Kyberwarlord

When I first encountered Mary Midgley’s work, it was purely an accident. Being trained in the continental philosophical tradition, I had no exposure to her work in my time as a student. Confronting the spine of the book Science and Poetry, I bought it on a whim. Come to find out, it is probably one of the greatest texts I encountered thus far. I am by no means anti-science. I have seen and experienced first-hand the alleviation of misery that it can bring. Yet, for all the value of science, it is as-yet unable to define the greatest of all values. I speak of course of the value of human life. Turning¹ to Science as Salvation, it is apparent to me that this slightly older book marks the beginning, tentative stretches towards answering if science can, or indeed should, be the most exalted of professions. Midgley, I believe, marks one of the earliest attempts at reigning in the scientific industrial complex.

We must here note that we are constraining ourselves to the physical realm. For the other “natural sciences,” i.e., chemistry and biology, it is rather easy to intuit how the fields can be de-neutralized. Further, we must consider what the “neutrality” of the sciences entails. In my estimation, this concept of “neutrality” enfolds several related, but certainly distinct ideas.

1. Objectivity: Since Descartes’ mind/matter distinction, we in the west have cultivated an obsession with knowing objective truths. That is, knowing how things really are. There seems to be a popular (mis)conception that science is full of objective truths, that there can be no room for emotion, or meaning, or even of humans in this objective space. If it is not obvious, I am unconvinced that pure objectivity is possible at all. After all, isn’t this proven by the very field so revered for its so-called “objectivity,” physics? When particles are observed, they change. I think that, based on this science, that true objective views of the universe are impossible.

2. Neutrality: The way I am using neutrality here is as a delimitation of uncontested ground. The other natural sciences: biology; ecology; these exist in political territories. (The very existence of ridicule towards the concept of “treehuggers” make this point clear.) The point we contest here, however, is that physics remains outside all of political territory. That it is completely neutral and immune of politics.

Here, I will make a rather bold claim; that science will never, indeed can never, be both objective and meaningful at once. Let us take an example to show our thinking. If we were to obnoxiously consider, for a moment, the Penicillium notatum fungus, we make empirical observations that it secretes some substance that exhibits anti-biotic properties. Looking at it even more objectively, we could empirically say that it cures a human of certain infections.

Yes, but why are we curing people? Why do we seek for other stars that we may never visit? Why do all of this shit?

To my shame, it is now that we must introduce where this all going: Heidegger.

Unfortunately, everything comes back to Heidegger.²

All that science is good at is collecting vast amounts of facts. About fundamental particles, about molecules, about materials, about biological processes, etc. Indeed, it has grown to be extraordinarily proficient at collecting facts. It got so good at collecting facts that we had to invent an entirely new method of storing information to store all of these facts. These facts are in the Heideggerian sense, a standing reserve.³ When we smash particles together at near-light speeds, is this not the absolute apex of challenging-forth? Is this not poiesis par excellence?

Yet, with all of these facts about the fundamental nature of matter, in the end, science does not matter without philosophy. (There is a reason that, prior to the professionalization of science, and its subsequent abandonment of the humanities, the natural sciences were called “Natural Philosophy”.) It is up to the philosopher and the aesthete to take in these facts of miraculous conception, and to make them matter for the rest of the world.

The Arts and the Sciences

Being trained and credentialed across the humanities, social sciences, and formal sciences, I am certainly able to appreciate the value of science on the world of aesthetics. While I have no data to back this up, in my limited experience on this Earth, humanists tend to treat the scientific world as if they are sellouts, that they have chased the money. That they are in the pocket of big business and corporate backers. In some cases, this is certainly not incorrect. At the same time, people who fancy themselves scientists because they have an undergraduate degree in computer science (a science almost exclusively derivative of mathematics and physics anyway) treat those who can appreciate the emotional truths of the world with scorn, as if art and literature do not matter. I think that this is a false dichotomy.

I think that this is the product of a society that exalts that which makes money. That something that makes money is what matters. When the social safety net has collapsed, and people must work longer to survive, it is really not their fault that reading or engaging with culture would be the easy to drop. This mindset that STEM-adjacent careers are the only things that will bring career (and therefore monetary) success is surely what drives the proportional decrease in student enrollments in the humanities, and increase in computer science enrollments. (Because of course God knows we need another obnoxious tech bro).

Art and science complement each other. They are not necessarily in tension.

A final thought:

A team of scientists can make a city physically safe to live in. But artists are necessary to make it an emotionally safe place to live in.