Hasan Spiker @RealHasanSpiker

Jul 18, 2023 • 85 tweets • RealHasanSpiker/status/1681395061546786828

ON “SCIENCE” A Twitter thread by Hasan Spiker.

We don't have "rijāl al-dīn" (a priestly class, nor even "clerics") in Islam, we have al-ʿulamāʾ,
the possessors of knowledge. (1)

So, all of the discourse about "religious" scholars sticking to religion and "worldly" scholars
sticking to "the world" is a bit sad, even if it does reflect contemporary reality (2)

The word “science” has been commandeered and expropriated by “modern science” only
quite recently; until the end of the 19th century, it was “natural philosophy” and thus a
branch of science still (at least nominally) continuous with metaphysics.The Latin *scientia*
referred (3)

most fundamentally to demonstrative knowledge, with metaphysics being the most

“scientific” of the sciences because of the unequivocal nature of its principles and
conclusions, its foundationality to the other sciences, and its irreducibility to any other
sciences. (4)

In Islam, amongst many definitions of ʿilm, the most pertinent as indicating, rather than
mere perception, the theoretical certainty which is the fruit of (traditional) scientific activity,
was ṣifatun tūjibu tamyīzan bayn al-maʿānī lā yaḥtamilu al-naqīḍ, (5)

and thus “science” ultimately pertained to the universal, and thus, cognition of intelligibles,
not indeed to the empirical qua empirical at all. (6)

Thus, in the past, the ʿulamāʾ were the final arbiters of all of the sciences, and they would
study the physics and other "natural sciences" of the time, because they too took their places
in a subordinated model of the sciences crowned by theology/metaphysics (7)

Yet today for a host of sociopolitical and historical reasons, most Muslims have also bought
into the "bifurcated" model where "the religious sciences" and the "natural sciences" are
completely compartmentalized divisions, and "never the twain shall meet". (8)

Not everyone knows this, but if you go to most Arab countries today, for most ordinary
people, the ʿulamāʾ primarily means “modern scientists”, Stephen Hawking, et al. The
Arabic term ʿilm has been largely expropriated just like the word “science.” (9)

This embodies our unreflective acceptance of a radically different conception of natural

science (formerly "natural philosophy") developed in a very different philosophical milieu in
Europe in the 16th-18th centuries Scientific Revolution, (10)

in which formal and final causality (essence and purpose) came to be strictly banished from
the realm of "nature" (11)
, and prevalent conceptions of what was "really there" in the natural world and thus worthy
of study, were explicitly confined to "primary qualities", i.e. the ultimately quantitative
dimensions of physical reality (12)

Unlike the earlier forms of "natural science", this alien, dichotomous conception of
"science"never had time to become critically integrated into the Islamic sciences; and in the
chaos and confusion of colonialism, the remaining ʿulamāʾ sought to preserve the basic
essentials(13)

and thereby ceded,as if by default,the whole area of study of the natural world to the blind
followers of the new natural science in the burgeoning third-rate secular schools and
universities emerging in the Muslim world, who readily bought into its claims to "neutrality"
(14

The diagnosis in this life by şeyhülislam Mustafa Sabri is especially poignant and one of my
favourites (15)

The reality of modern science is that far from being "neutral", it is so geared towards
instrumentality, adapting means to ends, and technology, that the best philosophers of
science frequently opine that it does not in fact study the "nature" of the physical world at all
(16)

We urgently need to begin to transform our contemporary conceptions of theʿulūm and

what it means to be an ʿālim in order to counteract this bifurcated, unintegrated vision of
reality;the ʿulamāʾ must as standard study the modern natural sciences, understand their
philosophical17

presuppositions and implications, and be able to make the distinction between

instrumentally-geared "model", on the one hand, and extramental reality, on the other; (18)

it should also become widely known that many and really most modern scientists can't tell
the difference, because of their lack of philosophical training; (19)
they do not fully understand the real demarcation of the domain in which they are
themselves working. As a result, much (not all), modern science really is, speaking frankly,
the glorified hocus pocus of a materialist cult, stewarded and guarded by an initiated priestly
class(20)

who send down their pronouncements to "follow the Science" to the fervent ʿawāmm
masses. (21)

As we saw during the dark lockdowns of Covid, however, "The Science" (which sounds
personified, like some false god in the sky) changes its mind rather a lot, despite so often
framing its directives as absolute revelations.(22)

Its alliance with the big pharmaceutical companies, which led to the disaster of the “follow
the science” Covid vaccines — (23)

(like so many others, I personally know individuals whose health was irredeemably
destroyed by these, so kindly do not suggest this is a “conspiracy theory”) — is just the latest
incarnation of a happy, long marriage between the new science and business (24) TBC ...

a marriage originally contracted by Francis Bacon, the first person that we know of to have
advised a government to invest in “science” in order to increase its power; this was indeed
the primary factor in the delivery of the Industrial Revolution (25)

Another pressing reason making a healthy (informed) scepticism about “science”, well,
healthy, is the massive disconnect between popular false concretizations of scientific theories
amongst consumers of “popular science”, on the one hand (26)

and the actual highly tentative or even strictly groundless nature of the theories themselves,
on the other, (27)

theories which are often little more than elaborate mathematical models enjoying literally
zero empirical corroboration after forty years of research (string theory), or even, no
empirical corroboration even in principle (multiverse theory) (28)

whereas widespread popular conviction (richly imaginative but ultimately fantasy) holds
these multiple dimensions to be actual entities. This doesn't seem to bother most scientists
too much! (29)

A particularly ludicrous instance amongst illimitable other examples of this type of

phenomenon, is the way that so many popular “Believers in Science” think that
“Schrödinger's Cat” was a real cat that, once upon a time, was both alive and dead in a lab
somewhere; (30)

but far from being alive and dead at the same time, there was no cat at all! (31)

Schrödinger's Cat was nothing more than a “thought-experiment”, designed to show the
absurdity of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics precisely because it would
IMPLY that the cat would be alive and dead at the same time! (32)

Almost the precise opposite of the popular conception. (33)

Another is the popular assumption that what philosophers of science call “theoretical
entities” and “unobservable entities”, such as quarks, electrons (which are detected, but not
observed, in cloud chambers), and even atoms, straightforwardly exist, rather than
constituting (34
exigencies of explanation and coherence. But in fact, the existence of these entities and
others is the subject of vigorous debate between scientific realists and anti-realists. (35)

The latter particularly point to the underdetermination of theories by observational data,

which means the data could in fact be explained by numerous other theories. (36)

This is partly because of the unobservability of many of the theoretical entities posited by the
theory, implying that they could in principle be replaced by alternative theoretical “entities”.
(37)

Proponents of this view, such as Larry Laudan in his “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”,
especially point to the empirical SUCCESS of theories, employing unobservable entities such
as “phlogiston” , which scientific consensus now deems entirely fictional (38)

See
(39)https://philosophy.hku.hk/courses/dm/phil2130/AConfutationOfConvergentRealism2
_Laudan.pdf

Now on another note: We are victim to numerous permutations of “science’s” quantitative

reduction of reality to the instrumental adaption of means to ends; (40)

some are merely irritating, like artificial "intelligence", in the broadest sense, e.g., regularly
blocking your legitimate bank transfers for "your" "security" (41)

As if it has omniscient access to your overall context and intentions, when in fact it is merely
working with crude criteria of probabilistic variables and almost always get it wrong; (42)

or these AI “wonders of science” answering phone calls to your service providers and almost
invariably proving completely incapable of processing the most basic human nuance, and
thus useless at fulfilling the most basic of human needs (43)

Now, yes, there are scientific “facts” like the truth of the Copernican rather than Ptolemaic
models of astronomical phenomena, etc., but again the popular conception of these as
directly “observed” entities is false; (44)

one of the private tutors I studied a little physics and astronomy with (the brilliant Dr.
Youssef Ismail from Zaytuna) actually took me through many of the steps involved in getting
from the one to the other such that I appreciated some of the monumental calculations
involved(45

which in the process also showed that while the Copernican model removed the equant
problem and replaced retrograde with relative motion,and is ultimately the basis of the
correct answer, the Ptolemaic model had considerable predictive explanatory value and was
far from stupid(46

On a final note, it is an advanced historical consequence of the trajectory adopted by modern

science ... (47)

... at its very roots in the Scientific Revolution, particularly in its fixation on primary qualities
and abhorrence of final causes – that something as bizarrely irrational and hollow as
physicalism could become a de facto “scientific” orthodoxy of our time (48)
even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with empirical science, even on the most
generous of definitions. (49)

Consciousness is an epiphenomenon of brain states, and is thus reducible to said brain

states. (50)

The problem is, on the assumption, for the sake of argument, of the truth of this proposition,
consciousness if only identified as such, i.e. as an epiphenomenon reducible to “physical”
brain states, THROUGH the brain-state mechanism itself. (51)

The conscious enunciation of a proposition that the epiphenomenalist considers false, such
as “epiphenomenalism is false”, correlates with the brain firing neurons at a certain
frequency just as much as does the conscious enunciation of “epiphenomenalism is true.”
(52)

But brain states have no truth value; “truth” is only a function of the conscious experience.
(53)

Now, the epiphenomenalist may concede that in light of this, there isn’t REALLY such a
thing as truth, and it is fair to say that we needn’t be terribly concerned with a theory whose
own proponents do not believe to be true;(54)

but if the epiphenomenalist believes the theory to be true in any objective and literal sense,
then necessarily reality (the “physical”, in this particular case, the human brain) is
intrinsically directed towards consciousness not as subjective experience (55)

but as accurate representation of the intelligible structure of reality; and as such, cannot
credibly be construed as “physical” at all. (56)

This, then, is the most fundamental problem with “science”; the absurd abolition of mind
from the “natural” world, and of the significance of the inexorable presence of the human
knowing subject in all scientific activity; (57)

This is all present at the roots of modern science in the Scientific Revolution, in its fixation
on primary qualities and abhorrence of final causes, and it has stayed there. (58)

It is not thus sufficient to just make a few “metaphysical” alterations to modern science; we
need a complete rerooting (59)

And yes, we are naïve if we think that will be easy, and it is unclear if at this stage it is even
feasible, and yes, the “success” of science in developing technology is undoubted; this will
continue, and we will eagerly consume it, often with insufficient discretion. (60)

But as we have seen, science does not need to be a true picture of reality in order to produce
instrumentally effective technology (61)

And while the instrumental (if not moral) "success" of science is not in doubt, it is surely
rather less successful as a depiction of the nature of reality, and even less so as a moral guide.
(62)

SOME READINGS: Some readings:

* Habermas’s “Knowledge and Human Interests”
* The Reality of the Unobservable: Observability, Unobservability and Their Impact on the
Issue of Scientific Realism
More popular: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory.
Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory

Addendum to (38) and (39) from linked article

should be "in this slide", not "life"! Don't know what happened there!

Addendum 2: Often newcomers to philosophy think that if they are realists about essences,
they should also be against "scientific anti-realists" and for "scientific realism", In fact, these
have very little to do with each other. Just a side note. I'll go into more detail if

anyone problematizes this, or needs to enquire further. In fact, being a metaphysical realist
should, in my view, incline one towards being a scientific anti-realist.

Typo. Should be "consciousness IS only identified as such.

Addendum 3: Typo in 51. Should be: The problem is, on the assumption, for the sake of
argument, of the truth of this proposition, consciousness IS only identified as such, i.e. as an
epiphenomenon reducible to “physical” brain states, THROUGH the brain-state mechanism
itself.

@faxoverfeeels but that was because I agreed with most of what that post was saying on a
more general level. As I've said, I haven't seen the "flat earth" video and I'm not really
interested. I know the earth isn't flat, just for the record. (2)

@faxoverfeeels And I see no compelling reason not to believe in the moon landings. The
surrounding discussion did prompt me to put together some thoughts about science in
general that I've been developing for years though, hence my thread. Bless you for your sweet
presumptuousness !((3))
@Evollaqi realists that so many of the theoretical entities they posit seem very unlikely to
refer to real, distinct, extramental - rather than merely instrumental-theoretical - properties
(2)

@Evollaqi *many, not may

@Evollaqi That's my two cents. Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

@TheghostofMT @Evollaqi that in the unobservable, theoretical entities that it posits, it is

actually able to identify the real essences of things. Of course, yes, I believe that reality is
intrinsically intelligible so yes, in principle one could come to know the detailed essences of
things (2)

@TheghostofMT @Evollaqi even in the places sciences is looking. But for me broad
*scientific* realism — i.e. realism that rests epistemologically on a commitment to the
scientific method which I consider to be FUNDAMENTALLY instrumental in operation and
intent — is untenable. (3)

@TheghostofMT @Evollaqi *science

AFTERWORD: It is simply an occupational hazard on Twitter to be subject to uninformed

censure by individuals who have not taken the time to try to understand what you are saying
but instead presumptuously spin an interpretation based on a skim read, or even more often,
(1)

are personally incapable of acknowledging their own inability to comprehend and thus the
need to learn more, and so instead pronounce based on their overall sense of whether your
words are “for” or “against” their own preconceived opinions. (2)

The word “anti-science” is itself a slightly hysterical, quasi-religious judgement simply

drenched in unthinking acquiescence to positivism and the doctrine of necessary progress.
(3)

The thread is immensely clear; the historical genesis of modern science, its anti-
metaphysical methodological commitments, and its fundamentally instrumental nature (4)

should be sufficient to alert us to the fact that it is geared almost exclusively towards the
mastery of nature and technology. (5)

Now the moral status of these latter two is another matter entirely, which we can deal with
another time, and I made no judgement on them. (6)

The point is that popular misconceptions of the nature of science as infallible guide, or as
unlocker of the innermost nature of reality, are like all falsehood, potentially harmful,
oppressive and misleading.(7)

•••