News Release

This is how scientific structure will be revolutionized

Book Announcement

World Scientific

The Revolutions of Scientific Structure

image: This image shows 'The Revolutions of Scientific Structure.' view more 

Credit: Copyright © 2014. Terence Hales. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission.

What if you were shown that science has been operating brilliantly, but is logically compromised because in the late 1980s, science started doing the impossible: a science of the scientific observer. Impossible science – the science of consciousness – done by a science framework unaware of the nature of the impossibility it targets and devoid of the necessary self governance to address it.

What if you were shown that the traditionally posed most important questions for science (1) What is the universe made of? and (2) What is the biological basis of consciousness?, in being posed separately, are actually causing the questions to remain indefinitely posed and unanswered?

What if you were shown that science, as it is currently carried out, never actually explains anything? That is, it never supplies the 'ghost in the machine' that necessitates that the universe unfolds the way it does. Not because it is impossible ... but merely because we never tried, get trained not to and never review that position.

What if you were shown that the same science problem was also behind the >50 year failure of artificial general intelligence because of the use of computers?

In his World Scientific book "The Revolutions of Scientific Structure", the third in a series on machine consciousness, author Dr Colin G. Hales ties all these symptoms together and presents them as a discovery, by science, about the natural world that is the human scientist. Using the guiding insights of influential philosopher Thomas Kuhn throughout, the book's analysis places science literally at the cusp of a major developmental transformation. It is already happening. The book merely gets us to sit up and pay attention.

The book reveals, in formal detail, how fully expressed scientific behaviour actually has two faces, like the Roman god Janus. Currently we only use one, and it is properly documented by the book for the first time. Where some scientists accidentally use the other, the two faces are shown to be confused as one. There are actually two fundamental kinds of 'laws of nature' that jointly account for the one underlying natural world. The recognition and addition of the second kind, the 'Structure-Aspect', is the book's proposed transformation of science.

The upgraded framework is called 'Dual Aspect Science' and is posited as the adult form of science that had to wait for computers before it could emerge a fully formed butterfly from its millennial larval form that is single (appearance)–aspect science. Only 'Structure-Aspect' computation can scientifically reveal the principles underlying the nature of consciousness – in the form of the consciousness that is/underlies scientific observation.

In 1962 Thomas Kuhn held up a mirror to scientists. In that mirror are scientific outcomes as they appear down the centuries. This book again holds up that mirror, but this time we see ourselves as science outcome producers. In that mirror we can see, for the first time, what we are and must be to fully account for nature, including ourselves. When we do that it becomes clear that we are in an anomalous state that cannot last.

This outcome affects all scientists, all science disciplines and the lay public. Initially, however, neuroscience and physics are those that, together, have the responsibility for the empirical work needed for the introduction of Dual-Aspect science.

Fifty years ago Mother Nature handed us the keys (computers) to what the book identifies as the 'Dual-Aspect Science' car. Time to start the engine that is the science of scientists. The revolution is the 2nd, and fundamentally the last, of two.

###

This research was supported by the Neuroengineering Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne. Australia.

More information on this title can be found at: http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/9211#t=aboutBook


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.