Why Husserl's mathematisation of nature is important

[UndercoverElephant]

This is an offshoot from another thread. I am going to try to explain what Edmund Husserl said and why he said it. He decided that it was impossible to get people to understand the metaphysical nightmare that philosophy was stuck in (and which the debates on this board are still stuck in) unless they retraced the stages of the development of thought that led to the current impasse.

Before the Greeks there was no science, no systematic philosophy and no geometry. When people spoke and thought about "the world" they simply referred to the world in which they lived. The world of trees and houses and people. Husserl asks you to reserve judgement at this time about what you think this world is "made of". There is just this world in which we live and Husserl refers to it as "the lifeworld".

The first stage in the mathematisation of the lifeworld is the arrival of Greek geometry. Geometry does not describe the things we find in the lifeworld. Instead, it describe perfect versions of some aspects of those things. There are no perfect spheres or circles in the lifeworld. There are oranges, there are the moon and sun, but there are no absolutely perfect shapes like the ones we find in geometry. Husserl describes the entities of geometry as like "guiding poles" of perfection, which we might try to imitate in the lifeworld but which we can never actually attain.

So the situation remained until Galileo comes along and has the bright idea of extending this mathematisation project to the whole of nature, whereby he might better transcend the confines of the subjectively experienced lifeworld and come to "better understand the mind of God". It is important to note that Galileo, at the time, still thought of the world as the lifeworld. The mathematisation was a deliberate ploy to better understand the way it worked, but it was never deliberately intended for the understanding of what "world" meant to shift from the lifeworld to the mathematisation of that world.

The lifeworld is not completely mathematisable anyway. In the lifeworld you are presented with, say, a green apple. Now, you can geometrically mathematise the rough sphere, but how on earth are you going to mathematise the green? You can't. Well, you can't do it directly. You can only do it indirectly by abstracting something from the mathematised model. You can mathematise green by specifying the wavelength of green light, but this is an entirely different process to the mathematisation of the sphere, as I hope everyone will agree. The mathematisation of the sphere looks like a sphere. The mathematisation of green doesn't look like anything. It's just a number. Take another example. How are you going to mathematise felt temperature? You can specify the temperature of your nerve cells in degrees celsius, but this isn't even as useful as the wavelength, because a specific temperate in degrees celsius doesn't always feel the same - it depends on whether your hand is warming up, cooling down or staying the same.

So this mathematisation of the lifeworld can never be complete and the mathematisation simply is not the lifeworld. However, the position of modern science which is defended by the people on this board considers the lifeworld and the mathematisation of the lifeworld to be identical. JREFers believe the world is made of atoms. Sure, it is also made of oranges and houses but those are made of atoms. But what are "atoms"? The word "atom" refers to an object in the mathematisation. The word "orange" refers to an object in the lifeworld. But oranges are made of atoms!!! Do you see the problem? At what point does it stop being the mathematisation and start being the lifeworld? Is it a continuum? It surely is not. Is there a sudden transition? No. Therefore we have a problem, it's a logical problem and it's a serious problem.

At this point Husserl hopes that people can now begin the process of unravelling the mysterious mess we have got ourselves into. Somebody in the other thread said "So what? Why does this matter?" It matters because people (and at the time Husserl was writing it seemed like pretty much everyone) are not aware of this conflation of the lifeworld and the model of the lifeworld. It goes by unnoticed. But it is exactly this mistake which leads to the apparently unresolvable problems of metaphysics, and the only way to get beyond those problems is to go back to thinking of the lifeworld as the lifeworld and the mathematisation as the mathematisation. That's why it matters. What we call "materialism" is the result of getting the lifeworld mixed up with the mathematisation and failing to recognise that this has happened. What we call "idealism" is a dialectical reaction to this mistake which simply provides a mirror image of the mistake. Husserl therefore ends up being neither a materialist nor an idealist, regardless of the fact that he is often accused of being an idealist.



Geoff.

 

[Dr Adequate]

However, the position of modern science which is defended by the people on this board identifies the lifeworld and the mathematisation of the lifeworld as being identical.

No.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

No.

I am going to bed now. Any chance you can do better than a one word answer?

 

[Dr Adequate]

"Straw man".

That's two.

We can all tell the difference between a mathematical model and reality.

 

[Meadmaker]

What I don't understand is why the mistake of confusing the lifeworld and its mathematisation somehow leads to the apparently unresolved problems of metaphysics, or why eliminating the confusion would help us get past those problems.

Occaisionally, I do see signs of this confusion, but not all that often, and I don't see that confusion leading to any of the struggles on this board or any place where people debate weighty philosophical issues.

 

[UserGoogol]

Both the "lifeworld" and the mathematization of nature, based on your descriptions, seem to both be models. The lifeworld as you describe it seems to refer to the various sensations by which we experience reality. Phenomena seem to me to be merely the internal model by which human beings automatically parse the universe into. I see no reason to believe that the sensation of "redness" actually exists in nature. (It might, but it might not.) The "lifeworld," as it were, is merely the model which our subconscious mind automatically constructs, whereas the mathematical world consists of the model which our conscious mind constructs quite deliberately and carefully. Neither is a truly complete model of reality, but the mathematical world seems better because it is the result of conscious effort.

In addition, it seems unfair to give atoms and oranges different levels of reality. We can see individual atoms, and we can see individual oranges. It just happens that we can see oranges with our natural faculties, whereas atoms can only be seen with additional help. But I don't see why the eyeball is so much better than the electron microscope.

For what it's worth, I've long been of the opinion that much of metaphysics is utter bullsh*t. I am very much of the opinion of people such as Kant who say that the ultimate nature of reality is unknowable.

 

[hammegk]

"Straw man".

That's two.

We can all tell the difference between a mathematical model and reality.

Have you ever tried thought prior to typing a meaningless assertion?

 

[Dr Adequate]

No. Nor have I tried breathing before wrestling with crocodiles.

 

[stamenflicker]

"Straw man".

That's two.

We can all tell the difference between a mathematical model and reality.

I don't at all speak for Dr. A, but I would agree with him that many (probably not most) people on this board understand the limits of their philosophical leanings. It's easy to forget those limitations when we are debating back and forth.

However, in relation to the straw man accusation, I believe Geoff gave a fair criticism of a hardline materialist world view, which does deserve a bit more discussion.

Again we are really talking about the models of understanding reality, and many of us know this even when we sound like we don't.

Further, the statement from Geoff deserves more consideration:

What we call "idealism" is a dialectical reaction to this mistake which simply provides a mirror image of the mistake. Husserl therefore ends up being neither a materialist nor an idealist, regardless of the fact that he is often accused of being an idealist.

Where this post doesn't yet take us, and I am uncertain if Husserl does or not, is into the notion that of what we are really able to discuss outside of mathematization (or representation models) of empiricial facts. It also fails to really acknowledge the power and problems of nominalism as we move further away from empirical facts-- in which language serves a mathematical model of representation of both objective phenomomon and subjective noumenon, both of which exist as (at the bare minimum) ontological entities in the lifeworld.

That said, it is important to realize that there are many scientists and logicians with the not-so-hidden agenda as to make idealism out to be a farce to begin with, in other words, treating it as an utter failure to communicate anything of value. This post addresses that very well.

Flick

 

[Dr Adequate]

However, the fact remains that no-one is in any danger of confusing a mathematical model of reality and reality. For much the same reason that no-one is likely to try to eat the word "apple".

To misquote Samuel Johnson : "I am not so lost in mathematics as to have forgotten that numbers are the sons of earth and things are the daughters of heaven."

NB : Flick --- re your signature --- I have a single hypothesis which can explain both the facts that puzzled Chesterton. Can you guess what it is?

 

[stamenflicker]

NB : Flick --- re your signature --- I have a single hypothesis which can explain both the facts that puzzled Chesterton. Can you guess what it is?

Nope, fire away.

 

[LW]

The mathematisation of the sphere looks like a sphere.

You do have odd looking spheres around, if they really look like this:

[latex]
$(x-x_0)^2 + (y-y_0)^2 + (z-z_0)^2 = R^2$.
[/latex]

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

At this point Husserl hopes that people can now begin the process of unravelling the mysterious mess we have got ourselves into. Somebody in the other thread said "So what? Why does this matter?" It matters because people (and at the time Husserl was writing it seemed like pretty much everyone) are not aware of this conflation of the lifeworld and the model of the lifeworld. It goes by unnoticed.

That's because for most purposes it is a distinction without a difference, and hence not worth mentioning.

But it is exactly this mistake which leads to the apparently unresolvable problems of metaphysics, and the only way to get beyond those problems is to go back to thinking of the lifeworld as the lifeworld and the mathematisation as the mathematisation.

What problems? Who are they problems for?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

"Straw man".

That's two.

We can all tell the difference between a mathematical model and reality.

D.A.,

It is no use just dipping in at the end of the argument and denying the conclusion. You have to actually start from the beginning and explain where I lose you, yes?

Geoff

 

[LW]

It is no use just dipping in at the end of the argument and denying the conclusion. You have to actually start from the beginning and explain where I lose you, yes?

Here:

However, the position of modern science which is defended by the people on this board considers the lifeworld and the mathematisation of the lifeworld to be identical.

I don't know any scientist who would claim that the world and the mathematical model that describes the world are identical. [I'm not saying that there is not any, but it certainly is not the standard position].

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Hello Meadmaker.

Thankyou for giving a coherent reply instead of an attempt at a two-word put-down.

What I don't understand is why the mistake of confusing the lifeworld and its mathematisation somehow leads to the apparently unresolved problems of metaphysics, or why eliminating the confusion would help us get past those problems.

Occaisionally, I do see signs of this confusion, but not all that often, and I don't see that confusion leading to any of the struggles on this board or any place where people debate weighty philosophical issues.

The unresolvable problems of metaphysics which we are usually struggling with basically started with a bunch of arguments about three metaphysical positions: cartesian dualism, materialism and idealism. Descartes and Galileo were contempories, so the mathematisation project of Galileo and the metaphysical project of Descartes were practically simultaneous. What makes the current situation unresolvable is the impossibility of getting rid of one half of Descartes dualism without doing violence to the other half. It's also really quite difficult to think and talk without unwittingly falling back into the same mistakes over and over again.

The mathematised model isn't real. It is an idealised abstraction, in exactly the same way as the perfect shapes of geometry are idealised abstractions. Within the lifeworld, as it was implicitly understood before the mathematisation, all sorts of things exist which transcend the supposed distinction between mind and matter. The red apple is a classic example. The apple seems to be clearly material. Yet even though the redness occurs on the surface of the apple, it seems to be mental - at least it is very hard to figure out how it could be material. You say you can't see why this leads to confusion? Look at the post that followed yours:

I see no reason to believe that the sensation of "redness" actually exists in nature. (It might, but it might not.)

There's your problem: we can't figure out where "redness" is. It's not a problem before the mathematisation - the redness of the apple is on the surface of the apple and that is all there is to it. It is only when you bifurcate the world into a material realm and mental realm that you end up with the hopeless problem of trying to specify to which realm redness belongs.

The reason Husserl's concept can get us past the problems of metaphysics is that it tries to get us to see that there is no way forwards out of this problem. As soon as the mathematisation has been confused with the lifeworld you end up with an implicit claim of materialism. As soon as this claim is made, somebody will come along and give you a dualistic or idealistic response which is very hard to rebutt because all it does is point out the stark staring obvious fact that we really do have subjective experiences and they really do contain unmathematisable components like the experience of seeing red or feeling warmth. We have taken a wrong turn, and are stuck in a blind alley. There is no way forward out of the blind alley. We can't fix materalism and we can't fix dualism or idealism either. So we must reverse to the point of the (unacknowledged) wrong turn. We must go back and grab a concept which existed implictly before the mathemisation and bifurcation, but which had no name other than "world". "World" is now a really difficult problem, because we can't agree what "world" is actually made of. So Husserl invents the term "lifeworld" and insists that we suspend judgement about what it is "made of" (he call's this an "epoche" or "bracketing of the question of existence"). In doing so we are not so much solving the problems of metaphysics than rewinding to a position before they occur - which is the only genuine way to escape them. As long as people continue trying to defend materialism, they are perpetuating the confusion unwittingly created by Descartes and Galileo. The key to understanding this, IMO, is fully taking on board the fact that materialism, as it is generally propounded at the moment, is not conceptually independent of dualism. The lifeworld, by contrast, is independent of dualism and the mathemetisation, because it predates both.

Geoff

 

[Darat]

This is an offshoot from another thread. I am going to try to explain what Edmund Husserl said and why he said it.

And thanks for the link -it was to say the least interesting.

Before the Greeks there was no science, no systematic philosophy and no geometry.

...snip...

On a factual note is this accurate? I though the world's first university is normally given to been Takshashila - around 700 BCE?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The unresolvable problems of metaphysics which we are usually struggling with basically started with a bunch of arguments about three metaphysical positions: cartesian dualism, materialism and idealism. Descartes and Galileo were contempories, so the mathematisation project of Galileo and the metaphysical project of Descartes were practically simultaneous. What makes the current situation unresolvable is the impossibility of getting rid of one half of Descartes dualism without doing violence to the other half. It's also really quite difficult to think and talk without unwittingly falling back into the same mistakes over and over again.

This paragraph is content-free, so I have nothing to say about it.

The mathematised model isn't real. It is an idealised abstraction, in exactly the same way as the perfect shapes of geometry are idealised abstractions. Within the lifeworld, as it was implicitly understood before the mathematisation, all sorts of things exist which transcend the supposed distinction between mind and matter. The red apple is a classic example. The apple seems to be clearly material. Yet even though the redness occurs on the surface of the apple, it seems to be mental - at least it is very hard to figure out how it could be material. You say you can't see why this leads to confusion? Look at the post that followed yours:

Okay, here's the real problem. The mind/matter distinction is a load of old cobblers. It was excusable in Descartes day, but now we know that the mind is matter. So there is absolutely no "problem". Redness is something that goes on in the human nervous system as a result of light of certain wavelengths hitting the human eye.

There's your problem: we can't figure out where "redness" is. It's not a problem before the mathematisation - the redness of the apple is on the surface of the apple and that is all there is to it. It is only when you bifurcate the world into a material realm and mental realm that you end up with the hopeless problem of trying to specify to which realm redness belongs.

It's no surprise that you can find a "problem" if you start from the assumption that the Cartesian mind/matter distinction was anything other than an understandable error born of ignorance. If you start with flawed premises you are highly likely to get to a problematic conclusion sooner or later.

The reason Husserl's concept can get us past the problems of metaphysics is that it tries to get us to see that there is no way forwards out of this problem. As soon as the mathematisation has been confused with the lifeworld you end up with an implicit claim of materialism. As soon as this claim is made, somebody will come along and give you a dualistic or idealistic response which is very hard to rebutt because all it does is point out the stark staring obvious fact that we really do have subjective experiences and they really do contain unmathematisable components like the experience of seeing red or feeling warmth.

There is no evidence that anything is going on when we se red other than atoms doing their little atom things in an interesting way. So the things you call "unmathematisable" are just things we don't yet understand, not things we can not ever understand. Temporary ignorance is not a metaphysical problem.

We have taken a wrong turn, and are stuck in a blind alley. There is no way forward out of the blind alley. We can't fix materalism and we can't fix dualism or idealism either. So we must reverse to the point of the (unacknowledged) wrong turn. We must go back and grab a concept which existed implictly before the mathemisation and bifurcation, but which had no name other than "world". "World" is now a really difficult problem, because we can't agree what "world" is actually made of. So Husserl invents the term "lifeworld" and insists that we suspend judgement about what it is "made of" (he call's this an "epoche" or "bracketing of the question of existence"). In doing so we are not so much solving the problems of metaphysics than rewinding to a position before they occur - which is the only genuine way to escape them. As long as people continue trying to defend materialism, they are perpetuating the confusion unwittingly created by Descartes and Galileo. The key to understanding this, IMO, is fully taking on board the fact that materialism, as it is generally propounded at the moment, is not conceptually independent of dualism. The lifeworld, by contrast, is independent of dualism and the mathemetisation, because it predates both.

It sounds to me that materialism is perfectly independent of dualism, and this Husserl twaddle is based on taking dualism as an axiom and running with it until you fall flat on your face.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

Redness is something that goes on in the human nervous system as a result of light of certain wavelengths hitting the human eye.

...snip...

Don't forget that is just one the ways it occurs - direct stimulation to the brain can also cause it e.g. damage, chemical, direct stimulation of the tissue by probes and so on. But of course I agree with your comment that in principle we have certainly now "found" redness.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Hello UserGoogol

Both the "lifeworld" and the mathematization of nature, based on your descriptions, seem to both be models. The lifeworld as you describe it seems to refer to the various sensations by which we experience reality. Phenomena seem to me to be merely the internal model by which human beings automatically parse the universe into.

You are trying to map the lifeworld onto the post-mathematised post-cartesian vocabulary that is inextricable from the problem. The mathematisation is quite clearly and explitly a model, but you must resist the temptation to think of the lifeworld as a model. You only think it is a model because you are thinking in terms of modern day computationlist/representationalist theories of mind. This is in fact a paradigm example of the problem Husserl is talking about. Modern cognitive science is so entrenched in the problem that it has turned experiences themselves into a model - a model in "the mind" of human beings. But there is nothing in Husserl's argument or my description of them which implies that the lifeworld is a model. It is entirely understandable why you see the lifeworld in terms of "sensations" or "mental models". But when I see a red apple I do not see sensations of an apple or a mental model of an apple, anymore than when I draw a tree am I drawing a drawing of tree. What I see is an apple.

I hope you see what I mean. The lifeworld is not supposed to refer to "mental things", because "mental things" already presuppose the bifurcation. If it doesn't refer to "mental things" then it can't be mistaken for a model. There was nothing in my post that suggested the lifeworld is a model. That suggestion is coming from the way that you are thinking about the problem, and demonstrating the difficulty in thinking your way out of it. The confusion is utterly entrenched in our way of thinking.

I see no reason to believe that the sensation of "redness" actually exists in nature. (It might, but it might not.) The "lifeworld," as it were, is merely the model which our subconscious mind automatically constructs, whereas the mathematical world consists of the model which our conscious mind constructs quite deliberately and carefully. Neither is a truly complete model of reality, but the mathematical world seems better because it is the result of conscious effort.

The lifeworld IS reality. Think back to before the Greeks and the problem goes away. No concepts of mind and matter. Just a world. A real world. NOT a model at all. Where is the real world in your description? It seems to have disappeared altogether. All you have are models - mental models of a physical world and physical models of a mental world, but no real world. Get rid of the models, and you will find the real world re-appears. But you've got to get rid of both of them.

In addition, it seems unfair to give atoms and oranges different levels of reality. We can see individual atoms, and we can see individual oranges. It just happens that we can see oranges with our natural faculties, whereas atoms can only be seen with additional help. But I don't see why the eyeball is so much better than the electron microscope.

This is a good objection. However, you don't just need an electron microscope to "see an atom". You need an eyeball as well. You can avoid the need for an electron microscope by imagining there are microscopic human beings which can see objects consisting of only a few atoms. So instead of an orange, let's say our micro-humans see a buckyball, composed of a few carbon atoms. For the micro-humans, the word "atom" has now taken on a new meaning. Rather than being mere mathematised abstractions they are now an objects in the lifeworld. These buckyballs presumably look deep purple to the micro-humans (solutions of buckyballs are this colour). When the mico-human refers to an atom he can now mean one of two different things - a mathematised atom and a lifeworld atom. The lifeworld atom is deep purple. What colour is the mathematised atom? We already know that you can't directly mathematise deep purple, so a mathematised atom can't possibly be deep purple.

So - to return to your claim "it seems unfair to give atoms and oranges different levels of reality" do you see why it is fair to give the mathematised atom a different level of reality to the deep purple lifeworld atom that the micro-human encounters? Lifeworld atoms are purple. Mathematised atoms couldn't concievably be coloured at all. They therefore aren't the same thing and are justifiably ascribed "different levels of reality" i.e. they do not have the same ontological status. For the same reason, it is entirely "fair" to ascribe different ontological statuses to mathematised atoms and lifeworld oranges. All your example does is provide us with a thought experiment where there is some meaning to the term "lifeworld atom." This is fair enough, but a lifeworld atom still isn't a "physical atom".

For what it's worth, I've long been of the opinion that much of metaphysics is utter bullsh*t. I am very much of the opinion of people such as Kant who say that the ultimate nature of reality is unknowable.

Husserl would probably agree. That's the whole point of his "epoche".

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/husserl.html

Phenomenological reduction is also a method of bracketing empirical intuitions away from philosophical inquiry, by refraining from making judgments upon them. Husserl uses the term epoche (Greek, for "a cessation") to refer to this suspension of judgment regarding the true nature of reality. Bracketed judgment is an epoche or suspension of inquiry, which places in brackets whatever facts belong to essential Being.

The problem is that if you are still defending materialism, you are making a metaphysical claim whether you like it or not. It is utterly paradoxical to claim that the whole of metaphysics is ******** and simultaneously attempt to defend materialism to the hilt, but that doesn't stop a whole army of people doing exactly that.