FEST Log, Part 1: Summary and Outlook
FEST log
Entry #013
July 29, 2024
A new program
I started this FEST log on leap day, five months ago, with entry #000, a maniFESTo for the FEST program.
The name FEST can be read in two different ways, as Fully Engaged Science and Technology, as well as Fully Empirical Science and Technology. Here the words "science" and "technology" apply to science of matter, using technologies based on matter, as well as science of mind, using technologies based on mind. Both forms of science can use the very effective methodology developed for natural science, each in their own domain.
Rather than a project, FEST is a program, one that aims at initiating a full extension of natural science. To the best of my knowledge this has not yet been attempted in a fully consistent way. From the start my intention has been to be as conservative as I possibly can, while following the established core principles of science. I have tried to learn from the history of science about the ways research has often meandered, but typically in the end found novel ways to obtain deeper ways of understanding -- of matter in the past few centuries, and perhaps of mind as well in the near future: an obvious opportunity, and worth a try.
While neuroscience has made enormous progress, with benefits for pure science as well as for medical applications, it is a hybrid discipline, driven mostly by deep investigations of the material properties of the brain, and the nervous system in general. While the ultimate aim is to understand the nature of mind and consciousness, we are still far removed from that goal. A science of mind can act as a complementary approach.
Leaving the mind/body question open for now
Whether a mind is a complex form of emergent properties arising from a brain, or whether consciousness in whatever form can be seen as more fundamental than matter, or whether the two are complementary aspects of reality, or whether their relation is of a type we cannot even guess, science in its current state cannot tell us. All we can do is keep an open mind, designing working hypotheses without believing or disbelieving in them, deepening our knowledge of the phenomena, matter phenomena and mind phenomena, while more pieces of the puzzle fall into place. This is the way science works.
A science of mind should avoid any premature choice among the four options listed above, since in any case, reality is likely to be far more interesting than anything we can imagine it to be, as the history of science has shown us over and over again. Therefore I would bet on the fourth possibility, based on the way most really novel results could not have been guessed, simply because too little was known yet about the types of possible outcomes.
The fact that by far most scientists take it for granted that matter is the sole basis of reality is a very interesting sociological or ethnographic fact in itself, worth more research than has been given to it yet. However, opinions as to what is real don't carry any weight. We have seen a large fraction of physicists being fully convinced that the natural world is structured like a clockwork mechanism following Newton's laws, while trying to convince others around them to accept it on their authority. Overinterpreting one's success is all too human.
The classical mechanics era lasted for two and a half centuries until quantum mechanics replaced its picture of matter with a far more interesting and far more fluid notion: matter at its core is based on a playful mixture of actual and potential elements. Nobody could have guessed. But when theory and experiment came into agreement, as judged by a self-governing community of peers, scientists accepted the new picture, even without understanding what it all meant. That is the incredible strength of the scientific method, and of the integrity of scientists following that method. They are willing to junk what had been established wisdom for centuries, in the light of new evidence. We may wish that more human endeavors would work that way.
An open kitchen
While considering writing one or more books about FEST, I decided to take a different route, inspired by the model of an open kitchen, where you can see exactly what is happening while a meal is being prepared. This gave me two advantages.
First, it did not allow me to erase my original tracks, given that each entry of my log would be put in stone upon publication, two or three times a month. It instilled in me a discipline of carefulness and honesty, while building up FEST as a new program. Whenever I feel forced to change my mind, either based on new experimental or theoretical evidence, or simply because I learned to see things in a deeper way, I will point it out, referring back to earlier log entries, but without modifying those, apart from adding a footnote with a pointer to later entries.
Second, it allowed me to share my insights immediately, rather than waiting for years until a book manuscript is accepted, reviewed, going into print, and reviewed in the literature. In short, this log is like a series of preprints of the type used in natural science before articles go into print, in order to allow early peer review.
To make it easier to browse through older parts in the FEST Log, I have decided to bundle the first 14 entries, #000 through #013, into one document, "FEST Log, Part 1". The original entries will remain where they are now in the Log, so can still be found there, when jumping from a later entry to a particular place in the Log.
Structure of the first half of Part 1
By starting the FEST program, my aim has been two-fold. First, to provide a somewhat worked-out example of what a science of mind could be like, something I have now started to explore in this current FEST log. Second, to provide a seed for a community, structured in a scientific way, as self-governing and peer-based. In entry #001 I have outlined what I see as the basic elements of any form of science, independent of the target of research, be it forms of matter or mind.
Following entry #001, which lists an abstract summary, entry #002 provides a concrete historical view of how natural science got consolidated in the 17th century. Entries #003 through #005 very briefly touch upon some examples of types of experiments using our mind as a lab. I have singled out two, given by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl and the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida.
After giving an initial taste of experimenting with our minds using our minds, I address the task of developing theories to guide further experimentation, starting in entry #006. At any step along the way of developing a science of mind, I have tried to be as conservative as I could possibly be, by taking off from natural science as the only example we have, when defining science as I have done in entry #001. It is tempting to come up with wild and unproven radical ideas as to what the structure and processes are of our minds. My choice, rather, is to take the simplest extrapolation of approaches that have already been taken. Only if they really don't work, I could be convinced to try something different. This is my understanding of how science works.
For that purpose I started in entry #006 to provide examples of the conservative ways in which natural scientists have found themselves paradoxically forced to develop ever more radical theories, in the light of convincing experiments. In doing so, I have chosen to give a historical overview of theory formation and evolution in physics, the most elementary field of natural science. Entries #006 and #007 set up the stage by sketching the trajectories from Newton through Maxwell to Einstein, spanning a period of two and a half centuries, while pointing out potential lessons to be learned for starting up a theory of mind.
Structure of the second half of Part 1
Not satisfied that the sketches given so far could find enough traction to guide actual theory formation in a science of mind, I was looking for more concrete and precise ways to analyze theory formation in physics. Starting with entry #008, following a time-honored tradition in physics, I designed a new type of diagram in order to keep track of what happened when and how. It was my attempt to trace the twists and turns of the reactions of theoretical physicists whenever radically new experiments told them to overhaul their ideas.
To the best of my knowledge these diagrams present a novel way to trace problems and solutions in the historical processes of diversification and unification in physics. It took me five entries, from #008 through #012, to reach the present. Starting from the prescientific mechanics of Aristotle, via the first truly scientific theory of Newton, to reach our current best theory of the structure and processes characterizing matter, as incorporated in the standard model of particle physics.
Follow-up
The current entry, #013, forms the last entry of Part 1 of the FEST Log entries. As mentioned above, the original Log will continue to grow, leaving all the previous entries in place.
My current plans are to provide at least two more Parts. Where Part 1 is almost entirely preparatory in spirit, I want to let it all come alive in Part 2. Returning to the very sketchy treatment of two types of experiments in entries #003 through #005, I will provide more context as well as more guidelines for actual experimentation. Alongside, I will explore ways of theory formation to make sense of various outcomes of those experiments, following the inspiration that the second half of Part 1 can provide. Specifically, I will introduce several new diagrams as candidates for a science of mind, along the lines of what I presented in my "Picture book" of physics theories, starting in entry #008.
Outlook
Finally, starting in Part 2, I will address the one aspect mentioned in entry #001 that I have not yet touched upon in describing the essential ingredients of science: the formation of a self-governing community of peers. I have postponed bringing that point up in order to give a sufficiently detailed description of what kind of seed it is that might possibly sprout a full-blown community around it. Let me end this entry with one more characterization of what FEST is, in addition to how I described it at the start of the current entry.
FEST is a program, aimed at starting a community that in turn can suggest and carry out many projects in an interdisciplinary way. As with any interdisciplinary project, it actually requires more discipline from the side of the participants compared to disciplinary projects, within any one of the usual academic disciplines. Because there are few established conventions in any new interdisciplinary field, there are neither training wheels nor guard rails for those setting up or joining such a new discipline. Hence the extra discipline called for when opening a new field of research.
The main challenges for FEST will be to encourage the development of the formation of a science of mind, and at the same time to discourage premature leaps of speculation -- forms of speculation that cannot be tested with an agreed-upon methodology based on intersubjective peer review. In this I will try to follow the very successful example of natural science.
– Piet Hut