Science and the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness (False Intuitions of Science III)

In part 1 of this series of posts, I outlined a few intuitions that are often assumed as part of the scientific mind-set. In part 2, I discussed the first intuition that science provides the only valuable explanations of the natural world. In this post, I will discuss the second intuition:

* The history of scientific theories is to march incrementally toward a complete and truthful account of the universe

As with the first intuition I discussed, this second intuition is based on a truth that is extended well beyond its proper scope. In the first intuition, the core truth was that the domain of science is the entire natural world, and the fallacious extension was that it therefore provides the only valuable accounts of the natural world. In the case of the second intuition, the core truth is that science advances over time. However, the fallacious extension is that one day it will necessarily provide a complete account of the universe.

The scientific method can never provide a complete account for the universe because it necessarily restricts itself to externalist categories of explanation. This point was introduced in part 2 but is vital to this series of posts and warrants more discussion. In particular, it bears repeating that if there is more to existence than external relationships, then scientific models must necessarily fall short of providing a complete account. However, many science-minded people do in fact take this position that physical models describe the ultimate, complete reality (or that these models incrementally approach that ideal as science advances). Alfred North Whitehead gave a name to this fallacy of thinking: the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. This fallacy is committed whenever one mistakes an abstraction for the concrete reality. Given this potential fallacy, it is important to think about what physical models abstract away from reality if we are to understand their proper scope.

The most important abstraction that physical models make is to ignore subjective experience. Rather, matter is seen as a vacuous "stuff" that persists through time and devoid of experience. This abstraction is necessary because in relying upon observation and measurement, the scientific method must objectify its data. However, we know this abstraction must not be the whole story from our own existence; we each possess experience and an inner world. We know we are each subjects for ourselves and cannot be completely objectified (even if some make self-refuting claims to the contrary). It is true that we cannot know anyone's experience but our own, but unless we turn to solipsism, this does not mean we ought to deny experience other than our own. David Ray Griffin says: "We know ourselves from within, hence as having duration, and other things from without, hence as devoid of duration. To translate this epistemic duality into an ontological dualism between two different kinds of actualities - those that are always subjects and those that are always objects - is to commit a category mistake." (The World-Knot p. 161) In addition, we must somehow make subjective experience part of the universe beyond humans if we are to fully naturalize it (and avoid supernaturalism).

Given that subjective experience is outside of the scope of science, scientific theories must ignore "half of the evidence" and as a result will never be able to provide a complete account of the universe. At best, scientific models will over time approach a perfect externalist model, with all of the shortcomings which that implies. This is particularly important in considering what sort of questions are appropriate for science to satisfactorily resolve. For example, when presented with the "mystery" of experience or consciousness, a science-minded person can do not much more than take on faith that "some day" science will be able to explain its existence. Given an understanding of the limits of science though, we would understand that this is not an appropriate question for science at all but is better suited for philosophy.

As discussed above, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness provides science with the illusion of more explanatory power than it actually possesses. In addition, it can lead to outright confusion as to the nature of reality. That is, if we are to believe that physical theories approach a complete and truthful account of the universe, what are we to make of the reality of the mathematical forms they describe? Are there "actually" lines of force permeating the world? How is the wave function of quantum theory real? Is action at a distance possible, or are there "really" virtual exchange particles that facilitate forces and wave propagation?

The march of scientific progress is undeniable, and the phenomena that have been revealed and studied must be accounted for in our views of the world. In this respect, scientific theories play a major role. However, we must also understand the limits of science and place those theories in their proper scope. Failure to do so results in the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, where we mistake those theories as providing the ultimate account of the universe. Such a mistake produces not only an inadequate philosophy of the universe but also produces confusion in relating the particulars of those theories to reality.