Dark Energy and the Ethics of Curiosity

Roger F MalinaObservatoire Astronomique de Marseille

Provence (OAMP)Leonardo/ISAST: International Society for

the Arts-Sciences-Technology

A couple of confessions:

• I am a positivisto Critical realist, constructivist o World exists, is knowableo Reliance on the senses and their extensionso Scientific method

• I am an atheisto Emergence in complex systems

Concordance Model of Cosmology:Big Bang..Re-ionisation..Large scale

structure..stars and galaxies..planets..life

The Dark Universe:A billion pound Scientific Controversy

• Astronomers now believe only 3% of the content of the universe is made of the same stuff as us.

• And maybe Einstein’s Theory of Gravity needs to be modified, is wrong on large scales

• And, Or ?

Dark Matter

• 1/3 Dark Matter, whose gravity holds together the structures we see

2/3 is Dark Energy that drives the acceleration of the expansion of the universe

A satellite to study dark energy and dark matter

• Massive collection of data• A international scientific

collaboration• Total End to End cost: 1

billion pounds• Womb to Tomb schedule:

1998- 2018 ? 20 years…• Ten different research labs

and universities• 80 person core

collaboration already..hundreds

• Societal Limits to curiosity

Three linked approaches within the scientific method that stop curiosity

• Explanation through New Physical « Laws »:o Compact Descriptions of the Worldo Experiments on the worldo Modified Gravity, Quintessence

• Simulations: o Virtual Worlds that mimic our Worldo Retrodiction vs Prediction

• Pattern Recognition:o « Petabyte » era, Massive Cataloguing, Virtual

Observatorieso Doing experiments on data about the worldo Extrapolation vs Explanation…The End of Theory…

When does one stop looking ?

• What is the limit of curiosity ?o Scientist: When one has a tested explanation that makes

senseo Artist: When one has generated an experience that creates

meaning/changes perception/realised self expression• What kinds of explanations make sense ?

o Scientist: When we are dealing with epistemologies/ontologies that are commensurate with our current science

o Artist: When it is relevant to the human condition and experience. Individual and shared ..intensity

• Is there an ethics of curiosity ?o Science and the Ethics of Curiosity, Sundar Sarukkai, 2009o Most Scientists would say: Noo Most Artists would say: Yes

Curiosity as a driver of technology:“Most” of the content of the Universe is

“unobservable”• Not observable with unaided human

senses• Not observable with existing

technologies:o Augmented senseso Extended Senseso New senses

• Not observable because of measurement method

• Theoretically unobservable• Conceptually Unobservable

Sensory paradox:

• Most of our information about the universe now comes in ways, contexts where we have no basis for intuition, language, metaphorical frameworks.

• These devices « hallucinate » in ways with which we have no experience. How to do « ground truth » experiments ?

• How to decide what to be curious about ?

New Senses:Gravitational Wave Observatories

LIGO in USA VIRGO in Italy

New senses: The Antares Neutrino Observatory under the

Mediterranean

What path to take through the universe ?cf Cheese Diagram Guardans, Czegledy

SLOW........................................................................................................

• FAST• SMALL               OUR SIZE                           LARGE

Scientific Curiosity

• Scientific curiosity is ‘pure’, driven by a child like desire to understand ourselves and the world around uso Pure Science vs Applied Scienceo Note: Fine Art vs Applied Art

• Curiosity does not accept authority, but relies on confrontation of hypotheses/meanings with experiments/experience.o No function of ‘science critic’ cf ‘art critic”

Ethos of Scientific Curiositycf Bunge 2006, Morton

• Intellectual Honesty

• Integrity

• Epistemic Communism

• Organized skepticism

• Dis-interestedness

• Impersonality

• Universality

Towards an Ethics of Curiositycf Sundar Sarukkai: Science and the Ethics of Curiosity 2009

• Curiosity is embodied• Curiosity is enacted• Curiosity is cultural• Curiosity is social• Curiosity is collective

• The claimed distinction between “pure” and “applied” science is not sustainable

• In some cultures, eg some Indian traditions, doubt rather than curiosity is a dominant driver ( cf Descartes)

• “Beware of binary oppositions” !

Curiosity is embodied:Varela: All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower

Stelarc Char Davies

Curiosity is enactiveeg Marcel.li Antunez Roca

Richard Feynman: What I cannot create, I cannot understand

Curiosity is SocialMarco Peljham and Makrolab

Curiosity is CulturalSaint Augustine:

It was curiosity led me along the false trails before submitting to christian baptismsFrancis Bacon: It is Charity that must motivate the knower, not curiosityDonna Cox                                                     Ruth WestWeather Data Bases                                   Protein Sequence Data

Curiosity is collective:Frank Malina/WAC corporal team: first man man object in space 1947

• Alan Lightman:

• Individual scientists are not emotionally detached from their work, it is through their collective activity that objectivity emerges

Modern Science doesn’t make common sense

• New scientific knowledge comes through the use of instruments that have contact with a world that is not our worldo Our languages, metaphors, descriptions are

disconnected from these worldso We are trained on the wrong data set for survival

• Einstein:” The universe of ideas is just as independent of the nature of our experience as clothes are of the form of the human body”

• Science has become a cargo cult

Science as a Terrain for Art

• Forming intuition on mediated sensory data

• Designing/Interacting with simulated systems• Making sense/meaning of dense data,

petabyte era

• Making Science Intimate, Peoples Science, Micro Science

• New Ontologies, New Intuitions,New Sensuality

Curiosity:D’ou venons nous ?Que Sommes Nous ?Ou Allons Nous ?

Ethics of Curiosity: “the nature of the task of the “ought’ is the other-directedness of the “is”