Psybertron Asks

Hyper-Rationalism – I think I’ve found the right word for what’s been bugging me.

I’ve been struggling for over two years in this blog and for half a lifetime before that, to avoid being perceived as a mystic, an unscientific woolly thinker, when I warn against the dangers of scientific rationale in decision making. In a scientific situation, I’m happy with science as the arbiter of truth – scientific truth. In complex situations – scientific truth may be largely intractable for practical everyday purposes, though it still clearly exists, and the scientists retain every right to rail against unfounded prejudice in such situations. Where that multi-layered complex situation involves a sentient being or beings in individual and/or social decisions and behaviours, then the scale of the intractabilty is so enormous, that scientific truth brings little except a few, albeit essential, identifiable “physical” boundary conditions.

In such complex situations, so many premises and causal metaphors, turn out to be founded on “emergent” conditions, that applying only scientific rationale and dialectic is not only not the most useful way of establishing the facts, it is positively inappropriate and can lead to disastrously “wrong” outcomes. Remember I still believe that the whole world, even the messy, living, human part of it, is founded ultimately on underlying physical science – it’s just that for all “intents and purposes”, science (as currently understood – dare I say) addresses only a small percentage of the problem.

Hyper-Rationalism – the mis-application of scientific rationale and dialectics to situations whose outcomes are goverened predominantly by premises and causal metaphors which are emergent from human understanding, communication, intent and behaviour ?

Navier-Stokes to the Rescue – At the risk of being branded a mystic I’ll mention this spooky little synchronicity.
I’ve just been reading Dawkins’ A Devil’s Chaplain and written an article prompted by it (Stop Press – Article now on-line here). As an aero engineer I chose, in that article, to follow an aeronautical analogy, picking up on Dawkins’ references to the Navier-Stokes equations and Chaos, and to a plane-load of social anthropologists. Is The Apothecary (with an interest in CFD apparently) also currently reading Dawkins ? Or is this just a coincidence. Spookier still, the article itself uses the word “evolution” to describe the effect of applying the CFD principles to pixels involved in photographic restoration.

The only flag which will be flown – Treefrog [via Kuro5hin] reporting pre-battle speech by Lieut. Col. to 1st Batallion Royal Irish.

But US Marines reality is a cock-up …

Abandoned Places – A little industrial archaeology. [via Wotever]

Pi to an incredible number of places. Is this for real, does it ever stop exploding ? [via Gimbo][via Gammatron] (The page I mean, not the irrational Pi of course.) Apparently March 14th was (is) Pi Day. Loads more Pi links here. [via nycsmith]

Organisations as Life Forms – Some interesting, if politically motivated, comparisons with the real thing. [via Gimbo]

Dawkins on Bush, Saddam and Bin Laden. Dawkins writing in the Grauniad [via Rivets]
Compare with this one from Flying Snail. [via Gimbo]

Bureaucratic Hyper-Rationalism. Not what I expected to find here, an analysis of an unitelligible Powerpoint slide from Boeing that may have contributed to mis-analysis of Shuttle Columbia’s insulation damage before its disastrous end. Edward Tufte calls the overstructured style “bureaucratic hyper-rationalism” – sounds like my main thread ? [via Jorn again] Rodcorp also picked-up on the link, and points out the evocation of Tufte and Feynman analysing the Challenger disaster too.

Metaphor and War – George Lakoff at AlterNet. [via Jorn]

Picked up and started Dawkins’ A Devils Chaplain last night, but more of that in a minute.

I also picked-up on impulse, a copy of Ayn Rand’s Philosophy, Who Needs It ? – having seen how many books she’d published, but knowing nothing about her I thought, I’d dip my toe in and find out. She’s hailed as the greatest ever salesman for Philosophy in the sleeve notes. This is a book of essays written in 1975 to 1980 but published shortly after she died in 1982. The first essay is a speech she made at a West Point officers passing out parade. Terrifying stuff. If you were to replace Kant with Bin Laden and Existentialists with Al Qaeda, it could have been Dubya addressing the nation – Kant is the greatest evil to be driven out, Existentialists are his loyal henchmen, USA is the greatest and the only moral nation. In fairness the main message, a pep talk to these graduating officers, is banish self-doubt, objectivist reason is king, choose your own philosophy (as long as its mine), you’ll need one to make important decisions in your life, don’t just accept received wisdom, don’t just go with the herd, get out there and argue with confidence, etc. But why such vehement reactionary rhetoric of evil against those with whom she disagrees, who fail to worship at the altar of objectivism ? Some of my best friends are American, but …. etc. This is going to be a tough one to finish if she carries on like this.

Dawkins on the other hand – well actually he’s also on quite a rant, against “irrational” religion in his case. Time to stand-up and be counted he says – no more place for political correctness in pussy-footing around religious views – 9/11 was the final straw – religion is and has been not only the cause of most conflict in the world, but also the most unnecessary cause of anything. (See also the acknowledgement in the footer to my blog pages, where I didn’t quite have Dawkins’ courage it has to be said.). This book is also a collection of essays and other pieces, including a lament and the eulogy for Douglas Adams. So many good quotes – like the Monk in the opening passages of Dirk Gently, who’s there to hold your beliefs for you, even things they woudn’t believe in Salt Lake City. Magic. No secret that Dawkins and Adams were a mutual appreciation society, but as a fan of DNA’s humour, I can see why I find it so easy to take Dawkins seriously.