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Tag Archives: Philosophy
The Three-City Problem of Modern Life
But today there is a third city affecting the other two. Silicon Valley, this third city, is not governed primarily by reason (it is practically the mark of a great entrepreneur to not be “reasonable”), nor by the things of the soul (the dominant belief seems to be a form of materialism). It is a place, rather, governed by the creation of value. And a large component of value is utility—whether something is useful, or is at least perceived as good or beneficial.
I realize that some people in Silicon Valley think of themselves as building rationalist enterprises. Some of them might be. The city’s guiding spirit, however, is summed up by investor and podcast host Shane Parris, popular among the Silicon Valley set, when he says: “The real test of an idea isn’t whether it’s true, but whether it’s useful.” In other words, utility trumps truth or reason.
Our new century—the world from 2000 to the present day—is dominated by Silicon Valley’s technological influence. This city has produced world-changing products and services (instantaneous search results, next-day delivery of millions of products, constant connectivity to thousands of “friends”) that create and shape new desires. This new city and the new forces it has unleashed are affecting humanity more than anything Tertullian could have imagined.
And this new city is growing in power. Never before have the questions of Athens and the questions of Jerusalem been mediated to us by such a great variety of things that vie for our attention and our desires. Silicon Valley, this third city, has altered the nature of the problem that Tertullian was wrestling with. The questions of what is true and what is good for the soul are now mostly subordinated to technological progress—or, at the very least, the questions of Athens and Jerusalem are now so bound up with this progress that it’s creating confusion.
It is hard to escape the utilitarian logic of Silicon Valley, and we lie to ourselves when we rationalize our motivations. The most interesting thing about the cryptocurrency craze was the ubiquity of “white papers”—the framing of every new product in purely rational terms, or the need to present it as a product of Athens. And then there was Dogecoin.
We’re not living in a world of pure reason or religious enchantment, but something entirely new.
Reason, religion, and the technology-driven quest to create value at any cost are now interacting in ways we scarcely understand, but which have vast influence over our everyday lives. Our two-decades-long experiment with social media has already shown the extent to which reason, or Athens, is being flooded with so much content that many have referred to it as a post-truth environment. Some social psychologists, like Jonathan Haidt, believe it’s making us crazy and undermining our democracy. Humanity is at a crossroads. We are trying to reconcile various needs—for rationality, for worship, for productivity—and the tension of this pursuit shows up in the things we create. Because the three cities are interacting, we are now living with technology-mediated religion (online church services) and technology-mediated reason (280-character Twitter debates); religiously adopted technology (bitcoin) and religiously observed reason (Covid-19 cathedrals of safety); rational religion (effective altruism) and “rational” technology (3D-printed assisted-suicide pods).
If Tertullian were alive today, I believe he would ask: “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem—and what do either have to do with Silicon Valley?” In other words, how do the domains of reason and religion relate to the domain of technological innovation and its financiers in Silicon Valley? If the Enlightenment champion Steven Pinker (a resident of Athens) walked into a bar with a Trappist monk (Jerusalem) and Elon Musk (Silicon Valley) with the goal of solving a problem, would they ever be able to arrive at a consensus?
A Grounding In Indian Philosophy Can Help In Understanding Quantum Mechanics Better; Where Is India’s Carlo Rovelli?
Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution. Carlo Rovelli. Penguin. Pages 175. Rs 759 (Kindle).
‘New Physics’, whose emergence dates back to almost a century, is one of the finest achievements of the human mind. It has fundamentally changed the way we view reality. There have been umpteen number of books which tell non-physicists what ‘New’ Physics is all about. From that masterpiece, The Universe and Dr. Einstein by Lincoln Barnett in 1948 to The God Equation of Michio Kaku in 2021, the need to communicate the exotic reality which the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics have unveiled, has spawned the best in the genre of popular science writing.
In the same way, Quantum Mechanics (QM) has also triggered some intense philosophical debates. From the very beginning, parallels have been drawn between the worldview revealed by QM and the one spoken about in the Hindu-Buddhist-Taoist mystical traditions. Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, and John Wheeler had openly spoken about their engagement with Eastern mystic philosophies.
Fritjof Capra not only made this connection popular but also extended the concepts of interconnectedness and holism, which are favoured by QM, into other domains such as biology and ecology. The conversations between physicist David Bohm and J. Krishnamurthi are still considered an important milestone in this direction.
However, QM in the popular culture has also become a staple diet of New Age cultists and quake-gurus. The abuse of the Q-word in the new age market and corporate gurudom has actually made many scholars stay muted in exploring and using the parallels between Eastern philosophical traditions and the view of reality brought forth by QM.
In this context, Helgoland: Making Sense of the Quantum Revolution, written by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli, comes across as a gush of fresh air.
Helgoland is the small island where in 1925, the 23-year-old Heisenberg worked out what would be one of foundations of the quantum revolution. Right from the beginning, Rovelli makes a sense of awe grip the reader:
The author informs that the book is written ‘for those who are unfamiliar with quantum physics and are interested in trying to understand, as far as any of us can,’ and is also written ‘thinking of my colleagues—scientists and philosophers, who, the more they delve into the theory, the more they are perplexed…’. That is a tough endeavour – but for those who read the book the flow is so natural and gripping that one forgets the difficulty of the feat this book accomplishes.
QM has always excited physicists and philosophers. However, physicists have always disliked it when philosophers try to come up with a single, complete picture of QM– as in the case of David Bohm’s ‘hidden variables.’
Just see how crisply Rovelli puts it for the readers:
This passage is quoted at large to show how Rovelli explains tough concepts to his readers. It is done in a way that everyone interested in QM can understand without the subject-matter being diluted.
Rovelli’s own favoured view of QM is what is called the relational interpretation. According to this, the interactions and relations between matter form what we experience as reality, from quarks to galaxies. This resonates with the fabled Indra’s Net in a way – popularised in the context of modern science, though in a different-yet-related domain, by Douglas Hofstadter in his ever-green classic Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979).
Rovelli points out that when he talks about quanta in conferences, people invariably ask him about the 3rd century Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna. This how Rovelli describes Nagarjuna’s ideas:
After this, the entire chapter becomes a poetic musing, interwoven with the relational interpretation of QM. Perhaps UGC should think of including excerpts from this chapter in the curricula our college students -whether science, commerce, art, or humanities.
Rovelli extends his approach to the topic of Consciousness as well and tries to tackle the ‘Hard Problem’ of David Chalmers. Here, Rovelli presents a view that is quite fascinating. Is consciousness or the ‘I’ an epiphenomenon of matter? He thinks both the ‘I’ and ‘matter’ are ‘confused and misleading’ concepts.
The Anatmavada of Buddhism could not have been put in more precise terms for the modern mind. But there are problems. Often, the Hindu-Buddhist dialogue of Atmavadin-anatmavadin is reframed in the Western mind as corresponding to Cartesian substance. Naturally, in that context, the Western mind veers towards the Buddhist stand.
That said, the book leaves one with a profound sense of having undertaken a pilgrimage.
This is a must-read book for the current generation of college-going students, whatever may be their chosen field of study. This also makes one realise an important lacunae in popular science writing in India. It is struck with either glorification of the past or with patronizingly cultivating ‘scientific temperament.’ Both alienate the general population from modern science. This gives way to quackery, pseudo-science and politicisation of science.
Think about this. After Helgoland there was Santiniketan. Fritjof Capra records:
That is definitely self-congratulatory. But we need to go beyond that comfort zone. This culture has fluidity in looking at existence. Looking at a kolam that comes up every morning. What is kolam but the interconnections between the points? What can be a better tool to communicate the wonder of all this existence arising out of relations and interconnections than a kolam? One wonders how much could have been written, bringing the wonders of QM to our society using our own cultural traditions. I’m not saying ‘we knew it all’ but that we can understand it better and internalise it more efficiently.
Atmanirbhar Bharat needs its own Rovellis.