A tight definition of scientific temperament

What is the basis for scientific temperament? It is, in essence, a clarity regarding the very process by which scientific knowledge is generated. In this regard, a fine tuning of understanding is required not merely among the general public, but within the scientific community itself. Let us examine these concepts one by one, dispel the misconceptions, and attain clarity.

What is the primary source of scientific knowledge? The answer most frequently offered is that observation, experience, evidence, and proof are the king of science. i.e., observation is the ‘authoritative’ knowledge. However, this premise requires a much deeper and more thorough analysis. Does science even have anything ‘authoritative’? Let’s see.

How does the assertion that ‘the sun will rise tomorrow’ simply because it has risen every day up until now strike you? Would you consider this a valid scientific theory? This line of reasoning is known as ‘inductivism’. It involves generalizing or extrapolating experiences that recur repeatedly, and accepting such generalizations as scientific theories. In other words, because the sun has consistently risen every day thus far, one posits the idea of ‘the sun rises daily’ itself as a scientific theory. It assumes that the degree to which a phenomenon is repeatedly confirmed in nature corresponds directly to its validity as a scientific truth. However, inductivism is not a source of scientific theories.

There exists a common saying, "Reading from the book of nature". This implies that we are born as blank slates. By perceiving nature through our senses, we ‘read’ and acquire knowledge or the nature writes it in us. This premise is flawed. Let us examine why.

Another common misconception is the belief that the sole objective of scientific theories is to act as a ‘tool or instrument’ to predict the future. This is ‘instrumentalism’. If one were to adopt this view, then the statement ‘the sun rises daily’ would indeed qualify as a scientific theory since it, after all, predict what will occur tomorrow. However, instrumentalism does not constitute genuine science.

In reality, a scientific theory is an ‘explanation.’ It is neither a mere extension of past experiences nor an instrument for predicting the future. The modern scientific theory explaining why the sun rises every day is simply that ‘the Earth rotates.’ This constitutes an ‘explanation’ (we shall examine explanations in greater detail in a separate article). Scientific theories are, fundamentally, explanations of nature. From where do these explanations originate? Indeed, that should be the very source of scientific knowledge.

Scientific knowledge consists, in truth, of conjectures (guesses), boldly proposed speculations, i.e., hypothesis. At one time, anyone who speculated asking, "Does the Earth rotate upon its own axis? Does the Sun merely remain stationary to one side? Is it the Earth that turns toward it each day? Is this what we perceive as the sun rising?" would likely have appeared to be a monumental fool. Yet, that is precisely our current scientific explanation. Thus, the birthplace of scientific knowledge is humanity itself. We are not blank slates; we possess innate expectations and intentions regarding the nature of the world. These are highly ‘fallible’ (prone to error). However, we also possess the inherent capacity to refine and improve them through the processes of thought and experience. This is how ‘explanations’ come into being. The most crucial point in this process is as follows. Any given explanation evolves into a ‘good explanation’ through a continuous cycle of ‘Conjecture, Criticism, and Testing.’ This is the mechanism by which science advances.

A ‘good explanation’ is, essentially, a conjecture that survives the rigorous process of scrutiny, one that remains consistent with, rather than being contradicted by, empirical observations. For instance, Newton’s theory of gravitation began as his own conjecture. While numerous observations aligned with it, certain specific observations appeared to contradict it. Later, such observations were found to align perfectly with Einstein’s conjectures. So, in the context of gravitation, Einstein’s theories emerged as the ‘good explanations.’

In conclusion, the human mind itself is, in reality, the source of scientific knowledge. However, this does not imply that observation and experience are entirely unimportant. Their function is to select the good hypothesis. One could argue that without the data provided by experience, the hypotheses required to explain them would never be though of in first place. For example, a theory to explain the sunrise can be formulated only after one has actually observed it and wanted to explain it. Yet, even this argument is flawed. Let us examine why.

It is a misconception to view observation as the direct acquisition of nature's truths. All data derived from observation are, in the first instance, mediated through theoris. Karl Popper says that all observations are "theory-laden." For example, the image that falls upon our eyes travels through neural pathways to reach the brain. This does not constitute a direct, unadulterated perception of reality. It consists of electrochemical processes perceived within the brain. Nor do we truly experience ‘where’ these processes are occurring. Visual perceptions originate within the brain, yet we perceive them as existing externally. We sense a star at a vast distance. The brain constantly adds an ‘interpretation’ making things as being "up there" or "on a fingertip" or "in the depths". This interpretation is a form of guess, a theory. It would be no exaggeration to describe the brain as a ‘guessing machine’ created by the evolution to enable humans to comprehend the world. As previously noted, hypotheses are inherently ‘fallible’. So, all the observations are likewise ‘fallible’. Optical illusions and magic trics serve as stark demonstrations of just how profoundly flawed are our observations. We can never directly observe the reality. Everything remains merely a conjecture. Let us once again recall that crucial point. Any explanation evolves into a "good explanation" through a continuous process of conjecture, criticism, and testing. The conjectures added by the brain during the act of observation can function in precisely this manner. But it is up to us, through careful effort, to gradually refine them into good expalnations.

The Royal Society of London (established in 1660) can be regarded as the starting place of modern science. Their central motto was ‘Nullius in verba’, meaning, "Do not blindly accept anyone's word". This philosophy tells that true knowledge is acquired through one's own senses. The doctrine that knowledge consists solely of experiences gained through the senses is known as Empiricism. Inductivism is a part of it. Empiricism has historically challenged numerous absurdities. By opposing traditions that blindly accept erroneous conjectures without critical examination due to religion, culture, and authority. It paved the way for the emergence of modern science. However, Empiricism establishes "observation" itself as a new form of authority. The central insight we have obtained from this article is that observation is inherently fallible. It is prone to error. Thus, empiricism is fundamentally flawed. Observation cannot serve as the ultimate authority for knowledge. Indeed, can there truly be such a thing as "authority" in science?

Even today, misinformation continues to circulate. For instance, the false claim that child birth at home is preferable. But we know it is highly risky. Therefore, it remains absolutely essential to constantly communicate to general public that modern medical practitioners, to represent authoritative scientific knowledge. However, for the purpose of advancing science, accepting anyone as the ‘authority within a specific field’ is a problem regardless of how eminent an expert may be. Such an expert is simply someone who possesses greater knowledge, meaning they have committed numerous errors, learned from them, assimilated knowledge derived from the errors of others, and thereby progressed toward a more advanced understanding. Therefore, what he/she says may well represent the finest knowledge currently available to humanity. However, one must not forget that even these assertions remain open to error.

Ultimately, a tight definition of the scientific temper will be to consider ‘fallibilism’ as the philosophy. Theories are fallible and so are the observations since they are theory-laden.  Through the processes of conjecture, criticism, and testing, improvements can be done. It is this mindset alone that can drive science forward.

The problem of free will and the way forward

 

Let me start with the defintion of the term ‘free will’. One of the misconceptions in the meaning of the term is to think of free will as freedom to do what one wants to do. I am not talking about such a definition. I am talking about why does one ‘want’ to do something? Is that wanting free? This definition is philosophically the most relevant one for me. It is the ability of human beings to choose freely, without any cause whatsoever. Not only the biggest of decisions, even a simple choice. For example, if you are choosing between two of the most favorite food items for the dinner, do you exercise free will?

Modern science says almost certainly that there is no free will. This is because of two main reasons. Let me elaborate.

1.      Choices are ‘deterministic’: If the universe works according to the physical laws, i.e., everything is cause and effect according to the deterministic physical laws, like collision of one particle cause the other to move and so on. If the initial conditions are known, everything in the universe can be determined. Since chemistry is just complex physics, biology is jus complex chemistry, human choice is just a product of complex biology in brain level. So everything is just blind physical process and hence, the process of human choice cannot be free. Choices can’t come out of the blue and there is no need of anything like a soul or supernatural. Right upto to the firing of final neuron that makes the choice, every single thing is according to physical laws. Simply put, the human choices are ‘deterministic’. There will be some reason for you to decide on one food item for the dinner over the other. However subtle it is, there will be a cause. The knowledge of extra spiciness or the ease of digestion etc., meaning the choices are ultimately deterministic. Even if the reason is not obvious, even if you get the feeling of freely choosing, the latest neuroscience says, it is only a post-hoc story your conscious mind tells itself about something that was already decided subsconsciously. So there is always a causal chain. i.e., The previous state of the universe ‘determines’ the current state. On the other hand, science itself provides another view. The most fundamental pillar of modern science, the particle physics, says, the human choices can not be deterministic but random. Let’s unpack.

2.      Choices are ‘random’: Particle physics tells that randomness and probabilities underly the working of the universe. For example, an electron is not surely present at a location but only ‘a probability’ of its presence can be talked about. Its position is actually random and cannot be determined. It means that the previous state of the universe is not the cause for the current state. The current state happens ramdomly among numerous other choices of states.  No causal chain. Therefore, if an electron is present in one location, the final neuron firing for a human choice will be something but if the electron is not present there, then the choice would be different. Going with the same example as before, the choice of food item is because of just randomness of subatomic level actions changing the final neuron firing. Now the question is, does that mean humans have free will? No, it just says nothing is deterministic but everything is ‘random’. So, this understanding also simply discards the free authorship of choice.

In summary, whether human choices are either deterministic or random, there is no scope of free will.

Alright. Then no one can be held accountable for their mistakes, including serial killers and pedophiles. Punishment would lose its meaning. Likewise, no one could claim responsibility for their achievements or moral virtues.

How does it make you feel? Pessimistic? Is it even a healthy thing to understand about our reality? The most pressing question is, will it not make people act more immorally? What is the way forward?

The optimistic way forward involves understanding more. You see, even if people understand that scientifically there are compelling reasons to believe that there is no free will, in daily life, even those people act as if free will exists. Neuroscience show that by certain training it is possible to be optimistic about moral behaviour. Consider the following experiment. The experiment tested whether beliefs about free will affect honesty. Students were primed with one of the two messages. One group recived messages of “no free will”, we are just part of mechanistic universe and so on. The other group recieved “Yes there is free will” messages, that we can make conscious moral choices. Then all the students were given an exam on some general subject, but they were left alone to grade their own tests and pay themselves according to their marks. The result: Students who were primed to believe they had no free will, consistently cheated more, taking extra money they didn't earn. Therefore, we can conclude that ‘believing’ you're just a pawn of physical laws either gives you an excuse for bad behavior, "don't blame me, I have no free will” or simply drains the willpower needed to resist temptation.

A researcher compares it to sailing: you can't control the wind or currents in the ocean, but you can set your course and largely end up where you want to go. He argues that while science has revealed much about consciousness and physics, we should be cautious about dismissing free will entirely, because believing in it clearly matters, practically speaking.

So whether free will is real or an illusion may be less important than the fact that believing in it makes us more moral, more responsible, and more motivated to shape our own lives. As much as possible we should think that we are free to choose and we are responsible for our actions. It has real positive consequence backed by experiments.

There is another interesting dimension to this. We discussed so much on human choices, but  what about human creativity? (If you think AI can do it, think again after reading the rest of this article). For example, consider the creation of theory of relativity. It is an hypothesis that was created by Einstein that explains many experimental observations. For the problems Einstein had, his creativity has hit an answer. The answer is not ‘random’ but the opposite of it. Because a random answer cannot be the right answer. If it is determistic, it must be predictable and any prediction first requires the laws. Now, here the law itself is reached by the creativity of a human. Then in principle it could not be predicted before hand by even the most advanced of computers since it can only model and simulate things based on the available laws. If its AI, it too works only based on the avialable data and the laws. So the right unknown laws can never be predicted. Will creativity eventually reach laws according to which creativity itself operates? we may never know but what is undeniable is the act of creativity makes humans incredibly important. The knowledge created by such creativity has causal power to rearrange the physical universe in ways that would otherwise be astronomically unlikely. It can convert things that aren't resources into resources. If problems are inevitable in the universe for humas, solutions can come from only human creativity to solve problems. And that is profoundly optimistic.

The greatest thing about science is NOT evidence

 

What is the greatest thing about science? Most people including scientists are quite convinced about the answer to this question. The answer is that science is based on “evidence”. I was no exception to this conviction.

It was until I read David Duetsch. He is a physicist and he is regarded as the father of quantum computers. But his work on philosophy of science is what I am talking about here. He says evidence is still important. But the greatest thing about the science is the theory. In fact evidence itself is theory-laden. Duetsch calls theories "explanations". The word expalanation is of course familiar to us. He gives a definition to it and he says the greatest thing about science is “good explanations”.

Now what is a good explanation. A good explanation is “falsifiable” and “hard to vary”. At the outset, it did sound like some obsure philosophical idea. Then, as I understand it more, I realize how powerful it is and it is in fact “the thing” that can ensure almost everything good about the human future. What is that? How is good explanation different from bad one?

Consider an example.

Let me take a culturally familar one rather than a core scientific one.

There is a bunch of negative things happening for you in work in a day. Your vehicle is out of fuel at an unexpected time, you are assigned the most difficult project by your boss, your computer socket is burnt, your colleague is unhappy with how you talked with her today and so on. At the end of the day, you will want an explanation. When it comes to examples of bad explanations, astrology for example gives all sorts of bad explanations. In this case, it may give the following explanation. “today its chandrashtamam, bad things will happen, be careful to avoid them as much as possible”. This is a bad explanation. Why? it is not falsifiable and it is easy to vary.

If no bad things happen, its because you were intentionally careful or even because of help from some of your good karma. If 4 bad things happen, no matter what sort, then its because of chandrashtamam. If 18 bad things happen still its because of chandrashtamam. You see. This explanation is first of all not falsifiable. A falsifiable explantion has clear, testable predictions about what should happen and what should not happen. If it is contradicted by observation, it must be rejected or revised. The astrological theory here does not provide anything like that. It has no faslsifying aspect to it and it is not testabile. For example, if any number of and even any type of bad things happen, astrology tells that it is because of the chandrashtamam. Then, if none happens the theory should be refuted. But here it can not be refuted, since the explanation also says if you are careful you may avoid problems. You see it is maximally flexible to fit any observations. It cannot be refuted. But don’t think that just because its not refutable it is a great explanation.

Good explanations don’t come like that. They propose a specific mechanism that could in principle be tested. Take the example of your colleague is unhappy with how you talked with her today. A good explanation is, if you have less sleep the last night, then you will have less happy harmones in blood and you will be in bad mood and talk in a dislikable manner to your colleague. This is a good explanation. Why? It can be tested directly. If X is true then Y should not be observed. A statistical data collection over a population on short sleep times, happy harmone levels and the mood on the next day is a good test. If there is a week correlation (observation), less sleep but good mood, then the theory can be rejected. If not then the explanation is accepted. Now it is a good explanation since it has falsifiability. The second aspect is the explanation should be hard to vary. It means, no aspect of the theory can be rejected or selectively accepted to retrofit the observation. You may also see how logically the good explanation is made and it is very specific about the testable parameters to refute it, specific sleep time, harmone level and scale of mood. Astrological explanation doesn’t provide any specific testable parameter like that. Computer not working, Boss gives tough work etc are the observations but explanation was never specific about any of these in the first place in astrology. Astrological explanation is easy to vary. Some part of it can be selectively accepted to fit the observation. They were so broadly vague with no logic and hence they lack any solid predictive power. This is why astrology is pseudo-science.

The scientific explanation doesn’t stay vague. The lack of sleep theory doesn’t unnecessarily venture into computer socket failure. The later must have a separate “good explanation”.

The dangereous thing about astrological explanations is that they are dead ends for knowledge creation. For example, a good explanation for the socket failure is that is wet due to poor maintenance of a waterline. The explanation can be tested. If true then the control actions can be taken and future failures can be predicted. If it is chandrashtamam why bother maintenance? There is no room to improve the explanations, predict future and plan course of action.

Still astrological bad explanations are in culture strongly. Why? The reasons are a few. After a bad day, you look for answers and that is a cultural or emotional need. This need overrides logic and accepts any answer. The answer comes from easily available thing in the culture, astrology. Why astrology came? There is deep seated desire in humans to find reasons and control future. Human mind wants to find order among chaos, to see patterns in the world. Pattern recognition is what makes us human, this is the thing we do better than any other animal. But it is error prone. Imagine you were living a few thousands of years ago. You do agriculture and the outcome relies on seasons, good rain means good crop output. This was before any digital entertainment to fill your nights, so stars in the sky are the main things to observe for the curious minds or minds desperate to find order in chaos. Stars and planets seem to move in patterns, the seasons also change in patterns. You connect the two, stars and the rains and your crop output. Eventually you connect every little human concern to the postion of stars and planets mistakenly. Astrology evolves. It evolves differently in different parts of the world. Astrology is just a relic of such times of human history. Although the set of things that those agricultural socities did and the modern humans do in a day or almost completely different, the astrological theories got  explanatory coexistence in the culture due to their irrefutable nature and vagueness to retrofit any observation.

Thus in astrology the pattern that we mistakenly recognize is the positions of stars and planets in the sky and connect them mistakenly to the complex and detailed concerns of one species of mammals on this one planet. If you apply the pattern recognizing ability without also applying the rigourous methods of science to weed out the inherent tendency to error, then the very ability will just see patterns where there are no patterns. This is true even among the well educated who overlook how the things they studied in the school came about.

Knowledge is as Deutsch puts it, information with causal power, specifically "good explanations" that can transform physical objects and solve problems which is exactly what is required for a better future. The observation or evidence is available. But the explanations are the fundamental difference between astrology and scientific explanations.  Therefore, it is not the evidence that is the greatest thing about science but it’s the “good explanations” that are falsifiable and hard-to-vary.

One peg of religion

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Javed Akthar say that “people are good despite their religion and not because of it”. It must be their overall conclusion seeing both good and bad consequences of religious faith. I think there is not enough quantified data to support it. It must be studied.

They claim that religious faith does not impose morality, indicating that the most religious countries are the most violent countries in the present world. Richard and Javed claim that religion makes people commit atrocities who are otherwise good people. True. Religious extremists are possibly good people, otherwise. But in my view religious faith make people act morality more often than not.

Religion has been a great source of morality over at least a few millennia. I recall a personal experience. I had travelled to the famous Tiruppathi temple when I was young and religious. It is in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. I travelled from the state of Tamil Nadu. When crossing the border of the states, police checks vehicles and collect toll. For a commercial taxi service, higher toll was collected than a non-commercial car. I, with my relatives without paying attention, travelled in a non-commercial car, however, it was a commercial service given by the driver whom we didn’t know before. My family was blissfully unaware that the driver is cheating the government. The police inquired with the driver about the nature of the trip, seeking clarification on whether it was a personal outing with family or friends or if it involved a commercial service. It is common practice of car owners with a noncommercial vehicle to offer commercial trips to earn extra income. When police asked, the driver obviously lied saying that it was a personal outing. Then the police took out a photo of the deity of the temple where we were heading to. They asked the driver to swear on the god, showing the photo.  The driver got scared and accepted that it is a commercial trip. Definitely the religious faith forced him to be truthful. This is a typical example of the opposite of what Richard and Javed say. This is an incident where people are good because of religion. There can be numerous examples like this that everyone might have seen in their life. The great charities of religion can not be ignored at all. The conclusion is this. In a world where we have people of wide spectrum of levels of education, IQ, life style, religious intensities of families, growing-up atmospheres, monetary status, etc., it is difficult for everyone to get philosophically as refined as atheists. Atheists who have the ultimate reverence for the truth, can intellectually work out their morality. But, truth doesn’t matter to many people compared to the other things they want in life.  Therefore, it is a good weapon to keep people exercise morality due to fear. Carl Sagan says that the one who is moral only because of fear of god, is actually not a moral person. Just a scared one. However, if morality is the need of the hour, I take it, whichever way it comes. A level of religious faith is good, I call this ‘one peg of religion’. It gets bad when it increases beyond a level, when people start committing atrocities in its name. i.e., more pegs have gone in.

Javed Akthar eloquently puts the reasons for religious extremism. He says that it happens due to three types of people. 1. Ones who think that the belief of their parents must be true because it is believed by his/her parents. 2. Ones who get failed in one/several important aspects of life and wants to vent out the venom and feel great and even holy about it. 3. One who is a pure opportunist who wants to exploit a situation for his/her own benefit. These three categories are not water tight. One may be partly here and there. But these three are the reasons.

There is one more strong reason for religious atrocities, which is said by Yuval Harari. To make people believe in something, let them make a sacrifice. Make a man gift a costly ring to his girl friend. His belief that he loves her will grow in his mind. Make people revere a god with severe rituals like doing long hours of fasting, praying multiple times a day, travelling to far flung places of worship, and so on. One day even if they understand the absurdity of their faith, they would not want to reject it. They sacrificed so much that they will not want to accept that all of it is for a lie. And of course, never forget one more important reason. The comfort given by the religion. The sense that there is a watching entity is such a comforting feeling which people find extremely difficult to leave. Eventually they go to a stage of building an identity for themselves with the religion and raise to the level of committing atrocities. This level of religiosity is definitely bad.

There is an interesting category of people who are well educated, who don’t do atrocities in the name of religion but have intense identification with the religion. They try to defend their faith trying to bring some evidences, say, scientific reasons behind their rituals and even lack of evidence or studies in science in certain regimes of human thought. Javed Akthar says that he finds such acts rather cute 😊. Absolutely.

In a world where true inclusiveness exists, religious people should have their place.  It is only fair to expect that religion and superstition cannot leave the place where education and material well-being doesn’t reach. To all the atheists, rationalists, agnostics etc., who revere truth over everything else, please find the believers rather cute and move on. Keep spreading your knowledge so that 1. they don’t become extreme, 2. they wither off certain stupid customs that causes a net suffering. 3. possibly they understand and open for change. Till then one peg of religion is good.

 

Where does Sam Harris go irrational?

 

Despite being labeled as one of the four horsemen of atheism, Sam Harris stands out by extending his future course of action to individuals whose belief has withered off or never existed. The highly rational individual that he is, Sam Harris explores two areas where ultra-rationalism might find compromise for the better. In the first instance, he meticulously presents arguments to rationalize a practice—meditation. Harris contends that the mindfulness technique he advocates, promoting a life of awareness and reduced suffering, can be likened to mental training, analogous to the physical training undertaken by athletes. Notably, there is a mounting body of scientific evidence supporting the rationality of his stance.

In the second instance, he goes into irrationality, addressing the question of life's meaning, specifically what individuals ought to do with their lives. In fact, that is the biggest problem with science. It does not offer answers to "what one ought to do?", the question answered by religion all along. Harris proposes that determining what one ought to do, both individually and as a human race, becomes possible by accepting a foundational principle. Namely, the shared desire to avoid a state of absolute hell—maximum suffering for everyone, at every moment—and to move towards well-being. While there is no scientific proof mandating this direction, it aligns with rational and common-sense thinking for any reasonable person. Although this sounds reasonable, it is his deeply honest reverence towards the scientific method that makes him admit that it is still an irrational principle since it has no scientific proof. However, if one accepts the premise of steering away from hell and pursuing a better world, there are numerous rational pathways to achieve this goal.