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The KUHNIAN description of the 2 modes of SCIENCE

Most of the scientific researchers, most of their time are engaged in a very conservative mode that is dedicated to developing the logical implications of the existing paradigm and implementing and demonstrating (and applying) them practice.

In this mode the scientific leadership is measured by:

• the depth and width of awareness of the present published work (I hesitate to call it knowledge or even information because it may contain misperceptions and just jargon: names for things that one does not really understand).
• the capability to formulate / articulate the dominating paradigm in an authoritative way and in causing colleagues to engage in its service.
• the amount of work one can associate one's name with.

Thus typically a scientific research field is a conceptually conservative and socially guild-like self-defending community .

If the scientific field is still valid and there is still a lot of useful work to be dome within it, then this is a very satisfactory situation.

If however for some reason the paradigm is inadequate or has exploited its interesting implications (and applications), the situation can become really nasty as described by Feynman's 'Straw Airplanes' metaphor: a scientific field may have all the external features of scientific research: peer community, professional associations, departments, grants, scholarships, journals, a developed professional jargon that takes 3 undergraduate years to only start using properly (and a PhD to master it completely) etc but produce nothing of real value. (careful to distinguish dead fields from living conservative fields).

From time to time, very rarely, a scientific field enters a 'revolutionary' period.

Note that even during revolutionary periods, most of the community and especially its established leaders are still in the 'steady mood'. In fact they are fiercely (and as they see it - loyally) defending their intellectual homeland (or as the others would put it fief).
At times this is a life-and-death confrontation as it literally was in the case of Boltzmann.

Moreover, as the history (/ science too) is written by the winners (/survivors), one would never know of all the scientific revolutions that were scientifically justified and failed on the ground of the social-political confrontations within the scientific community.

Usually we prefer to take the 'optimistic' view of Plank that stated that a new scientific paradigm wins not by the established scientists adopting it but rather by them passing away and the new generation leaving the old ways'

From the facts described above it turns out that even in the situations in which a scientific paradigm is marred by host of internal contradictions or systematically invalidated by empirical evidence, the scientific communities are capable to introduce complicated enough caveats and corrections that would allow a professionally (for that community) acceptable formulation of the problems only after a very significant investment in learning the current doctrina. The hope of such systems is that somebody that didn't lost stomach for so many years of studying the dominating paradigm will continue it after being invested with the powers and authorities to make decisions and changes.

The mere logical contradictions and miss-match with reality can then be hidden in all kind of scientifically looking terms that would throw the blame of the lack of knowledge/ professionalism of the 'profane'.

I would like to emphasize that fortunately, in my relatively wide interdisciplinary professional experience, the scary scenario above is a minority though not a negligible exception.

Yet we have to take care of it because it appears exactly where breakthroughs are likely / necessary.

On the opposite side, of course there are many cases in which one is not clear if a direction is a real revolution or a stunt. Moreover, a real revolution might start with not necessarily the final correct ideas (example of Bohr theory off the Hydrogen spectrum: 'it applied Monday , Wednesday and Friday the new 'quantum' ideas and the rest of the week the classical mechanics'). Yet the appropriate frame of mind can be as - again - Bohr said: 'young man your theory is crazy. And after a few moments thought: ' but not crazy enough to be true'.

On this background quite a number of the present ideas should be viewed: possibility and nature of nanotech devices, possibility of realistic artificial reality including universal simulation and visualization devices, possibility of software creation (and validation) of software, possibility of automatic model generation for generic input systems, possibility of artificially intelligent machines, possibility of artificial cells / living organisms, possibility of self-organizing enterprises / institutions, possibility that emergence is governed by fundamental laws similar with the ones governing fundamental science. Are these harmful myths or useful - if not realistic - starting points?

Before thinking of how to nourish and defend the new ideas, we have to think of ways to ascertain at least at some level - not 80% (because this is not insured even in established sciences) but at least at 20% its seriousness.

Feynman had - as always - a solution for this too: if a researcher cannot explain to a person in the street in 1 hour what he is doing, it means he does not know what he is doing' More seriously, the issue of having peer reviews for 'scientific revolutions' but not among the 'threatened' field is an open but very serious problem. Again, even 20% success rate of high risk PROJECTS is acceptable.

The problem of the quality control is other: If one has 80% low quality PEOPLE one will have a completely corrupted peer review community and consequently the intellectual collapse of that scientific community.

[insert here the many mechanisms by which high risk research communities may become (at least partially) havens for lesser researchers both as scientists and as behavior).

Thus the point is not to insist on the judgment of the project but on the success track of the proponent. This is not such a big change: in any case, even in standard disciplinary research the judgment by the peers is based on previous achievements rather then

what is actually proposed / promised for the 'future'. In high risk , by definition the future chances are not great (or estimable). The right way would be to just look at the personal track, status and achievements and recommendations the person got BEFORE he put himself on the spot by choosing the 'present' 'controversial' high risk project. In particular overt success in previous High Risk projects should be a strong factor. Also high regards of the researcher by a previous strong disciplinary community.

Supporting Complexity / Interdisciplinary research

'The world has problems;

The university has departments'

(anonymous)

- in reality / nature problems do not choose their correct conceptualization / formulation
and solution according to our pre-determined disciplinary frontiers.

- Some problems have solutions that fall outside the domain of the definition of the problem

Why is interdisciplinary research difficult?

• it requires a change in the frame of mind.
• It requires giving up ways of thinking and activities with which somebody got already used with.
• It requires learning many new and difficult things with no clear delimitation of what is necessary and what is sufficient to learn.
• It places one outside the range of a reference peer communy.
• It threatens the position of the disciplinary colleagues
• It makes one look unprofessional
• It makes one look as if one is acting and making (controversial) statements beyond its expertise area.
• It requires interaction with people which do no speak the same jargon. How would you react to somebody that claims that Latin originates from Sumerian but speaks very bad English and Italian?
• Brings one and one's students outside the circle of standard recognized job slices.

Another problem: the scientific status of a scientist and of a project in complexity is still judged by non-complexity specialists from the 'relevant fields'.

This has to change: there is enough peers that created interdisciplinary research that is worth in itself to have a normal real PEER review system for complexity.

(a new department?)

Otherwise, the ideal 'give the researchers themselves the power' is misplaced in this context: most of the very negative initial reactions to some ideas which then became accepted as very valuable came from disciplinarian peers.

Adisciplinary Greenhouses-> provisory sub-institutes

One cannot and need not establish a new institute each time a new idea seems to take off.

One has to find structures that can be established and dismantled in the contemporary rhythm of rising and falling / or fulfilling the potential of ideas. One has to find alternatives to the old heavy to build heavy to dismantle institutes without transforming the lives of the scientists into a continuous exam.

One should separate the issue of personal tenure from the one of the
continuity of subjects of study. Otherwise tenure becomes effective retirement.

The 'MORE IS DIFFERENT' transition often marks the conceptual boundaries between disciplines

-It helps to bridge them by addressing within a common conceptual framework the fundamental problems of one of them in terms of the collective phenomena of another.

MORE IS DIFFERENT is a new universal grammar with new interrogative forms allowing to express novel questions of a kind un-uttered until now

• We need to foster a new generation of bi- or multi-lingual scientists with this grammar as their mother-language.
• We need to recognize MORE IS DIFFERENT interdisciplinary expertise as a crucial tool for future research on equal footing with disciplinary professional expertise.
• Develop, reward and support Complexity approach as such.

'MORE IS DIFFERENT' is a fusion of knowledge rather then merely a juxtaposition of expertises implies a coordinated shift in the objectivesscope andethos
of the involved disciplines (including healing academic vs. technology / industry dichotomy)

Sometimes this caused opposition from some leaders of the affected disciplines which felt that the identity of their science is threatened
by this fusion and shift in scope.

=> To avoid conflict in the future, complexity should be given space and support
on its own right rather then sending it to beg or steal from the established disciplines.

Complexity Induced New relation:

• Theoretical Science
• Real Life Applications
• Traditional Applied Science applied hardware devices (results of experimental science) to material / physical reality.

Modern Complexity rather applies theoretical methods - new (self-)organization concepts and - (self-)adaptation emergence theories to real life, but not necessarily material / physical items:

• social and economic change,
• individual and collective creativity,
• the information flow in life

Applications of Complexity are thus of a new brand:

"Theoretical Applied Science" and should be recognized as such when evaluating their expected practical impact the depth and width of awareness of the present published work (I hesitate to call it knowledge or even information because it may contain misperceptions and just jargon: names for things that one does not really understand).

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