One dominant inherited assumption is that thinking takes place
only in language; that is, that language is the medium of
thinking. This is a very difficult subject to deal with because,
despite claims to the contrary, some people (Einstein is most
quoted witness) maintain that they think in images, others in
sounds, others in some combination of shapes, colors, textures,
even odor and taste. Until now, no one could conclusively prove
whether this is a way of speaking or a fact. But the same can be
said of language. That we can express thoughts, sometimes
frustratingly incomplete, in language does not necessarily mean
that we think in language, or only in language. That language is
a medium for explanation and interpretation, well adapted to
support incomplete inductions or deductions, and sometimes
hypothetical thinking (so-called abductions), is not necessarily
the proof that it is the only one. Scientists think in the
language of mathematical or logical formalism, or in some of the
new programming languages, even if they do not carry on dialogue
or try to write poetry or love letters in such languages.
Literacy, as a socially encompassing ideal, states that people
should be literate because people think in language.
Accordingly, proper use of language, as set forth in the rules
of literacy, is a premise for successful thinking. Besides
introducing circularity-the premise turns out to be the
conclusion-this is a strong assumption, with too many
implications for science and for philosophy to be left
unchallenged. The assumption was never entirely proven; and it
is probably impossible to prove, given the strong connection
between all signs participating in thinking processes. Images
call up words, but so do odors, flavors, textures, and sounds.
Words recall or trigger images, music, etc. The integrated
nature of thinking is probably affected by mechanisms of
voluntary decision-making or by genetic mechanisms structured to
accept a certain sign system (language, mathematical formalism,
diagrams) as dominant, without precluding modes of thought
different from those resulting from the premise of literacy.
If defining thinking as language processing resulted in human
experiences possible only under this assumption, there are also
other ways to define thinking which, in turn, may become, if
they haven't yet, necessary and beneficial. In this respect, one
question can be raised: Are thinking machines, i.e., programs
able to autonomously perform operations we associate with human
thinking, excluded from the discussion because they do not
qualify as literate? Many scientific endeavors of our time would
not have started if potential success were to be put to a
literacy test. The area of new materials, able to fix
themselves, and of machines resulting from self-assembly belong
among our examples. Fortunately, science based on alternative
practical human experiences, fairly independent of language and
literacy, discovered that there are alternative ways to define
thinking, and rationality, for that matter. Considering thinking
together with other human traits, such as emotion, sense of
humor, aesthetics, the ability to project ideas through various
media, senses or languages will probably lead to even more
daring scientific research.
Before considering alternative ways to define thinking and the
relation between rationality and human reason, let us look at
the characteristics of thinking in current praxis, science and
philosophy included. The amount of language we need to function
in the workplace and in social life has diminished in comparison
to previous circumstances of human experience. If thinking took
place only in language, that would mean that thinking itself has
diminished. Very few people would be inclined to accept this
conclusion. The small subset of language used in social life and
in professional interaction is representative of the segmented
nature of this life and of the interactions it supports. This
small subset of language, the command of which does not require
literacy skills, is composed of social stereotypes, but is not
sufficient to constitute a medium for thinking. Parallel to the
diminished subset of natural language, the languages of science
and technology expanded as expectations of scientific and
technological efficiency increased. Expressions in the small
subset of natural language that people use in order to function
are generated regardless of the requirement of variety and
change in our reciprocal relations. As canned expressions of
limited function, they are taken over from previous
circumstances, and used independently of what once determined
their need. Chances are that an illiterate neighbor will never be
noticed since everything pertaining to the social status of such
a neighbor is literacy independent: driving, washing clothes,
cooking, banking, telephoning, watching television, connecting
to the Internet. The trained illiterate can perform these tasks
and those pertinent to work perfectly without ever displaying a
literacy handicap. No doubt that the new machines, new
materials, new foods, and new medicines that are more at the
frontiers of science than in the mainstream of living and working
will further affect the need and possibility of a civilization
dominated by more than one of its means of expression and
communication.
People can function as illiterates in societies of extreme
specialization without being noticed as illiterates and without
affecting the efficiency of the system to which they belong
because their own involvement in the functioning of the world in
which they live is changing. Illiterate rationality is no less
goal oriented than any other rationality. It is just expressed
through other means. And it is no less concerned with predicting
the behavior of systems driven by languages of extreme
functionality, working regardless of the literacy of the
operators. Scientific literacy is either stored in skills,
through training, or in the systems operated by people who know
less about their functioning than the machines themselves.
Symptoms such as misuse of words, sloppy language and grammar,
use of stereotypes, the inability and even unwillingness to
sustain dialogue might be telling something about thinking,
too-for instance, that forms of thinking based on sign systems
other than language are more effective, or more appropriate to
what people do in our days; or even that appropriateness in one
particular sign system does not translate into appropriateness
and effectiveness in another practical experience. No wonder
that science, in addition to reasons implicit in the nature of
scientific inquiry, shies away from language, from its
imprecision, ambiguity, and tendency to coalesce in stereotypes,
or become stereotypes under circumstances of patterned use.
Philosophy, by and large, follows the same tendency, although
its alternatives are not comparable to those of science. The
experience of science, and to a more limited degree that of
philosophy, is simultaneously an experience in generating
language capable of handling continuity, vagueness, and fuzzy
relations. Spatial reasoning and replication of phenomena,
usually associated with the living as aspects of common-sense
knowledge, are also constitutive of the new science.
Extremely specialized human practical experiences are no longer
predominantly experiences based on knowledge, but on
constituting the person as information integrator. The
continuous diminution of the need to think corresponds to the
extreme segmentation of work and to the successful technological
integration of various partial contributions resulting from this
highly efficient segmented and mediated work. In one's
individual life, in activities pertinent to self-maintenance
(nourishment, rest, hygiene, enjoyment), the process is the
same. Thinking is focused on selection: cooking one from many
pre-processed meals at home, dressing in one from among many
ready- made clothing items, living in pre-fabricated homes,
washing objects in programmed machines. But the objects embody
someone else's thinking. The reified thinking projected into
gene manipulation, materials, and machines leads to a reduction
of live thinking. People integrate themselves in the information
network, and for a greater part of their existence they act as
information processors: heat something until it pops; snap or
zip to close; press a button that will adjust water temperature
and wash cycle according to the type of clothes. More generally,
people rely on the living machine that adapts to the user,
re-assembles itself as requirements change, and/or fixes itself.
Rationality is more and more integrated in the technology; thus
it is rationalized away from the process of individual
self-constitution. As tremendous as the consequences can be,
they will be infinitely more dangerous if we do not start
thinking about them.
Technology at this level uncouples the past from the present.
Consequently, life and actual existence are alienated.
Individuals do not have to think, they have to integrate
themselves into the program embodying high efficiency
rationality and reason. Today, knowledge of what goes into food,
how preparation affects its qualities, what makes for a good
shirt or sweater, what makes for a good house, what it means to
wash, and how a material is affected by certain chemicals and
water temperatures are rendered irrelevant. What matters is the
result, not the process. What counts is efficiency, not
individual know-how. Thinking is detached from thinking in the
sense that all thinking, and thus rationality, is embodied
outside the self-constituted human being. The appearance is that
this outside thinking and this outside rationality have a life of
their own. Memetic mechanisms are a testimony to the process.
In the civilization of illiteracy, we experience not only the
benefits of high efficiency, but also the self-perpetuating
drive of new pragmatic means. At times it appears that humans do
not compete for achieving higher levels of creativity and
productivity. Affluence appears as a given that takes over the
need to match efficiency expectations characteristic of the
global scale of humankind. To keep pace with technological
progress and with scientific renewal becomes a rationale in
itself, somehow disconnected from human reason. The confusing
rationality of ever- increasing choices is matched by the
frustrating realization that value options literally disappear,
leaving no room for sensible reasoning. As a result, social and
political aspects of human existence are short circuited, in
particular those affecting the status of science and the
condition of philosophy. Frequently, research is questioned as to
whether its goals make sense at all. Only 15 years ago, half of
the population in the USA suspected that science and the
technology it fosters were the cause rather than the cure of
many problems faced in the country, social problems included. The
balance changed, but not the attitude of those captive to
literacy's goals and values, who oppose science and the
humanities instead of seeing them in their necessary, although
contradictory, unity.
Quo vadis science?