Plastic universe

Possibly the world of external facts is much more fertile and plastic than we have ventured to suppose; it may be that all these cosmologies and many more analyses and classifications are genuine ways of arranging what nature offers to our understanding, and that the main condition determining our selection between them is something in us rather than something in the external world.

Edwin A Burtt – The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science

I’ve posted about E A Burtt before, together with this quote. It's one of my favourites so I've hauled it out for another airing – the idea that the universe may be too flexible, too plastic for single theories to cope with. It's close to Paul Feyerabend's view too, so that doubles the points.

After all, the principle that there must be a single, best theory to explain any phenomenon isn’t a principle one could ever prove. It’s an axiom – a basis for going in certain directions rather than others. Of course the single theory axiom is also a barrier to entry - a typical professional tactic. Do it this way or else, mavericks not welcome, trespassers will be sneered at, the big boys know best.

Science is like that in my view – very much a typical profession and based on axioms we can’t prove simply because they are axioms - they have to be accepted as given. Constraints which seem to be largely inherited social and professional constraints rather than anything deeper.

Complexity is a complex subject isn’t it? It would be a funny old world if it wasn’t I suppose, but how do scientists deal with it? On the whole, they seem to deal with complex phenomena by assuming there is always a better theory which will explain it more fully or more accurately.

Sometimes it doesn't work though. The consensus theory has to be stretched too far or the phenomenon has to be chopped up into chunks small enough for single theories to cope with, small enough to be dealt with by different professional cliques. 

But suppose Burtt’s plastic universe is more realistic than the single theory axiom? Suppose the universe really does present us with different and irreconcilable aspects of the same phenomenon?

In that case, we’d need two or more irreconcilable theories to explain it, wouldn’t we? We’d have to accept two or more theories explaining the same complex phenomenon in different and irreconcilable ways.

Does it matter?

To many it does, particularly for the entrenched professional. Yet in my view there is no secure way to demonstrate that it matters scientifically. It just goes against the scientific grain, feels wrong, isn’t how we’ve been taught, baffles the conventional mind, violates the consensus. But really it only violates the single theory axiom, which of course isn’t itself scientific and often covertly assumed to boot.

Maybe the universe is more mysterious, odd and multi-faceted than most scientists are comfortable with. But why do we expect to be comfortable with our theories? Because we do – it’s what we don’t like about loose ends.

What might a more plastic approach look like – this reality of multiple irreconcilable theories? Well we already know don’t we? How about alternative therapies and mainstream medicine? Or electrons being both waves and particles? Or psychology and neuroscience explaining the same behaviour?

Maybe climate will need more than one theory to explain how it functions? Maybe it already does, but politicians got there first. Because politicians are the ultimate single theory woo merchants aren't they.

Human beings? We seem to require lots of irreconcilable theories to explain ourselves, don't we? There is no single secret of life. No one theory to tell us what we are and why we do what we do. In this case, when we look at ourselves, we appear not to expect a single theory. We seem to be an exception to the single theory axiom. Maybe that's a social thing too.

A plastic universe - could it be our flexible friend?