Natural Science Considered as Advanced Applied Phenomenology.(04/10/2015)

Natural Science Considered as Advanced Applied Phenomenology.
H. Friedmann.
Chemistry Department, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900.Israel.
ABSTRACT
Phenomenology is subjective and Science is objective, they are reconciled by invoking the fact that men are complex adaptive systems
The Reality of Phenomena
Phenomenology assumes that we do not have access or knowledge of the World in itself independently of what can be experienced or represented. In other words, we have only access or knowledge of the phenomena as they appear to our consciousness. A mental phenomenon, for Franz Brentano (1838-1917), involves "intentional inexistence" of an intentional object (such as a state of affairs, a purpose. a judgment, a scientific idea, an invention.an evaluation or a thing which may also be fictional like Jules Verne's Nautilus, or nothingness) toward which the mental phenomenon or intentional act (such as perceiving, judging, believing, evaluating, remembering. Intending, aiming, proposing. assuming ), in Edmund Husserl's (1859-1938) terminology, is directed. Thus, for Brentano, our knowledge is purely subjective ("inexistent" or perhaps "in-existent"). However, my claim is that men are complex adaptive systems and evolution and scientific progress has shaped their subjectivity to become isomorphic with objective reality, since otherwise men would not have survived and science and technology would not have flourished. Therefore, it seems that what the things are in themselves is of little scientific or technological interest and the phenomena are all we need for an objective knowledge of the empirical reality. Progress is achieved by humanity as a whole as a result of the discovery of new paradigms by a few exceptionally talented individuals. This is an event in the world of concepts and of the operations of the mind analogous to a favorable mutation in biology.
Moreover, if the phenomena were of purely subjective nature and not evolutionarily adapted to reality, they could be described by a theory of the mind. Nothing of this kind has ever been shown to be true. Being objective, science leads to the opposite view. With the exception of consciousness, the world can be described independently of the functioning of our minds.
If we accept that phenomenological subjectivity agrees with the objectivity of science, we are in a position to describe some aspects of science in phenomenological terms. Thus , we may use Husserl's concept of horizon to describe the scientific theory as a pattern which comprises the horizon of awaken able recollection of past experiments together with the horizon of the potentiality of foreshadowing future effects and of the discovery of new paradigms. The future effects may be either the emergence of something completely surprising or simply a change of perspective as discussed below (see: The Copernican Revolution). Another source of creativity is provided by positive feedback where new elements of type A of the present throw a new light on past considerations of type B modifying these considerations. The modified B considerations, B', change A into A', forming a feedback loop. These considerations illustrate the fact that intentional objects are usually accompanied by a rich intentional content providing information and meaning, which describe the object within a context or situation.
Science considered as a sophisticated application of Phenomenology.
The intuition of the phenomena as seen by the scientifically educated person is far more meaningful than it is for the layman. This situation is similar to evolution where the actual situation for the scientist is the upper layer of an infrastructure or sedimentation of lower layers. The "imaginative variation" used in the "Wax Argument" of Descartes is a very primitive physical thought experiment for the determination of the essential properties of wax. A much more sophisticated determination of essence is the rigorous chemical analysis showing that water is an accumulation of H2O molecules in the liquid state provided that the pressure and the temperature are kept within certain well determined limits. The a priori or starting point of the research of a modern PhD student in physics is at a level of sophistication Descartes could not have imagined. Using the rich scientific background at his disposal, the researcher can use imaginative variation, the method applied by Husserl to the determination of the essential structures of a phenomenon, for his own purpose of discovering entirely new phenomena. The procedure used by the scientist in scientific discovery can be used as an illustration of how something that is outside of consciousness becomes immanent in consciousness. The first step in the procedure consists in asking a question in the form of a hypothesis and an experimental setup capable of testing this hypothesis. The second step is the experiment itself and the analysis of the experimental results. These results either confirm or contradict the hypothesis. In Husserl's language the question in the first step in the form of a hypothesis and the adequate experimental setup is an act whereby the scientist projects some meaning or judgment on the object of enquiry. This projection is . The second step, which gives the experimental results, is an act of apprehension, an empty intentionality in which the object of enquiry (the intentional object) gives some meaning to the scientist by an intuitive act. If the experimental result confirms the hypothesis, the intuition is a categorial intuition and the intentionality is fulfilled. The preceding procedure is the way science conducts a dialogue with nature. In this sense, science can be considered as a sophisticated application of phenomenology.
The Copernican Revolution
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote: "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori by means of concepts have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have success in the task of metaphysics (cognitions after which reason might strive independently of all experience), if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge. This would agree better with what is desired, namely, that it should be possible to have knowledge of objects a priori, determining something in regard to them prior to their being given. We should then be proceeding precisely on the lines of Copernicus' (1474 – 1543) primary hypothesis. Failing of satisfactory progress in explaining the movements of the heavenly bodies on the supposition that they all revolved round the spectator, he tried to see if he could give a simpler and more convincing description of reality by assuming that the spectator revolves." By taking a contrarian point of view, although counterintuitive, Copernicus at once avoided the impossible task of having to explain the concerted rotation of all the heavenly bodies about the Earth. Note that in addition to the hypothesis that the Earth moved on its axis in the diurnal motion, creating the illusion that the entire celestial host revolved around it (the geocentric model), Copernicus also assumed that the Earth moved around the sun in its annual motion. However, it took about 150 years until Isaac Newton (1642- 1727) developed a theory of the diurnal motion of the Earth on its axis and the annual motion of the Earth around the sun (the heliocentric model) that was able to give more accurate and simpler results than the very complex calculations of Ptolemy (100-170), based on the geocentric model and derived by fitting mathematical functions to the observations. Ptolemy's calculations are not derived from a theory explaining what is observed.
Calculations based on intuiting (seeing, touching. hearing, etc.) objects in their spatiotemporal determinations without explaining their motion are not necessarily veridical and cannot be trusted. The theory of Newton differs from that of Ptolemy by its generality. It is not a theory ad hoc limited to the explanation of a few phenomena, but a complete description of the laws of nature, uniting heaven and Earth. The trajectory of the Earth is derived from the theory, not by fitting it to the experimental data as was done before Newton by Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630) using Tycho Brahe's (1546 – 1601) observations.
Our confidence in the concepts provided by Newton's theory remained unshaken until new experimental facts were discovered which could not be explained by it. Then it was still possible to consider the theory as transcendental in the sense of constituting reality under the limited conditions of its validity. However, none of the basic concepts of the theory are transcendental in the sense of necessary and universally true. Every new paradigm brings with itself new concepts which can be understood only within that paradigm. Hence the language and our worldview depend on the paradigm invented by us and the world is as we conceive it. That is what is meant by saying that science constitutes the world. However the world does not conform to our desires and in this respect it is completely independent of our subjectivity.