated materialist that the matter of which he speaks
contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not
impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested, 'but one mask
of many worn by the Great Face behind.'"
My guess is that you might agree with the first part
of this passage; but it is the second -- the reference to
the "Great Face behind" -- with which you specifically
and forcefully disagree.
Some of my own thoughts on this subject have already
been expressed in a new journal dedicated precisely to
the "nexus of art, science, and the sublime":
http://www.caldaria.org/2014/02/the-beat-goes-on-review-by-g-w-smith.html
At any rate, this should be a fascinating conversation!
Regards,
G. W. (Glenn) Smith
www.space-machines.com
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By way of understanding your position, I am wondering
to what extent you would agree with this famous
passage by Loren Eiseley which concludes his
"Immense Journey", and the first part of which was
cited by Carl Sagan in his synoptic article "Life"
for the 15th edition of the Britannica:
"I would say that if 'dead' matter has reared up this
curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows,
and wondering men, it must be plain even to the most
dedicated materialist that the matter of which he speaks
contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not
impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested, 'but one mask
of many worn by the Great Face behind.'"
My guess is that you might agree with the first part
of this passage; but it is the second -- the reference to
the "Great Face behind" -- with which you specifically
and forcefully disagree.
Some of my own thoughts on this subject have already
been expressed in a new journal dedicated precisely to
the "nexus of art, science, and the sublime":
http://www.caldaria.org/2014/02/the-beat-goes-on-review-by-g-w-smith.html
At any rate, this should be a fascinating conversation!
Regards,
G. W. (Glenn) Smith
www.space-machines.com
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[Yasmin_discussions] The Plight of the Supernatural ...
Dear Yasminers,
I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this discussion. I find
the topic absorbing and of enormous interest. I have dealt with the issue
of whether scientific knowledge has limitations in discovering the nature
of reality (a loaded term no doubt), in my book on the nature of science. I
would like to ask Steven, doesn't an attack on the concept of the
supernatural constitute an attack on the transcendent as well? or does he
make such a distinction?
Thanks
Fernando
Dr. Fernando Espinoza
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Education Programs
School of Education-Department of Chemistry and Physics
Link to The Nature of Science: https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-1-4422-0953-4
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If you prefer to read the posts on a blog go to http://yasminlist.blogspot.com/
I thank you for the opportunity to participate in this discussion. I find
the topic absorbing and of enormous interest. I have dealt with the issue
of whether scientific knowledge has limitations in discovering the nature
of reality (a loaded term no doubt), in my book on the nature of science. I
would like to ask Steven, doesn't an attack on the concept of the
supernatural constitute an attack on the transcendent as well? or does he
make such a distinction?
Thanks
Fernando
Dr. Fernando Espinoza
Associate Professor
Director of Graduate Education Programs
School of Education-Department of Chemistry and Physics
Link to The Nature of Science: https://rowman.com/ISBN/978-1-4422-0953-4
_______________________________________________
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[Yasmin_discussions] Supernatural discussion
Dear Yasmin list,
there seems to be a widely established agreement, as Stephen Nowlin noted,
that the 'supernatural' is a problematic term; as with many problematic
terms they have in many cases served (with different meanings at different
times in history) as scaffolding devices to facilitate certain expressions
and exchanges that otherwise might have remained in the phenomenological
domain or for which more concrete terms were absent in the given context.
In this regard Dan Lewis has just addressed an important aspect that lies
in both the limits and the potentials of the continuous evolving of
cognitive abilities and their plasticity and the constantly shifting
boundaries of the knowable, known unknowns and unknowable.
If considering the term for want of a better word, perhaps considering the
'supernatural' as symptom might reveal new or formerly unconsidered
relationships as a way to mobilise ideas that underlie its persistence?
This reminds of an editorial discussion between Roger Malina, Michael Punt
and Sundar Sarukkai in *Leonardo Reviews Quarterly* 2.01 (2012) on
'Science, History and the Sublime'. Michael Punt cites Hoffmann and Boyd
Whyte (2011, *Beyond the Finite: The Sublime in Art and Science*, Oxford
University Press) with a symptomatic approach to the sublime that could
well be replaced with the term 'supernatural':
[Citation start:]
"Hoffmann and Boyd Whyte have recently put the sublime into the frame again
as a reinstatement of belief, and done it in such a way so as to avoid the
polemic that sprang from Darwin's *On the Origin of Species*. Introducing
their collection of essays they argue for a symptomatic approach to the
question of belief and science.
"The breadth and indeterminacy of the term [sub-
lime] are central to this project. Rather than ad-
dress the sublime head on as a category seeking
definition, this volume uses it as a catalyst to
provoke responses from a group of distinguished
scientists and cultural historians. ... *In this con-*
*text, the sublime is not offered either as a veiled*
*religiosity or as a mandate for nihilism. Rather, it*
*is seen as a means of defying conceptual rules*
*and, in the process relating insights that were*
*formerly unknown to each other *(Hoffmann &
Whyte, 2011, p. viii)." "
[End citation]
The full discussion on 'History, Science and the Sublime' is published as
an e-book at:
http://www.leonardo.info/isast/announcements/announcement-LRQ-on-Amazon.html
Martha Blassnigg
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[Yasmin_discussions] "The Plight of the Supernatural in an Art-Science World"
Hi Yasminers -- I thought I'd jump in with a thought or two about Steve 's post about the so-called "magical" component. I think it's entirely likely that there are aspects of the cosmos and its workings -- both here on Earth and elsewhere -- that will be, for perhaps thousands of years, unknown or unknowable. I often turn to the analogy of the dog who can't begin to understand any number of "why" questions: why my dog Hula's thumping her tail when my kids are asleep is bad (because it makes noise); why meal time is usually at the same time , etc. Reasons for this disconnect exist, but the biggest one is that they simply don't have the tools -- and will never have the tools -- to understand. I think we are like dogs in a much larger universe for whose fullest understanding we will probably lack the tools or approaches. But unlike dogs, we do have the ability to continue to improve our investigations! -- Dan Lewis
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
[Yasmin_discussions] "The Plight of the Supernatural in an Art-Science World."
Yasminers
we are pleased to open the YASMIN discussion "The Plight of the
Supernatural in an Art-Science World."
http://malina.diatrope.com/2014/09/29/the-plight-of-the-supernatural-in-an-art-science-world/
This will be a difficult discussion to engage in on line since we will
be talking about sensitive
questions of values and belief so we hope YASMINERS will respect each
other in a vigorous
discussion.
Stephen Nowlin who proposed the discussion will serve as moderator.
He invited the following respondents :
Discussants will include:
Nancy Lowe, artist, catalyst for art-science collaborations
Director of Symbiosis Art+Science Alliance (symbASA)
Margaret Wertheim
Author, "Physics on the Fringe," co-curator, "Crochet Coral Reef"
Director, The Institute For Figuring, Los Angeles
Andres Collazo, PhD
Biologist
Director, Beckman Institute Biological Imaging Center
California Institute of Technology
Daniel Lewis, PhD
Author, Curator
Chief Curator of Manuscripts (History of Science, Medicine, and Technology)
Huntington Library, Art Collection, and Botanical Gardens
Joseph Klein, DMus
Distinguished Teaching Professor
Chair, Division of Composition Studies
University of North Texas College of Music
http://music.unt.edu/comp/josephklein/
Martha Blassnigg, PhD
Reader in the Anthropology of Media | Transtechnology Research |
Editor, Transtechnology Research Open Access Papers | Associate
Editor, Leonardo Reviews and L|R|Q * Plymouth University
http://www5.plymouth.ac.uk/staff/martha-blassnigg
Here is Stephen's opening statement:
Roger Malina
Dear Yasminers --
I have been invited by YASMIN to begin the topic of the next Yasmin
discussion, "The Plight of the Supernatural in an Art-Science World."
I'm Stephen Nowlin, an artist and curator, and director of the
Williamson Gallery at Art Center College of Design which is located in
Pasadena, California. I make stuff, curate, write, and think a lot
about the intersection of art and science. Some of my activities may
be glimpsed athttp://williamsongallery.net/google .
I consider the "supernatural" to be a simple subject that's rather
complicated to discuss -- a tricky navigation around the shoals of
mythology, science fact, religious faith, empirical reason, academic
scholarship, gut feeling. I hope this iteration of an age-old topic
will ensue candidly, thoughtfully, and respectfully. I also think it's
a new discussion now -- not the same one that took place thousands of
years ago or six-hundred years ago, or in the eighteenth century. It's
not a tired one, it's a critically relevant one for our moment and for
the art-science enterprise.
Of many definitions and sensations of the supernatural, two general
ones interest me in particular -- first, the magical supernatural that
forms the commonplace definition of the term, the supernatural that
informs religion and a general belief that something not-natural,
mystical, and typically considered to be more "meaningful" than
physics rules the universe. And second, the definition that allows the
term supernatural to be used in a secular manner to describe a cosmos
that is complex in ways we don't yet fully understand or might never
-- a "beyond-nature" notion derived from the recognition that there
may be epistemological limits to what science can tell us about the
cosmos.
I'd like to start out with a statement about the first definition.
This notion of the supernatural assumes there is a material cosmos
that science can approach and know, but that this material cosmos is
administered by a higher-order magical component that science cannot
know and which controls the true ultimate nature of things. In this
difinition, the natural world is a stage-set which veils the magic. I
regard the assumption of this supernatural to be a stubborn inherited
meme, a pervasive fiction interwoven throughout many global cultures,
that has and continues to send human reason careening in wrong and
often destructive directions regarding both religious and
non-religious subjects, politics, militarism, human rights, ethical
and moral behavior, coincidence, fate, many others. It is time for the
academic community to proactively repudiate this ubiquitous concept of
a magical supernatural universe as an intellectual fraud.
My position and description are not unique -- a familiar skeptical
view. But what may be unique is that I suggest the called-for
repudiation should not be undertaken as an attack on religion, but
rather as an attack on the concept of the supernatural itself.
Stephen Nowlin
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