Three Minds of Science the Peak Experience the Vienna Circle And
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EdgeScienceNumber 38 June 2019 Current Research and Insights Three Minds of Science The Peak Experience The Vienna Circle and the Paranormal A publication of the Society for Scientific Exploration EdgeScience #38 June 2019 EdgeScience is a quarterly magazine. Print copies are available from edgescience.magcloud.com. For further information, see edgescience.org CONTENTS Email: [email protected] Why EdgeScience? Because, contrary to public perception, scientific knowledge is still full of THE OBSERVATORY unknowns. What remains to be discovered — what Three Minds of Science we don’t know — very likely dwarfs what we do know. By Andrew Lohrey And what we think we know may not be entirely correct 3 or fully understood. Anomalies, which researchers tend to sweep under the rug, should be actively pursued as clues to potential breakthroughs and new directions in science. PUBLISHER: The Society for Scientific Exploration FEATURE EDITOR: Patrick Huyghe ASSOCIATE EDITOR: P.D. Moncrief CONTRIBUTORS: Stephen Braude, Robert Davis, Andrew Lohrey, T. Peter Park Seeing the Unseen: DESIGN: Smythtype Design The Peak Experience and Interactions The Society for Scientific Exploration (SSE) 6 is a professional organization of scientists and with an scholars who study unusual and unexplained Alternate Reality phenomena. The primary goal of the Society is to By Robert Davis provide a professional forum for presentations, criticism, and debate concerning topics which are for various reasons ignored or studied inadequately within mainstream science. A secondary goal is to promote improved understanding of those factors that unnecessarily limit the scope of scientific inquiry, such as sociological constraints, restrictive world views, hidden theoretical assumptions, and the temptation to convert prevailing theory into prevailing dogma. Topics under investigation cover a wide spectrum. At one end are apparent REFERENCE POINT anomalies in well established disciplines. At the A Parapsychological Naturalist other, we find paradoxical phenomena that belong A book review by Stephen Braude of 11 to no established discipline and therefore may JOTT: When Things Disappear... offer the greatest potential for scientific advance and Come Back or Relocate and and the expansion of human knowledge. The SSE Why lt Really Happens was founded in 1982 and has approximately 800 members in 45 countries worldwide. The Society by Mary Rose Barrington also publishes the peer-reviewed Journal of Scientific Exploration, and holds annual meetings in the U.S. and biennial meetings in Europe. Associate and student memberships are available to the public. To join the Society, or for more information, visit the website at scientificexploration.org. BACKSCATTER The Vienna Circle and the PRESIDENT: William Bengston, St. Joseph’s College Paranormal VICE PRESIDENT: Garret Moddel, University of 13 Colorado, Boulder By T. Peter Park SECRETARY: Mark Urban-Lurain, Michigan State University TREASURER: York Dobyns EDUCATION OFFICER: Chantal Toporow EUROPEAN COORDINATOR: Anders Rydberg Copyright © 2019 Society for Scientific Exploration The authors, artists, and photographers retain copyright to their work. Cover: pressureUA/iStock ISSN 2330-4545 (Print) ISSN 2330-4553 (Online) EDGESCIENCEEDGESCIENCE #31 • SEPTEMBER #38 • JUNE 20192017 / 3 ❛THE OBSERVATORY❜ Andrew Lohrey Three Minds of Science DrAfter123/iStock here is a painting by the Belgium surrealist painter, A similar approach can be adopted in relation to the dis- TRené Magritte that shows an ordinary European smoking courses of science. In this case the purpose would not be to pipe and underneath is written in French: “Ceci n’est pas une identify the author who is already accurately identified, but to pipe” (“This is not a pipe”). The philosopher and social critic identify the assumed model of mind that is embedded in the Michel Foucault was so impressed with the contradictions in scientific discourse. Why would I do this? Because the reflexiv- the painting that he wrote a small book about it (Foucault, ity of language and meaning tells us that every text, scientific 1982). Magritte’s painting suggests a great deal about the or otherwise, will implicitly or explicitly contain some model multi-level nature of language, but it also illustrates how lan- of the self that the author(s) have privileged. How we think of guage has reflexivity, that is, it is self-referencing. ourselves is usually stereotypical, and this is because language Some sentences self-refer in explicit ways: this sentence is is essentially social and so we often assume a stereotypical made up of eight words. However, some self-referencing pro- model of self that is taken for granted. For example, some ver- duces paradoxes such as I am lying. In addition, words are arbi- sion of the human self attends every interpretation of quantum trary social systems by which we map other territories, which mechanics (QM) as well as Albert Einstein’s theories of rela- we may then identify as a single closed system. Magritte’s paint- tivity. This is generally an Enlightenment mind that is awake, ing challenges the circular identification of map and territory rational, logical, intelligent and has freedom of choice, and the with: this is not a pipe. Our retort could well be: correct! “this” ability to discern differences and see separations. is a pronoun. In her book Reflexivity, Hilary Lawson discusses Conventionally, physicists have not accounted for lan- this self-referral structure of language. The meanings that lan- guage, meaning, or mind in their theories or experiments. guage carry also self-refer (Lohrey, 2018), while Arthur Young What these three have in common is reflexivity, which is the (1999) argued that the universe itself is self-reflexive. key self-referencing component of each. Reflexivity is a circu- Together, language and meaning create a powerful self-ref- lar movement of meaning. In the past circularity has had a bad erencing influence that is part of every expression. This force can press. An argument that is circular is commonly seen to add show up in the writing style and content of every author. During nothing new, or worse, to be false. Whatever the criticism of the 1990s I worked as an applied linguist with the New South circularity, reflexivity is a key aspect of language, meaning, and Wales Legal Aid Commission on a series of serious crime cases. mind, and those scientific discourses that erase or ignore these Many of these involved analyzing the Record of Interview at important features present an incomplete picture of reality. that time written down by an investigating police officer. What The second feature of language that is relevant to this I was looking for in the Record of Interview was evidence of two discussion of completeness is the understanding we have of authors. An admission of guilt that was not in the writing style of the role of language. This issue is directly relevant to the con- the accused indicated fabricated evidence. This kind of linguis- ventional scientific belief in the possibility of attaining certain tic analysis was easier when the accused had English as a second knowledge by scientific means. Yet when scientific practices language and then differences in authorship were easier to note. do not take language into account, the uncertain influences of What made these analyses inherently difficult is the social char- vocabulary are erased. With the advent of quantum mechanics acter of language with its rules of grammar and syntax that exert uncertainty became an essential feature of doing science. The a common sentence structure on individual styles. uncertainty principle of QM reflects to a degree the necessary 4 / EDGESCIENCE #38 • JUNE 2019 uncertainty within language. Hence, if uncertainty has become In other words, the EPR paper assumed that completeness an inbuilt feature of language and also of doing science, how rested on a language map that could exactly copy the observed should it be treated? details of physical reality. This naïve belief in the mirror of One direct method is to look at the type of influences language also assumed that a series of single meanings could generated by language. Every discourse, whether scientific or directly connect the language maps used in the Copenhagen everyday, carries both implicit and explicit meanings that are interpretation of QM with every physical detail of QM experi- part of an entangled field of social and historical implications. ments, including measurements. Yet single meanings that are Explicit meaning reveals details, differences, and distinctions, devoid of self-reflexivity whether in science or everyday life while implicit meaning creates links, connections, unities, are a fiction. and wholes, and is the hidden content of every context. This There is a widespread complacency in physics about the revealing and concealing process may seem contradictory, yet it important role played by language, meaning, and the human occurs whenever we speak, write, and use symbols to commu- mind in every theory and experiment. It is suggested here that nicate. Every scientific theory or interpretation is constructed in order to achieve a more complete picture of reality, one that from these contradictory effects of language, which make it includes the reflexivity of the human mind, physics needs to impossible to express a complete, concise, clear, and certain take into account the reflexivity of language and mind. Such statement without some ambiguity or uncertainty. This inher-