Lloyd Peppard

[The article reproduced hereafter is Copyright © 1992 Lloyd Peppard, all rights reserved. It was originally published at: http://post.queensu.ca/~peppardl/truth.htm. This version for class use only; no reproduction or printing allowed.]

Introduction

The metaphysical speculations on the nature of being, truth and knowledge are big ideas for a short monograph. They have challenged the human imagination throughout recorded history and beyond and are at the core of philosophy, religion, and the rational thought processes we associate with modern science. The aims of this exposition are thus modest: to introduce some ideas from a wide range of sources, ancient and modern, on how we pursue truth, both in scientific enquiry and engineering problem solving, and how we might approach describing the nature of the human mind and the consequences for forming our view of reality. I am particularly interested in examining possible misconceptions we may have as engineers and scientists regarding our methods and philosophies of problem solving. I have synthesized ideas from a number of books which I have found personally useful and meaningful in a practical sense. These are listed in the bibliography. I make no claim to have any expert or formal knowledge in the area of metaphysics or its attendant philosophies and religions; however, I hope I can present some ideas from these areas with enough clarity to interest others in pursuing them for their own gain.

Rational Thought

A familiar ground on which to begin a discussion of how we seek the truth, and, as engineers, how we seek the solution to problems, is that which we call rational or critical reasoning. It will be familiar to engineers and scientists as what is called the scientific method but in fact it is the basis for our entire Western way of thinking and organizing our social systems. It is the legacy of the ancient Greek philosophers (or at least their rediscovery during the Renaissance) who established definite ideas on thinking habits based on logic and reason, and on the nature of truth and the importance of man. Thus, Renaissance thinkers replaced the dogma of the Middle Ages by reason in the search for truth. The ramifications of this new approach can be seen today in both our social institutions, such as our legal system, and in the methods which are used in the pursuit of scientific knowledge and its remarkably successful application to technological development.

Rational thought is based on two kinds of logic: inductive and deductive. In inductive reasoning, we draw conclusions from repeated observations of some occurrence. Thus, we reason from particular experiences to general truths. Deductive reasoning proceeds in the opposite direction: general knowledge is used to predict specific observations. Thus, Maxwell predicted the propagation of electromagnetic waves (which was only later observed by Hertz) from his general mathematical theory. The Baconian view of the scientific method was based largely on inductive reasoning whereby objective observations were used to arrive at universal laws. Logical difficulties with inductive reasoning have been the subject of much philosophical discussion. The philosopher, David Hume, posed the problem that a general statement cannot be justified on the basis of a finite number of observed instances. Inductive reasoning also is the subject of the Raven Paradox described in the 1940s by the German logician Carl Hempel. Here. the two principles of inductive reasoning, confirmation and equivalence, lead to counterintuitive logical consequences. Since whatever confirms a statement also confirms any logically equivalent statement, all instances of non-black, non-ravens support the statement "all ravens are black". Whether this paradox, or indeed Hume's Problem, have been solved is still a matter of disagreement among philosophers. But as Paul Feyerabend has pointed out in his Three Dialogues on Knowledge, science started long before Hume and did not falter because of him or the suggestions made toward the solution of his philosophical problem. Chief among the latter is the philosophy of science put forth by Karl Popper. As an alternative to inductive logic as the foundation of science, Popper proposed testability or falsifiability of hypotheses as the distinguishing feature of scientific reasoning. Thus, the source of a hypothesis is not important, as long as it is consistent with existing non-falsified hypotheses. Both induction and deduction are valuable tools in building hypotheses. So are intuition and good fortune. What is critical is that the hypothesis make some prediction which, by suitable experiment, can be used as a test of its truth content. Science "progresses" by the falsification, and consequent modification, of hypotheses.

Modern philosophers of science, and scientists themselves, do not strictly believe that Popper's description of science is entirely accurate either. Freud's theories of psychoanalysis have often been cited as an examples of non-science because they cannot be properly tested. However, Freud's early ideas, such as that hysteria is due to shocking events and can be cured by helping the patient recall the events, were modified as a result of criticism and experience (it was found that recalling events sometimes made the problem worse). On the other hand, when the special theory of relativity ran into its first difficulty, Einstein was not impressed by the "verification of little effects" and refused to reconsider his predictions.

There is nevertheless a skepticism among scientists about new ideas which are patently unverifiable. An interesting example is presented by the publication in 1857 by Philip Henry Gosse of Omphalos in which he put forth an idea which he though would reconcile both religious fundamentalists and scientists regarding the origins of life. Briefly, he put forth the idea that God created the appearance of pre-existence in the fossil record which was at the time being discovered at a rapid rate. Thus, although the earth was in reality only a few thousand years old, it had a perfectly created record of untold aeons. He encouraged scientists to study the record in all its detail while at the same time assuring religious leaders of the accuracy of the biblical record. In fact, Omphalos was a complete failure. It violated the intuitive notion of divine benevolence free of devious behaviour but, more importantly, it was rejected by the scientific community because it is the classic example of an untestable statement. Whether it is true or not, any experiment will show the same result. Thus, while it indeed could be true, it adds nothing to the advancement of scientific knowledge. It is not so much wrong as useless.

There are features of scientific enquiry as formulated from the Greek ideas of rational thought that are not immediately apparent. One is the overwhelming infiuence that the personal life view of scientists may have on the interpretation of evidence. Another concerns the implications in oral and ethical terms of the unrelenting pursuit of truth. To illustrate the first point, I will describe scientific development of great import though it is virtually unrecognized by the general public compared to, for example, discoveries of modern physics. In 1909, a fauna record was discovered in a shale deposit in British Columbia by one of America's greatest paleontologists and scientific aministrators, Charles D. Walcott. The Burgess shale is a fossil record, including rarely preserved soft parts, of underwater life some 570 million years ago at the time of the Cambrian explosion of multicellular animal life. Within a few million years following the explosion, all major groups of modern animals developed. The record contained in the Burgess Shale has been responsible for a radical revision of our interpretation of the history of life and of our own evolution. It also provides an insight into the workings of scientific discovery.

Following the discovery of the Burgess Shale fossils and their subsequent removal to the Smithsonian Institution (of which Walcott was Secretary), their discoverer proceeded to misinterpret them in a manner consistent with his conventional view of life: he classified every Burgess animal into a modern group. He adhered to the view of the time (influenced not in small part by religious belief) that early fauna represented ancestral versions of later, improved forms. His work was not challenged for more than fifty years. In 1971, Professor Harry Whittington of Cambridge University, together with his graduate students, began a comprehensive reexamination of the Burgess fossils. The results are shattering in terms of scientific thought. The classical diagram illustrating the evolutionary growth in diversity of life is either drawn as a tree with branches spreading as it grows upward or as a cone of increasing diversity. This view of evolution leads inevitably to Walcott's interpretation of the fossil record. Life forms lying so close to the apex of the cone (the beginning of multicellular life) must be either primitive versions of modern forms or ancestral forms of modern groups of greater diversity and complexity. The evidence as interpreted by Whittington falsifies (in the Popperian sense) the view of evolution as a continuous process of increasing diversity. In fact the fossil record shows that anatomical variety reached a maximum soon after the Cambrian explosion, In comparison, today's life forms represent a lesser diversity in form and greater specialization of function. Thus the tree of life may be better represented as a bush or perhaps a Christmas tree, wide at the base and tapering at the top. More importantly, since most of the diverse life forms of the Burgess shale are not represented by any modern group, the evolution toward more advanced forms may have more to do with chance than inevitability. This puts the evolution of human intelligence in a new light. In his commentary on the significance of the Burgess Shale, Stephen Jay Gould uses the term contingency to describe the unseen hand influencing evolution. He describes possible alternatives in the evolution of life (such as the survival of the dinosaurs) that would not have produced a species of human intelligence.

What is important from the above in terms of understanding the rational (scientific) pursuit of truth, is the unpredicted impact of the personal characteristics and views of scientists making observations and formulating theories. Walcott was a man of conventional wisdom, with preconceived ideas of the orderliness of life. He thus was destined to shoehorn the animals of the shale into known groups. Any other option would have violated his belief in the predictable evolution of consciousness. It should not be overlooked that he was also an extremely busy administrator, the most influential of his time. That he had any time to study the fossil record and publish his findings is remarkable.

The example of the Burgess Shale illustrates the importance of factors not addressed by the philosophy of science in determining how science proceeds. In particular, it shows the difficulties which scientists face in making objective observations. The ancient Greeks took a strong stand on impassioned objectivity in the pursuit of truth. In fact they believed that truth could be found by abstract logical reasoning requiring no experiment or direct observation at all. In delivering a memorial lecture for Dr. Jacob Bronowski in 1978, George Steiner relates that when Syracuse was captured in 212 BC, invading soldiers broke into Archimedes' garden. Bent over a problem in the geometry of conic sections, he failed to hear the assailants coming and perished, as it were, in a fit of abstraction. While applied science is as old as consciousness itself, the idea of pure abstract reason as a worthy pursuit was new with the Greeks. The purer the object of enquiry, and the further from any practical application, the finer the pursuit. While Steiner describes four lines of attack (mystical, religious-dogmatic, romantic- existentialist, and relativist) that have been applied throughout history to this idea of the pursuit of abstract truth, he believes it is only now that there is a serious challenge to it. He sees for the first time a recognizable congruence between the pursuit of truth and ideals of social justice (between truth and survival). A common example is that of genetic research: should it go forward regardless of the possible social and human consequences? Steiner believes, as did Jacob Bronowski, that there is little choice. The obsession with objective and abstract truth is firmly imprinted on the Western mind. Nevertheless, there is a feeling among many members of society that some doors should remain closed, at least for the present time.

Eastern Philosophies

Much of what we have covered so far has to do with Western thought as practiced under the names of objective reason, logic, and the pursuit of pure, abstract truth. And, in fact, there is ample evidence in our society of its success in the solving of problems both technical and social. In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM), the narrator describes the kind of problem which will always yield to the scientific method ("... and you know that this time Nature has really decided to be difficult, you say, 'OK Nature, that's the end of the nice guy', and you crank up the formal scientific method"). If your breadboarded circuit isn't working, and you're serious about it, there's nothing that will withstand the formal scientific method. The Popperian view is fine. Make a hypothesis, test it, modify it, test again, until you discover the problem. But there are problems which can suddenly arise for which the scientific method offers nothing. In ZMM, the narrator describes one such problem in the maintenance of a motorcycle. You are removing a cover plate held in place by four machine screws threaded into the motor casting. They are difficult to turn and since the manual you are using says nothing to indicate anything unusual about them, you decide to apply a pair of vise-grip pliers to the screwdriver shank. It has worked for you before. With the extra torque available, you succeed in completely damaging the screw slot before the screw turns at all. Now you are really stuck and the scientific method won't help. There is nothing that needs to be discovered. You can see the problem and there is no solution. You might as well take the cycle to the dump. Although this problem may seem to be the worst of all possible situations, it may not be so. The fact that you are stuck is equivalent to saying you have no ideas; you are at zero consciousness. In fact you are in the state the Zen Masters call the beginner's mind. You are free of preconceived notions since you have no solution in mind. As you begin to really concentrate on the screw in question, it takes on an entirely different character, It is no longer just a screw but one worth the selling price of the motorcycle. You begin to see its adhesive properties. The possibility of lubricants suggests itself. You see that it can be removed using several forms of screw extractor, or it can be drilled out. You may even think of a new way to remove damaged screws and become a millionaire!

The above example from ZMM serves to introduce some new ideas about truth and the nature of reality which may be important in solving problems. Both Eastern and Western religions and philosophies use the word enlightenment but they mean quite different things. The Western use is in connection with the rationally ascertained truth discussed above. You are rationally enlightened if you subscribe to the decisions of the Court of Reason. The Eastern use of the word has to do with a personal transforming experience. In the Court of Reason, which is public, the results are not nearly as important as the process. We have seen some undesirable consequences of the adherence to the process in terms of scientific discovery and problem solving, and we are well aware of failures in social, economic and environmental areas as well. So it is not unreasonable to spend some time understanding alternative views of reality. Eastern philosophies, such as those underlying Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen Buddhism, present rea1ity as a subjective, personal matter.f; A Hindu tradition describes reality in terms of six blind an examining an elephant standing before them. Clearly, no one's description is better than anyone else's but they will certainly all be different. This view of reality can lead one to say that it is purely illusionary, existing only in the eyes of the observer. Interestingly, this view correlates with some philosophical views of modern particle physicists who conclude that it is impossible to observe directly the properties of matter, only the properties exhibited in the interaction with an experiment which is designed to reveal them (e. g. consider the particle-wave duality of light). The practicality of the Eastern philosophies should not however be overlooked. An eighth-century Hindu philosopher was challenged in regard to his teaching that the world is illusionary. The challenger asked what he would do if he were being chased by a wild elephant. "I would run", the philosopher replied. When asked to explain he said, "I would run because the elephant and I are part of the same illusion".

The value of the beginner's mind in solving problems is generalized in Buddhist philosophy in terms of quietness: physical quietness, mental quietness (freedom from wandering thoughts), and value quietness (freedom from wandering values). We might say this another way: approach a difficult problem with concentrated effort without preconceived bias. It is not as easy as it sounds as is evident hom the condition of permanent stuckness in which we all find ourselves from time to time.

In ZMM, peace of mind is seen as central to technical work. Good work produces peace of mind and bad work destroys it. The tools and techniques of engineering, the specs, algorithms, prototypes, and final tests, are all means to achieving peace of mind. Good engineering, and by implication, good problem solving, cultivates an inner quietness which you can see in the best scientists, engineers, and technicians. Peace of mind is the final test of the success of a technical work. In the final analysis, it is the only test necessary.

The Human Mind

The emphasis on state of mind, or, more precisely, the nature of the mind, in the pursuit of truth also finds expression in the ideas of Edward de Bono who believes that the thinking habits passed down to us by the ancient Greeks are limited and inadequate for solving complex problems such as those now facing society. He proposes a new way of thinking based directly on how the human brain works, and particularly on how it creates perception. He would replace the "rock logic" of the Greek philosophers (all or nothing) with "water logic" (infinitely variable). Lateral thinking is de Bono's term for using a knowledge of the information processing system of the brain to achieve creative rather than critical responses to problem solving. To understand his methods, it is useful to provide a brief description, in terms of an analogy, of how de Bono (and others) see the mind as a self-organizing perceptual system, which we call a neural network.

Imagine a neuron (the fundamental computational element in the nerve network of the brain) as an octopus with many tentacles (more than eight!), some of which may be very long. There are many octopuses on a beach, each with tentacles resting on the body of another octopus and which can transmit to that octopus an electric shock by means of a chemical released from the end of the tentacle (the neuro-transmitter). If an octopus receives a sufficient number of shocks, it wakes up and begins to transmit shocks to others. When an octopus wakes up. it changes colour from green to yellow. Now if we wake up a group of octopuses, say by shining a light on them from a helicopter, we would see a patch of yellow spreading outward and gradually covering the whole beach.

We now add another feature: when an octopus wakes up, it begins to emit an unpleasant odour which when it reaches a certain level causes other octopuses to refuse to be woken up. So now the spreading yellow patch will reach a certain size, at which time the smell will reach the critical value and no further octopuses will wake up. The patch stays limited in size. This negative feedback effect is what we call inhibition.

To make things more interesting, let us add another feature to the model. When an octopus is awake and receives a further electric shock, the region of skin under the tentacle becomes sore which causes the octopus to become more sensitive in the future to shocks from this tentacle. Thus, in the future, when the light is shone from the helicopter, the yellow patch is more likely to spread to the group which is more strongly connected (through the previous stimulus which caused the soreness). The yellow patch follows the path of greatest connectedness, learned from previous experience. Also, the resulting shape of the yellow pattern becomes independent of the exact nature of the initial stimulus.

When octopuses are awake for awhile, they get tired and bored. They begin to give off less odour and to fall asleep. Thus the yellow patch moves on to another group. As the patch moves along the beach it follows a sequence or pattern which is constant for a fixed set of conditions.

The response of an octopus to stimulation is non-linear; that is, up to a certain amount of stimulation, nothing happens, then when some threshold is reached, the octopus suddenly turns yellow. Also, after a rest period, the bored octopuses become receptive again and with an increased wakefulness or excitability. In this way, it is more likely than not that the yellow patch will return to the first group and then the entire pattern repeat itself. This circular pattern may constitute a thought.

If two lights are shone on the beach at the same time, due to the feedback effeet of the smell, the group with the greater connectedness will eventually dominate, leaving only one area of activity. This might correspond to the brain having one area of attention at a time.

Different groups of octopuses respond to different kinds of music by increasing their wakefulness. If somewhere on the beach, a ghetto-blaster is playing country music, those octopuses who respond to country music will be more receptive and hence the yellow patch will be more likely to move to them, Thus the pattern sequence will be different when music is playing than when it is not. This might correspond to the effects of emotion influenced by background activity.

The above analogy is a very simplified version of a self-organizing model of the human brain. Nevertheless, it is capable of unitary attention, pattern recognition and reconstruction, integration of different inputs, creating sequence patterns based on past experience, creating repeating circular patterns, and responding differently to stimulation depending on background activity. de Bono uses this type of model to show how the brain perceives and hence how our thinking patterns are formed. He attributes difficulties in problem solving to traditional ways of thinking due in part to the patterning system of the brain. In such a system, there may be one main track and many side tracks. It is not feasible to explore the potential of every side track. In fact, that would defeat the function of a patterning system where slightly less favourable side tracks are supressed (due to the smell emitted by active octopuses). Solutions to problems may in fact be found by travalling the side tracks, but we don't perceive them. If we cauld somehow get to a sidetrack, then, in hindsight, we could see the value of the new position. Every good idea is logical in hindsight.

de Bono has developed a collection of thinking techniques which aid in the process of getting on to a sidetrack where a creative solution to a problem may reside. One example of such a technique is provocation which is designed to perturb the brains pattern system. In the history of science, provocations have been provided by accident, mistake, or even madness. Provocation can be intentionally introduced into the search for a solution to a problem. For example, consider the pollution caused by a factory located on a river. The problem is how to minimize the pollution for people living downstream. A provocation statement might be "the factory is downstream of itself". This at first sounds absurd but in fact leads to the logical (in hindsight) idea of insisting that the factory must be downstream of its own output and hence is more motivated to take measures to ieduce it.

Conclusion

What can we conclude from all these perhaps interesting but apparently loosely related ideas? Recall that the original objective was to present ideas from a variety of sources which represent alternative views of how we may ascertain the truth, and, in practical terms, solve problems. Even from this brief sampling, it should be evident that our traditional thinking patterns based on reason and logic are neither foolproof nor universal. The personal view of reality and the linking of the state of mind with the task which are features of Eastern philosophies may provide alternative approaches to problem solving where the scientific method fails. Finally, an understanding of the nature of the human brain may itself lead to new techniques in problem solving such as de Bono's concept of lateral thinking.

Bibliography

Edward de Bono, I Am Right - You Are Wrong, Penguin Books, 1991

Bernard Dixon (Ed.), From Creation to Chaos, Classic Writings in Science, Basil Blackwood Ltd., 1989

Ronald L. DiSanto and Thomas J. Steele, Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, William Morrow & Co., 1990

Nicholas Falletta, The Paradoxicon, John Wiley and Sons, 1990

Paul Feyerabend, Three Dialogues on Knowledge, Basil Blackwood Ltd., 1991

Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life, The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, W. W. Norton & Co., 1989

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, an Enquiry Into Values, Bantam, 1975

Robert M. Pirsig, Lila, An Enquiry Into Morals, Bantam, 1991

Paul Reps, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings, Doubleday, 1989

Gary Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters, An Overview of the New Physics, William Morrow & Co., 1979