Peter Emmerson

 1.7 Process Technology: an answer to the problems of the new mathematical idealism – the study of interdependencies rather than cause and effect.

 I think it’s fair to say that you can never feel safe: the notion of safety is just another ideal. But as Maslow pointed out, we can achieve a level of security, what might be termed ‘relative safety’, that allows us the facility to get involved in less pressing activities such as socializing and contemplating the realisation of personal potential. Even though from my perspective his notion of ‘self actualisation’ is too heavily contaminated with idealism to be much use scientifically, it does offer an insight as to the conditions necessary for the growth in the numbers of scientists since the 17^th century. As far as I’m concerned, to do science people must not only have their immediate practical needs under control, but also must feel sufficiently secure to relinquish enough of a hold on their ideals to allow them to explore and conjecture about reality, without being traumatized by the experience: venturing into the unknown world outside, and trespassing on the territory of supernatural beings was dangerous. It is not therefore very surprising that early scientists carried with them a sturdy package of ideals on their uncomfortable, risky journey into greater relative detachment and, interdependently, greater relative uncertainty.

In this sense developments in new mathematical technology have been crucial to the expansion of science, not just because they offered greater technical expertise, but also because they provided a different type of truth tool kit, much more suited to the research of reality than religious or philosophical truth finding techniques. Thus, scientists were well fortified by a more mathematicized model of certainty on their voyage into the forbidden world outside. This is not to say that the truth technologies of religion and philosophy were abandoned, although religious truths clearly took a big hit with the demolition of its authority over the spirit world and its taboos. The growth of mathematics is more of an accommodation producing a new mix, still including plenty of the non-mathematical technology of truth such as philosophical systems technology and its dichotomies: positive-negative being a prominent example.

In the hostile territory of reality where scientists operate, sheer sensory information overwhelms human consciousness diluting the relevance of much in our ancient truth technology (especially theology), which was designed to cope with egocentric, ‘me-oriented’ insecurities about how I/we cope with the surrounding world outside. When you actually get out there (into the world outside the human mind and its ideals) and try to understand the very thing that our ancient truths protected us from, you are confronted with different and even greater problems of relative uncertainty in the form of ‘they-oriented’ insecurities, which are better suited to ‘they-oriented’ ideals such as mathematics to give them form. Not only did the new model of ideals (theometaphysics) dominated by mathematics provide a greater potential for engaging with reality, it also patterned our perceptions and understanding of that relatively uncertain ‘they oriented’ world outside, giving it the appearance of something predictable and much more stable than is in fact the case. Early physicists spoke of laws interdependent with the truths of the new, more mathematicized theometaphysics. This confirmed the findings of earlier truth-finders that certainty is everywhere, probably still governed by divine presences.

However, the new ‘they-oriented’ theometaphysics is much more vulnerable to questioning than was its ‘me-oriented’ predecessor. There are two issues that I want to consider: dynamism and diversity. The bonds formed between the new ideals and reality are much more tenuous because there is nothing stable to hold on to: this contrasts strongly with the ‘me-oriented’ problems of the mind where stability is possible. The forces in the universe are just too dynamic to be held in place indefinitely. It is rather like a chemistry experiment where two compounds are mixed in a test-tube to produce a measurable, controllable reaction. In the simple, highly regulated world of the test-tube the ideal of a cause and effect explanation between the two reactive materials works well. However, when analysing much more real, complex and dynamic containers such as the human body the ideal of cause and effect is much more difficult to apply, understand and justify. Whilst this analogy is not perfect because a test-tube is not the mind, it is a practical attempt to mimic an ideal environment and provides a nice example of the importance of ideal states for human experience; they offer control. In the ‘me-oriented’ world of the mind complete control is possible via its capacity to develop absolute truths as stable models which can be projected onto the world outside to provide security. In the less ‘me-oriented’ world of the test-tube a lesser degree of control is possible but still sufficient to explore ideals such as cause and effect successfully. However, as we move further away from the mind to the human body as a biological problem, the ‘me-oriented’ methods of interpreting reality have much less influence and much less control over the dynamics of the real world. When taking a scientific position the balance of influence between the mind and its ideals moves in favour of reality and with it the level of control declines. The dominant issue of the mind is dealing with problems of stability and absolute truth; the dominant issue of reality (science) is dealing with problems of dynamism and relative uncertainty.

The problem of the fragility of the bonds ‘me-oriented’ mathematicians can develop when they engage with ‘they-oriented’ reality is not just about their lack of fit for analysing dynamism, it is also related to reality’s diversity: for ideals to prevail, they have to explain an awful lot more than just the problems of the mind. The problems of the mind can produce ‘me-oriented’ truths in the form of transpositions of reality such as mathematical proofs, Pythagorus’ triangle being a famous example. These transpositions are then projected back onto reality, thereby removing much of the diversity that does not approximate the perfect form. However, for scientists empirical facts are the bread and butter of experience, promoting a picture of diversity that overwhelms the mathematical proofs for which they were never designed: there are no straight lines, there is no way of measuring distance exactly. Diversity and complexity is everywhere and cannot be controlled and ignored via the ‘me-oriented’ perceptual habitus that Elias termed Homo clausus. In order to engage with the vastness of reality, as opposed to the problems of the mind, ‘me-oriented’ perceptual habits are of little use. For the study of reality we need a different perceptual habitus that fits with a ‘they-oriented’ scientific approach, described by Elias as Homines aperti, open people. Such people are sensitive to the dynamism and diversity of reality because they are aware of the requirement to meet the demands of interrogation from facts that inevitably at some point may call their conclusions into question. Concomitantly, reality is experienced with relative uncertainty.

As models of certainty, ideals will therefore always be found lacking as templates for the analysis of reality. ‘Me-orientation’, which looks for patterns such as cause and effect, will offer only limited understanding in comparison to ‘they-orientation’ and the more difficult problem of analysing interdependencies. I think it is fair to say that the further from the mind (‘me-orientation’) and its idealistic patterns of analysis we travel, questions as to its usefulness arise; the level of sub-atomic particles being a prime example for which Heisenberg found it necessary to develop a whole new mathematics. Interrelatedly, we can observe his mathematics of ‘uncertainty’ as a contradiction in terms, for mathematics is all about certainty. The limits of mathematical usefulness may have been reached in the realm of particle physics where relative uncertainty bites hard on our consciousness. This level of relative detachment is difficult to live with, where ideals, rather like the oxygen at high altitude, are thinly spread around. To stretch the analogy slightly further, in such a rare place near to the boundary with space, a place of great ‘they-orientation’, we are likely to cling more obsessively to the security of mathematical ideals and even revert back to old and trusted methods of truth technology such as philosophy and theology, which unfortunately seems to be the case with modern theoretical physics. The question is how we can move further into science with less of the comfort provided by mathematical ideals. The answer may be process technology.