“There’s no such thing as no such thing.”
-Character Greed,
Full Metal Alchemist (TV)
By exploring the idea that the
unknown has to be treated as the unknown, without assumptions, and also
questioning whether physical and chemical processes alone are capable of being
dealt with rationally, we have arrived at the heart of our discussion. We are
faced with the task of not only defining our new basis, where we do not assume
certain things out of hand, but also giving a way to successfully interact with
the world, which can help us to understand it and hence, work with it.
To do that, we must first ask
ourselves the question, what is it that made the physical sciences amenable to
rational understanding? For, to be perfectly honest, there are a lot of
experiences which have no outward relation to the natural sciences, such as
ethics or art. What, in reality, separates the two? To that, the answer is easy
to see, that as we deal with physical quantities, we are dealing with
MAGNITUDES. And since we have developed a system of logical knowledge based on
magnitudes, which is called mathematics, with that confidence we go ahead and
classify all of the magnitudes, and also derive the properties therewith. At
this point, it should also be noted that this is the origin of the coupling of
mathematics with reality: we couple only those things that have specific
magnitudes.
Let us take the elements of nature;
from hydrogen to Element 117… they can all be quantified. All the properties of
the world are seen as having a reality to the extent they can have a certain
magnitude. As can the weights, the charges, or the strengths of magnets. That
has given rise to the natural sciences of today. They can inform us very well as to the
required material to build a sturdy bridge, or the required solids or gases to
use to make a surgical laser. It provides us a means to quantify something,
which is then put to use.
There are a lot of experiences
that do not depend on magnitudes, but on quality. The dreams that we see every
night, the Mona Lisa, the appreciation of music, the relishing of fantasies and
mythologies, the emotions of daily life, the ethics of beings, the ideas of a
purpose, or indeed, the very notion of an idea in itself, are those aspects of
experience that cannot be quantified, as far as we know.
The next step that has been taken
by the natural sciences is something subtle… since magnitudes were the section
of experience that were available to be rationally understood and derived, and
the other realms of experience did not submit themselves to that analysis as
readily, it was assumed that all of the qualitative aspects of experience are
“nothing but” a derivation from the quantities that have magnitude. The
question was not pursued, as to whether there is a way of rationally dealing
with concepts that, by their very nature, are not quantitative. In place of mathematics
of quality, we proceeded to improve the quality of our mathematics! That is a
phenomenal turn in the history of the human race. To be honest, even when we
say we hold that mathematical knowledge is true, that itself is a concept, an
idea, a thought that can never be quantified, but is held as true nevertheless.
This is similar to the proverbial
story of the man looking for his lost key under the streetlight. When asked
where and when he lost it, he pointed yonder to the darkness and said it was there.
But when questioned why he did not look for it over there, he irritably
responds: “You fool, how could I search for it where there is no light to see
it with?” Our status is somewhat similar. When we look at the unknown
(darkness), which are all our questions regarding our perceptions, we
continuously look via the methods which determine magnitudes, in the sincere
hope that because these things are understood (or should we say, illuminated),
we would find the answer somewhere in that area itself.
Why have we walked down that
path? It is simply because magnitude, as such, is seen to be independent of
personal involvement. A 5 kg mass is seen as a 5 kg mass, regardless of who
weighs it. Valuing that which is independent of personal prejudice, or is eternal,
or that which does not change from being to being, situation to situation… no
matter how clichéd it may sound, that indeed can be seen as the primary source
for the entire superstructure of scientific advancement that has been set up.
So, does that mean that qualities
are excluded from having any permanence, or truth to them, because they cannot
be quantified? Not necessarily, it only means that we must seek their
permanence, or essence, in their quality itself, and not in terms of quantity.
Every experiment that has been done within any lab or without, as far as the
natural sciences go, has to do with creating situations which affect the
quantities of things, which are then subject to understanding.
Let us say a person decides to
scientifically examine the response of people to a particular piece of poetry.
He would try to obtain a large number of measurements, which are called
parameters, and hoping to keep all of them except one, constant, he hopes to
derive out the relevant criteria. However, the qualitative realm demands
something totally different. When examining qualitative ideas, he necessarily
has to use his senses to only obtain the quality of the data, and not the
quantity! This is leading us to strange territory indeed, so let us recap a bit.
Why am I claiming that quality
and quantity cannot be reduced into each other? The truth is, I do not know for
sure. I do not know, beforehand, if quality is derived from quantity unless I
assume it to be true. If we assume quantity to be primary, and say that only
magnitudes are “real”, while experiences of art and the spirit are solely
products of the neural fireworks of our brain (which can be measured via
electronics and computers), it leads to the conclusion that the quantities are
themselves products of neuro-fireworks: In other words, quantitatively one
requires that quantities are NOT primary! That assumption leads us straight to
a contradiction. There is no way out, but to abandon that assumption.
What do we place in its stead?
The only thing that makes sense is to treat neither quantity nor quality as the
primary property, but to look for ways to rationally understand both of them.
That would mean that there must be a way of establishing the truth of something
that is entirely qualitative, which would remain so regardless of “personal
perspective”, in the same way that magnitudes have so faithfully remained in
most of the cases. Hence we need to identify, first of all, how much of a
“personal perspective” HAS entered our scientific foundations, and to look for
alternative perspectives as well. We shall embark on that journey in the next
article.
