Re: externalism, internalism

Phil Graham (pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au)
Mon, 11 Jan 1999 18:59:30 +1100

At 00:30 10-01-99 -0500, Jay wrote:
>The issues arise because natural science accepts that
>observation as a process is possible only via interaction with the system
>observed, and therefore data are always data in and of a supersystem that
>includes the observer and the activity/process of observation. To create a
>model of the system from an externalist viewpoint therefore requires at
>least "factorization", the basis for 'objective' description, which is
>supposed to be observer-independent. All issues are those of how to best
>achieve the most complete factorization of the joint supersystem into
>observer-and-apparatus-and-procedures vs. an object-in-itself.

What is also often neglected here is that every observation places the
observer at the centre of her or his universe. That is to say, every
observation is made by an observer, which is (from a certain perspective!)
an "in-itself" cognitive, observing apparatus. Prosthetics notwithstanding,
to do "science", we must first specify the domain in which an observation
takes place: Am I, as an observer, interacting with a concept (which is a
description or descriptions), a description of a thing (which is also a
concept), or a thing-in-itself which is yet to be described? Am I
interacting with a complex or a simple unity? A social phenomenon or an
individual? All of these, from one perspective or another, are
"artificially" manufactured boundaries: ie, they are descriptively
circumscribed.

>This viewpoint was explicitly rejected in physics by Bohr, who claimed with
>very cogent arguments that have been ignored but not refuted within the
>logic of modern physics, that factorization is in principle impossible, and
>not merely impossible to the last quantitative degree, but irreducibly and
>qualitatively impossible: what we can know about a system is not what is
>left when we eliminate all observer-dependent effects, but is rather the
>sum of all possible observer-inclusive 'views' of the system.

This would suggest that the state of a system can only be "known" when all
possible descriptions of it are exhausted. Fine. The question then becomes:
Is this destructive, constructive, or "merely" descriptive observation? Is
there a neutral discourse here [JL95]? Of course not, nothing is "merely"
descriptive; everything is domain-specific and value laden: observation and
description are simultaneously and intrinsically delimiting,
circumscribing, and evaluative processes. Each described observation either
"bolts on to" an existing description and/or (partially) destroys another.
In this sense, Being and Time are irrelevant, the rest is evaluative. By
destructive observation, I mean, in a physical sense, such things as
dissection; in a descriptive sense, negation or exclusion.

>The crux comes because in modern physics we can show that if a set of
views is
>sufficient to characterize the system for the purposes of physics, then at
>least some of these views must be incommensurable: different, and not
>subject to any determination of consistency or equivalence with one
>another. (This is the deep meaning of the so-called Uncertainty Principle.)

Any observation is incommensurable with that which it is not. Surely this
is sophisticated dialectical thought. Taking Heisenberg's assertion
regarding the speed and position of a wave/particle, we can easily conceive
of why a description of its speed will not render us a description of its
position and vice versa. Thus incommensurability is a function of selecting
a descriptive domain in which to operate. The mystery might be why it's
taken so long to come to terms with "that which a thing is not" because the
particular way in which it is observed and described renders all else
invisible or "incorrect": here is the source of nonsense as a notion.

>Bohr takes a step here toward "internalism", which seeks to redefine the
>nature of science and its view of reality completely and radically. The
>internalist project is still rather vague and getting underway. One view of
>it is that its discourses speak from a viewpoint that always situates
>itself within a system being characterized, rather than outside or 'above'
>it. All systems are defined in such a way that the observer is internal to
>the system, and all characterizations of systems are about the observation
>process as it is specific to that system. In some sense all of science
>becomes about the observation process; there is nothing else that can be
>known, and nothing else that needs to be known.

Maturana & Varela argued for this view in 1980 except they were focused on
characterising living systems. Being ever the observer (I mean people tout
court here, not me in particular), it becomes difficult to distinguish
interaction from observation: observation is interaction, sure; but I'm not
so sure the obverse is true and any assertion to the contrary is mere
speculation. We may think that because sub-atomic particles are attracted,
repelled, or affected in different ways and different states that they
"observe" one another, or "communicate" or so forth, however, I believe
that this is a function of metaphorical human thought: we seem to believe
that we are our the ultimate technological apparatus and all other
developments in our thoughts and technologies appear to flow from this.
Hence, we see a consuming obsession with artificial intelligence, labor
saving devices, and technologies of war, knowledge, and communication.

>This shift is not subjectivist, mentalist, or psychological, though some
>efforts have tried to use those discourses as clues. It is not about a
>human observer as such. It is at least as much about the entire material
>apparatus and enterprise of observation, or experimentation, as it is about
>any human who is part of this active network.

Thus, the law of the excluded middle is challenged because what may "be" in
a particular domain may also "not be" in another domain. I believe you are
describing the fundamental fabric of the myth of science: viz that it is
all merely selective observations and descriptions; its systematicity
creates an invisible "not" by exclusion and negation.

>The potential project of internalism has quite a lot of work to do ... it
>needs to develop an account of the nature of 'observation' that is both
>material and semiotic and which connects across scales by both
>distinguishing and integrating 'same-scale' 'up-scale' and 'down-scale'
>observation (or the appropriate generalizations). It needs an account of
>observation as a fundamental phenomenon that includes the special case of
>human cultural meaning-making with/about material interactions, but is not
>limited in ways that privilege our activities or scales.

"The biology of cognition" goes a long way in this direction but needs, as
Varela points out, an extension beyond the internal 'into the
sociolinguistic register' in the case of humans (1992, p. 11). He
formulated a double dialectics of signification and identity maintenance.
Possibly a synthesis between this and Prigogine's latest work (1997) may
assist. I have a reference to Varela's work in this if you want it. He
seems to be heading in a similar direction.

>In Bill's beautiful list of quotations about time, the Einsteinian view is
>the ultimate reductio of externalism: in a complete externalist logic, time
>is impossible, a mere illusion. The Whiteheadian view derives from a much
>more internalist epistemology (ontology in his case): time in the sense of
>process from the participant perspective is the very essence of reality.
>Both are profoundly correct.

Only in dialectical synthesis. That is, only if both are correct can either
be. They may not. Time is a descriptive observation also, and it is also
domain (or observer) specific. Downwards-causation holds conceptually only
if the notion of emergent properties do likewise. Life exists in the
tension of extremes. This same tension is the source of diversity and
identity.

Phil
Phil Graham
pw.graham who-is-at student.qut.edu.au
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/index.html