In an era defined by relentless progress and unprecedented challenges, it is no secret that humanity has developed an insatiable appetite for seeking scientific solutions to its myriad problems. From unravelling the mysteries of the cosmos to deciphering the complexities of our own bodies, science has become the beacon of hope, promising to illuminate the path towards a brighter future. But what if science leads us astray? What if we need less science rather than more of it? Perhaps our human symbolism has more power than we give it credit.
Let’s carry out a fun little thought experiment. Here is a highly scientific account of a mundane event:
We observe an instance of elastic collision involving two spherical objects, which we shall refer to as objects A and B for simplicity. These objects possess similar physical properties and have a significant mass compared to their surrounding environment. Object A is set in motion, traveling at a certain initial velocity, while object B remains at rest.
As object A approaches object B, we can analyze the collision through classical mechanics and the principles of conservation of momentum and kinetic energy. The impact between the two objects is governed by a variety of physical forces.
Initially, both objects experience no forces except for their own inherent gravitational force, which is negligible given their small masses. As object A comes into proximity of object B, electrostatic forces and repulsions between the electrons in the atoms of the two objects begin to arise. These forces originate from the fundamental interactions between charged particles and act to prevent interpenetration of the electron clouds of the objects.
When object A makes contact with object B, the repulsive forces reach their maximum magnitude due to the compression of the electron clouds. At this point, the objects experience a rapid deceleration due to the abrupt change in velocity. As a result, the kinetic energy of object A is transferred to object B, resulting in the transfer of linear momentum.
During the collision, a complex interplay of forces occurs at the atomic and subatomic levels. The atomic nuclei and electrons in both objects experience electromagnetic interactions, leading to intricate repulsive and attractive forces. These forces generate vibrations and deformations in the objects, causing them to briefly deviate from their ideal spherical shapes.
In terms of macroscopic motion, as a consequence of the conservation of momentum, object A experiences a change in velocity and direction. The direction of object A’s velocity after the collision is dependent on various factors, including the relative masses and velocities of the objects, as well as the angle and point of impact.
The collision between object A and object B is an elastic collision, implying that the total kinetic energy of the system is conserved. Although energy is transferred from object A to object B, the total energy of the system remains constant. This conservation arises from the absence of external forces acting on the system during the collision, such as friction or air resistance.
What you’ve just read translates into the following: a billiard ball hits another one on a pool table.
Imagine if humans did not possess any kind of symbolic concepts and could only view the world through a highly technically precise scientific lens. You couldn’t say “billiard ball” because the concept didn’t exist. And besides, it’s an arbitrary concept which is imprecise, since no two billiard balls have the exact same atomic composition and exact same shape. It is a very simplified description of reality, and doesn’t abide by strict scientific rigor. And thus imagine that whenever you wanted to communicate anything, describe anything or interact with anything, rather than using your symbolic representation of reality (which all humans do unconsciously on a daily basis), we saw reality through a strictly scientific lens, using ultra-precise accounts and descriptions for what we do. Our brain would probably fry the minute we would want to move our arm to pick up a glass of water to hydrate ourselves. Sorry, I mean to say:
The release of neurotransmitters leads to an influx of calcium ions within the muscle fiber. This increase in calcium concentration activates molecular processes that allow actin and myosin filaments to slide past each other, resulting in muscle contraction.
The contraction of individual muscle fibers is coordinated by motor units, which consist of a motor neuron and the muscle fibers it innervates. The precise recruitment of motor units allows for fine motor control and the generation of the necessary forces for movement.
As muscle fibers contract, they pull on tendons, initiating movement at the joints. This action is facilitated by the interaction between muscles spanning the joints, with opposing muscles functioning as antagonistic pairs. For example, in flexing the appendage, the flexor muscles contract, while the opposing extensor muscles relax, creating a controlled motion.
Simultaneously, sensory receptors within the muscles, tendons, and joints provide feedback to the central nervous system regarding the position and tension of the appendage. This feedback, known as proprioception, enables the organism to maintain awareness of the limb’s position in space and make necessary adjustments during the movement.
Throughout the process, blood vessels supply oxygen and nutrients to the muscles, ensuring their proper function during contraction. Metabolic waste products, such as carbon dioxide, are carried away from the muscles through the circulatory system for elimination.
And you must excuse my overly simplified account of this action. In the next 1 million page article, I will describe with great precision, the individual chemical reactions that happen during those few seconds, for each individual cell, which accounts for a human lifting up a glass of water to hydrate himself.
I hope you get the point. Human ability for symbolism creates a practical simplification of reality in order to ease the cognitive load that could come from too much information, focusing on the most effective way to achieve a certain goal. Science, on the other hand, is all about understanding the nitty gritty details of things, limited to examining only those events it can fit within an empirical framework of questioning.
As we are faced with huge issues such as climate change or environmental catastrophes, we may be tempted to fall back on science, and try to micro-manage the shift to a more sustainable future by producing millions upon millions of pages of technical reports which accurately depict a select tiny problem, to ensure that the scope of our research isn’t too broad, and identifying a feasible and empirically tested technical solution to that tiny problem. It’s the way we analyse pretty much anything, at our human level, including events at our level of reality such as the war between Russia and Ukraine. It’s as if you scratched your left hand using your right hand, and then your individual cells were writing million page reports detailing the harm that was done to each individual cell in your right hand, and a further million page reports on why your left hand is “evil” and how it should be punished. At your level of reality, as a human, all of that is irrelevant. What happened is easily explained and easily solved.
In other words, perhaps we need to completely rethink our approach. We are obsessed with complexity. People receiving the Nobel prize typically published millions of pages of complex theories, calculations and technical thinking that can only be understood by a select few. On the other hand, simplicity is confused for simplistic thinking. But this obsession with complexity might make us miss the elephant in the room, as we are too busy measuring all of the elephants’ constituent parts, its atomic make-up, failing to see what the overarching problem is.
Perhaps it is time that we harness the power of symbolism to address complex problems such as AI alignment or climate change.
