Читать книгу The Contributory Revolution - Pierre Giorgini - Страница 17

First, we will describe the extent to which the place/link duality, that which contrasts the “localized” with the “non-localized”, the continuous with the discontinuous, the located with the diffuse and the fully connected, haunts the deepest human thought since thought began, from Greek philosophers to Cartesian dualism, from quantum physics to complex higher order social systems. We will approach this duality from different points of view starting from the wave/corpuscle duality of matter at its most intimate level. It is at this point interesting to recall that non-locality in quantum physics is the observation that two quanta of matter whose origin is linked remain connected instantaneously in their behavior throughout their life, whatever in theory the distance that separates them. They constitute a single object even if an infinite distance separates them.

Second, we will document a subject which is crucial in any attempt to debate the appropriate scientific and philosophical approach to meet the challenges to come. How can we envisage and conceive of the role of science and technology in fully solving the considerable, and seemingly simultaneous, unprecedented challenges which our global human society must face? This question underlies today all debates on the ethical, political and geopolitical level. To answer it, the key questions asked will be: “Is a new scientific monism or a radical neo-positivism of the infinite complexity of systems possible?” “And if so, will it lead, as often in the past, to new models for technological mastery of the energy, ecological and socio-economic challenges that confront us?” A positive answer to the first question (scientific monism) is a necessary condition for a positive answer to the second question, but not sufficient. New mathematical models may perhaps lead to a unified conception of everything, from Newtonian physics to consciousness through quantum physics, biology and the evolution of living things, neuroscience, psychology and the theory of consciousness, without leading to truly influential technological solutions and above all without irreversible risks to the evolution of the global system (however, the dream of grand unification of the theory of everything seems thwarted).

This reminds me of the sparkling and enthusiastic look of my physics teacher at college who had offered, in an optional course, to unfold the whole of field and particle physics from the four Maxwell equations. I had been there five evenings in a row, and what struck me was how jubilant he was, almost enjoying his complex constructions from a small core of basic equations. He had a feeling of power. The myth of the single equation is a fundamental of the desire for knowledge, the only God of the physicist. A myth that we need to dream while wanting it never to end in this world, because reaching it would mark the end of the so-called exact sciences.

I use the expression “unified scientific conception of the whole” here, and not “unified theory of the whole”, because the latter is a somewhat delicate expression. It only refers to the unification of quantum physics and relativity (and therefore of the fundamental forces). A priori, this would not lead, for example, to any progress for thermodynamics far from equilibrium (and a fortiori the living world, or consciousness). However, for reductionist materialists, the rest follows in principle. It can also be a horizon, but it is much more distant. There is nothing concrete able to achieve this today. A slightly different point of view is to say that we could approach everything in the same frame of thought, a common conceptual framework with the same tools.

This question deserves to be asked, because we know that the crisis is global and a series of global and irreversible technoscientific solutions, implemented without risk, would come from understanding and mastering the “System” as a whole: spatial, astrophysical, physical, biological, ecological, sociological, economic, etc., and above all, temporal, its evolution over time. Chaos theory has shown that a negligible uncertainty in the initial conditions of a deterministic evolution equation can grow exponentially over time and lead to a very great uncertainty at the end of a given time (butterfly effect). For example, we know that the chaotic aspect of the Earth’s trajectory is today completely negligible, and even more so on the scale of the galaxy, but it becomes non-negligible in the gravitation equations in 5 million years’ time.

This then implies questions that concern all sciences at once and especially their systemic interrelations. It follows that the emergence of an assortment of solutions without fatal irreversible risks could only be supported by a unified scientific model. This would require both filling the theoretical gaps of science in the change of scale (e.g. mega/macro/nano) and erasing the epistemological borders between sciences (e.g. physics/biology or neurosciences/psychology or biology/sociology), as well as the sources of uncertainty intrinsic to the sciences themselves, in the complex game between what Bailly and Longo (2011) call the principles of mathematical construction (mathematical models or mathematical semantics) and the principles of proof (mathematical syntax or proof by measurement and experiment in physics). This is without forgetting, of course, a consubstantial indeterminacy of matter on a quantum scale.

These sources of uncertainty are, for example, incompleteness, unpredictability, undecidability, quantum decoherence, etc. – concepts that will need to be clarified further in this book, I would say, above all, of a-certainty stemming from the subject/object interaction in the very conception of the scientific approach. I will distinguish here between uncertainty and a-certainty: uncertainty accepts the fact that there is approximation in the result, but that, disregarding this approximation, the result can be certain, i.e. reproducible, supported by a theory complete with its experimental, causal and autonomous dimension (isolable from the rest), while a-certainty refers to the idea that there is no certainty about the theory and its application.

Once a well-founded position has been asserted on this issue of technoscientific mastery, the objective of this book will be to highlight a learning dynamic at work in our socio-technical systems aligned with the learning dynamic of the living world and to describe the levers that would promote their triumph without irreversible risks.

All in all, this book sheds light on a crucial debate on the possible role of technosciences and tries to show that the contributory revolution under way is global and profound, and that it concerns the whole epistemological field, from the sciences to social organizations (episteme). Its objective is to dive into the epistemological dimension of the lightning transition that we are experiencing, in order to identify the levers of the salutary acceleration of collective learning, which has become essential, once the debate is settled about a possible future based on a headlong technoscientific rush forward (trans-humanism, geo-engineering, eugenics, mastery of evolution, etc.). However, after this call to move from an exo-distributive technoscience based on deterministic and Newtonian models, to more biological and endo-contributory models, or even from arrogant mastery to humble influence and alliance, its limits will have to be fixed to avoid entering into an eco-philosophical radicalism which would in turn come to oppose our humanization process. Only extreme humility, supported by strong spirituality, can preserve us from it.

The animal condition, the human condition, the divine condition: we observe a move to extremes. Unlimited human pride can only be countered by unlimited humility born of the spirit (Manent 2019).