Pharmacy Clomid - No Prescription DrugStore http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/ ARC Collaboratory: Ramifying Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology Sun, 13 Mar 2011 20:29:38 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Pharmacy Clomid - No Prescription DrugStore http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/comment-page-1/#comment-7 Arpita Roy Sat, 03 Feb 2007 19:47:58 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/#comment-7 Of course to say that models and machines precede nature, necessarily and completely, re-orients the philosophical outlook – no longer are we then in an “immanent” world where the truth of objects is seen as part of the objects itself (which it never is but current scientific thinking pretends that it is such) but (a) substantively, it opens up a space of second-order mediations and (b) methodologically, it highlights the presuppositions on which science and modernity are predicated. This line of thought can rehabilitate the recognition that metaphysics precedes physics ! Of course to say that models and machines precede nature, necessarily and completely, re-orients the philosophical outlook – no longer are we then in an “immanent” world where the truth of objects is seen as part of the objects itself (which it never is but current scientific thinking pretends that it is such) but (a) substantively, it opens up a space of second-order mediations and (b) methodologically, it highlights the presuppositions on which science and modernity are predicated. This line of thought can rehabilitate the recognition that metaphysics precedes physics !

]]> Pharmacy Clomid - No Prescription DrugStore http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/comment-page-1/#comment-6 ckelty Sat, 03 Feb 2007 18:17:54 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/#comment-6 not esoteric or unhelpful at all, quite the contrary! I think you are right to point out that this problem has a variety of existing approaches, not only in STS, but from within physics and philosophy of science as well. I think the salient question that I'm trying to point to here is: what if we take seriously the idea that the models and the machines precede nature--without falling into bad versions of relativism? What if we take seriously the necessity of factoring into our descriptions of objects like nanocars and synthetic biological objects the role of computer software, theories of biology and chemistry, and indeed models both mathematical and computational. Does it change what we mean by nature, and if so, does it have implications for the development of a scientific ethos and its relationship to a complicated world? not esoteric or unhelpful at all, quite the contrary! I think you are right to point out that this problem has a variety of existing approaches, not only in STS, but from within physics and philosophy of science as well. I think the salient question that I’m trying to point to here is: what if we take seriously the idea that the models and the machines precede nature–without falling into bad versions of relativism? What if we take seriously the necessity of factoring into our descriptions of objects like nanocars and synthetic biological objects the role of computer software, theories of biology and chemistry, and indeed models both mathematical and computational. Does it change what we mean by nature, and if so, does it have implications for the development of a scientific ethos and its relationship to a complicated world?

]]> Pharmacy Clomid - No Prescription DrugStore http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/comment-page-1/#comment-5 Arpita Roy Sat, 03 Feb 2007 02:20:43 +0000 http://anthropos-lab.net/bio-nano/2007/01/on-the-origin-of-objects/#comment-5 The questions that you raise about the creation of new objects are very interesting and, to my mind, should fill the gap in our current understanding of innovations and context. As I was reaing your essay, I put to myself the following question : What is the context in which innovations occur ? Or can we say that innovations happen only when they exceed their context. Now in the history/philosophy/sociology of the physical sciences, I am aware that the nature of the linkage between innovations and context has been approached from a range of positions - from one of complete continuity to radical whole scale discontinuity to more mediated (and recent) understanding as reconfigurations of old ideas in new milieus. Yet the emphasis almost always seems to be on the empirical character of the way science is done, and here I have in mind, in particular, the STS critiques, highlighting the set of shared beliefs, practices, instruments, materials that are involved in experimental tests and proofs and thus arguing for consensus and continuity in the production of innovations. Instead if we think of scientific-technological novelties in the sense that you have outlined, that "they are cognitive objects first, and brute facts of nature only as a consequence", then they open up more fruitful lines of inquiry, I think, in understanding the relation between mathematical conceptions and physical observations. Now I do not know anything about nanotechnology or synthetic biology but in the physics of elementary particles, it’s mathematical model(s) that outline the search for new particles which are not readily found in “nature”, for example, Dirac’s hypothesis for the positron or Pauli’s for the neutrino. These and many more particles since then were formulated first to satisfy mathematical explanations and only later have they been physically confirmed as existing. In fact, some of the most outstanding explanations in the physical sciences (and also in the social sciences like Bourbaki school’s contributions to structuralism or more recently probability statistics for formulating risk&contingency) are owing to the pure abstraction of mathematical notions. Here I recall what Whitehead and Russell pointed out long ago that mathematics is a pure creation of the human mind and yet it is not false or arbitrary on that account. (We do not see the number 'two" anywhere - we only see two books, two trees, two birds and yet the number “two” is independent of any particular entity and hence the paradoxical nature of mathematical notions as pertaining to thoughts about things....) To come back to your essay, I understand and agree that nanotechnology or synthetic biology as products of computations, simulations and calculations, are not in the realm of the contrast of the Ideal to the Real. And I am happy that your essay gives me that conceptual space where I can go back one step and instead of stopping at questioning the naturalness of such objects, as created in the laboratory through human intervention, and limiting oneself to the description of physical reality as given by science(s), it lets me ask what power mathematical conception has to produce these techno-scientific novelties. Can we subject that to displacement and critique in a way that we do for empirical scientific practices ? And I mean to push this line of thinking, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves. I am sure you will find my response esoteric and unhelpful, but I thought that the ARC blog is useful for that reason !! The questions that you raise about the creation of new objects are very interesting and, to my mind, should fill the gap in our current understanding of innovations and context. As I was reaing your essay, I put to myself the following question : What is the context in which innovations occur ? Or can we say that innovations happen only when they exceed their context. Now in the history/philosophy/sociology of the physical sciences, I am aware that the nature of the linkage between innovations and context has been approached from a range of positions – from one of complete continuity to radical whole scale discontinuity to more mediated (and recent) understanding as reconfigurations of old ideas in new milieus. Yet the emphasis almost always seems to be on the empirical character of the way science is done, and here I have in mind, in particular, the STS critiques, highlighting the set of shared beliefs, practices, instruments, materials that are involved in experimental tests and proofs and thus arguing for consensus and continuity in the production of innovations. Instead if we think of scientific-technological novelties in the sense that you have outlined, that “they are cognitive objects first, and brute facts of nature only as a consequence”, then they open up more fruitful lines of inquiry, I think, in understanding the relation between mathematical conceptions and physical observations.

Now I do not know anything about nanotechnology or synthetic biology but in the physics of elementary particles, it’s mathematical model(s) that outline the search for new particles which are not readily found in “nature”, for example, Dirac’s hypothesis for the positron or Pauli’s for the neutrino. These and many more particles since then were formulated first to satisfy mathematical explanations and only later have they been physically confirmed as existing. In fact, some of the most outstanding explanations in the physical sciences (and also in the social sciences like Bourbaki school’s contributions to structuralism or more recently probability statistics for formulating risk&contingency) are owing to the pure abstraction of mathematical notions. Here I recall what Whitehead and Russell pointed out long ago that mathematics is a pure creation of the human mind and yet it is not false or arbitrary on that account. (We do not see the number ‘two” anywhere – we only see two books, two trees, two birds and yet the number “two” is independent of any particular entity and hence the paradoxical nature of mathematical notions as pertaining to thoughts about things….)

To come back to your essay, I understand and agree that nanotechnology or synthetic biology as products of computations, simulations and calculations, are not in the realm of the contrast of the Ideal to the Real. And I am happy that your essay gives me that conceptual space where I can go back one step and instead of stopping at questioning the naturalness of such objects, as created in the laboratory through human intervention, and limiting oneself to the description of physical reality as given by science(s), it lets me ask what power mathematical conception has to produce these techno-scientific novelties. Can we subject that to displacement and critique in a way that we do for empirical scientific practices ? And I mean to push this line of thinking, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves.

I am sure you will find my response esoteric and unhelpful, but I thought that the ARC blog is useful for that reason !!

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