Ask Two Geniuses with Dr. Christian Sorensen and Kirk Kirkpatrick on Science’s Earliest Manifestations, the Modern Sciences, Human Nature, and a Unifying Framework: Independent Metaphysician & Philosopher; Businessman (1)
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/10/01
Abstract
Rick Rosner and I conduct a conversational series entitled Ask A Genius on a variety of subjects through In-Sight Publishing on the personal and professional website for Rick. This series with Christian and Kirk build on this idea. Kirk Kirkpatrick earned a score at 185, on the Stanford-Binet. He is an expert in Business. Dr. Christian Sorensen earned a score at 185+, i.e., at least 186, on the WAIS-R. He is an expert in Metaphysics and Philosophy. Both scores on a standard deviation of 15. A sigma of ~5.67 for Kirk – a general intelligence rarity of 1 in 136,975,305 – and a sigma of ~5.67+ for Christian – a general intelligence rarity of more than 1 in 136,975,305, at least 1 in 202,496,482. Neither splitting hairs nor a competition here; we agreed to a discussion, hopefully, for the edification of the audience here. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population. This amounts to a joint interview or conversation with Dr. Christian Sorensen, Kirk Kirkpatrick, and myself. They discuss: its earliest procedural manifestations; the modern sciences; a unifying framework for knowledge; a lack of a unifying framework about human nature; and the sciences converging and providing some deep insights.
Keywords: Christian Sorensen, genius, human nature, Kirk Kirkpatrick, science, scientific methodology, unifying framework.
Ask Two Geniuses with Dr. Christian Sorensen and Kirk Kirkpatrick on Science’s Earliest Manifestations, the Modern Sciences, Human Nature, and a Unifying Framework: Independent Metaphysician & Philosopher; Businessman (1)
*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: The sciences seem like the name of the game of the 20th century and potentially the 21st century with the 21st century probably more as an era of engineering and technological application than discovery, necessarily, because most of the unifying principles and theoretical foundations for fields have been discovered. The eras of broad strokes have been done in most of the major fields of inquiry, except ToEs, GUTs, and psychology, maybe some others. To start off, when you think of more ancient notions of “science,” as such, what were its earliest procedural manifestations?
Dr. Christian Sorensen[1]: I think that believing that this is an era that is more of technological application than of theoretical discoveries, is an irrational and illusory belief, because as such, has frequently been expressed since science decided to turn into a science, which in my opinion has to do metaphorically speaking, with what occurs with the digestive phenomenon of post-prandial depression, where it is erroneously believed, that because it’s felt the sensation of complete satiety with a hint of dysthymic humour, that then the sensation of hunger will never be felt again, in other words in some fictitious way, it is thought with regret, due to a vagal compression of the heart with a full stomach, that the appetite might have disappeared forever. In this sense, I think that in science, theory and technique, are inseparable momentum of a same cycle, due to the fact, that there exist what I will name a contingent positive feedback, therefore as themselves, necessarily they cannot act deferred, which means that the application of the current technique, at a certain moment, immediately remits to a model or theoretical system, which is updated, and at the same time forces an updating of the first technique that is applied again but modified. From my point of view, in strict semantic rigor, the earliest technical procedural applications of science, coincided with Descartes’s Discourse of the Method and with the development of the scientific or empirical experimental method, that gave rise to physics, biology and chemistry as classical basic sciences.
Kirk Kirkpatrick[2],[3]*: Science is a system of organized knowledge derived from observation, deduction, experimentation, and induction which is used to make predictions about the laws and structure of reality. Science predates writing systems which means the earliest procedural manifestations are not available to the modern man. We can deduce what the earliest types of science were. They were most certainly agricultural techniques that were passed along orally.
“The eras of broad strokes have been done in most of the major fields of inquiry, except ToEs, GUTs, and psychology, maybe some others” is not accurate. We have not come close to a systematic understanding of reality. In fact, we are scratching the surface. When we can explain the two-slit experiment or quantum entanglement, perhaps we will be close but I doubt it. “The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” J.B.S. Haldane. The more we know, the more we learn we do not know.
One of the problems with the quoted statement is that it presupposes that everything “CAN BE” known. I would maintain it is not at all clear that the sum total of the Universe can be known. Einstein certainly believed that it could and this belief was perhaps his biggest stumbling block.
“The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.” Patent Office Commissioner, Henry Ellsworth in a report to Congress in 1843.
Jacobsen: How does this differ from the modern sciences inasmuch as changes happened to the epistemologies and practical applications of the sciences, including fine points of crucial detail such as peer review?
Sorensen: It differs, that in their origins, it was inconceivable that something different from the natural sciences would be considered as science, therefore the technical applications derived contextually from these, and especially the epistemology deduced from them, had a systemic consistency which allowed their progress, both from a theoretical and technological point of view. Nevertheless, as modernity progressed, the path went through post-modernity, and entered into an era that I will denominate post-paradigmatic era, which as such among other things has just begun, and has demonstrated as a matter of fact, that science by itself, has evolved paradoxically and dissociatively, since on the one hand, it is possible to verify a coherent and forceful theoretical and technical development, in relation to the classical sciences, which to a certain extent, reached a limit that forces a questioning and redefinition of their object as observable phenomena of study, and consequently to a rethinking of the scientific method in itself, and on the other hand, what is verified is a scientific setback, when it’s examined over time, what has happened with the development of pseudosciences, and with their pretension of being or of becoming science, which although regarding that status they demonstrate the contrary, they continue to consider themselves as science and to seek scientific reputability. I think that the last, is what has occurred fundamentally with the so-called social sciences, which as other pseudoscientific disciplines, they have productively developed numerous theoretical models, that lack a methodological correlation, able to support them with their apparent ground-breaking discoveries and with their truly useless contributions. The lasting, has resulted in technical applications, that operate practically almost exclusively by trial and error, and that have derived nominalistically speaking, in hollow epistemologies, which when analyzed as a whole, I consider that determine scientific failures. If the aforementioned is visualized in perspective, and a conclusion by synthesis is extracted from it, then I think, that it may be possible to propose, that science, in terms of what would be a truly qualitative leap, what it currently needs, is a scientific revolution, not from the point of view of the search for new paradigms, but instead through the exploration of other dimensions of consciousness, which in a functional sense, means to enrich the digital thought, though they might be intellectually intuitive, through what I will name the analogical perceptions.
Kirkpatrick: The organization and systematization of the sciences have advanced precipitously. The methods not so much so. Aristotle delineated the lines of reasoning and most of the advancement since then have been footnotes. The biggest changes from ancient science are that there should be no more references to the supernatural in the study of science. No one sees an effect and yells, “The Hand of GOD!” For the earliest users of science, magic and science were the same things. Even today, sufficiently advanced science seems like magic to the person who does not understand it.
Jacobsen: To a field without a unifying framework for knowledge, psychology is and is not a science by all appearances. Yet, it’s one of the big ways to study human nature, outside of, maybe, incisive literature or something like this. What is human nature as defined by you?
Sorensen: I think that if what is intended to be studied is human nature, but in a more encompassing and comprehensive sense, rather than in a reductive manner, then it is more appropriate to do so from what would be for me a sort of philosophical anthropology, than from what would be a psychological field, since I will define human nature, as a material body endowed with a rational substance, where its intelligents acts as mind and soul simultaneously, while its eternality, leads it to transcend to what I will denominate as a spirit in being.
Kirkpatrick: The question might be better formulated from “To a field without a unifying framework for knowledge, psychology is and is not a science by all appearances,” should be, “To a field without an UNDERSTOOD unifying framework for knowledge, psychology is and is not a science by all appearances.” Human nature has many meanings. Plato thought that humans were rational animals, and he felt our nature was defined by our souls and the ability to reason rather than physical effects from our bodies. Aristotle disagreed and thought that both body and soul contributed to our human nature. Trying to differentiate our nature from some type of science is a mistake. Science is the sum total of all reality and nothing exists outside of it. Psychology and human nature (why one acts) is simply one of the most complex sciences since the subject of its study, the practical applications of the processing of the human brain, is one of the most complex areas of science due to our almost total lack of understanding of Consciousness.
Human nature is that attribute which differentiates humans from other things. Most likely, it is sentience. And I firmly believe that as we build Artificial Intelligence which comes closer and closer to humans, one will see this AI taken on elements of “Human Nature.”
Jacobsen: Why is there a lack of a unifying framework about human nature, about the entire makeup of a human being?
Sorensen: There is a lack of a unifying framework, because the operational aspects of human nature are evident, and therefore there is a general consensus regarding those properties, nevertheless due to the fact that the origin of these aspects is not evident, then there exists a discrepancy with respect to them. In consequence if it is not factible, due to etiological reasons, to combine the operational factors with their causes or principles as a unique definition, neither is then possible to arrive to what I will name a noetic consensus of human nature.
Kirkpatrick: Because there is a lack of a unifying framework about everything we know; in the same way there is a lack of unifying framework in the understanding of the nature of energy and matter. No single branch of science has a truly unifying framework; just a framework more unifying than the framework that come before.
Jacobsen: How might, or are, the sciences converging and providing some deep insights into this?
Sorensen: I think this would be possible, as long as sciences without feeling threatened, are capable of questioning themselves, about the possibility of studying phenomena that are not observable through any medium, which are additionally not experimentally replicable, and that can be of a single occurrence, thus opening up to the study of other realities, that although are not empirical, and may require a methodological readjustment, can nevertheless allow sciences to arrive at valid knowledge, which at least they can approximate asymptotically, that is to say ideally towards the truth.
Kirkpatrick: This question shows us it is appropriate to remember that science is the study of reality. Differing fields of science study different aspects of reality. In this way sciences must converge since all science is the study one thing. A good example is illustrated by the scientific fields of chemistry and physics. The earliest chemists were alchemists, which tried to understand the different constituents of matter and how these interacted. Likewise, builders and soothsayers became early physicists as astrology morphed into Astronomy and construction needed engineering principles. As the chemists learned more about their field, they notice that much of the fine details are solidly in the realm of physics and vice versa. It is not that sciences are converging, it is that our understanding of the compartments of reality lead us to door that open into other compartments of reality as we try and get the big picture.
Appendix I: Footnotes
[1] Christian is a Philosopher that comes from Belgium. What identifies him the most and above all is simplicity, for everything is better with “vanilla flavour.” Perhaps, for this reason, his intellectual passion is criticism and irony, in the sense of trying to reveal what “hides behind the mask,” and give birth to the true. For him, ignorance and knowledge never “cross paths.” What he likes the most in his leisure time, is to go for a walk with his wife.
[2] Kirk is an American businessman.
[3] Individual Publication Date: October 1, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/kirkpatrick-sorensen-1; Full Issue Publication Date: January 1, 2021: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.
*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.
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