Probably not a lot, except as part of a mental journey I took last Sunday while I was enjoying a beautiful day in Geneva. All of them are linked to Geneva and form part of the answer to questions we often ask ourselves: How do we know what we know? How far can our rationality take us? In more academic language, this could be called a ‘Geneva epistemological journey’.
The journey starts with the black swans in Geneva’s Jardin Botanique. For a long time, it was thought that all swans were white. Then, in the 18th century, Dutch explorers discovered black swans in Australia. The black swan became a metaphor for the limits of knowledge and the possibility that ‘unknown unknowns’ may appear at any time. Recently, Nassim Nicholas Talab used the black swan metaphor (also the title of his book) to expose the naïve view that we can understand and manage our society through science, an idea pushed to an extreme by the computer modeling mantra ‘give me enough computer power and I will solve all the problems of human society’. Still, regardless of computer power and scientific modeling, ‘unknown unknowns’ keep surprising us. Unlimited, almost religious, trust in science, measuring and rationality has suppressed common sense and human ingenuity. While science has made our lives longer and more comfortable, it still has not answered the fundamental questions of human existence and the way human societies function.
The next stop on our journey is CERN, where thousands of scientists are trying to discover the Higgs boson; the so-called ‘God Particle’. Discovery of the Higgs boson is expected to explain some of the mysteries of the origin of the universe. A few weeks ago, scientists announced that the first results of CERN’s search for the boson were not encouraging. Stephen Hawking seem likely to win his bet of the century that the Higgs particle does not exist. Here we can see the limit of science even in explaining natural phenomena. Future historians may remember CERN more for the invention of the world wide web than for research in physics, the reason it was established.
Now our journey moves towards Voltaire’s house, located not far from Geneva’s biggest department store, Manor. Why is Voltaire relevant to this journey? Voltaire, like many other representatives of the Enlightenment, had unlimited trust in human rationale and science. He wanted to apply science to all aspects of human existence. This noble idea that organising society in a scientific way could solve all human problems failed completely. The most monumental failure was scientific socialism (incidentally, Marx was careful about unlimited use of science in politics).
We now cross the river and come to the house in Geneva’s old city where Rousseau was born 299 years ago. Rousseau is one of the most controversial philosophical figures in history. He is considered to be the last representatives of the Enlightenment and its fiercest critic. He made Enlightenment philosophers furious by clearly showing them the limits of rational and scientific methods in understanding human society. Some of his ideas are as relevant today as they were three centuries ago.
Around the corner from Rousseau’s house is the place where Borges spent the last years of his life. Borges was the master of paradox and of addressing irreconcilable contradictions of human existence. He does not provide answers. Instead he takes us on a journey showing that every certainty triggers a new uncertainty. He provides us with a humbling reflection of the human condition and the limits of our rationality.
Where do we arrive at the end of this journey around Geneva? While we should not stop trying to understand our world rationally, we should remain aware of the limits of this understanding. The trouble starts when our limited understanding becomes a new dogma and a recipe for re-modeling human society.
petecranston
September 5, 2011
So we should undoubtedly organise a KM4Dev knowledge expedition around Geneva next time I am there and debate the limits of rational knowledge.
And is there a follow up blog on the the connections between Complexity (Science!) and Diplomacy?
Pete
Jovan Kurbalija
September 12, 2011
Pete, wicked problems are the best illustration of the challenge in managing policy complexity and limits of scientific methods. Many climate change and migration problems are wicked problems. Here is how are wicked problems usually described (Rittel and Webber):
– There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem (defining wicked problems is itself a wicked problem).
– Wicked problems have no stopping rule.
– Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.
– There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.
– Every solution to a wicked problem is a “one-shot operation”; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly.
– Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.
– Every wicked problem is essentially unique.
– Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.
– The existence of a discrepancy representing a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem’s resolution.
– The planner has no right to be wrong (planners are liable for the consequences of the actions they generate).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem
Aldo Matteucci
September 5, 2011
Jovan,
Voltaire never did have such an unbridled faith in science as you make him out to be. He only thought it better than religious obscurantism. I’d second him there. But at the end of Candide he suggests “cultiver son jardin” – Go and tend your little garden. Stop trying to improve the world, and think local. I’d second him there as well.
Rousseau, on the other hand, is linked to Romanticism and Nationalism. It is with him that the worm got into the Enlightenment: in the form of the transcendent Nation (Art. III of the French Declaration of Human Rights). That concept is a runner-up with religion and totalitarian ideologies for the “murderous idea” humanity ever invented.
So, please, allow me to cast â few dismissive aspertions on a man who fathered many children and abandoned them all. Not that Voltaire was mich better. Many of his idea he owed to Mme de Châtelet, a freethinking woman mathematician who kept him for 10 years while she translated geometric Newton into mathematical formulas, and made his thought known. She may have invented calculus in part.
As for the issue: reason vs. meta-reason, it is, as often, a false dichotomy. Ever sinc monotheisms (powered by Plato) announced that they knew “the truth”, the West has gone on an orgy of “truth finding”. Waste of time and paper. Epistemiology is mostly for academics looking for reasons to hate each other.
The only thing worth having is our ability to survive and to get by – until the next generation. Reason is “good enough” for this (we hope). Nobody – or only a fool . ever promised you that reason would yield the truth.
Aldo
Jovan Kurbalija
September 12, 2011
Thank you Aldo! Voltaire had a better luck with Mme de Châtelet than Rousseau with Madame de Warnes, at least when it comes to intellectual work. I agree that Voltaire’s philosophy has to be contextualise. At that time, he mainly focused on challenging “religious obscurantism”. There was a little space for “gray shades”. He had a strong believe in science and ratio as a way of comprehending human predicament. However, as you suggested, he was more cautious in keeping the line between science and the running of social affairs, especially on the meta-level. We have to use ratio with clear understanding what is the limit of ratio. It is as relevant today as ever.
Michel Chevallier
September 26, 2011
Hi Jovan, Thanks for placing Geneva on such a high-rise orbit. Yet, you may have fallen into a trap placed by Borges’ wife, Maria Kodama. He only spent his last 3 days in the old town (wjhere he died). His youth was spent at rue Ferdinand-Hodler and upon his return in Geneva six months prior to his death, he stayed near rue de Rive in an hotel that does not exist anymore. But Maria Kodama managed to convince the city of Geneva officials (who had no clue about Borges whereabouts in Geneva) to install a memorial in the old town.