Value Science in a Nutshell Continued

Introduction:

They say it takes a village to raise a child. What about a healthy mind? Is today’s “mother of all minds” (variously called “climate-of-opinion,” “spirit-of-the-times,” “zeitgeist,” and weltanschauung) capable of producing healthy minds? Do we need a science of right and wrong, nice and nasty and good and evil to cultivate individual and collective mental health?

Hope Beyond Good and Evil:

Research suggests that beyond good and evil there is tomorrow’s science today. It is the science of values and morals, and it offers more hope for the future than Nietzsche’s discovery of Social Darwinism (i.e., survival of the fittest) beyond good and evil.

Danger Beyond Evolution:

History suggests that today’s natural science and technology is a risky business. Making matters worse is the revolution in biology called Synthetic Biology. Scientists don’t agree on what life is, but they’re manipulating the “software of life.” DNA is being redesigned, reprogrammed and reengineered to create artificial life beyond natural selection which is the “engine” of evolution. In the wrong hands, manufactured life is grist for the mill of terrorism. Such developments, plus weapons of mass destruction in the hands of moral pigmies and discontents, are threats to the rest of us. With this sobering context in mind, I give you Part II of “value science in a nutshell.”

The Metaphor:

Given the pace of technical and social change, we had better learn to resist the dumbing down of science, but this doesn’t stop me from trying to simplify recent developments in value science. The subject is challenging and I need the help of an analogy or metaphor of biblical proportions. Even so, that of “the map and the territory” will have to do.

Back in my college days, I read with interest Alfred Korczybski’s (1879–1950) Science and Sanity and Wendell Johnson’s (1906–1965) People in Quandaries. I was impressed with their use of “the map and the territory” metaphor when it came to advancing the field of General Semantics, which is the science of communication. Years later, I would hear my mentor acknowledge the influence of General Semantics on his development of a new system of cognitive psychology for clinicians treating patients.

I recently discovered that Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank and a follower of Ayn Rand in the days of my internship at the Ellis Institute, had published a book entitled The Map and The Territory. I thought: “must I abandon my metaphor?” The book deals with the Great Recession of 2008, the potential for irrational capital markets, and the dismal science of economics. I’m interested in the dismal science of psychology, and the birth of a science important to both economics and psychology. I decided to stick with the metaphor comforted by the belief that it had become fashionable. Will it work for me in what follows? You be the judge!

The Nutshell:

Before GPS came along, we relied on road maps. If the map “fit” the territory we travelled successfully. This is not always the case as seen with early Google Maps. The accuracy of any map varies with how well it “fits” the territory. Results range from a match-up to a mix-up.

Mental maps are abstractions which selectively capture necessary and sufficient information while omitting details. Such maps are concepts or constructs in our heads formed by the faculties of sensation, perception, memory and cognitive processing. For example, the conceptual map of a “tree” doesn’t represent all properties of the “physical tree.” If there is a high degree of correspondence (correlation) between the properties of the conceptual tree inside our skins, and the physical tree outside our skins, we say the map is isomorphic with respect to the territory and vice versa. In this case, “vice versa” is a big deal! The cognitive processing of the map-territory relationship goes both ways. The map-to-territory (map-to-fact) relationship is the logic of natural science, and the reversed territory-to-map (i.e., fact-to-map) relationship is logic of value science. Flipping the metaphor represents the difference between value science and natural science. Natural science finds “truth” in map-to-territory (i.e., map-to-fact) relationships that also exhibit explanatory, descriptive and predictive powers establishing the validity and reliability of the map (1). Natural science asks “does the map fit the territory” at the level of validity and reliability. Value science asks “does the territory fulfill the meaning of its corresponding map.” Fulfilling the meaning of the map is the essence of value science. It involves valuecentric cognitive processing under the influence of Hartman’s operational definition of “good,” which is the axiom of value science. It asserts that “anything good” is map-fulfillment or concept-fulfillment (2).

The Meaning of “Axiom” in the Present Discussion:

The axiom of value science is where reason, logic and mathematics begin. It begins with Hartman’s definition of “good” crafted to exclude circular reasoning or Moore’s “naturalistic fallacy.” The axiom of value science isn’t a self-evident truth of the sort encountered in geometry. It is the premise on which Hartman’s value theory is founded. The proof is not to be found in reason. The proof is to be found in the “empirical pudding” of carefully executed tests and measurements.

Fit and Fulfillment:

“Fit” and “fulfillment” mean different things, and the difference makes a huge difference. “Fit’ refers to the correlation of properties between map and territory. If it isn’t isomorphic it is adjusted or discarded. In value science, if isomorphism prevails and the territory “fulfills” the meaning of its map, then the territory is said to have value and is seen as “something good.” Consider the example of a chair: if a physical chair (the territory) has four legs, a knee-high seat, and a back, it is considered a “good” chair because it fulfills the meaning or definition of a chair: this is the domain of value science. In natural science, if isomorphism prevails and the map possesses explanatory, descriptive and predictive powers, then the map is said to be “true to fact' ("true to territory), and a “verified" and "valid" source of knowledge of the territory in question. .

Summarizing:

1. Natural science focuses on the map-to-territory relationship. Such maps are generated with reason, logic and mathematics. They assume many forms ranging falsifiable hypotheses to elegant theories, and they are tested for validity and reliability employing empirical methods. Natural science asks if the map fits the territory in a manner that clearly demonstrates descriptive, explanatory and predictive powers.

2. Value science focuses on the reverse ordering of territory-to-map relations. Its focus is on fulfillment and not validity. Value science asks “does the territory fulfill the meaning of its corresponding map or concept?” The question asks does the territory satisfy the axiom of value science which is Hartman’s operational definition of “good.” This is the signature, valuecentric, cognitive processing of value science. Both systems of science build on isomorphism, but with a twist involving the validity of maps vs. the fulfillment of territories.

3. Is the map true-to-fact or false-to-fact? This is a natural science question. Is the territory true-to-fulfillment or false-to-fulfillment? This is a value science question. The operative distinction is map-to-fact vs. fact-to-map. The former ranges from true-to-fact to false-to-fact based on empirical evidence. The latter ranges from true-to-fulfillment or false-to-fulfillment based on map or concept fulfillment as defined by the axiom of value science. The territory may include the “self” inside our skin, the other “self” outside our skin, and the “world” outside our skin.

4. Natural science reached for values and morals over the years but never touched them. It has given us creature comforts with unsustainable practices that threaten humankind and the planet (5). Value science will compliment natural science and save it from itself while saving humankind from itself.

Paradigm Shift:

The flipped metaphor yields two perspectives defining two systems of science. Value science is a basic science. It deals with the underlying “mechanisms” of structural-values, functional-valuations, and moral reasoning. It deals with cognitive “mechanisms” not behavioral “content.” Value science contributes values clarification, values appreciation, and values measurement enabling a deeper understanding of the behavioral “content” of ethics and religious morality. It also provides a foundation for culture-free moral education. The shift in cognitive processing from map-to-territory to territory-to-map is a paradigm shift of the sort discussed in Thomas Kuhn book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). Value science is a scientific revolution because we can’t get from “old” natural science to “new” value science without a revolution in science. In this case it is based on the transparent Hartman-Pomeroy Project; applied, proprietary Entrepreneural Projects; and the Scholarship and Editorial Projects of John Davis, Ph.D., Rem Edwards, Ph.D., Colonel Frank Forrest, Ph.D., and Arthur Ellis, Ph.D., who is no relation to Albert Ellis, Ph.D. In addition there are the Institute Projects consisting of the American Hartman Institute (RSHI), with resources on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and Branch Institutes in Germany and Mexico. This paradigm shift and collaboration of participants around the world is inspired by Professor Robert S. Hartman’s theory of value (2).

Conclusion:

Humankind has long considered the mysteries of “truth,” “beauty,” and “goodness” without fully understanding them. Poet John Keats explored the meaning of “truth” and “beauty” in Ode to a Grecian Urn which concludes as follows:

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

This poetic vision appeals to the imagination, but not science. Like natural science, Keats’ omits “goodness,” which sticks out like a sore thumb. As for “beauty is truth and truth is beauty,” we might have an example in the philosophy of industrial design that commands “form must follow function.” With respect to cars and airplanes this principle appears consistent with Keats’ poetic vision of “beauty is truth and truth is beauty.” However, today’s cars violate this aesthetic principle and resemble “bubbles” and “boxes” among tasteless high rise buildings of glass and steel dotting urban landscapes. How often does “form must follow function” deliver aesthetic “beauty?” Is there no explaining taste?

When it comes to the relationship between “truth and beauty,” Keats is living in the two-dimensional world of natural science where “truth and beauty” are blind to “goodness.” The world is three dimensional and involves “truth,” “beauty,” and “goodness,” as seen through the prisms of Feeler, Doer, and Thinker dimensions of value enabling corresponding thought-styles, belief systems, and emotions (4).

History and value science suggest that “truth isn’t goodness” and “goodness isn’t truth.” There is more we need to know! Were it otherwise, we would be living in a better, safer world; for to know “truth” would have revealed “goodness” in compelling ways. It would have been great if Keats’ poetic vision were a law of nature. If that were so, then natural science might have evolved differently. Instead, we would better have two systems of science; for “truth isn’t goodness and goodness isn’t truth,” and that is what we need to know.

Natural science has seduced us with creature comforts. It has reached for values without touching them. It has produced unsustainable practices threatening humankind and the planet (5). We’ve experienced natural science without the checks and balances of a science of values and morals which has given us a civilization where humankind finds it easier to organize evil than good in the world, and there you have my presentation of “value science in a nutshell.”

© Dr. Leon Pomeroy, Ph.D.

SEASONS GREETINGS (6)

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Notes:

1-Science doesn’t deal in absolutes or certainties. Truth concerns persisting uniformities or laws of nature. They are often limited as to their range-of-convenience such that a truth to the naked eye might not apply under the microscope, or a truth on earth may not apply beyond earth.

2-See previous blog entitled “Value Science in a Nutshell: Part I.” See also Robert Hartman’s “The Structure of Value,” and autobiographical “Freedom to Live.” See books listed at www.hartmaninstitute.org

3-Natural Science is losing any moral authority it might have acquired. It is the subject of a rising tide of public cynicism concerning science in general…here and abroad. More than ever, young people ask “where is the soul of science;” indeed the soul of civilization?” Isolated natural science blinds us to the need for capitalism with socialism and socialism with capitalism. The asymmetric evolution of natural science without moral science may have distorted societal institutions including Supreme Court decisions in ways that need study. The future of value science includes sponsoring culture-free moral education in schools and colleges, and moral education to bridge the divide between science and religion and between humanism and science which is discussed in The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution by C.P. Snow (1959).

4-See previous blogs dealing with how values are organized around three dimensions of value-vision giving rise to related thought-styles and levels of consciousness (e.g. “Holiday Stress” Blog).

5-See previous blog entitled “The Ultimate Evil”

6-See previous blog entitled “Holiday Stress”

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