Many scientists use logic to deconstruct ideas they don't like, and to support those they do like. Or, perhaps more likely, the scientist will accept what s/he likes without ever applying scientific and logical deconstruction in the first place. Many scientists are likewise totally uncreative -- they never makes anything, but rather their favorite pass-time is to use the tool of logic to take apart and destroy any idea that anyone else sets forth. They presume that they are observing passively, but they forget that their induction is colored with their assumptions. The scientist starts the process of scientific or linguistic deconstruction only if the idea in question doesn't flatter his or her preconceptions. If an idea does flatter his or her preconceptions, he will simply accept it. Logic is only a destructive tool, and can be used to take apart and refute anything, if that thing happens not to fit the world-view of he or she who is in a position to use the tools of logic, deduction and induction to deny objective truth and reality selectively. It's fine if this objective truth and reality are denied in their entirety, with logical, intuitive, or spiritual tools, but only using these tools to deconstruct certain presumptions while ignoring others is dogmatic, and in fact un-scientific.
Postmodernism grew out of literary criticism, and this fact is made embarrassingly apparent by postmodern statements like 'all is text.' of course the postmodernist is a subjectivist and an epistemological nihilist -- language and ideas are inherently uncertain and shaky. They're abstractions, and constructions of the brain -- they don't actually 'exist.' the postmodern error comes in equating language and ideas with 'reality.' as with any discipline, the goal of litcrit-cum-postmodernism is to define their field as encompassing all others. The postmodernist is like an english major on steroids; somewhere along the line, philosophical, poetic and logical masturbation with language became all-important, and the english major completely encased himself in his field, never to return. Take away their language, and the postmodernist is left without a world-view.
It's of course ironic that I'm making a point that all reality is not text in the medium of text.
Postmodernists criticize scientists for presuming an objective reality based on deduction or even induction. Their counter to enlightenment-reason and objectivism is that all reality amounts to 'text,' and is thereby subject to poststructuralist deconstruction. Assuming that your field (in this case literary criticism and the study of language in general) comprises all other fields and, in fact, reality itself, is presumptuous. Language isn't all-important, despite what both postmodernists and biblical literalists claim. It's reasonable to state 'of course your observations don't constitute reality!' and 'of course your deduction doesn't constitute reality!' but then to turn around and state 'but my language does constitute reality!' is rather glaringly foolish. There is more to reality than just words; words are based in memory and illusions of the past and future. The best approximation of reality is now, this moment -- something that is inherently other than the abstraction and memory of language.
It's my contention that postmodern epistemology grew out of platonism, or the notion that there is an 'realm of ideas' that is more real than reality itself. Scientists and mathematicians often react strongly against both postmodernism and platonism, I think because both are essentially the same thing: a claim that reality isn't real, that objective truth and analysis aren't possible, and that language and ideas are just as 'real' as anything else. One one side we have platonism, postmodernism and subjectivism, and on the other we have aristotelianism, the enlightenment and objectivism. I'm not condoning the split, but merely observing it as a cultural phenomenon -- a social construct, if you will. People see themselves thusly divided, and they have an idea of this split, even though this split may not exist in any objective way. A discussion on whether or not the split 'exists' rapidly turns into a discussion on postmodernism: does the idea of a split constitute a split?
The key to 'understanding' postmodernism may just be the realization that one may never arrive at a conclusion, may never apply categories and logic to explain postmodernism, and in fact that postmodernism itself isn't a deconstructable concept. Anyone who thinks they understand postmodernism does not, by definition. My answer, if someone were to ask me 'do you understand postmodernism?' would be 'sure, I guess...as much as anyone else does, anyway.' saying what something 'is' isn't possible by postmodern processes, and in fact the impossibility of determining the meaning or definition of 'is' is central and essential to postmodernism. The entire extant body of postmodern text is contained within scare quotes. Take it all with a grain of salt, and at all only if you're interested in masturbating with language. Some people would rather eat a sandwich, go for a bike ride, or (ha) write an essay.
I'll finish with a parable on deconstructionism, reductionism, and categorical analysis:
everyone is always upset when it's mid-September and the weather hasn't turned cool yet. It's as if there's some realm-of-ideas, platonic notion of 'fall' that we associate with September, October and November. So, when it turns mid-September and it's still hot and muggy, we get upset. On might think a solution to this would be the introduction of more seasons: something to put between summer and fall ('fummer,' or 'sall'), so that we could better conceptually deal with hot, sticky Septembers. This might work for a while, but then people would start to examine the boundary between 'fummer' and fall, and say to themselves 'it's a bit cool for fummer, or a bit hot for fall...this doesn't seem right.' and then, one might propose additional categories. It's easy to see that this process would never end, and that one would be making seasonal categories ad infinitum. But there is another option: to abandon the original four seasons entirely (that is, abandon our ideas of 'spring,' 'winter,' 'fall' and 'summer'), and just say 'today, it's hot' or 'today, it's cool.'
Trying to create more categories to explain reality is confounding. The best thing we can do is abandon all categories, and realize that everything is one.
I realized that I'm a big loser.
I finally made an interval chart for the DADGAD guitar tuning. I've been playing that way for a few months now, and I feel that I'm starting to stagnate. Obviously, this tuning (an open 'D sus 4' chord) lends itself to playing everything in D (or, less so, A). I find the quality to be sort of sitar-like (even though it's most often used for celtic folk music) -- I'll drone on the bottom D and A strings, and play a melody rooted in some particular scale, mode, or 'raga' (with the root note on D), occasionally throwing in a harmonic interval or triad. I do this every time I pick up a guitar, and it's beginning to get a bit boring. The world of chord progressions is more or less lost to me, and I feel locked into a world of 'D' (i may start developing perfect pitch if I'm not careful). I made the interval chart so I could extrapolate complex chords from it. I've found that a lot of the familiar jazz chords in standard tuning are hard to reproduce easily and in a well-voiced way in DADGAD. But hopefully, some interesting chords will become apparent the more I play with this chart.
Click the small image to see the full-sized DADGAD interval chart. It represents a continuous fingerboard (as it would appear peering over and down at the guitar while holding it on your lap in a playing position), spanning two horizontal octaves (and in fact three vertical octaves, the same as in standard tuning). It won't really do a guitar player any good unless s/he knows how to build chords.
I've decided that I don't buy the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics, not that anybody cares about this stuff. Everyone likes to read my stories and emotional rants -- no one cares about theories or philosophy. It's a shame, really. Moving along...
Now that I think about it more, I'm not convinced that determinism and probability can be reconciled. Take the example of a coin toss: it lands on 'heads.' are we to assume that in another of the many worlds, it landed on 'tails,' even though it's easy to imagine accounting for the totality of the physical environment that caused it to land on 'heads,' and thus predict this (even if we can't actually do it)? Were there two different sets of initial conditions that led the coin to land on head in one world, and tails in another? Are there many different worlds that all started out in one way, or rather, that 'are' a certain way (that have certain distinct properties)?
I just can't see around total determinism. I think people (especially liberal arts fruitcakes) have used their drug-addled minds to draw metaphors out of quantum mechanics that really shouldn't be drawn in the first place. Specifically, metaphors that flatter their notions on existentialist, capitalist, humanist, or even christian free will.
At any rate, 'free will' just ends up confounding the issue with all sorts of complicated human emotions and 'spiritual' questions. A better word, as I mentioned in last week's blog (should have been paying attention!) would be 'probability.'
Quantum probability doesn't really seem to change much. Of course, I don't understand quantum mechanics (or even newtonian physics, for that matter), and it might be that I'm just stuck in my little world-view prison. But that world-view prison tells me that the universe is deterministic -- any event that occurs could not have occurred any other way. As far as I understand it, 'many worlds' asserts that things don't have to happen any certain way, and that despite all other 'pre'-existing conditions, a coin really might land on either side.
I really think the problem is that I don't understand quantum mechanics. And furthermore, it's doubtful that I'll ever understand it in the way that I want to. Even if I were to study it, I would be describing it with math. Even language that attempts to describe it is incredibly math-y. Take this example from the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. This paragraph is called 'quantum probability in a nutshell:'
The quantum-probabilistic formalism, as developed by von Neumann [1932], assumes that each physical system is associated with a (separable) Hilbert space H, the unit vectors of which correspond to possible physical states of the system. Each "observable" real-valued random quantity is represented by a self-adjoint operator A on H, the spectrum of which is the set of possible values of A. If u is a unit vector in the domain of A, representing a state, then the expected value of the observable represented by A in this state is given by the inner product <Au,u>. The observables represented by two operators A and B are commensurable iff A and B commute, i.e., AB = BA. (For further discussion, see the entry on Quantum Mechanics.)
Hmm, ok! It's all clear now...thanks. Anyway, if I were to study qm, then I would start to speak this language. Even my writing would start to sound more 'math-y.' at this point, it really is a huge rift in world-views.
subject change!
Postmodern epistemology is concerned with the subjectivity and uncertainty of anything -- it really is essentially epistemological nihilism, no matter what they may tell you. The problem areas come out in poststructuralism, which asserts that everything amounts to a text -- and it's somewhat true, at least in terms of our memories and knowledge. But reality isn't text. The moment in which we're existing isn't text. Right now isn't text. Right now can't be deconstructed -- eating a sandwich (not the idea of eating a sandwich, or the description of eating a sandwich, but EATING A SANDWICH) right now can't be deconstructed. People like alan sokal complain that postmodernists assert that gravity, and not just the idea of gravity, is a social construct. Some of them might disagree and say 'no, I was just talking about the idea of gravity.' but some (and these are the poststructuralists that really believe that everything is text) might say that there is no difference between a thing and our idea of that thing.
Language isn't reality, as postmodernists would have you believe. Math, deduction and logic isn't reality, either. I'm not sure about induction -- but that's connected so intimately with memory and 'text' that I'm suspicious of that too. Reality is now, this moment.
Furthermore, since time doesn't exist (since the universe is deterministic, and the 'future' has already 'happened'), the concept of 'this moment' as opposed to other moments in the 'past' or the 'future' needs to be rejected. Reality just is.