There’s a flaw in that, though I generally agree with the hope. \u00a0Science is still unable to\u00a0study nature\u00a0except\u00a0in abstraction, representing nature as a theory of deterministic calculations. \u00a0It’s been unable\u00a0to use them to\u00a0study\u00a01) our own or nature’s great creativity, or 2) any individual thing or event, in its own natural form. \u00a0It matters because our old habits of multiplying new forms until they\u00a0caused trouble is now the foundation on which we’re adding an\u00a0uncontrolled “Cambrian explosion” of new forms of computational (and often disruptive) knowledge. We also appear to be trusting the future of\u00a0civilization to\u00a0them,\u00a0even as the radiation of old forms further\u00a0depletes and disrupts the natural world. \u00a0 It’s seems we’re “missing something”.<\/em><\/p>\n So, my counter proposal is to open the eyes of\u00a0science to the\u00a0study individual natural systems as subjects, not just as abstractions, but to learn directly from them, to create an “object oriented science”. \u00a0My years of work on that, creating\u00a0a form of physics for studying individual natural systems, works by raising particularly good questions. \u00a0 For example, all natural systems that develop\u00a0from\u00a0a common origin as individuals are found to face a common pattern of\u00a0life challenges, in part:<\/em><\/p>\n There are reasons\u00a0to worry when\u00a0the foundation for a radiation of new sciences is an “old science” for radiating new forms that make us\u00a0quite\u00a0unable to “fit in” on the earth. \u00a0 It makes it likely that the\u00a0new forms\u00a0of knowledge instead of correcting that, actually contain the same flaw as the old one. \u00a0 I think a very big part of that comes from science relying on representing nature with equations, that have radically different properties from the subjects that are meant to represent.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n [first posted\u00a0to\u00a0IEET\u00a0article<\/a>] Certainly the recent discovery that “the world is complicated” (and both people and nature unusually *inventive*) does expose a deep flaw in the idea that nature follows simple scientific rules and models.\u00a0 That seemed plausible only because some of the simple rules of physics are also so amazingly reliable.\u00a0\u00a0 Those still exist, and others are to be found most likely, but the question is: \u201cWhat then do we think of them?\u201d<\/p>\n I think we probably should not throw out the scientific method… particularly just because we’ve been misusing it.\u00a0 The common flaw in our use of science as I see it, and studied since the 1970’s actually, is its \u201cmisrepresentation problem\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0The world is not a model, and we\u2019ve been treating it that way.<\/p>\n The world is not made of numbers, not made of quantitative relationships.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s made of organizations of separate things, often found in \u201cimproper sets\u201d with the parts of one thing also often taking independent part in others too.\u00a0\u00a0 It makes things in nature *highly individualistic*, and held together by some kind of “organizational glue” we’ve hardly begun to study.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That presents not only a wonderfully interesting “mismatch in VARIETY”, but also several wonderfully interesting “mismatches in KIND” as well.\u00a0\u00a0 It may not be \u2018neat\u2019 but it\u2019s very \u2018lifelike\u2019, and opens all sorts of new doors!<\/p>\n So what I think we need to retire is not so much “science” as “the representation of scientific models as nature\u201d.\u00a0 The article points to a number of the big discrepancies that have become too big to ignore, but where does that take us??\u00a0\u00a0 One place it takes us back to the age old \u201cmillion dollar question\u201d of how science is to refer to nature at all.\u00a0 What is it we CAN define that DOES NOT misrepresent what we are studying??\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think a quite simple place to start (and obvious solution once you recover from the shock, I guess) it to treat models not AS nature, but AS \u201cour limits of measurable uncertainty about nature\u201d.\u00a0 Yes, Popper and Bohr with turn in their graves… but models understood as representing upper and lower bounds within which we expect nature to operate, independently, will also be found to be much more useful.<\/p>\n If you actually look closely at natural behaviors you readily see that, that the paths nature takes are always individualized, and we can understand them much better having some information from past events to suggest what to expect.\u00a0\u00a0 It gives you a straight and clear view of the all-important “discrepancies”.\u00a0\u00a0 To make use of relieving science of its century (or more) of seriously false thinking, about nature being theory, what you then need are ways for science to refer to nature as “individual phenomena & organizations” to identify the stuff of nature that science studies.\u00a0\u00a0 In our century or more of trusting abstraction by itself, that’s what I think science has been missing, having a natural object of study.<\/p>\n So, in a fairly direct way I’m calling for an “object oriented science” to correspond to the “object oriented programming” that has become such a big help for giving order to computer coding and the web.\u00a0\u00a0 My main two tools for that are what I call a “dual paradigm” view (alternating between attention to ‘theory’ and ‘things’), and a “pattern language” view (the emerging scientific method of describing natural organization based on Christopher Alexander’s work).<\/p>\n Alexander\u2019s pattern language is evolving to become a versatile general method for working with \u2018recurrent patterns of design\u2019 as \u2018whole sets of working relationships\u2019 found in ‘problems’, ‘solutions’ & ‘environments’.\u00a0\u00a0 My new work describing how these fit together is being presented at the PURPLSOC<\/a> and PLoP <\/a>meetings this year, presents a broad picture of the\u00a0fundamentals, and very worth using to begin the process of recognizing natural design as a working environment.\u00a0\u00a0 If interested, do searchs for “dual paradigm”, “pattern language” & \u201cChristopher Alexander\u201d both on the web and in this journal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The traditional scientific method doesn’t fit\u00a0our new information world very well, with the rapid emergence of so many new forms of knowledge communities, computational science and\u00a0commerce, seeming to take over. \u00a0They are also being built on a foundation of science with major\u00a0problems\u00a0unsolved, \u00a0like an\u00a0understanding\u00a0of how complex systems emerge and become unstable. \u00a0The Edge asked … Continue reading Object Oriented Science, An Emerging Method?<\/span> “getting started”, “building internal relationships”, “establishing\u00a0external relationships”, “fitting in”\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n
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<\/a>A counter proposal…<\/h3>\n