Purpose of Knowledge

Article

By

Souran Mardini Ph.D

Purpose of knowledge

We propose to examine in this article the following question:

Does knowledge have a precise purpose?

We are ssuming that knowledge, instigated by astonishment and natural curiosity, emerges as the result of the inevitable interaction between man and the universe. The process of thought interaction is indispensable for man's being. From the moment of the fecundation of the ovule by the sperm (both unknown in origin and presence) and till the realization of the final human form, matured and adult, life phenomenon presents itself as a total enigma. If we accept the hypothesis of internal finality which shapes the final product in term of development, we still have to explain the how does it bring it about and the why should it bring it about. It remains also to answer questions concerning the presence, origin, reason of being of man. The same logic applies to all phenomena, for every object is subject to these questions.

Conflict between finality and hazard is subject to individual conviction. The basis of such conflict is the absence of evidence. Subjectivity dominates the attitude of the individual in order to reach a final personal conjectural conviction.

We consider that the very absence of such possible verifiability leaves the door open for conjecture. In fact, man stakes his choice on this uncertainty. The choice between the mecanicist-atomist-organicist point of view and the vitalist-causalist-finalist perspective is not based on proof; otherwise, the choice becomes baseless. In our perspective we do not presume that hazard is the basis of the choice. It is the opposite; the choice is a well thought out decision.

We do not consider hazard as a random process of decision. It can be a convenient term to label an option of an alternative that cannot be verified. For hazard can be either in an oracular form, considered as a mean of divination, or in the form of indifference hazard, considered by science to be imposed by situation. The probability of hazard, in our perspective here, is unfound if laws of probability can be reduced to exact and succinct laws. According to scientific assumption water gushing out of a tap does so in a succinct and precise order where there is no place for hazard. The probability factor can be discarded depending on our unawareness of the order ofhe result. Our lack of knowledge of causes and effects, even in what is geometrically quantifiable, leads to complexity, often paradoxical remains a problem to be resolved. It is prompted by the limits of present knowledge which remains enigmatic: e.g. the Wall of Max Planck; the mystery of matter and time; the wall of death.

Becoming conscious of one's limits the individual recoils to his faculty of belief. Metaphysical thought has nearly disappeared giving way to scientific knowledge. Scientific concepts of the emergence of auto organization can lead to arguments of probabilities of internal organizing finalities; external finalities cannot be excluded for lack of evidence.

But these probabilities are inherent within the choice alternative. The imposing enigma of existence prompts the question of creation (whether expressed internally or externally) causing a proof dilemma. The necessity of the faculty of judgment as well as the faculty of belief becomes indispensable, where the two, at one level, become identical.

Oscillating between the mecanicist-organicist explanation and the finalist-spiritualist the individual searches for a satisfactory choice to determine his final decision.

Like his forced existence, his form, structure, aging and death, every person passes through this life-cycle of appearance and disappearance. Interaction between man and the universe necessitates explanation. This explanation necessitates knowledge. The demand for explanation leads to awareness where man attains an uncertain state of comprehension, labeled as knowledge.

‘Ultimate knowledge', i.e. knowledge of presence, structure, form, origin and finality of objects constituting the universe, remains unknown and inaccessible.

Heidegger, as an example of a materialist, considers that the ‘ultimate horizon of science will not be the representation and comprehension of the real but rather its enslavement by the technological'. The discomfort of the metaphysical order, unverifiable by the science, has incited Kant to think that,

‘speculative reason is not real and has no sense unless in relation to its submission to practical reason which does not seize to produce ends.'

Knowledge, so far, remains, at best, short of attaining ultimate interaction with the universe. It is the result of man's capacity to acquire data. This data is limited by what the mind can conceive of the sensible and the intelligible. Neither the observer, man, nor the observed, the universe, is accessible to ultimate knowledge at our present state of knowledge.

Ultimate knowledge is concerned with the nature, structure, form, change, development, presence, origin and finality of the universe and its constituent parts. We are assuming in this work that this presumed inaccessibility to ultimate knowledge is meaningful. It can be permanent without being pessimist. Its significance lies in the fact that we are unable, so far, to unveil ultimate knowledge. The inaccessibility to ultimate knowledge leads to a state of presumed ignorance. This state knowledge blocks its progress. Confronting of ‘assumed ignorance' is attained only through knowledge, where gradually but surely we recognize it by its dead ends.

We assume further that this presumed ‘state of ignorance' is ‘inevitable'. Knowing attains a certain point where ultimate his enigma the individual aspires for an explanation. From the need for explanations emerges suppositions of causes that can bring about a universe of such dimensions and exactitude. Lack of proof for or against these suppositions creates a two-fold alternative obliging the observer to make his own choice. At this crossroad man is obliged to choose between belief and disbelief. This choice is presented in a two-options-alternative and does not allow for dialectical synthesis. It is either the one, belief, or the other, disbelief, in a creator-cause.

No individual can believe and disbelieve at one and the same time. And a synthesis of the two is not possible.

Man himself, as one dimension of matter in time, an expression of life realizes gradually his position in this infinite universe, his role and function. He finds himself in a certain shape and form, size and characteristics. He is endowed with the faculties of survival and comprehension. His innate curiosity leads him to inquire into the enigmatic presence of the universe and his own. Man improvises with knowledge, whether scientific or otherwise: intuitive, telepathic, psychic, Para-psychic, artistic,moral, aesthetic or spiritual or even perceptive (karma), to interpret phenomena and eventualities.

Directionality of knowledge

Finality

Can the scientific mind exclude all precautions relative to finality, by trying to explain it? Can we limit the explanation to science only? Can science satisfy the questioning of meaning posed by philosophers?

How can we explain that starting off from confrontation with phenomenon, i.e. the vitalized object, belief in a cause emerges as alternative?

Philippe Descamps explains that, ‘describing a phenomenon in finalist terms proposes the existenceof a consciousness capable of envisaging the whole and the future, also capable of working out a project that will organize the means of establishing and arranging harmoniously a ‘being' made up of parts that develops in terms of the totality and contributing through its cooperation to the survival of an organism, we assume that it is animated by an internal finality, this ‘being' is provided with intention.' (Science et Avenir, October,2000).

The mechanicist explanation by the positivists does not lead to the explanation of the ‘reason of being' that imposes itself.

In other words the ‘how' does not explain the ‘why'.

Facing a world already made, and constantly changing, man interrogates himself about it, in its totality and in parts. What is the universe and how did it come about? Is there an architect or is the universe eternal, which does not exclude an architect, as Stephen Hawkins assumes, ‘If there was a Big Bang then there is a God but if the universe is eternal then there is no need for a God.' For the argument that if the universe is eternal we can very well assume the eternality inaccessible at the present time.

God, as Aristotle suggests in his concept of movement and the prime mover.

If we live in a universe composed of hundreds of billions of galaxies, in which exists hundreds of billions of stars and planets, the field of knowledge is limitless. Man, as a very recent phenomenon, is in his infantile stage of existence and discovery. Planet earth is but one of these infinitely small sparkling spots in our vast system of the Milky Way. The earth, its form and structure, its constituent elements, its presence, its movement and velocity (rotation, tilting, orientation and orbits), its origin (birth, change and development), its position in our solar system, its control, its aging process and its life manifestations, so-called animate and inanimate, confronts man with endless questions. Science is beginning its infinite journey limited to the presence of man.

In this perspective there is no need to presume an already existing sterility of thought. But we are only emphasizing the notion of our present state of a presumed limited accessibility to what can be termed as ultimate knowledge. This can be argued if a state of inaccessibility to ultimate knowledge persists permanently as time passes and man discovers and having the chance to live for a long time. What was before is unknown, where did man come from and what makes us what we are is still unknown. This ultimate knowledge is still unknown.

The suspended threshold of the unknown:

Science does not provide us with any idea of the structure, presence and origin of any of the two enigmas, matter (or substance) and time. It speculates on the manifestations of the atom, being the smallest constituent particle of matter, offering no knowledge of its nature, presence, origin, cause,its reason of being, its governing laws, its functions and its control. What are atoms? Where do atoms come from? What it is is not within the reach of man.

he does not change its biological-chemical fundamentals according to a pre - order mechanism. The three mediators initiate its presence and controls its form and structure and designs its characteristics? All these questions belong to the domain of knowledge, and in particular, scientific knowledge.

Science, which purports to ‘know' about the ‘how', attempts to explain the mechanics of what is and what was. It attempts to discover how conditions are required for the formation of such universal mosaics.

Considering man as a spectator-exploiter, he is unable to create something from nothing. The composition and characteristics of matter itself allows him to use it according to its laws and nature. Such control, which maintains matter as Objects modified genetically presume modification of what is according to the laws that already govern it.

Isotopes of Plutonium 239 PU existing already in nature are exploited to bring about its potential characteristics. No scientist can pretend to creating from nothing an element or a law of matter. He only discovers the mechanism of splitting atoms and using its energy, for example, that already exists llion DNA characteristics chart already exists in the human body controlling life development structure, form, color, size, change and development. An apple exits, functions and develops according to its already made precise program. Man discovers and discovering its characteristics can develop further its potentialities that are allowed by its own design, but substance; otherwise, it seizes to be what it is and might become, if at all, something else.

Science is unable, so far, to identify empirically the structural nature that prompts such order and what assembles its constituent parts together to produce a final product. that can be a mental seizure, psychological, or moral. Faith or rejection of a cause for the faithless to the assumptions of belief and disbelief. He has, not immune to personal convictions. It is precisely this.

Even though a scientist shows disinterest for finalities he makes his decision and lack of evidence is forced to ultimately, deliberate his choice. In the process of acquiring his knowledge through his investigation the scientist becomes gradually aware of possible inaccessibility, somewhere in his ascendance. He realizes that every discovery opens up for other discoveries, an unlimited chain. This motivates the scientist to continue his work. The perplexity and vastness of the subject leads on to resolve one mystery after another where he comes to a closed sphere of knowledge. Very few people, especially scientists, would admit this. Knowledge is endless, everybody assumes it.

In any belief-system individual conviction is subject to personal interpretation. The concept of God in each religion differs from one religion to another and specifically from one individual to another. But the overall general concept of belief in response to whether ‘God is' or ‘is not', can be commonly shared.

Lack of evidence for the existence of God in religious belief systems results also in the individual choice. The claim of belief in religions is based on linguistic communication.

Whether in belief systems or metaphysics, thought is a process of communicative linguistic expressions that finally leads to expressing one's convictions. In the case of faith, such symbol system of value judgment is not prerequisite to either belief or disbelief. Direct and immediate acceptance or rejection is prompted upon the confrontation of the faithful with phenomenon (a rose, for example, can prompt such a be the result of a direct seizure of the necessity of a creator or reject faith. This experience, where every person is bound spiritually or psychologically to take a stand. Communicating in symbolic systems such as for example letters, numbers, lines, colors, gesture and sounds, is not always necessary for representing one's faith which can be intuitive, immediate, direct and wordless, or the rejection subject to, is neither communicable nor transmissible to others.

Symbolic-reference is not necessary in this case. Awareness of a creator-cause can be attained without mediation or meditation nor intellectualization. Man can directly seize the symbolic-reference of an object or an event (a tree, a landscape, a galaxy, orbit of earth). What is inevitable in the mind value-judgment is the individual's own reckoning of a need, or non-need, for such a belief. Uncertainty of what is prescribed in belief-systems is the pivot-point in these questions. It is the point where an explanation is instigated.

From constant confrontation between man and the universe such a need is prompted. This confrontation triggers off the quest for knowledge indicating a purpose.

If faith is automatically felt reason can consolidate it only by conjecture. In this case, reason is used to argue for or against faith.

Dependant on the individual's attitude the choice can be in favor of either one option or the other. For this, absolute freedom of choice is needed in order to make the decision, since there is no evidence to give support to either option.

Tension and harmony between reason and belief has marked distinctions of attitudes throughout the ages. It has been the cause of extremes in attitudes (pros: St. Augustine, Aristotle, Leibniz and cons: Nietzsche, Russell, Sartre) as well as oscillations between metaphysics and scientific objectivism.

Objectivism was brought about through verificationalism and reductionalism (Galilee, Laplace and Descartes) in opposition to the dogmatic teachings of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. or in opposition, due to lack of evidence. This is levels where the two do not meet. They might be in par Scientific knowledge is an empirical symbolic identification that can be parallel to belief but on two different and distinct allelism because the criterion of scientific empiricism cannot apply to systems of belief. The two are completely separated.They can be exploited to consolidate one another, which is often the case (Aristotle, Galilee, Hawkins). The orbit of the earth around the sun cannot be taken as a proof, or as evidence, for the existence of a designer nor as a disproof for such a designer.

For the believer, the orbit needs a cause-designer time-keeper, but the absence of means to verify the need for such a presumption consolidates the argument of the disbeliever.

Both cannot establish an evidence for their arguments but rather can only make a choice. In any way, the individual can not escape belief or disbelief.

The different attitudes of Kant and Heidegger indicate in this sense tension between speculative metaphysics and the impact of science. The discomfort of metaphysical speculation, which is non verifiable by science, has prompted Kant to think that speculative reason is not real and has no sense except with regard to its compliance with practical reason(experience), which in its turn does not stop to provide ends.

Observation does not provide us with significance but it is our value judgment that does so. If a sense of order is figured out by watching natural phenomenon, it is our orientation to recognize such a reaction that allows a sense of order.

Order can be presumed on observing the universe, its form, structure, movement, change and cycles. Albert Einstein mentions, ‘We find in the objective world a high degree of order'. It is claimed by some scientists that if the Big bang was advanced or retarded one split of a trillion of a fraction of evidence, and escapes it by discarding it but ma and life may have never been produced.

A second, the universe would have been in a different shape Galaxies (condensed presumably from a nebula of dust and gas matter) are submitted to rigorous precision of ‘order' otherwise the universe would have not developed in its present form. Planet earth is constructed in such a way that life in its multiple and complex forms appeared. Conditions of life themselves are submitted to succinct order, control, laws and rigorous discipline. Any perturbation in the conditions of life (lack of oxygen, exposition to ozone zone, important perturbances in atmospheric pressure, density and zone of flora) renders life impossible. Any disorder in the rotation of earth around its axis or its orbits would result in disappearance of life. How does such order work? And what keeps it in control?

Genetic charts are of an unpaired exactness. Every natural phenomenon is subject to strict laws with relation to its nature, presence, structure, form and function.

The history of knowledge is concerned with the discovery of things and their laws. Such logic implies that if there are laws governing the universe then there must be order. But order and organization and arrangements are indiscernible in the laboratory of the scientist. He faces a wall of the non viability admit it within himself.

The finalist position is rejected by most scientists today, for it is outside the domain of scientific rationalism, but scientific findings are themselves subject to change and uncertainty.

The non evidence assumed by the scientist of the finalist position renders him to reject such a possibility. But can the scientist do away with it altogether. Henri Atlan considers that at the origin of these finalities, bearers of significance, we find, in human societies, contradiction between religious traditional presumptions and scientific knowledge. Likewise; and in the ultimate analysis, scientific knowledge loses its verifiability when ‘ultimate knowledge' imposes itself exacting the origin, order and organization in material of

science. Certain uncertainty of scientific discoveries remains eminent open to disagreement among scientists, especially to fundamental questioning about matter and origin in micro and macro fields. Science postulates theories subject to verification and change but are limited by the limits of subjectmatter itself. The scientist, although discarding causality from his account, can not avoid the question of causality.

Descamps assumes, with respect to external finality, that an inert object, presented as an organism, or an individual, exists for another end than itself. It is by supposing this that external finality emerges. It is not for the object ‘to be'. In other words, the object itself cannot bring itself about. He does not attribute consciousness to the object itself but, on the contrary, to an external consciousness outside everything an ranscendental to everything. If the domain of explanation is amputated of all forms of finality, and disciplines want to be constituted as science must eliminate finality from its expression. The advent of modern physics and the passage to the conception of an infinite universe have consecrated scientific death of finality, because it imposes the postulate oforganizing thought of the world, is sent back to the ranks of the occult forces. The idea of ‘extra universe finality', an externality ad infinitum, becomes presumably contradictory, a thing that has to be established. But if an extra universality is dismissed on the postulate of the infinity of the universe then why not postulate that such extra universality is infinite in its turn. Likewise the advent of modern sciences does disprove the existence of such an externality. In fact, both presumptions lack evidence and neither proof nor disproof can be produced in support for the existence, or non existence, of such an externality.

But, does renunciation of finalism satisfy the mind? How

can we explain the development of things from simple

atoms, the cellular or molecular fundament, to its final state,

mature and concrete?

Confronting the Universe

The starting point of knowledge is that ‘man has to confront with the universe' and ‘the need to explain it'.

In the first place, we must face scientific explanations of the universe and its constituent parts. The ‘complexity principle' adopted by Hubert Reeves proclaims a complex structure found already in the constants of the universe since the setting off of the cosmic process. He specifies that, ‘the Universe possesses, right from the first instances, the proprieties requisite to elaborate the complexity'. This can be conceded if we accept the hypothetical assumption of a beginning singularity.

This complexity that has given birth, development and structure to the universe depends on relatively meager number of fundamental constants. Without these constants the universe can neither be nor can be dilated up to its present form already in progression or in digression.

The structure of numerous systems in nature, from the microscopic scale to cosmological scale, is based on the values of this relatively small number of fundamental constants of physics.

The following tables A and B explain this idea:

Permitivity

Table A

The fundamental constants of physics

Quantity Symbol Numeric values

Light speed c 3x10p8 m/sec

Electric charge of

proton

e 1,6x10p-19

coulomb

of

emptiness

eo 8,85x10p-12

farad m-1

Constant of

Planck

h 6,63x10p-34

joule sec

Constant of

Boltzmann

k 1,38x10p-23

joule/K

Mass at rest of

proton

mp 1,67x10p-27 kg

Mass at rest of

electron

me 9,11x10p -31 kg

Constant of the

gravitation

of Newton

G 6,67x10p-11 m3

kg-1 sec-2

Constant of the

weak force

gw 1,43x10p-62

joule m3

Constant of the

strong force

gs 47,4x10p-26m

Length of Planck (Gh/e3)1/2 2x10p-35m

Table B

A modest change in the values of these constants results in a

radical alteration of the structure of the Universe. The

cosmological framework can considerably be transformed, to

the point of being sterile to the emergence of life:

thermonuclear

Diminution Augmentation

Interaction

(Strong)

of the constant of

coupling

-No other nucleus

than oxygen

-No stars, no

carbon

Of the constant

of coupling

-Formation of

heavy

nucleus; no

carbon

Electromagnetic

-No chemical link

possible, so no

complex organic

molecules

-No susceptible

nucleus forming

organic

molecules

Interaction

(Weak)

-Universe

containing only

helium; no water

-No cycles of

nuclear reactions

of combustion of

hydrogen

-No supernovae

-No supernovae,

so no ejection of

heavy elements

necessary to the

generation of

living beings

Gravitational -No division of

in

the midst of

interstellar clouds

in contraction

-No supernovae (1)

-Very short

duration of life

of stars;

no planets

We recognize in these systems, without separating ourselves from the field of science, a kind of immanent finality to the universe, a profound coherence of all its constituent parts.

Science searches for a scientific coherent theory that can explain everything. A unique theory such as the hypothetical Theory of Strings or the hypothetic M-theory (Master theory) enigmas then how can knowledge be considered as knowledge?

that can be able to describe all fundamental interactions of matter and its laws in order to comprehend the secrets of the world from the infinitely small to the infinitely big.

The attempt, for example, of Stephen Hawkins to unify quantum theory with the Theory of General Relativity is, up to now, non realizable. The Theory of Strings remains also a hypothetical postulate rejected by many scientists.

Descamps mentions that ‘science eliminates finality from its discourse, but this total dismissal on the part of scientific…

______

1. Sciences et Avenir(Journal), Octobre, 2000, Paris, France.

…progress inaugurates a new model of phenomena

interpretation: it is of the machine and mechanicism, which discards, in the least rationality i.e. the spiritualist finalist model.' He considers further, ‘that the mechanicist explanation of the real refinds itself more reinforced and legitimated by the fact that it opens up innumerable possibilities for technical realizations: its scientific richness can thus be measured and this measure is made in the light of its technical applications that it allows.' (Sciences et Avenir, November, 2000).

The comprehensiveness of man in the universe does not contradict his capacity to take a distance, even in a limited and artificial way, and to apprehend as an observer. In the final analysis, the two phenomena, universe and man, are enigmas that impose itself setting off knowledge. If the two are How did the universe come about and why? How did man come about and why?

These questions belong to the folkloric psychology of every individual. Why should we ask these questions and why should we answer? Where does man's curiosity lead him to?

And why should there be curiosity at all?

Scientific knowledge maintains that most economy in the means of explanation does not keep into consideration except efficient causes: The principle of sufficient reason by imposing precedent chronologically the phenomenon that is the effect. But if the finality model is excluded from allsciences, certain essential and vital problems remain unresolved.

The science of living things lacks then in satisfactory explanations facing their life behavior in their evolution, development, adaptation and reproduction. In such a life model finality seems to animate its biological objects.

Physics, for example, cannot reduce certain arguments to mechanicist causes, such as the second law of thermodynamics postulating the necessary increase in the entropy of isolated systems. The explanation of lively organisms remains open to finality. Reducing these organisms to automatism or atomism, as the reductionalists and mechanicists assume, takes away the fact that they are lively beings.

Despite scientific progress science cannot succeed to pierce the wall of this stage of knowledge.

Ultimate knowledge represents the capacity of man to get to know universally, and without any ambiguity of hypothetical thinking, the real and true responses to the answers of fundamental questions: regarding the presence, origin, reason of being, nature and finality of every constituent object and finally the Universe itself, perceptible and intelligible, separately and in unison, as well as the empiric links between

cause and effect, where the ‘enigma' seizes to be.

However, due to its subjectivity the finality perspective remains open to personal interpretations.

For example, if the paper-cutter for Sartre and the statue for Aristotle are fabricated with the intention of a precise function in the mind of its maker, then why stop limiting the logic underlies the concept of existentialism calling for impose itself on man: a point of departure for process to a human maker and not apply it to a natural phenomenon, such as a tree or the sun or even the universe, to a cause-maker? The basis of such a perspective is that we can verify the existence of the human maker but cannot verify the existence of a universe-maker. The universe, can well be argued, is an auto-productive system of auto-dynamism, but the question of what generates such a production and dynamism rests to be validated.

The incapacity of science, at the moment, to provide with such evidence does not annul the probability of a hypothesis of such maker proclaimed by the vitalist-finalist model.

Meanwhile, the tree and the sun, galaxies and the universe are food for knowledge and thought.

Examples of value judgments

We refer to the paper-knife in the example of Sartre's logic of existentialism. This is an example of reflection, between man and the universe and what a philosopher can conclude in his concept to justify his atheism. The notion of ‘Existentialism' stems from the example given by Sartre of the paper-knife, but discards the example of a tree because of lack of proof for a maker. Sartre went further in his explanation. He excluded the existence of a ‘maker' for the paper-knife to find himself only with the ‘paper-knife', existing on its own, a self-made object, as the basis for his assumption. And hence, the ‘paper- knife', according to the Sartrian logic, has never had a ‘maker', and comparatively, so is the world. The logic that the absurdity of being, becomes, at this point, itself absurd. Sartre accepts the presence of the paper-knife but denies the need for a maker-artisan of the paper-knife. He does not explain ‘how' the paper-cutter came about. This absurdity is precisely the purpose of Sartre's philosophy of existentialism. In this way man's existence, according to Sartre, does not need a maker movement, as a ‘necessity of reason' proclaimed by L'existence and hence does not need a creator-cause, and hence it becomes absurd in presence, in origin and finality. By rendering the world absurd Sartre, by begging his own question, considers it as absurd. The counter question, following his logic, is: how can the paper-knife exist without an artisan conceiving it?<