Experiences to Knowledge and Experiments to Science LO25489

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Date: 10/18/00


Dear Organlearners,

Greetings to you all.

What a world we have in Internet! In this cyberworld we can commute with
each other to love and to encourage. But someone can also mail-bomb a
person to force a break in the Internet connection. In this cyberspace we
can help each other to evolve in knowledge. But someone can also judge the
experiences of a person to be irrelevant and worthless.

Can some experiences of any person be irrelevant or wrong?

Before we look at possible answers to this question, let us compare
experiences with "scientific experiments". As I understand it, they
correspond in the sense that all scientific experiments are concerned with
experiences. But they differ in the sense that scientific experiments are
carefully organised experiences focusing on a particular issue. Both
experiences and scientific experiments lead to knowledge. In the case of
experiments that knowledge is called "scientific knowledge", or "science"
for short.

Where does knowledge resides? For me each person has knowledge which
resides within that person. The knowledge of each person is unique to that
person. The person uses that knowledge to control his/her creativity (by
an ordinate cybernetic loop). Consequently the person may create many
things like art, business or even an informative document. The intention
of the information in that document may be to reflect some knowledge of
the person, but even then this information never becomes knowledge too.
Why? Knowledge resides within persons and not outside them in any kind of
relic, not even in today's Internet.

That part of knowledge called science also resides within a person. Some
of that science is not unique to a person. There is a most important
reason for that. Science employes scientific experiments which are
carefully organised experiences on an issue. The organisation of these
experiences has to be describe in such a manner that any other person can
repeat with precise control these experiences to gain self scientific
knowledge on the same issue. However, the report (paper) created to
present these organised experiences and the scientific knowledge which
emerged from them, is not science itself. It is a document containing
scientific information, bit not scinetific knowledge.

Let us now look again at the question asked in the beginning: Can some
experiences of any person be irrelevant or wrong?

I firmly believe that non-scientific experiences cannot be subjected to
any kind of qualification or evaluation. In other words, I cannot say that
any non-experimental experience of any person is either true or false,
either good or bad, either valuable or worthless. But as for experiences
in scientific experiments, I believe that the very organisation and
control of such experiences call for my careful examination of these
experiences irrespective of the person (including me) who conducts the
experiment. The qualifications in such an organisation provides me with
the basis for my evaluation. For example, optical experiences are usually
called observations. When the experiment is qualified by an error of
observation of less than 0.1%, then the experiences gained by the eyes
must be within this limit.

To separate non-experimental experiences from experiences in scientific
experiments and work exclusively with the latter by invoking LEM, is to
lose the categorical identity of science. Schroedinger had the following
to write on this in wrote in The British Journal for the Philosophy of
Science Vol III (1952) pp 109-110 ("Are there quantum jumps?"):
. A theoretical science unaware that those of its constructs
. considered relevant and momentous are destined eventually
. to be framed in concepts and words which have a grip on the
. educated community and become part and parcel of the
. general world picture -- a theoretical science, I say where
. this is forgotten, and where the initiated continue musing to
. each other in terms that are, at best, by a small group of
. close travellers, will necessarily be cut off from the rest of
. cultural mankind; in the long run it is bound to atrophy and
. ossify however virulently esoteric that may continue within
. its joyfully isolated groups of experts.

I want to extend this dialogue to something which seems for me to
be related to knowledge and science.

I am perceiving something which I would like to call "cyberspace
knowledge". I hope this name has not been used previously so as to cause
possible confusion. The "cyberspace knowledge" of a person is that
knowledge which emerged within a person as a result of experiences with
Internet. Again, this "cyberspace knowledge" resides within a person and
never in Internet itself.

Some of the "cyberspace knowledge" may be the result of a deliberate
organisation of experiences. But this does not yet make it scientific
knowledge since scientific knowledge evolves by way of the scientific
method. The scientific method involves more than creating experiments.
Experiments may be used in stage 1 (observation) and have to be used in
stage 3 (falsification), but they are seldom, if ever, used in stage 2
(speculation). There is also amother makor difference which I will come to
at the very end of this contribution.

Over the years I have deliberately made various kinds of "cyberspace
experiments". It consists of presenting information in such a way
that a certain person experiencing its presentation is tempted to
respond by creating information self. I usually conduct these
"cyberspace experiments" to probe whether that person is learning
authentically. I examine the information created by that person to
fathom that person's learning. My greatest problems are to avoid
 * limiting my own experiences,
 * interpreting the information from it distortedly,
 * becoming judgemental in my examination,
 * forcing the person into a non-spontaneous behaviour,
 * demoting the spirit of authentic learning,
 * debasing the authority of love for banal gains.

I occasionaly conduct my "cyber experiments" also as game-playing and
art-expressing so as to sustain my own creativity. I think that some other
people are also conducting "cyberspace experiments" for reasons of their
own. But I have not yet encountered another person who expressed formally
that he/she is conducting such "cyberspace experiments" and for what
reason. Perhaps we may have one day a LO-dialogue on "cyberspace
experiments" and "cyberspace knowledge".

As for "cyberspace experiments" I have neither a belief nor have I even a
clear mental picture on them. These "cyberspace experiments" are far too
complex. The many walks (language, history, paradigms, longings) of the
culture in which each "cyberspace surfer" is imbedded and thus the many
cultures which penetrate Internet makes it so complex. Furthermore, many
people are afraid to reveal their personality in full while many others
are still learning how to express their personalities in terms of
information of whatever kind. Whereas "scientific experiments" usually
have a short life time, many of my "cyberspace experiments" have a rather
on-going nature.

Should I warn in advance that I am conducting a "cyberspace experiment"
like it is the case for a "scientific experiment"? As I understand it now,
I do not think so. I have learned as a scientist that the organisation of
the experiences in the scientific experiment has to be controlled
carefully. But what strikes me profoundly about "cyberspace experiments"
is that the experiences of other persons surfing the Internet cannot be
controlled despite the attempts of many to do so. There is a new degree of
freedom in Internet with profound implications.

With care and best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

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