Kuhn 6: Dick And Jane Examine Paradigms

[koganbot]

[EDIT Feb. 1 12:19 PM Mountain Standard Time: I've posted a new Kuhn 6 thread that is essentially this one RESTARTED, since this one quickly evolved into an off-topic mess, and on the off chance that some of the lurkers decide to start posting, I want them to have a clearer conversation to join. You can still post here in response to specific things said on this thread, but I want the new one to be where you examine the specific passages in "What Are Scientific Revolutions?" where something's being modeled on something else or something resembles something else, etc.]

I thought that, in my discussion with Mark the other day of my six questions, we were trying to dance in the air before we'd learned how to walk. So I'll suggest that for a while we bring ourselves down to the level of "see Spot run" and "1 + 1 = 2." ("See Spot run" was a line in a Scott Foresman primary reader I was taught to read from at age 6. Spot was a puppy dog.)

So for this thread I want to stay with a single question: what's a paradigm? And I'll limit us to only part of the question. Kuhn originally used the word to mean "model," but then his usage drifted to broader meanings without his initially being quite aware this was happening. Here for now we'll concentrate on the narrow, on "model."

I suggest that you go through the article "What Is A Scientific Revolution?" (here, pp 13 to 32) and look for wherever something is said to be or seems to be a model for something else, or someone's action is modeled on someone else's, or something is said to be like something else or to resemble something else to be similar to something else, or various things are assimilated or juxtaposed, or something is an example or a metaphor or is used in an analogy, or something illustrates a point. Look not just for where Kuhn describes scientists using models, examples, etc. but where Kuhn himself uses models, examples, etc. when he's addressing us.

Here are several instances:

"But it is precisely seeing motion as change-of-quality that permits its assimilation to all other sorts of change." (p. 18)

"Roughly speaking, he used probability theory to find the proportion of resonators that fell in each of the various cells, just as Boltzmann had found the proportions of molecules." (p. 26)

"In particular, the [energy element] has gone from a mental division of the total energy to a separable physical energy atom, of which each resonator may have 0, 1, 2, 3, or some other number. Figure 6 tries to capture that change in a way that suggests its resemblance to the inside-out battery of my last example." (pp 27-28)

Also, if you look at the very top of p. 30 you will find the word "paradigmatic."

Once having done this, use what you've read in those pages to come up with your ideas of the various things (note plural) that a paradigm could be. What you come up with may not altogether match the definitions that Kuhn gives in some of his other pieces. What you come up with may be better.

And of course you can post those ideas on this thread - or on your own livejournal, or somewhere - rather than, you know, not posting them anywhere.

Comments

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Of course I wait until I have five minutes to post anything, but I guess I have a few basic questions that mostly pertain to this idea of paradigm, and the resulting metaphorical language (of, er, "metaphors") that results:

(1) How important is Kuhn's concept of "natural phenomena" (15) in establishing a paradigm? He's suggesting a fundamental order to the way things work -- I would say "objectively" if I didn't think the word were too loaded, but let's say instead something more like "empirically without much doubt" -- that is natural, and that a paradigm gives us, perhaps, a more accurate understanding of the state of the world as it can be empirically proven. But I'm unconvinced that this concept can be applied to things that are socially determined, like art or politics or business or anything requiring human conversation and acknowledgment to be said to be TRUE.

I just had a long convo with Emily, who was arguing for changes in the American workforce as a paradigm shift; my counter-argument was that this falls into the realm of "normal" evolution, since the most ancient forms of business transaction and the philosophy behind it can coexist with the most modern incarnations of business. Any given stage of development in business (bartering, agrarian self-sufficiency, Fordism, globalization/transnationalization of labor) can coexist, hence are not Kuhnian paradigms.

(2) This means that his paradigm, as he says, is something that cannot be reversed; that is, to accept it, you must throw out a substantial portion of other things linked to it, to get a clearer picture of the natural world. I imagine one example would be the realm of psychoanalysis, whose purveyors claim it is something of a science, but whose tenets could easily be undermined were we to have a better understanding of the actual mechanics of the human brain through, e.g., cognitive psychology or neuroscience. (I bet a lot of medical science is in this sort of unknown age, hesitate to say "Dark Age.") Whereas politics and histories and similar concepts CAN be reversed or changed, given the right argument and right circumstances.

(3) Paradigms can be read as "univocal." This means that discourses that are multivocal -- history comes to mind -- cannot undergo a Kuhnian paradigm shift.

(4) Paradigms are changed when the previous paradigm's premises are shown to be "arbitrary" (re: Aristotelian concept of a vacuum's nonexistence on page 19). However, we often accept arbitrary premises in issues of morality, ethics, politics, and taste. Arbitrariness is not acceptable in science in the way it is in other modes of discussion and thinking.

Those are my thoughts so far, will stop there for now and catch up with your air-dancing.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Related, even if something resembles something else, as the prototypical diagram for the battery resembles both electrostatic theories that predated it (if I'm remembering that right) AND the "modern" battery diagrams that post-date it, once you've made the paradigm shift (between contact theory and chemical theory, for instance), the resemblances to the past, though striking, are irrelevant. Just because something resembles something else doesn't mean the two are actually compatible. Even though I wouldn't use the word "wrong," exactly, the prototypical diagrams of the battery were inaccurate according to the science that came after the discovery. That is, if you drew that battery diagram on a test in a science class, you would get a big fat zero on it -- there's no "partial credit" for resemblance.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

And this is where I'm confused by his use of "metaphor," since, for one thing, he's describing similes ("this is like that") rather than metaphors ("this is that"). If I'm understanding him correctly, though, just like "resemblance," "seeming like" or "being a metaphor [simile?] for" something has the same net difference as being the polar opposite of something in a paradigm shift: that is, it has a shitload of difference. "Planck's resonators were like Boltzmann's molecules" (30) -- that is, historically "like" but scientifically not at all like. In fact, completely different.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i think i would take his similes as establishment of models (complete what i called "rules of articulation") above -- so the point is that atoms are like little solar systems, in the sense that they WORK like them... many small units orbiting a larger one... because this is a good place to start to get a certain set of rules of possible motion and interaction of the pieces in your head; not least, to know the kinds of equations (and areas in algebra) you are likely to start having to deploy

[koganbot]

Kuhn is using "metaphor" as a general term for all figurative speech, including similes and analogies.

Yes, Kuhn is saying that a sign of a scientific revolution is that something that formerly resembled something else no longer does. They don't have to become polar opposite, however. Falling rocks aren't the polar opposites of acorns growing into oaks, and the correct derivation of Planck's black-body law still has lots in common with the derivation of Boltzmann's that he was copying [presumably; I'm not pretending to know the science]; was just off in one point that was so crucial that physics had to transform itself to accommodate the change.

But I think you're missing Kuhn's point when you say "historically 'like' but scientifically not at all like." Planck was being brilliantly scientific in seeing the resemblance.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

re(4): actually even re aristotle's long-discarded paradigm i would say not "shown to be arbitrary" but "decided to be arbitrary" -- his concept of space and matter as the same thing, and of position as a quality (or determinant of qualities), is NOT "wrong" in certain (in fact most) non-euclidean (post-einstinian) geometries, even when it's a bizarre irrelevance in newtonian space

newtonian space --defined as space where it doesn't matter where you start, the results are generalisable -- is very important for our understanding more clearly all kinds of things about all kinds of stuff, but we don't actually live in it (or anything like it)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Is it that we don't actually live in it, or it's a matter of where you're looking from? And is this related to the theory of relativity? (My understanding of physics stops just short of "introductory.") If so, are these two theories actually incompatible, or are they just different depending on where you're judging it from (i.e. time moving at a different speed for X than it is for Y depending on either's vantage point according to relativity? So that Newtonian phyiscs may still be in play for Y on Earth while X is up doing warp factor five to avoid aging or however the thing goes? Or is this incoherent to people who actually know physics?)?

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

actually incompatible -- newtonian physics works well enough on a micro scale, in the sense that pool-players don't have to adjust for the moon's effect on their game, but the moon is having an effect, it's just not big enough to affect match results); as you probably know, gravity can be considered or treated as a curved-space effect, and this makes much more sense than having a newtonian space with blobs in that "act at a distance" (this was another of aristotle's bugbears -- he would have said "how?", and the curve-space argument agrees with him...
a non-euclidean description of an orbit is that the copernican planet is travelling in a "straight line" in a space curved by the gravity of the star... the key to this curvature being such that the "straight line" joins up with itself, as it does in certain kinds of "closed" non-euclidean space*)

(saying "we don't actually live in it" is a bit bold, but it is tremendously much more likely that we live in a "closed" geometry, determined by the total mass, and total gravitational effect)

(there are three kinds of space -- euclidean/newtonian, in which parallels never meet, which is infinite in size, a never ending system of notional cubes of space; space in which parallels meet; and another kind of space in which, once you have a line and a point at a distance from that line, there is not just a single line through that point that fails to meet with the line -- as in the parallel case -- but an infinity of lines)

(this is much easier if you draw it)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

notinal cubes of space

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Fascinatin' stuff...yeah, I never fully understood curved-space physics, though I knew something (vaguely) about it being not in sync with Newtonian stuff. Probably from Bill Bryson or some such "for Dummies" version. Anyway, it still doesn't seem to refute the idea that something that has been deemed "arbitrary" in Newton's model has been changed in the new one, in a way that, though I don't understand it, presents us with an empirically more accurate way of understanding how stuff...y'know, moves. But my mind circuits are blowing trying to think of this stuff, so I'll wait until the next batch of responses...

[koganbot]

I don't disagree, but I also don't see what the point here is. Kuhn was talking about the differences between the two ideas of the battery, not their resemblance.

Of course, once we get this conversation going on the subject I envisioned, a question that will come up is why in one circumstance a resemblance links things together (a rock falling towards its place in the center is like an acorn growing into its form as an oak) while in another such a resemblance is seen to be of no import or nonexistent. How is it decided that some resemblances have import and others don't?

[koganbot]

How important is Kuhn's concept of "natural phenomena" (15) in establishing a paradigm? He's suggesting a fundamental order to the way things work -- I would say "objectively" if I didn't think the word were too loaded, but let's say instead something more like "empirically without much doubt" -- that is natural, and that a paradigm gives us, perhaps, a more accurate understanding of the state of the world as it can be empirically proven. But I'm unconvinced that this concept can be applied to things that are socially determined, like art or politics or business or anything requiring human conversation and acknowledgment to be said to be TRUE.

OK, to start with, I was recommending up above that on this thread we stick REAL CLOSE to Kuhn's actual text in order to see what's going on here. Maybe I didn't make that recommendation altogether explicit, but I will now: Stick real close to Kuhn's text! I was also recommending that we take this conversation down to the level of "see Scott run" and "1 + 1 = 2," which doesn't necessarily mean that we restrict ourselves to a vocabulary that a six-year-old or even a twelve-year-old already knows, but that we work really hard to ensure that we're communicating with one another and that we're not referring to ideas that seem to come from outside of the text or outside of our discussion and that need further elaboration. And I will say as a fifty-five-year-old I don't know what the phrases "empirically without much doubt" and "empirically proven" mean.

So, how should we try to answer your question: "How important is Kuhn's concept of 'natural phenomena'?" Well, first, I'd ask does Kuhn have a concept of "natural phenomena," and if so, what is it? So far it's only a two-word phrase, and we don't even know if he just tossed it in there with little thought or if it belongs to a strenuously thought-out theory. You say that the phrase "natural phenomena" suggests "a fundamental order to the way things work," so my question here is does anything else in the text support this interpretation? Does Kuhn ever mention anything like there being a fundamental order to the way things work? I'll give a quick answer to that one: No. As far as I can recall, nowhere in the piece does he give an opinion one way or another as to whether there's a fundamental order to the way things work. He may well believe there is such an order, but I wouldn't assume that the two-word phrase "natural phenomena" commits him to a belief that doesn't seem to have much to do with what the piece is about anyway. "Phenomena" means "stuff," not "order."

To explore further, look at the context. Kuhn is saying that revolutionary changes in a science can be distinguished from normal, cumulative changes in that the revolutionary changes "involve discoveries that cannot be accommodated within the concepts in use before they were made. In order to make or assimilate such a discovery one must alter the way one thinks about and describes some range of natural phenomena. The discovery (in cases like these 'invention' may be a better word) of Newton's second law of motion is of this sort. The concepts of force and mass deployed in that law differed from those in use before the law was introduced, and the law itself was essential to their definition." And from there he goes on to describe the changes wrought by the Copernican revolution: Before it occurred, "the sun and moon were planets, the earth was not. After it, the earth was a planet, like Mars and Jupiter; the sun was a star, and the moon was a new sort of body, a satellite." Etc.

And then I'd go to the rest of the essay. "What had been paradigmatic examples of motion for Aristotle - acorn to oak or sickness to health - were not motions at all for Newton. In the transition, a natural family ceased to be natural; its members were redistributed among preexisting sets; and only one of them continued to bear the old name."

Now, the way I read all this is pretty much opposite how you read it. One set of concepts (Aristotelian motion) gives you one world, while another set of concepts (Newton's laws of motion) gives you another world.

[koganbot]

A paradigm gives us, perhaps, a more accurate understanding of the state of the world as it can be empirically proven.

Wait a cotton-pickin' minute here. Remember, I want us to stick close to the narrow meaning of "paradigm" here, which is "model." Does Kuhn anywhere in the piece talk of there being one thing - the world as it can be empirically proven - and another thing, a model, that comprehends this first thing with clarity? Again, I'll give you an answer: nowhere in the piece is there anything like the concept "the world as it can be empirically proven," and where he's talking about resemblance etc. - this being like that - he never talks about something resembling the world. He talks all over the place about stuff resembling other stuff, but not about stuff resembling the world.

This means that his paradigm, as he says, is something that cannot be reversed; that is, to accept it, you must throw out a substantial portion of other things linked to it, to get a clearer picture of the natural world.

Again, whoa boy! He doesn't use the word "paradigm" in this piece, except for that one use of "paradigmatic" that I quoted. What I'm asking us to do is try to come up with what his concept of "paradigm" is - in the narrow sense of "model" - by looking closely at where he seems to be describing something's being modeled on something else or something resembling something else, etc. I don't know what it would mean to say that something being modeled on something else can't be reversed, or something resembling something else can't be reversed. I can conceive of someone saying that a scientific revolution can't be reversed, but I sure don't remember Kuhn saying that in this article.

Also, I think you probably miswrote your sentence. After a scientific revolution, some things previously associated with or depicted by a word or concept are no longer associated with/depicted by it, and other things not previously associated with/depicted by it now are. Kuhn expresses no opinion as to whether the new concepts are clearer or more accurate than the old, or whether the new ones do better by the world, in some way, than the old does. And the way you've written this sentence is confusing since it seems to be saying that any paradigm (whatever the hell a "paradigm" is) does this clarity thing. And I'll point out that this piece doesn't even bring up the question of how people go about deciding that, say, Newton's concept of motion is right and Aristotle's is wrong.

[koganbot]

Paradigms can be read as "univocal." This means that discourses that are multivocal -- history comes to mind -- cannot undergo a Kuhnian paradigm shift

Well, again, he doesn't use the word "paradigm" in this piece. He says that no univocal reading of the word "planet" can make the following sentence true: "In the Ptolemaic system planets revolve about the earth; in the Copernican they revolve around the sun."

While I actually agree with your conclusion here, you're off-topic for what I'm trying to do on this thread, which is to explore what's going on with modeling, resemblance, etc. The phrase "Kuhnian paradigm shift" is for some other thread, probably. Where not there yet.

[koganbot]

Where not there yet.

We're not there yet.

[koganbot]

Paradigms are changed when the previous paradigm's premises are shown to be "arbitrary" (re: Aristotelian concept of a vacuum's nonexistence on page 19).

Not at all. "The premise seems arbitrary" was how Kuhn started the long paragraph (note he says "seems") but the upshot of the discussion is that, far from being arbitrary, Aristotle's perceiving position as a quality was crucial to a whole hunk of the rest of his physics, which would have unraveled if Aristotle hadn't treated position as a quality. He hardly chose the premise at a whim. Or, if his premises are arbitrary, then so are Newton's and Einstein's; in fact, if Aristotle's premise is arbitrary then so is any premise in any discourse.

It's not like Aristotle, Newton, or Einstein, could have just picked any old premise.

And I definitely dispute the phrase "shown to be arbitrary." A result of a scientific revolution is that some premises are replaced by others, but I don't see how that "shows" that the former was arbitrary. (And I'm not just speaking for myself here. I doubt very much that Kuhn would say that Descartes and Newton and crew showed Aristotle's premises to be arbitrary.)