In this section I present and examine what I believe to be a complete set of criteria for determining the value of any new worldview. This set of criteria is based on an epistemological synthesis (presented previously). At the end of each section, I summarize the implications for autevolution, which has been constructed to satisfy all five criteria.
Criterion 1: Parsimony
Criterion 2: Universality
Criterion 3: Crisis Resolution
Criterion 4: Consistency
Criterion 5: Formalization
Criterion 6: Fruitfulness
Parsimony, or "Ockham's razor," is an appeal to concepts that improve our understanding of nature through the use of simplifying assumptions. If we find a more parsimonious view of nature, operating from that view will make description and explanation of phenomena simpler (once the new idea is understood well enough to be used). Explanations should then lead to more revealing questions and useful applications to other phenomena.
Various forms of parsimony can apply to descriptive models (e.g. characterizations should be as simple as possible in regard to their intended use), to theory development (explanations), and to critical assumptions that might make up a worldview. In the latter case, the goal is to provide a more useful thought system, recognizing that a simplifying assumption may not seem simple when first perceived from a different worldview. As Niels Bohr (1961) stated:
"Only by experience itself do we come to recognize those laws which grant us a comprehensive view of the diversity of phenomena. As our knowledge becomes wider, we must always be prepared, therefore, to expect alterations in the points of view best suited for the ordering of our experience. In this connection we must remember, above all, that, as a matter of course, all new experience makes its appearance within the frame of our customary points of view and forms of perception" (which, we might add, may be deceiving).
A correct use of parsimony requires that one judge by results, not by appearance. Parsimony, in evaluating a new worldview, must be established by experience with the new view itself, a process which may involve long periods of development. An often cited example in the history of physics is the parsimonious nature of Newton's laws of motion (based on the concept of force) in contrast to Ptolemy's increasingly elaborate mathematical description of a geocentric solar system. In regard to building theory, it should thus be considered parsimonious to seek deeper and more inclusive levels of causality.
Historically, natural science became "simplified" by avoiding problematic fields such as psychology. This simplified the job by reducing its scope, however it did not give us a more parsimonious explanation of nature. Similarly, scientific disciplines are sometimes described as complementary, but this does not mean that their separation is parsimonious. The principle of "complementarity" that has been found to be parsimonious in physics is proposed as a fundamental and necessary property of nature (the uncertainty principle); whereas the complementary separation between two theories or disciplines (say between psychology and biology) or among Thompson's family of interacting theories (Thompson, 1989) in evolution and ecology, is not a requirement of nature, but has to do with our lack of knowledge and to different assumptions or theory elements. The "family of theories" concept is not chosen out of consideration of parsimony, but rather expedience, to accommodate a multiplicity of perspectives. The realist perspective considered here implies that integration of theories or worldviews (when achievable) involves a more parsimonious and fundamental understanding of nature.
Autevolution, as presented here, seeks explanation in terms of fundamental causality and attempts to construct new theoretical foundations by integrating theories from several disciplines and worldviews. In so doing, it seeks a more parsimonious understanding of general phenomena.
The search for universal principles as the basis for explanation is essential to the development of a general theory in the realist tradition. Within a given worldview, the search for ever deeper levels of explanation (i.e. causation), and thus the successive formalization of more universal principles, extends theory to new situations by making it less conditional on presupposed limits. If one seeks universal and causal explanations within a worldview, rigorous development must ultimately challenge the universality of the worldview itself. On the other hand, solutions that are designed to be system-dependent tend to reinforce their own theoretical foundations and provide less pressure to modify original assumptions.
Autevolution, as defined earlier, is universal in that it develops theory on the basis of a principle that is assumed to be present in all life.
As history implies, the relentless pursuit of a consistent and complete body of theoretical knowledge (phase A of figure 1) can eventually lead to a "crisis" in scientific thought (Kuhn, 1970). Such crises can be defined by one or more apparent or specific paradoxes (i.e. paradox that is specific to the given worldview). A specific paradox consists of at least two inescapable theoretical conclusions that are mutually exclusive, given our original assumptions about nature. Paradoxes in thought or theory, whether consciously identified or not, form the psychological basis for re-evaluating assumptions both in everyday thought and during major scientific "revolutions". As an example, paradoxes develop from Euclidean geometry when it is applied over large distances, due to the curvature of space (or in geodesy, due to the curvature of the Earth). Such crises are perceived when theory becomes incompatible with our concept of a unitary reality (as with two logically contradictory conclusions). However, if we do not actively challenge the foundations of theory, we may not discover their paradoxical elements. For example, paradoxical views mentioned earlier between biological theories are often ignored. Wave-particle complementarity, on the other hand, is no longer paradoxical because we have accepted this duality within our view of nature. Paradoxes are thus a result of present theoretical contradictions and an epistemological realism that claims such contradictions should not exist.
Paradox was a particular interest of Niels Bohr (1961) and was prominent in the many discussions between Bohr and Einstein. In fact, it is safe to say that the identification and resolution of paradox became an intentional characteristic in the progress of physics beginning with Einstein (e.g. the EPR Paradox, Schrödinger's Cat Paradox, Twin Paradox, etc.). The exercise of analyzing paradox was essential in clarifying one's theory (or worldview), or overthrowing it by proving a logical inconsistency.
An excellent description of the purposeful use of paradox as part of the scientific method was presented by Albert Einstein (1916) in his layman's explanation of special and general relativity. Einstein introduced the reasoning that led to his formulation of special relativity theory -- a new worldview -- by pointing out "the apparent incompatibility of the law of propagation of light" (i.e. constant speed in a vacuum) "with the principle of relativity" (i.e. that the laws of nature are unchanged at constant velocities). Physics had reached this inconsistency after a painstaking pursuit of traditional scientific experimentation and hypothesis testing, with agreement among the scientific community that the resulting paradox was logically unresolvable within the classical worldview. At this point, the essence of solving the dilemma was not to reject one of the alternatives, as in testing hypotheses, but to accept both and revise our assumptions about the nature of the universe. In Einstein's own words:
"As the result of an analysis of the physical conceptions of time and space" [i.e. the formulation of his new worldview] "it became evident that in reality there is not the least incompatibility between the principle of relativity and the law of propagation of light, and that by systematically holding fast to both these laws, a logically rigid theory could be arrived at" [emphasis added].
This was the theory of Special Relativity, and it required changing our assumptions about the geometry of space and time. The process, so beautifully understood and illustrated by Einstein, is an essential process for every architect of new scientific thought, whether it is done consciously or by intuition.
This implies that developing a new worldview is a very different process from building consistent theory. In building causally-related theory, reasonable alternatives within a given framework can be established and selectively excluded based on evidence. Successional and more advancing worldviews, however, require altering the assumptions; and advances to a more inclusive view are made most reliably by unifying empirically confirmed but logically contradictory conclusions (paradox) that appear within the former worldview. Thus, this latter process is one of inclusion, because the new view is now able to explain how both sides of the apparent paradox can be seen as true. In forming a new worldview, we are considering a change in basic assumptions, brought on by a logical failure of the previous view.
The value of demonstrating paradox is also illustrated by the noticeable lack of such demonstrations in pseudoscientific theories (theories invented without appropriate epistemological criteria). With two opposite processes operating within the scientific method (selection and unification) if there is no clear way of deciding when to apply each, science easily degenerates into chaos because revolutions are no longer required to address a genuine issue (i.e. they are solutions without a demonstrated problem). The criterion of crisis resolution establishes both the need for new directions and the likelihood that the line of reasoning to which one is led will be useful. The search for theoretical paradoxes should be relentless.
As the model indicates (Figure 1), paradox can also appear when previously separate theories, worldviews, or disciplines are combined. The process of disciplinary or worldview integration can identify logical conflicts between interacting theories, which can stimulate unification.
I mentioned earlier that autevolution must deal with paradoxes between current views of behavioral ecology and mechanical evolution, paradoxes between psychological theories (concepts of mind or psyche) and material theories (determinism), and the artificial separation of disciplines which avoids dealing with these contradictions. As long as these perspectives are considered separate or merely complementary, no crisis will be perceived; but if they are combined (in a realist context), one must resolve the issue of interdependence between organism and environment, between form and function, and between free-will or purpose and deterministic evolution. Autevolution, as defined here, thus attempts to deal with these important paradoxes in and among current theories. These paradoxes are further described in the discussion section
An acceptable new worldview must be consistent not only with itself, but with previous knowledge (i.e. previous observations and the principles they confirmed). This idea is similar to Bohr's principle of "correspondence" between quantum theory and classical physics, except that consistency is less demanding than Bohr's concept, which may not always be achievable as he eventually realized.
The idea of consistency is implied in identifying and resolving paradox. The argument goes like this: To demonstrate that a paradox exists in the first place, we rely on previous observations. In doing so, we implicitly accept previous forms of evidence and methods of confirmation; otherwise the apparent paradox, and thus the justification for seeking a new theory, has itself been invalidated. Therefore, a new, more explanatory worldview cannot reject results of the old, even though it may provide radically new ways of explaining them. For example, relativity does not reject results obtained by scientists working within the thought paradigms defined by Newtonian mechanics and Cartesian geometry, at the level of precision that was obtainable from them (in this case, they were shown to be derivable from relativity theory). A view that rejects previous experience in its opening assumptions would suffer from being out of context, and would be less likely to be useful scientifically.
Like the quantum theory, autevolution based on observer-participancy would not be able to dispense with the "classical" objective view (i.e. an observer separated from nature). This is because, as Bohr put it:
"we must not forget that, in spite of their limitation, we can by no means dispense with those forms of perception which colour our whole language and in terms of which all experience must ultimately be expressed."
As individual organisms with sense perception, the objective view will always be important to us as our means of conceptualizing the world. Thus, while nonmaterialist formalism may be included within theory, it is necessary to maintain consistency (and correspondence when possible) with the classical, objective, and materialistic view of nature.
There seems to be nothing inherent in the assumption that living structures have magnified observer-participancy that would a priori contradict current knowledge of nature. It would, however, extend the range of explainable phenomena beyond the domain of pure materialism, which would then be treated as a limited case of a more general theory. This would satisfy consistency, just as the theory of relativity is consistent with Newtonian mechanics.
An acceptable worldview must allow theory to be formalized in a way that allows testable hypotheses about its causal processes. In practice, a revolutionary theory will not be taken seriously unless it can include acceptable causalities in its formalization. This requirement rules out, for example, cosmically theistic worldviews (as a basis for scientific theory) that attribute all cause to one or more external gods, who/which transcend our ability to investigate. Within such views, experiments to determine cause, and thus to develop causal or predictive theory, are meaningless, and theory itself is unnecessary (note that this criterion does not reject such views, but only claims that they cannot be used as a basis for scientific theory). It is essential to the scientific method (as modeled earlier) to be able to create an objective viewpoint for testing hypotheses, in order to produce unambiguous results.
Autevolution as described here is no exception and is not subjectively defined. It is holistic in the sense that it is a participatory theory, but the effects of participation are theoretically limited by mechanical constraints. It allows theory to consider the effect of a fundamentally subjective process (observer-participancy), but retains the use of objectivity as the means for confirming results. As with the quantum theory, it is still possible to study objectively the results of a fundamentally subjective and non-deterministic process that has quantifiable limits. The next challenge to autevolution theories is to construct and test such a formalism.
Having met all other criteria, the final test of a worldview is its ability to spawn meaningful theories that eventually produce useful results. This criterion of fruitfulness is crucial, however it cannot be applied in evaluating a worldview in advance of its formalization and use to construct and test theories. As described elsewhere, fruitfulness can often be determined only after painstaking attempts at theory development.
An attempt to outline some possible steps for theory development (formalization) and testing has been made in this paper. A proposed computer simulation may serve as an initial step in this process (see Foreword). The many analogies suggested with observed phenomena and psychological experience indicate that, if a successful formalism can be developed, for example through simulation, that the results will be broadly applicable to many fields, and many predictions could clearly be made and tested. Beyond that, however, true fruitfulness will require the test of time.
Please cite as: Kineman, John Jay. 1997. "Toward a special
and general theory of autevolution." Boulder: Bear Mountain
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