blindspots and the suspension of disbelief

It's not everyday I find a book that, upon finishing, I am found gazing into the distance like Bart Simpson considering what happens to sound when a tree falls in the woods. When the power of words can leave you reconsidering all your assumptions of the world, it becomes clear just how mighty the pen can be.

I recently put down Jeremy Narby's 'The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge' to such an earth shattering of assumptions. In his book, Narby posits that Amazonian Shamans' claims that their botanical knowledge of the Amazon's properties is delivered to them by the plants themselves, while their mind is opened by ayahuasca, is true. The coiled serpent is a reoccuring image of ayahuasca induced visions. Narby links the form of the coiled serpent to the structure of DNA, and argues that the photons emitted by plant DNA (corresponding exactly to the ray of visible light) are the true source of these visions, as opposed to a vision originating from the Shaman's brain.

Now, I'm not asking you to buy into Narby's theory right out. There are perhaps simpler explanations that do not need to revert to the criticised Western explanation that Amazonian Shamans achieved their intricate botanical knowledge by chance. However, if we are happy to suspend all disbelief for a moment, Narby offers some beautiful, and yes, shattering insights into limitations in the construction of Western knowledge.

The first is delivered by his historical perspective on the anthroprological construction of the Shaman and Shamanic practices. He shows, that as anthropology reached its own various identity crises throughout the twentieth century, the nature of these were projected onto Western understanding of the Shaman. Initially, Western anthropology characterised the Shaman as neurotic, or as insane. When anthropology faced its structuralist identity crises, the Shaman was conceptualised as a bringer of order and structure to their community. As anthropology moved into its poststructuralist phase, the Shaman became a creator of chaos. Narby neatly shows that a disciplines epistemiological stance colours its understanding of its subject matter, at least in the social sciences. Narby also indicates that we can only understand the other on our own terms, that what we know is rooted in where, and what we are.

The second is delivered by Narby's punchline. His readings of Shamanistic culture, molecular biology and ethnology, lead him to conlcude that ayahuasca induced visions do not originate from the human brain. Rather, the human brain is adjusted so that it may receive visions from dna in the external world. Narby posits a physical basis for connectedness between the self and the external world. The typical reaction of the Western scientist reading these claims, I am sure, would sound something like 'wohow, that's crazy talk', and rooted firmly in their conviction that hallucinations can only originate from the dysfunctional brain, can put down their book and carry on with their day.

But lets suspend disbelief for a moment and consider the possibilities if Narby were right. We would be rendered not as disconnected from all other living species as we seem to think. And surely, that would indicate some kind of sentience in each dna containing structure. How would that affect our understanding of our destructive actions upon this world?

After my period of gazing blankly into space, mind whirling with the possibilities laid out by Narby, I believe I came to a conclusion of sorts. The way we assume the world to work allows us to achieve knowledge of the world that arrives in a certain form, no less or more superior than the Shaman. The way that the Shaman perceives their world is true to them, and leads to their own unique knowledge of the world; and that for one to understand the other, we merely reinterpret into a linguistic framework that we can understand.

Popper, scientific blindspots and the subjective observer of objective events...

So, the investigation begins. I should start at the beginning really, it seems logical, and as a scientist, I am supposed to be one of those logical creatures – hmm…scientists as logical…that’s a topic for another days discussion.

Working in science I am a practitioner of the mode of thought called the hypothetico-deductive model of science. Now, even though I work in science, like many others around me, my education in the history of thought models that formed the scientific framework is shockingly poor. So if I make any mistakes in this introduction, then please illuminate me!

Thanks to Popper, and his ideas published on the scientific method between 1938 and 1963, we have a clear framework within which to investigate. We take an observation of the world and make predictions about what causes such an observation. This prediction takes the form of a hypothesis that can be falsified. We then construct a controlled, experimental situation that will determine whether our prediction is proved incorrect, or is upheld. While we can never determine a prediction to be true, we can determine if it is false and, consequently, if it needs to be adjusted.

Sounds simple huh? A rigorous and foolproof method for determining the nature of an external reality.

Except that I have some problems with this. Now I’m stepping out on my scientific limbs here, but just bear with me for the moment.

Firstly, the objective observer constructs an experimental situation. Inherent in this is the assumption that the objective observer is able to construct an ideally controlled environment in which to test the formulated hypotheses. Now to quote a good friend of mine, in cognitive neuroscience, we are using the brain to design experiments about how the brain works.

How do we know that the brain is able to formulate ways to test itself in an objective manner without limitations and blind spots?  What if the brain processes thought in a way that is unknowable to the thoughts derived from the processes?

Secondly, once our hypothesis is refuted, or upheld for the time being, we return to our observations, or what we know, to explain the phenomena under study.

How can we extrapolate our observations beyond what is already known? What if the phenomena’s true causes are yet unknown to us?

For example, we have known for a long time that neurons communicate via electrical activity across synapses.  Hypothetico-deductive research into brain function has been based on, and interpreted in terms of the body of knowledge relating to neuronal activity. Our observations upon neuronal firing have led us to conclude that this is how the brain processes information and communicates between areas.

Neurons are supported by glial cells. For a long time it has been assumed that glial cells physically support neurons, and modify the growth of neurons. And that’s it. However, recent research by R. Douglas Fields (The Other Brain, 2009: Simon & Schuster) indicates that in fact, these long overlooked cells form their own diffuse communication networks in the brain. In short, its like Parcelforce have been delivering plenty of packages while we’ve had our eyes only upon Royal Mail.

How does the presence of this new messenger impact upon what we have already assumed about the functions of Royal Mail? Do we need to return to these observations in order to understand them in the light of new knowledge? And if so, where does this leave the hypothetico-inductive method?

The rub, as Hamlet would say, is that while an experimentally controlled situation may yield the same observable event again and again, our understanding of it is dependent upon what is known at the time, by the individual in the cultural context, in a subjective moment.

Where does that leave objective knowledge?

The beginning of my journey of thought...

By day I am a lowly, very early career scientist. My days are spent running experiments in cognition for well-respected professors. Each day I walk the halls of academic progress, cutting edge science, evolving frontiers of knowledge. I share my time with colleagues who firmly trust that this knowledge pertains to truth about the nature of the world around and within us. However, by night, dare I utter it, I find myself increasingly nibbled by metaphorical worms of doubt. I am restless with the discomfort I imagine descended upon the first Christian to suspect that perhaps there is no heaven awaiting us after all.

My primary problem is this: is the ‘objective reality’ presented by the scientific method the true reality? Or is it merely a version of reality, a version whose depiction is constrained by the methods used to achieve it?

This quickly leads me to further questions on the nature of our understandings of reality; is the scientific method just another form of knowledge acquisition? For example, are the findings from scientific studies any truer than the quiet personal insights achieved by the Buddhist deep in meditation, or the relativist’s investigations into an individualised snapshot in time? And if so, can knowledge derived from the scientific method be superior to any other method? And furthermore, how do we place intrinsic merit values on knowledge derived from different modes of thought within the world?

Now I am not a philosopher, and I am sure that a philosopher would address these questions with ease. However, I do urgently feel that our inherent assumptions in scientific knowledge acquisition need to be considered, if not investigated. So I’m going to do my best. Those who have leapt further than these early tentative steps of mine, please be patient with me.

My increasing disquiet tells me this is what I should do. The investigation of thought in the thirteenth hour is born.

Philosophers may find my musings grossly un-informed; scientists may shake their heads and throw me to the irrational basket. However, I am lucky that there are many centuries of thinkers who have come before me from whom I can gleam some sort of knowledge base. Some well respected, some not, all with something interesting to say.

Lets investigate with an open mind into the knowable, and maybe the unknowable too.

THANKS TO http://www.nataliedee.com/archives/2005/Sep/ FOR THE COMIC IMAGE