Unforeseen Contingencies

Note: This is guest post is courtesy of Lee Chien Yi, who has written a short introduction to "post-science" thought. I first came across "post-science" on Lynne Kiesling's blog. (See the comments in the post on Austrian economics). I don't yet understand it, and am guessing I'll make a few comments soon, but for now I simply thank Mr. Lee for sharing these ideas. (P.S. Except for some spacing, I have not edited this post. )

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In terms of relevance, science can only be considered an incomplete knowledge because science is neutral in terms of value, which assigns relevance to knowledge. Post-science picks up where science left off in knowledge and starts with the solution of value. This guest post (thanks to Dr. Charles Steele’s intellectual tolerance) will focus on relevance of knowledge, on which a list of currently socially active topics will be presented for discussion after a very condensed introduction of post-science.

Post-science is knowledge beyond physical science, dealing with social and life or computer sciences. It is more complex and more rigorous than physical science, which deals with problems of about five variables and accepts solutions based on empirical verification. Post-science contains the solutions of value, which involve a minimum of fifty variables and satisfies mathematical rigor, and complete automation. Value is defined as the sum total of all the benefits and losses to infinity in time. Complete automation is based on the solution of completely automated software, which involves around five hundred or an unlimited number of variables and satisfies the rigor of logic (manipulation of exclusively integers), solution of touch, which is missed by Isaac Newton and all the scientists since Newton and will enable the construction of robots with the ability of touch and replace all human physical labor, and homotopy graph theory, which should replace the current prohibitively resource demanding graphics based on triangulation. The founders of post-science are Dr. T. L. Kunii (graphics, touch), Prof. C. V. Ramamoorthy (software), Dr. Hugh Ching (value, software, and touch), and the late Dr. Ta-You Wu (touch). Dr. Kunii is the founder of Computer Graphics Society with headquarters in Geneva. Prof. Ram (Ramamoorthy) is the founder of software engineering. The solutions of value and of software are described technically in Dr. Ching’s two patents: "Quantitative Supply And Demand Model Based On Infinite Spreadsheet" (Pat. No. 6,078,901) and "Completely Automated And Self-generating Software System" (Pat. No. 5,485,601), relating to the foundations of social and life sciences, respectively. Dr. Wu is the Father of Chinese Physics and a former President of Academia Sinica in the Republic of China. A recent book Knowledge (http://knowledgebook.us) explains post-science in a discussion format with non-technical language. The main web site for post-science is http://www.post-science.com.

The following is a list of currently active post-science topics demonstrating the relevance of post-science:

The solution of value is mathematically rigorous and, thus, is a non-violable law of nature. Will laws of nature in social science come into conflict with man-made laws, which are not based on laws of nature? All laws of nature in science are discovered, not man-made. Should laws of nature replace ALL man-made laws? Dr. Friedman, a friend/adversary of post-science, in promoting deregulation of man-made laws has taken an initial step toward a society regulated by laws of nature and should be considered the greatest thinker of the twentieth century.

The Infinite Spreadsheet based on the solution of value (http://infinitespreadsheet.com) is far more stringent than most man-made laws, for it takes into consideration the consequences of a decision to infinity in time. An actual example of the conflict of man-made and natural laws is the Infinite Spreadsheet, which has predicted the US Savings and Loan Crisis, and the FIRREA (Federal Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act), whose required market comparison method was the main cause of the Savings and Loan Crisis (An owner refinanced at comparable prices from the past right after market crash could still get a loan amount substantially higher than market price) (http://www.post-science.com/seidman.htm).
Post-science believes that Milton Friedman’s Free Market is really Maximum Planning, where the sum of both private and central planning should be maximized and to infinity. Dr. Friedman, unfortunately, had not made up his mind, even under the persistent plodding by Dr. Ching, whether "To Plan Or Not To Plan?" Should planning be taken to infinity in time? Is Free Market equivalent to Maximum Planning? Generally, are we free? US Constitution endorses freedom. Post-science believes that we are only free within the limits of freedom set by laws of nature in social science, as motions of materials are limited by laws of nature in science.

Bill Gates and other entrepreneurs seem to have proved the irrelevance of education. Is current knowledge based on science relevant or is education worth its value? Post-science feels that the Infinite Spreadsheet is a necessary knowledge for business students, and that, generally, relevant knowledge will make education a necessity. Post-science claims that if we can educate one person correctly, our world will be saved. It speculates that post-science should be used to stimulate Early Brain Development (E. B. D.) in the first three years of life.

Is science a religion or based on faith? Most people can understand the Bible, but only a small percentage of population can really understand science. On the other hand, the percentage of people believing in the Bible, about 40%, is far less than those believing in science, almost 100%. Post-science believes that knowledge becomes a religion when it becomes mature.
Science allows nations to impose their wills on other nations with military superiority. Thus, national leaders are willing to accept science and to fund generously education of science students. Post-science is more difficult to understand and less imposing than science. Post-science, as science, has to be accepted through faith. How will post-science be accepted? Please help.

Is a price, a decision, or a plan, which involves infinity, empirically verifiable? Is drug test on humans, whose DNA propagates to infinity, empirically verifiable? Immanuel Kant, according to David Hilbert, was the first to introduce the technical concept of infinity. Science is based on empirical verification.

Humans can touch, but not robot. A robot fingers bounces off a surface as a ball bounces off a racket. Is touch a PHYSICS problem? Or a tactile sensing, geometrical or other types of problem? Robot researchers have making many "excuses" for the inability of the robot in touching (collision without bouncing)? Now, there is a tactile-sensing material, we will soon find out if robot can touch. Post-science believes that touch is a problem in physics, which is missed by Newton and all the scientists since Newton. Who is right? Is prolonged contact (http://jumpulse.com) possible in sports? For tennis players, please visit http://jumpulsetennis.com. [My posts regard this point have been consistently banned in physics forums. (?) The reason could be the rejections of post-science founders, Dr. Wu, Dr. Kunii, Prof. Ram, and Dr. Ching, by the robotics authority over ten years ago! Is science a religion?]

Can Google or Yahoo search engine produce one-to-one search result (input one item to find one result)? Does Google or Yahoo have globally searchable ID numbers? Should we have a universal permanent number (http://pn123.com) to replace all the current permanent, but not universal (conflicting), number standards, such as ISBN, patent numbers, etc.?
If someday mankind can create itself by programming DNA, should evil be eliminated? Should pain and suffering be eliminates? Is self-creation possible? (http://self-creation.org) Post-science believes in self-creation of the living system (or the universe). In self-creation, evil is created as a survival mechanism for the weak to compete against the strong. Pain is created as a warning system, and suffering, as inducement to learn lessons on laws of nature in the absence of the creators.

Is the current society rational? If it is rational already, there would be no need for post-science. Should life science be based on complete automation, which characterizes life, instead of current physical science? Should computer and life sciences be based on the same foundation of complete automation? If life science or computer science can be based solely on physical science, there is no need for post-science.

(12) All claims of post-science should be subjected to public scrutiny. Post-science welcomes you and your viewers to question any item in this post and in post-science web sites and posts in other forums. Being a knowledge-centered organization, Post-Science Institute allows anyone to copy its public statements without quotation marks or references, and without permission.

[Chien Yi Lee, Editor and student of post-science: This post has borrowed freely from post-science web sites, but the final responsibility is all mine.]

Labels: Post Science

Bout 1, Dawkins wins.

Bout 2, it’s not so clear.

I’m in the midst of Richard Dawkins’ excellent “The God Delusion.” It’s a very well written book, and a devastating critique of theism, particularly the Christian variant, and lays waste to creationism and ID.

I plan to comment in more depth after I finish it, and likely will have a number of criticisms. But for now, I want to take on an idea that appears in the book and seems fairly common in contemporary humanist and skeptical writing. This is a minor issue at best in Dawkins’ book, but something that’s of great interest to me, and also has implications for how we approach the debate over religion. It’s first of all a philosophical debate, and I think many modern skeptics, including Dawkins, seem to be missing this.

Dawkins ranks various sorts of ideas on religion, or degrees of belief in god, as: theist, deist, pantheist, atheist. Theist and atheist are the two extremes, the positions he’s testing. But what of deism and pantheism? Dawkins and other authors seem to regard pantheism (e.g. Einstein’s god) as a sort of watered down atheism, and deism (e.g. Thomas Paine’s god) as a sort of watered down theism, with a somewhat distinct difference between the two. I disagree with this on two grounds.

First, I am not so sure how distinct the difference between the deist and pantheist position is; having studied Paine’s “Age of Reason” quite carefully I can’t see it. (This deism-pantheism similarity holds at least with respect to Einstein’s variety – the case may be different with some pantheisms which are closer to straightforward theism, e.g. some New Age doctrines.) But this is an issue of relatively low importance, I think.

More importantly, I think that this analysis looks at these ideas as primarily metaphysical propositions, and thus misses something more fundamental: they are epistemological positions as well. And here, if we retain the theism through atheism ranking, the sharp divide is between theism and deism. “Age of Reason,” which I think is the definitive deist work, has tremendously much in common with the great (and also perhaps defining) atheist work, George Smith’s “Atheism: The Case Against God.” The sharp divide is over the roles of reason and faith, and both books crush the notion that we have any tools of acquiring knowledge other than reason, broadly defined to include rational analysis of the evidence of the senses. I don’t think that Dawkins and other modern critics of religion sufficiently appreciate this, nor its importance. They are, understandably, out to discredit religion, but empirical scientific arguments are insufficient to do this. To take on a metaphysical proposition requires a philosophical attack; in other words, fundamentally, religious ideas are not the empirically falsifiable hypotheses Dawkins seemingly thinks it is, and they must be discredited fundamentally on philosophical grounds: in epistemology, including a defense of reason and an attack on faith, and in metaphysics a clear demonstration of the contradictions in the notion of god.

It is clear that deism, as in Paine’s work, succeeds completely on the first point. It isn’t clear to me that Paine’s deism is so vulnerable on the second point, either. But regardless, the first point is sufficient to establish that deism shouldn’t be classified as akin to theism. This is fundamentally a battle for human reason, and deism is on the right side of that debate.