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CONSILIENCE_PRIZE
January 29, 2003
Consilience
The Unity of Knowledge
by Edward O. Wilson NATURE_OF_THE_WALLS
Here E.O. Wilson argues for his notion of "Consilience",
some sort of convergence between the sciences and the
humanities, a bridge between the two cultures.
TWOCULT
Shortly after beginning this book,
a sinking feeling sank in... "oh
no, not nature-nurture again".
To me the odd word "Consilience"
suggests a conciliation. I was
expecting a program for blending
together the "two cultures" into
one, perhaps a call for rigor
in the humanities, and for
the intuitive in the sciences.
Instead Wilson appears
to be out to make the
humanities obsolete.
He wants to play the
Science Wars to win. A scientist strikes back against
the pomo infidels who dared
His route of attack is suggest that science was just
to find a way to reduce another form of literature,
"mind" to it's physical subservient to critical theory.
substrate, to pin down
biological determinants Some day soon, all your pathetic
for human nature. ramblings about cultural relativism
will drown under the mighty tidal
He claims that we're wave of my evolutionary biology.
well on the way to Take that!
developing a true
science of mind, a
revolution that will DOWN_TO_THE_BOTTOM
essentially expand
the dominion of
biology to fill much
of the territory we
currently think of as
belonging to the A popular approach
humanities. these days.
There
are others: Consider the possibility
that Mind emerges out of
Consider the line a swirl of complexity
Roger Penrose has and network effects that
been taking... has less to do with the
MIND_PENROSE nature of the widgets
Loosely: he attached together than
argues that the sheer number of
That's in "The human brains may them, the sheer density
Emperor's New Mind" be odd quantum of different possible
and it's sequel, entanglement interconnections between
"The Emperor Strikes devices that them.
for--", I mean will resist
"Shadows of the computational It seems likely to me that
Mind". emulation (at you could know precisely
least with the how neurons work, and still
traditional not understand what goes on
Turing inside a brain, any more
Machines). than our knowledge of the
behavior of gas molecules
gives us long-term
weather predictions.
Now myself, I've long The extreme form
been inclined toward Thought of this belief
some form of "maybe flows out expects human
we're not smart enough of the scale artificial
to understand things swirl of intelligence to
as smart as we are". neural emerge the moment
complexity, we've got
If you expect You might like machines with a
neurobiology call this hurricanes sufficient number
to grow into "the Goedel out of the of transistors in
something Handwave". jet-stream. them.
subsuming the
humanities you like purple
have to rhetorical
explicitly flourishes out
reject that of the doomed
notion of void
limits on
intelligence...
Actually, Wilson does
And as far as I can tell talk about complexity
the people who do reject theory a little bit
it are just doing so on (e.g. Stuart Kauffman).
faith:
He treats it only as
Human reason is destined an as yet failed path
to conquer all realms, to consilience.
including itself. Any
other notion is a sign
of some quaint
irrational need to
believe that humanity
transcends the merely
physical. Heh, you must
be one of those silly
mystics, vitalists,
"mysterians"...
Wilson condescendingly
chides Penrose in a footnote:
the people actually *working*
in the field see no need to
postulate complicated quantum
effects to understand neural
function. *sniff*
But they do not, as of
yet actually understand The burden of proof lies
neural function, at on the side proposing a
least not in the kind complication, but the
of extreme detail that simplest explanation is
Wilson seems to expect. not best unless it really
*is* an explanation.
"As simple as possible,
but no simpler."
Now, speaking
of Penrose:
His books are superb
models of reasonable
argument. He lays out
the case as well as
he can, supports it
with what facts and
theories he can
marshal, and *never*
overreaches. The gaps Few people find the
are never papered arguments in "The
over with rhetoric, Emperor's New Mind"
inconvenient points totally convincing,
are never swept under but no one walks away
the rug. unimpressed. Even the
people who disagree
tend to recommend it.
Unfortunately,
"Consilience"
is not a book
deserving of
such praise.
Wilson always comes on like a Reasonable Guy:
There is some evidence which (Wilson says)
points toward a certain conclusion. Now it is
certainly true (Wilson magnanimously concedes)
this or that is not *really* established, and
there's a *slight* possibility that Wilson is
completely wrong. But he feels *certain* that
this gap in our knowledge is about to leap'd over
by the tremendous momentum of the juggernaut
of progress in biology.
You can trust him, he's a Scientist.
And thereafter, he acts like the
point has been dealt with, and
his version of "consilience" is a
near certainty.
I have *no* sympathy for
this kind of rhetorical
dodge. You don't discuss a
counter-argument just to
Notable for a book genuflect to your critics,
arguing genetic you're really supposed to
determinism: there deal with it in some way,
are very few mentions you're supposed to show
of racism or social some sign that you've
darwinism. He mentions absorbed that there is
the book "The Bell another plausible way of
Curve" at one point, looking at the material,
but doesn't provide and despite the Reasonable
a clue as to what Scientist pose, Wilson
he thinks of it. often strikes me as a
monomaniac:
There's a couple of ways
you deal with taking an "Artistic inspiration common
unpopular line: one is to to everyone in varying degree
admit that it's unpopular, rise from the artesian wells
explain why you think it's of human nature. Its
unpopular, and suggest that creations are meant to be
it's been unfairly judged. delivered directly to the
sensibilities of the beholder
The other method is to try without analytic explanation.
and sweep the issue under Creativity is therefore
the rug, touch on the humanistic in the fullest
unpopularity only lightly sense. Works of enduring
and suggest that your value are those truest to
position is not the same as these origins. It follows
that unpopular one. that even the greatest works
of art might be understood
Distance yourself from it by fundamentally with knowledge
choosing a new name for your of the biologically evolved
ideas without the negative epigenetic rules that guided
connotations of the old (I'm them." p.213
not a "genetic determinist",
I'm a "consilient synthesist"!).
I don't have a lot of sympathy
for that rhetorical dodge either.
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