Return to Mercer Street 2003 Table of Contents

by Christina Moy

If human beings are to explore those distant and wished for lands, we must first come to grips with some of the perplexing conceptual issues that have dogged quantum physics since its inception. These riddles dance around the enigma of quantum observership. Its contemplation brings us back from the realm of the multiverse to the intimate confines of our own skin, where we ask what it means to say that “we” “observe” “nature.”
- Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report

During the crisis of modern science in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the postulates of early scientific discoveries had been refuted. In one of science’s most defining moments, an undisturbed photon of light was found to exhibit both wave-like and particulate qualities. The relationship between these two qualities would later be termed complementarity by Niels Bohr, one of the scientists at the forefront of this discovery. As Thomas S. Kuhn notes in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, “Before [the theory of quantum mechanics] was developed by Plank, Einstein, and others early in [the twentieth] century, physics texts taught that light was transverse wave motion” (12). So staggering was this discovery that in his autobiography, Albert Einstein recounts, “All my attempts to adapt the theoretical foundations of physics [to the new quantum knowns] failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere upon which one could have been built.” Not surprisingly, this arrest of the fundamental postulates of classical physics sparked a reevaluation of the “world view” by the scientists of the early twentieth century. Bohr “saw complementarity as a kind of chiaroscuro, an essential embracing by nature of opposites and contradictions” (Ferris 275). The discovery, which years ago would have been thought of as exclusively internal to science, became a critical problem in philosophy; a part of science was becoming philosophical. Moreover, the idea of duality in nature “suggested its broader application in a complementarity between mutually exclusive ways of knowledge, like religion and science…The deep interconnectedness of phenomena encouraged a new holistic thinking about the world” (Tarnas 357). If one applies these ideas to human thought, fragments of knowledge—discrete facts—it seems, can no longer be solely characterized as packets of information. Like light itself, the nature of knowledge has a certain duality: although information can exist as specific, discontinuous entities, it can also exist as a more general, continuous whole.

The work of Stephen Jay Gould consistently capitalizes on the “meaningful joinings between the facts, methods, and concerns of science and the humanistic disciplines” (Landed 5). One of the most cogent examples of this “interconnectedness” is evident in his essay “No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts.” In it, Gould describes the relationship between different disciplines of thought:

The domains [of facts of nature] must remain formally distinct…But…an overarching mental unity builds a deeper similarity than disparate subject matter can divide. Human creativity seems to work much as a coordinated and complex piece…and we will miss the underlying commonality if we only stress the distinctions of external subjects and ignore the unities of internal procedure. (Landed 51)

The scientists of the early twentieth century advanced the idea that there exists some complementarity among different disciplines, in turn promoting an implicit “interconnectedness” within all subjects of human thought, or what Gould calls “an overarching mental unity.” But the scientists of the early twentieth century simply recognized that there was some sort of complementarity or “interconnectedness” at work among disciplines; they had no way of accounting for the motivation behind this newly discovered characteristic. Gould attributes the creation of this “mental unity” to the inner workings of some sort of an “internal procedure.” But what exactly is this “internal procedure” and how does it work to build a “deeper similarity” and forge an “interconnectedness” among different disciplines?

In “Jim Bowie’s Letter and Bill Buckner’s Legs,” Gould pushes towards an understanding of what might be this “internal procedure.” He writes,

When evolution grafted consciousness in human form upon [the vertebrate brain] in a single species, the old inherent search for patterns developed into a single propensity for organizing these patterns as stories, and then for explaining the surrounding world…humans tend to construct their stories along a limited number of themes and pathways, favored because they grant both useful sense and satisfying meaning to the confusion…of life in our complex surrounding world. (Landed 55-56)

Here, Gould argues that the human brain intrinsically finds patterns within things and develops these patterns, which ultimately take form as “stories.” Because the human mind draws from a pool of “limited pathways” in creating each story, it seems that the limiting nature of these “pathways” implies some sort of “interconnectedness” among the construction of all stories. The human mind must eventually retrace its steps in creating stories along specific “pathways” if it draws from a finite pool of stylistic “patterns.” Therefore, the “patterns” of these stories as well as the information that each story conveys must eventually repeat, resulting in “interconnectedness” and perhaps even a “deeper similarity” in the pattern. Perhaps these “pathways” represent a possible “internal procedure,” serving as the means by which the human brain creates “an overarching mental unity” among different disciplines of thought.

The processes by which the human brain creates this “overarching mental unity” through repeated “patterns” and “pathways,” that is, the things that Gould argues to be formative in the creation of stories, are implicit in his own work. Both of the quotations discussed above exemplify a very distinct pattern; they both work with a sort of structural hierarchy. In the quotation from “No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts,” Gould describes “facts of nature” as components in larger “domains,” whereupon he implies that these larger “domains” characterize (and are thus components of) “human creativity.” Gould not only communicates this idea through the imagery he creates, but also through his choice of words. Clearly, the word “facts” beholds connotations of small, discrete units of information; “domains,” implies a larger order; “human creativity” exists as this massive concept often associated with an expansive breadth of applications. So the words Gould chooses reflect an order of structural hierarchy, reinforcing an idea he simultaneously creates with imagery. Even the rhetorical strategies with which Gould crafts his idea reflect a similar structural hierarchy: images are based on their smaller components in words, and the meanings of words rely on connotations. Furthermore, connotations are subdivisions of a word in that they represent different ways one may perceive the meaning of a word.

Similarly, in the quotation from “Jim Bowie’s Letter and Bill Buckner’s Legs,” Gould draws upon this same pattern of hierarchical structure as he argues that a “single propensity for organizing patterns” creates the “patterns” themselves; the patterns construct “stories;” the stories form “our complex surrounding world.” Each element serves as a component of a larger structure. Thus, the patterns that Gould enacts in the construction of his own stories exist as a testament to the very arguments he makes: the same patterns that exist within the pathway to thought also exist in the thoughts themselves. Moreover, the highly repetitive nature of these “patterns” seems to be indicative of discrete archetypes of thought; each archetype represents a larger, yet still discrete form of thought, repeated over and over.

While particles exist as clearly defined, discrete units, waves are extremely dynamic, varying in wavelength, intensity, and speed. In the wave-particle theory, the complementarity of particles and waves is essential in forging an accurate and comprehensive view of light where the discontinuous and the continuous complement each other, and there is a sort of “interconnectedness” to specificity and generality. The wave and the particle, though characterized by sharply contrasting physical characteristics, are both essentially interconnected, creating a complete view of the nature of light. In much the same way, discrete archetypes interplay with more general (and thus less definite), inferential forms of knowledge (connotations and images) to form a coherent body of thought, to form a story.

So how can we use archetypes and inferential knowledge together for some meaningful purpose? In “Art Meets Science in the Heart of theAndes,” Gould writes, “We must…approach nature as a partner who can answer other kinds of questions for us—questions about the factual state of the universe, not about the meaning of human life.” (Landed 109). Here, Gould chooses the word “factual” to describe the vast expanse that is the universe. The word “factual” beholds a very discrete connotation—facts, or packets of information, are discrete in nature. By using a word that invokes a very compact and individualized image to describe the “state of the universe,” a highly dynamic system, and a colossal image in itself, Gould simultaneously exemplifies the duality and the “interconnectedness” of human thought. The implication is that the specific and general are both required for us to properly understand nature, just as the complementarity of particles and waves forms a cohesive theory explaining light’s nature. Additionally, Gould warns against undertaking the weighty if not impossible task of quantifying the “meaning of human life.” Such a concept is infinitely general, based exclusively on inference and does not include points of specificity, making such a practice entirely meaningless. Through his words, Gould seems to be echoing the concerns of Bohr, who once wrote, “It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is…Physics concerns what we can say about nature…Our task is not to penetrate into the essence of things, the meaning of which we don’t know anyway, but rather to develop concepts which will allow us to talk in a productive way about the phenomena in nature” (Ferris 275). Here, Bohr argues that the goal is to experience “phenomena in nature,” from which one can produce discrete statements of observation and draw upon these isolated observations to develop inferences. Therefore, observing nature allows us to say things about the “factual state of the universe;” it connects us to an understanding of nature as a process, as a constant tension between the specific and the general rather than nature as a series of disjointed facts or infinitely general inferences; observing nature connects us to a story.

Strangely, there is something rather classical about this method of modern observership. Observations and inferences are at the heart of the scientific method, the systematic gauntlet of checks and balances first developed by the classical scientists of the European Enlightenment through which all scientific theory is ideally supposed to pass. Observations seem more like discrete instances, and the inferences we draw from them seem to be more general. The suggestion is that the tension between the specific and the general exists not only in what we observe, but also in how we observe it. In realizing the relationship between the specific and the general, we are bridging ourselves with the classical scientists of the Enlightenment. Yet also, we are doing just as Bohr and Gould intended for us to do: “approaching nature as a partner” so that we can “develop concepts” which allow for a “productive” understanding of our “factual state of the universe.” The complementarity between the specific and the general in how we observe nature, bridges us with the story of science’s past, yet the complementarity of what we observe reveals a new story, relevant to the present.

In her essay “Island,” Gretel Ehrlich makes observations about the shapes and relative sizes of things in her environment and creates an extended metaphor to help her infer and realize her position in nature. She writes,

To think of an island as a singular speck or a monument to human isolation is missing the point. Islands beget islands: a terrestrial island is surrounded by an island of water, which is surrounded by an island of air, all of which makes up our island universe. That’s how the mind works too: one idea unspools into a million concentric thoughts. To sit on an island, then, is not a way of disconnecting ourselves but rather, a way we can understand relatedness. (64)

Here, Ehrlich observes the relatedness that results when a smaller, more specific entity builds upon a larger, more general one, serving as a metaphorical abstraction for all of relatedness. Her observations and the inferences she draws from them allow her to develop a relationship between the specifics and the generalities of her environment, creating the image of nature as a dynamic process. It is what Ehrlich observes, that is, the concentric islands increasing in their generality (or decreasing in their specificity) that allows her to produce a story relevant to the present: it allows her to understand her position in nature. She introduces this understanding by physically positioning herself as observer on the island. Ehrlich’s story of “relatedness” is one that she is able to tell because of her observations of nature.

Just as Ehrlich’s work is loyal to the scientific tradition of observation-based analysis, Gould’s stylistic choices reflect this same tradition. In the quotations from “No Science Without Fancy, No Art Without Facts” and “Jim Bowie’s Letter and Bill Buckner’s Legs” previously discussed, Gould uses stylistic “patterns” and archetypes, specifically, a hierarchical structure among the words he chooses and the connotations and images they project to convey his “story.” Paralleling Ehrlich’s image of concentric islands, the structural hierarchy of Gould’s language relies upon specific entities building upon increasingly general concepts. The “relatedness” of Gould’s language, that is, the repeated “patterns” or archetypes in his style help him tell the “story” of the nature of the story. His “story” comes about because of certain observations that he has made about all stories, namely that they seem to draw from a pool of “limited” “pathways,” making him loyal to the classical tradition of the scientific method. Gould’s “story,” that is, his observations of the nature of the story, does not begin and end with the idea that all stories, more or less, follow the same “patterns.” Instead, Gould notes that the nature of the story is essentially based on “limited” “pathways” and discrete “patterns” because of a human tendency to favor “both useful sense and satisfying meaning to the confusion…of life in our complex surrounding world” (Landed 55-56). We tend to select against the things that are neither “useful” nor “satisfying” to us when constructing our stories. To break this “pattern” of repeated “pathways,” it seems we have to enter the murky realm of the undesirable: the ugly side of storytelling.

This is just what Gould does in “Petrus Camper’s Angle,” where he discusses how some of the eighteenth-century thinkers misused Petrus Camper’s system of evaluating human variations against the classical Greek and Roman ideals as a measure of racial superiority. But Gould argues that it is absolutely necessary to plunge into the dark corners of our intellectual past because “the archaeology of knowledge assumes greatest importance when it seeks new insights from our past” (Brontosaurus 233). He acknowledges that “our modern conventions exhaust the domain of possible inquiry,” but that we should “study the past…to expand our own sense of possibility.” Gould’s “story” is not that the nature of the story is stuck in a vicious cycle of “limited” “pathways” and “patterns,” nor is it that this tendency is the curse of modern storytelling, but rather that we should acknowledge the tendency of the story to follow certain “pathways” while keeping a keen eye on the stories of the past.

There is, I believe, one more thing we must take away from Camper’s past. It is an idea that seems to exist as a common thread among Camper, Gould, and Bohr and the rest of the pioneers of quantum mechanics. Describing the position of science in the realm of intellectual thought during Camper’s time, Gould writes, “In Camper’s day…science had not been defined, either as a word or as a separate domain of knowledge. Scholars often worked simultaneously in areas now walled off into separate faculties of universities”(Brontosaurus 233). Gould situates his readers in a position where they sit on the past while acknowledging the present. Ehrlich positions her readers on an island and thus symbolically in the larger scheme of things; then she develops her metaphor of “relatedness.” Therefore, I feel compelled to revisit the idea of “relatedness,” for Gould, himself, equates his “best” essays with the ones that are the “most integrated”(Brontosaurus 14). This is a spot where, I believe, Gould would have ultimately liked to end, for it is how he begins so many of his essay collections: with the optimistic hope that “an overarching mental unity” can fashion “a deeper similarity than disparate subject matter can divide” (Landed 51). We look at nature and the nature of things to help us to connect ourselves to stories of the past and present while trying to do exactly what Petrus Camper and the scholars of the eighteenth-century were so capable of—the same privilege the wave-particle theory gave to the pioneers of quantum mechanics: to understand the multiverse of intellectual disciplines together.

Works Cited

Ehrlich, Gretel. Islands, the Universe, Home.New York: Penguin, 1991.

Ferris, Timothy. The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Bully for Brontosaurus.New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.

—-. I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History.New York: Harmony, 2002.

Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Chicago:Chicago U, 1996.

Tarnas, Richard. The Passion of the Western Mind.New York: Ballantine, 1991.

Return to Mercer Street 2003 Table of Contents