Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
human experience, from continuing philosophical concerns embodied as com-
mon sense, their unexamined authority often seems intuitively clear and distinct
to the physical scientist. However, their molecular explanations have been elu-
sive. Proposed methods for discovering these mechanisms are the subject of this
chapter. In these new directions important questions arise as to the choice of
methodology to guide research. Normative methods, responsible for the progress
of physical science, are being challenged by questions raised by these larger, less
readily defined subjects. To which I have added, as evidenced in my title, that
the methodology used in physical studies of life processes, if different from the
well-established method of physics, will necessarily interplay with the changing
philosophical goals, each forming and being formed in turn.
On the other hand, outside of physical science, in the realms of thought
centered on more traditional philosophy, and most markedly in philosophy itself,
the acceptance of intuitive, a priori concepts has remained the norm. The concept,
in the tradition reaching back to Plato, that any intuitively acceptable phenomena
was a suitable question for scientific investigation was formulated by Descartes
and remains active today. The confidence that we know clearly and distinctly
what the 'whole' is, in my opinion, has been responsible for the confusions that
have been developing in modern biology. For example, Descartes' concept of
mind identified areas of certainty so that, in contrast to the uncertainty he felt was
introduced into observation by dreams and illusion, Mind allowed him to claim
with confidence that 'I think, therefore I am'. Even though Cartesian certainties
remain active in most philosophies today, unlike physical science where they
have been replaced by hypotheses, some modern philosophers are arguing that
the pragmatic value of a concept should prevail over its claims to absolute
certainty. Richard Rorty (Rorty, 1989) and others have shown that philosophers
after Descartes have struggled repeatedly, and inconclusively, to reconcile the
immaterial but absolute certainty attributed to mind with the empiricism of
observation and self. I see value for scientists in Richard Rorty's re-evaluation
of philosophy, which denies the validity of absolutes. He argues that concepts
are valuable to the extent they are useful, and not because they are related to
standard philosophical questions.
In agreement with Rorty, I regard all understanding of the larger organismic
properties, like mind or biological systems, not to be absolute descriptions,
found in nature, but contingent descriptions invented by humans. Any absolute
definition of the nature of a subject arises from a philosophical understanding and
is based on an implicit methodology which is nonscientific. From this position,
how can we begin to explain qualities of biological systems such as mind in
terms that share the robust, albeit still contingent, understanding derived from
the laws of molecular physics? How can we bootstrap ourselves into a physical
understanding of higher order functions? How can we take advantage of the
validity of physical science to study properties we cannot describe? And finally,
