The Marriage of Sense and Thought

“It is generally accepted that science entails an effort to be ‘objective.’ But it is not generally realized that such science is based upon assumed notions concerning the nature of the universe, notions settled upon before any description or discussion even begins. The most primary and obvious of such notions is that the universe consists essentially of ‘objects.’” (from the book)

Having imagined a machine-like world, scientists now haunt this machine uneasily. Their plight is paradoxical: they have realized their world only through intense mental effort, yet this effort finds no legitimate place in the world it so painstakingly comprehends. It seems “objectivity” comes only at a cost. Why, for example, is science unable to describe a smile? Why is the moral life of a physicist regarded as one’s own private affair?

This exclusion of human qualities from science has both practical and theoretical consequences. If we systematically imagine a world in which human beings do not exist, we will eventually create a world in which they cannot exist.

Reclaiming the human sources of scientific insight, the authors of this book restore scientists to the world given by science and celebrate the joyous marriage of sense and thought.

“Scientists see the world as a machine, which they haunt like ghosts. Since the idea of a detached observer seems to call for attentiveness, but otherwise for no mental work, the scientist is actually a rather passive ghost. Yet one of the experiences common to all scientists is that of intense mental work—indeed, work that takes place within the mind, the very realm with no existence in the objective universe.” (from the book)