Space and Counterspace – by Nick Thomas – Ch.1 – Part 3 – Contingencies

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(Continued from Space and Counterspace – by Nick Thomas – Ch.1 – Part 2 – Qualia).

Let me start with a summary in my own words of Thomas’ previous paragraph. In this he showed that all science is ultimately based on human experience. Let me give an example of my own here:

When I measure the temperature of my room I examine my thermometer. I experience something red in the form of a line. The line is vertical, like the trunk of a very small, very very thin tree. This red line is inside a vertical hollow tube. I experience a series of other lines next to this red line. These lines I experience as being black in colour. They are shorter than the red line, and are horizontal – like the surface of the ground I stand on. I also experience black forms next to these lines which I have learnt are numbers. I look closer. I can now see that the red line is next to a particular black line. I have many experiences of next-to. If I share a seat with a friend, I sit next to them. The number next to this black line is the number twenty. I have many experiences of the quantity twenty. It is the number of all of my fingers and all of my toes. I have learnt that room temperature, when measured in degrees centigrade, is often twenty degrees centigrade. My experiences of rooms at this temperature are pleasant ones.

When children, when we first experience the world we have to consciously learn to understand all of such experiences. But once we have thoroughly grasped the idea of reading a thermometer – to measure the temperature – we very quickly forget that the process is based on a whole series of personal experiences. Even a digital thermometer requires a scientist to read the digital display. Learning to read involves a whole series of experiences in order to reach understanding. Once we have learnt to read our experiences become largely unconscious and we forget they occur.

Our experiences are essentially qualitative, not quantitative.^[1] When philosophers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century started to seriously explore the nature of human experience they needed to invent the word quale as a name to give a single experience – such as the particular shade of the colour red I have seen in a sunset. The plural of quale is qualia – thus a science based on qualitative experiences would be said to be based on qualia. Paradoxically, since the seventeenth century, science (known at that time as natural philosophy) has become exclusively based on measurable qualities – called by Galileo primary qualities; personal experiences – Galileo’s secondary qualities – were rejected as being unscientific. Thomas concluded this paragraph by pointing out that the foundations of mainstream science are therefore paradoxically flawed. To help me better understand this paradox I have broken the argument down as follows:

• Both types of Galileo’s qualities – primary and secondary – are qualities which are experienced by a scientist;
  • therefore they are both – by definition – qualia.
• Science is based on primary qualities;
  • and since all qualities are qualia,
  • therefore primary qualities are also qualia,
  • therefore all science must be based on qualia.
• However, a science based on qualia has been firmly rejected.

So, Thomas’ fourth paragraph begins with a rhetorical question: Must we for ever give up on the possibility of reaching a scientific approach to qualia?

I agree with Thomas that we should not. He suggests that the success of modern science – based as it is on primary qualities – must be a positive reflection on the status of secondary qualities upon which all scientific observation depends. However he also notes that by dismissing qualia: “science deliberately disregards half (or more) of the world of our experience“.

This dehumanising of science has had undoubted benefits – our incredible advances in technology – but the cost may be the increasing alienation and mistrust of many people to that very same science and scientists. This failure is especially apparent with science’s increasing inability to handle the many social problems which we face.

If [my emphasis] indeed qualia can be embraced in a reliable way for knowledge then methods need to be found for overcoming the difficulties.

Qualia are thought to be subjective. This is the main problem for mainstream science. For example, an experience of a particular shade of the colour blue depends on:

• The individual’s particular experience(s)
• Ambient lighting conditions;
  • coloured lighting
  • surrounding colours
  • shadows
• Their sensory physiology (the workings of their vision).

This is an undoubted challenge – but is it impossible? Whilst many believe that it is, Thomas says that it is an unproven assertion. An example he gives is our ability to share our experiences of sound and colour in the realms of music and art. Further proof is that if someone is hearing impaired, or colour blind, that impairment is clearly identifiable, for their shared experiences are different from the rest of us.

For what is ‘blue’? It is certainly not identical with the properties of the electromagnetic waves entering the eye as the same waves can lead to a different experience depending on the context. Neither is it merely a word, for the word points to something experienced. If it is not to be identified with outer processes, measurements, or brain processes, all of which are primary qualities, then it must be another kind of entity than any of them. It is more accurate to say that the shade of blue which manifests depends on the contingencies in force (physiology and surroundings) at the time of its appearance.

He gives as an example that our subjective experience of a shade of blue is not unreal because that experience depended on both outer and inner circumstances, just as a potato is not unreal if grown in a different environment such as its soil – even if when eating it we experience a slightly different flavour. To extend his example – wine tasting is a highly valued skill which can be developed by sharing one’s own experience with other experts. One can learn to identify a wide range of grape varieties and regions based primarily on the taste experience. This taste experience is clearly shareable. This strongly indicates that these secondary qualities are not purely personal subjective experiences. The ability to share these qualia points to their having some sort of objective existence that “refers back to the realm from which they come“. These wine tasters are sharing information which is inaccessible to those outside of the wine tasting community. Artists sharing information about the use of a particular shade of blue in a painting are clearly doing the same thing. Their shared experience of that colour points to that qualia being more than merely personal.^[2]

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1. This is in fact a gross generalisation. The Ancient Greeks very much believed in numbers as qualities. However, we experience distance, mass (as weight or inertia) and time (Galileo’s primary qualities) in relative terms and not absolutely. However, by choosing arbitrary standards, relative experiences can be translated into absolute terms by means of our thinking. Thus a ruler may calibrated and marked out with a series of standardised unit lengths. More about this should be included in the chapters about the Ancient Greeks, mathematics, and also that of Goethean science.

2. If you are reading this as a thrilling adventure story, I am about to give away the plot! The realms referred to are Rudolf Steiner’s etheric realms. These will be explored in the Ethers and Elements chapter.

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