Sokal Hoax

Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity Author(s): Alan D. Sokal Source: Social Text, No.
46/47, Science Wars (Spring - Summer, 1996), pp. 217-252 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466856 . Accessed: 08/01/2014 15:33
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the Boundaries Transgressing

TOWARD A TRANSFORMATIVE HERMENEUTICS GRAVITY OF QUANTUM
boundaries... [is] a subversive since disciplinary Transgressing undertaking it is likely to violatethe sanctuariesof accepted ways of perceiving. Among the most fortified boundarieshave been those betweenthe naturalsciences and thehumanities. -Valerie Greenberg,Transgressive Readings of ideologyintocritical The struggle forthetransformation science ... prothatthe critiqueof all presuppositions of science ceeds on the foundation and ideologymustbe the onlyabsoluteprincipleof science. as Power Science -Stanley Aronowitz, There are many natural scientists,and especially physicists,who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural criticism can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to their research. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such criticism.Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long postEnlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook, which can be summarized brieflyas follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties are encoded in "eternal" physical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfectand tentative,knowledge of these laws by hewing to the "objective" procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (socalled) scientificmethod. But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-centuryscience have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics (Heisenberg 1958; Bohr 1963); revisionist studies in the history and philosophy of science have cast furtherdoubt on its credibility(Kuhn 1970; Feyerabend 1975; Latour 1987; Aronowitz 1988b; Bloor 1991); and, most recently,feminist the substantive content of and poststructuralist critiques have demystified mainstream Western scientificpractice, revealing the ideology of domination concealed behind the facade of "objectivity" (Merchant 1980; Keller 1985; Harding 1986, 1991; Haraway 1989, 1991; Best 1991). It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical "reality," no less than social "reality," is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific "knowledge," far from being objective, reflects and encodes the domiSocial Text 1996. Copyright 46/47,Vol. 14, Nos. 1 and 2, Spring/Summer ? 1996 by Duke Press. University
Alan D. Sokal
nantideologiesand powerrelations of the culturethatproducedit; that claimsof scienceare inherently thetruth and self-referential; theory-laden and consequently, thatthediscourseofthescientific forall its community, undeniablevalue, cannot asserta privileged statuswith epistemological narrativesemanatingfromdissidentor respect to counterhegemonic These themescan be traced,despite some marginalizedcommunities. in Aronowitz's differences of emphasis, fabric that analysisofthecultural produced quantummechanics(1988b, esp. chaps. 9 and 12); in Ross's discussion of oppositionaldiscourses in post-quantumscience (1991, and Hayles'sexegesesofgenderencoding and chap. 1); in Irigaray's intro, in fluidmechanics(Irigaray1985; Hayles 1992); and in Harding'scomofthegenderideology thenatural sciences prehensive critique underlying in generaland physicsin particular(1986, esp. chaps. 2 and 10; 1991, esp. chap. 4). Here myaim is to carry thesedeep analyses one stepfurther, bytaking in quantumgravity: accountof recentdevelopments theemerging branch in whichHeisenberg's of physics quantummechanicsand Einstein's genare at once synthesized In quantumgravity, eralrelativity and superseded. as we shall see, the space-timemanifoldceases to exist as an objective becomes relationaland contextual;and the physicalreality;geometry foundational conceptualcategoriesof priorscience-among them,existence itself-become problematizedand relativized.This conceptual I will argue,has profoundimplications forthe contentof a revolution, and liberatory science. future postmodern some First,I willreviewverybriefly My approachwillbe as follows. of thephilosophicaland ideologicalissues raisedby quantummechanics and by classical generalrelativity. Next, I will sketchthe outlinesof the of and discuss some of theconceptual emerging theory quantumgravity I willcomment issues it raises.Finally, on thecultural and political implications of these scientific It should be developments. emphasizedthat this essay is of necessity tentative I do not pretendto and preliminary; answerall the questionsthatI raise.My aim is, rather, to drawtheattention of readersto theseimportant in physicalscience and developments to sketchas best I can theirphilosophicaland politicalimplications. I have endeavoredhere to keep mathematics to a bare minimum;but I have takencare to providereferences whereinterested readerscan find all requisitedetails.
Quantum Mechanics: Uncertainty, Complementarity, and Interconnectedness Discontinuity,

It is not my intention to enter here into the extensive debate on the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics.1 Suffice it to say that anyone who has seriously studied the equations of quantum mechanics will assent 2J8 Alan D. Sokal
to Heisenberg's measured (pardon the pun) summary of his celebrated uncertaintyprinciple: ofthe We can no longerspeak of thebehaviourof theparticle independently a the natural of As final laws formulated observation. consequence, process in quantumtheoryno longerdeal withthe elementary parmathematically ofthem.Nor is itanylonger ticlesthemselves butwithourknowledge possible to ask whether or not theseparticlesexistin space and timeobjectively... When we speak of the pictureof naturein the exact science of our age, we with do not mean a pictureof natureso much as a picture ofourrelationships but Science no longerconfronts natureas an objectiveobserver, . nature ... as an actorin thisinterplay betweenman [sic]and nature.The scisees itself and classifying has become conscious entific methodof analysing, explaining science whicharise out of the factthatby its intervention of its limitations, the objectof investigation. In otherwords,methodand altersand refashions object can no longerbe separated. (Heisenberg 1958, 28-29; emphasis in original)2 Along the same lines, Niels Bohr (1928; cited in Pais 1991, 314) wrote: "An independent realityin the ordinary physical sense can ... neitherbe ascribed to the phenomena nor to the agencies of observation." Stanley Aronowitz (1988b, 251-56) has convincinglytraced this worldview to the crisis of liberal hegemony in Central Europe in the years prior and subsequent to World War I.3 A second important aspect of quantum mechanics is its principle of Is lighta particle or a wave? Complemenor dialecticism. complementarity, tarity "is the realization that particle and wave behavior are mutually exclusive, yet that both are necessary for a complete description of all phenomena" (Pais 1991, 23).4More generally,notes Heisenberg, intuitive the different pictureswhich we use to describe atomic systems, are nevertheless mutually althoughfullyadequate for given experiments, exclusive.Thus, forinstance,the Bohr atom can be describedas a smallscale planetarysystem,having a centralatomic nucleus about which the For otherexperiments, it might external electrons revolve. be more however, to imaginethatthe atomicnucleus is surrounded of convenient by a system waveswhose frequency is characteristic of theradiation stationary emanating we can considerthe atom chemically . . . Each picfromthe atom. Finally, when used in the rightplace, but the different ture is legitimate pictures and therefore are contradictory we call them mutuallycomplementary. (1958, 40-41) And once again Bohr (1934; cited in Jammer 1974, 102): "A complete elucidation of one and the same object may require diverse points of view which defy a unique description. Indeed, strictlyspeaking, the conscious analysis of any concept stands in a relation of exclusion to its the Boundaries Transgressing 219
immediateapplication."5This foreshadowing of postmodernist episteThe profound connections between mologyis by no means coincidental. and deconstruction have recently been elucidatedby complementarity Froula (1985) and Honner (1994), and, in great depth, by Plotnitsky A third is discontinuity, or rupture: as Bohr aspectof quantumphysics 1974, 90) explained,[the]essence [ofthe quan(1928; citedin Jammer tumtheory] which maybe expressedin the so-calledquantumpostulate, attributes to any atomicprocessan essential or rather indidiscontinuity, to the classical theories and symbolized viduality, foreign completely by Planck'squantumof action."A halfcentury later,the expression "quantumleap" has so entered our everyday thatwe are likely to use vocabulary it without its in consciousness of any origins physical theory. Bell'stheorems and itsrecent showthatan act Finally, generalizations9 of observationhere and now can affectnot only the object being observed-as Heisenbergtold us-but also an object arbitrarily faraway Andromeda This on Einstein termed (say, galaxy). phenomenon-which of the traditional mechanistic "spooky"-imposes a radical reevaluation and suggestsan alternative concepts of space, object, and causality,10 in whichthe universeis characterized worldview by interconnectedness and (w)holism:whatphysicist David Bohm (1980) has called "implicate New Age interpretations of theseinsights from quantumphysics order.""11 have oftengone overboardin unwarranted but the general speculation, is undeniable.12 In Bohr's words,"Planck's soundness of the argument in atomicphysics, inherent wholeness goingfarbeyondtheancientidea of thelimited of matter"(Bohr 1963, 2; emphasisin original). divisibility
discovery of the elementary quantum of action . . revealed a feature of
(1994).6,7
Hermeneuticsof Classical General Relativity

In theNewtonianmechanistic and worldview, space and timeare distinct In Einstein's absolute.13 of relativity specialtheory (1905), thedistinction betweenspace and timedissolves:thereis onlya new unity, four-dimensional space-time, and the observer's of perception "space" and "time" In her state of motion.14 Hermann Minkowski's famouswords dependson and time by itself, are doomed to (1908): "Henceforth space by itself, fade away into mere shadows,and only a kindof union of the two will in Lorentzet al. 1952, 75). preservean independent reality"(translated the of Minkowskian space-time Nevertheless, underlyinggeometry remainsabsolute.15
It is in Einstein's general theory of relativity(1915) that the radical conceptual break occurs: the space-time geometry becomes contingent 220 Alan D. Sokal
and dynamical, encoding in itselfthe gravitationalfield. Mathematically, Einstein breaks with the traditiondating back to Euclid (which is inflicted on high-school students even today!), and employs instead the nonEuclidean geometry developed by Riemann. Einstein's equations are highly nonlinear, which is why traditionallytrained mathematicians find to solve.16Newton's gravitationaltheory corresponds to them so difficult the crude (and conceptually misleading) truncationof Einstein's equations in which the nonlinearity is simply ignored. Einstein's general relativity thereforesubsumes all the putative successes of Newton's theory, while going beyond Newton to predict radically new phenomena that arise directly from the nonlinearity: the bending of starlightby the sun, the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, and the gravitationalcollapse of stars into black holes. is so weird that some of its consequences-deduced General relativity by impeccable mathematics, and increasingly confirmed by astrophysical observation-read like science fiction.Black holes are by now well-known, and wormholes are beginning to make the charts. Perhaps less familiaris G6del's construction of an Einstein space-time admitting closed timelike curves: that is, a universe in which it is possible to travel into one's own past!17 Thus, general relativityforces upon us radically new and counterintuitivenotions of space, time, and causality;18so it is not surprisingthat it has had a profound impact not only on the natural sciences but also on philosophy, literarycriticism,and the human sciences. For example, in a et les scicelebrated symposium three decades ago on Les Langages critiques raised incisive about an encesde l'homme, Jean Hyppolite question Jacques Derrida's theory of structureand sign in scientificdiscourse: of certainalgebraicconstructions When I take,forexample,the structure [ensembles],where is the center?Is the centerthe knowledgeof general a fashion,allow us to understand the interplay of the elerules which,after elements a Or is the center certain which ments? enjoy particular privilege withinthe ensemble?. . . With Einstein,forexample,we see the end of a of empiricevidence.And in thatconnectionwe see a conkindof privilege of space-time, which does stantappear, a constantwhichis a combination who live the experience, but which, not belongto any of the experimenters in a way,dominatesthewhole construct; and thisnotionof the constant-is thisthe center?19 Derrida's perceptive reply went to the heart of classical general relativity: It is theveryconThe Einsteinian constant is not a constant, is not a center. of the of the In is, words,it is cept variability-it finally, concept game. other fromwhichan observer not the concept of something-ofa centerstarting could masterthe field-but theveryconceptof thegame.20 the Boundaries Transgressing 221
Derrida's observation of In mathematical relatesto the invariance terms, = diftheEinstein fieldequationG, 8&GT , undernonlinear space-time of the space-timemanifoldthatare infifeomorphisms (self-mappings butnotnecessarily The keypointis thatthis differentiable nitely analytic). this means "acts that invariance transitively": anyspace-time point, group intoanyother. In thiswaytheinfiniteifit exists at all,can be transformed between observer and invariance dimensional grouperodesthedistinction to be observed;the7rof Euclid and the G of Newton,formerly thought are now perceivedin their constant and universal, ineluctable historicity; observer disconnected from and theputative becomesfatally de-centered, linkto a space-time pointthatcan no longerbe defined any epistemic by alone. geometry
Quantum Gravity: String,Weave, or MorphogeneticField?

whileadequate within classicalgeneralrelaHowever,thisinterpretation, becomes incompletewithinthe emergingpostmodernview of tivity, When even the gravitational field-geometryincarquantum gravity. nate-becomes a noncommuting (and hence nonlinear)operator,how of Gv as a geometric be sustained? can the classicalinterpretation entity but the veryconceptof geometry, becomes Now not onlythe observer, and contextual. relational is thus the of quantum theoryand generalrelativity The synthesis no one central unsolvedproblemof theoretical physics;21 todaycan premuch less whatwill be the language and ontology, dict withconfidence when and if it comes. It is, nevertheless, the content,of this synthesis, thattheoretithe metaphorsand imagery usefulto examinehistorically to understandquantum have employedin theirattempts cal physicists gravity. The earliestattempts, datingback to the early 1960s, to visualize it as on the Planck scale (about 10-33 centimeters) portrayed geometry a "space-timefoam": bubbles of space-timecurvature, sharing complex and ever-changing (Wheeler 1964). But topologyof interconnections wereunable to carrythisapproachfurther, perhapsbecause of physicists and manifold at thattimeof topology theinadequatedevelopment theory (see below). In the 1970s physicists triedan even more conventional approach: thattheyare almost Einstein the linear, equationsby pretending simplify and then apply the standardmethods of quantum fieldtheoryto the thusoversimplified equations.But thismethod,too, failed:it turnedout
that Einstein's general relativity is, in technical language, "perturbatively nonrenormalizable" (Isham 1991, sec. 3.1.4). This means that the strong
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Alan D. Sokal
are intrinsic to the theory; of Einstein'sgeneralrelativity nonlinearities are weak to that the nonlinearities is any attempt pretend simplyselfcontradictory.(This is not surprising: the almost-linearapproach featuresof general relativity, such as destroysthe most characteristic black holes.) In the 1980s a very different approach, known as stringtheory, of matterare not became popular: here the fundamental constituents particlesbut rather pointlike tiny(Planck-scale)closed and open strings thespace-time manifold does not exist (Green et al. 1987). In thistheory, as an objective is a derived rather, reality; space-time physical concept,an valid only on large lengthscales (where "large" means approximation "much largerthan 10-33 centimeters"!). For a whilemanyenthusiasts of in were on a of string they theory thought closing Theory Everythingis not one oftheir virtues-and some still think so. But themathmodesty in stringtheoryare formidable, ematical difficulties and it is far from clearthattheywillbe resolvedanytimesoon. More recently, a small group of physicists has returned to the full of Einstein'sgeneralrelativity, nonlinearities a new matheand-using maticalsymbolism invented have attempted to by AbhayAshtekar-they of the corresponding visualizethe structure et quantumtheory (Ashtekar al. 1992; Smolin 1992). The picture as in string theyobtainis intriguing: the space-timemanifoldis only an approximation valid at large theory, at small (Planck-scale)distances,the distances,not an objectivereality; is a weave-a complexinterconnection of space-time ofthreads. geometry an exciting Finally, proposalhas been taking shape overthe past few ofmathematicians, collaboration yearsin thehandsof an interdisciplinary and is the astrophysicists, biologists:this theoryof the morphogenetic field.22Since the mid-1980s evidence has been accumulating that this first field, 1965; by developmental conceptualized biologists (Waddington Corner 1966; Giereret al. 1978), is in factcloselylinkedto the quantum field:23(a) it pervadesall space; (b) it interacts withall matgravitational of whether or not thatmatter/energy terand energy, is magirrespective netically charged;and, most significantly, (c) it is whatis knownmatheas a "symmetric second-rank tensor."All threeproperties are matically of gravity; characteristic and it was provedsome yearsago thatthe only of a symmetric self-consistent nonlinear second-rank tensor field is, theory at least at low energies,precisely Einstein'sgeneralrelativity (Boulware and Deser 1975). Thus, ifthe evidencefor(a), (b), and (c) holds up, we fieldis the quantum counterpart can inferthat the morphogenetic of Einstein's field. Until gravitational thistheory has been ignored or recently
even scorned by the high-energy-physicsestablishment,which has traditionally resented the encroachment of biologists (not to mention humanists) on its "turf."24However, some theoretical physicists have recently the Boundaries Transgressing 223
begun to give this theory a second look, and there are good prospects for progress in the near future.25 It is stilltoo soon to say whether stringtheory,the space-time weave, or morphogenetic fields will be confirmed in the laboratory: the experiments are not easy to perform. But it is intriguingthat all three theories have similar conceptual characteristics: strong nonlinearity, subjective space-time, inexorable flux, and a stress on the topology of interconnectedness.
Differential Topology and Homology

Unbeknownst to most outsiders, theoretical physics underwent a significant transformation-albeit not yet a true Kuhnian paradigm shift-in the 1970s and 1980s: the traditional tools of mathematical physics (real and complex analysis), which deal with the space-time manifold only locally, were supplemented by topological approaches (more precisely, methods fromdifferential topology26) that account forthe global (holistic) structureof the universe. This trend was seen in the analysis of anomalies in gauge theories (Alvarez-Gaum& 1985);27 in the theory of vortex-mediated phase transitions(Kosterlitz and Thouless 1973);28 and in stringand superstring theories (Green et al. 1987). Numerous books and review articles on "topology for physicists" were published during these years (e.g., Nash and Sen 1983). At about the same time, in the social and psychological sciences Jacques Lacan pointed out the key role played by differential topology: This diagram [the M6bius strip]can be consideredthe basis of a sort of essentialinscription the subject. at the origin,in the knotwhichconstitutes This goes muchfurther thanyou maythink at first, because you can search forthe sortof surfaceable to receivesuch inscriptions. You can perhapssee is unsuitable.A torus,a Klein thatthe sphere,thatold symbolfortotality, is a cross-cut are able to receivesuch a cut.And thisdiversity bottle, surface, as it about the structure of mental disexplainsmanythings veryimportant ease. If one can symbolize the subjectby thisfundamental cut,in the same to the neurotic subject, way one can showthata cut on a toruscorresponds and on a cross-cutsurfaceto anothersort of mentaldisease. (Lacan 1970, 192-93; lecturegivenin 1966)29 As Althusser (1993, 50) rightlycommented, "Lacan finallygives Freud's thinkingthe scientificconcepts that it requires."30More recently,Lacan's to cinema criticism (Miller topologiedu sujet has been applied fruitfully 1977/78, esp. 24-25)31 and to the psychoanalysis of AIDS (Dean 1993, esp. 107-8). In mathematical terms, Lacan is here pointing out that the first homology group32of the sphere is trivial,while those of the other sur224 Alan D. Sokal
or and thishomology is linked withtheconnectedness facesare profound; one or morecuts.33 as of the surface after disconnectedness Furthermore, theexternal between strucis an intimate connection there Lacan suspected, tureof the physical worldand its innerpsychological representation qua been confirmed Witten's derivaknottheory: thishypothesis has recently by tion of knotinvariants the Jonespolynomial[Jones1985]) (in particular field Chern-Simons from three-dimensional 1989). quantum theory (Witten but Analogous topological structuresarise in quantum gravity, are multidimensional rather thantwoinasmuchas themanifolds involved dimensional,higherhomologygroups play a role as well. These multiin condimensionalmanifoldsare no longeramenable to visualization three-dimensional Cartesianspace: forexample,the projective ventional space RP3, which arises fromthe ordinary3-sphere by identification of antipodes,would requirea Euclidean embeddingspace of dimension at least 5 (James 1991, 271-72).34 Nevertheless, the higherhomology via a suitablemultidigroups can be perceived,at least approximately, mensional(nonlinear)logic (Kosko 1993).35
ManifoldTheory: (W)holes and Boundaries

Luce Irigaray(1987, 76-77), in her famous article "Is the Subject of Science Sexed?" pointedout that themathematical in thetheory of wholes[theorie desensembles], sciences, concern themselves with closedand openspaces... Theyconcern themselves little with thequestion ofthepartially with wholes that are very open, notclearly delineated with of oftheproblem [ensembles anyanalysis flous],
borders[bords]. .
.36
In 1982, when Irigaray's essay first appeared, thiswas an incisivecriticism: differential has the studyof what topology traditionally privileged are knowntechnically as "manifolds without However,in the boundary." some mathematipast decade, undertheimpetusof thefeminist critique, cians have given renewed attentionto the theoryof "manifoldswith boundary"[Fr. varitis a' bord](see, forexample,Hamza 1990; McAvity and Osborn 1991; Alexander et al. 1993). Perhapsnotcoincidentally, it is thatarise in the new physicsof conformal thesemanifolds field precisely and quantumgravity. theory, superstring theory, In string the forthe interactheory, quantum-mechanical amplitude
tion of n closed or open strings is represented by a functional integral (basically, a sum) over fields living on a two-dimensional manifold with boundary (Green et al. 1987). In quantum gravity,we may expect that a similar representation will hold, except that the two-dimensional man-
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one. Unfortuifoldwithboundary willbe replacedby a multidimensional linear goes againstthe grainof conventional nately, multidimensionality mathematicalthought,and despite a recent broadening of attitudes nonlinearphe(notablyassociated withthe studyof multidimensional of multidimensional manifolds the theory with nomenain chaos theory), Nevertheless, physicists' boundaryremainssomewhatunderdeveloped. continues workon the functional-integral approach to quantumgravity and Ben-Av Kontsevich 1993; 1994), apace (Hamber 1992; Nabutosky ofmathematicians.37 to stimulate theattention and thisworkis likely an important As Irigaray questionin all of thesetheories anticipated, is: can the boundarybe transgressed (crossed), and if so, whathappens then?Technically, thisis knownas the problemof boundaryconditions At a mathematical level,themostsalient purely aspectofboundary (b.c.). is the greatdiversity of possibilities: forexample,"freeb.c." conditions b.c." (specularreflection as in a mir"reflecting (no obstacleto crossing), in and another of the b.c." manifold), ror), "periodic (re-entrance part with The b.c." "antiperiodic (re-entrance question 180-degreetwist). which is: of all theseconceivable conditions, boundary posed byphysicists of quantum gravity? Or perones actuallyoccur in the representation as sugand on an equal footing, haps,do all ofthemoccursimultaneously the complementarity principle?38 gestedby in physics At thispointmysummary of developments muststop,for to thesequestions-ifindeedthey have thesimplereasonthattheanswers of this essay,I univocal answers-are not yet known.In the remainder of quanof thetheory pointthosefeatures proposeto takeas mystarting established least standards which well the tumgravity are relatively (at by and to drawout their of conventional science), and attempt philosophical politicalimplications.
Science the Boundaries: Toward a Liberatory Transgressing

Over the past two decades therehas been extensivediscussionamong versus of modernist withregardto the characteristics criticaltheorists culture;and in recentyearsthesedialogueshave begunto postmodernist to the specificproblemsposed by the natural devote detailed attention sciences (see especially Merchant 1980; Keller 1985; Harding 1986; Madsen Aronowitz 1988b; Haraway1991; and Ross 1991). In particular, of the characterisa clear and Madsen have recently summary given very for science.They posittwocriteria versuspostmodernist ticsofmodernist
a postmodern science: "A simple criterion for science to qualify as postmodern is that it be free from any dependence on the concept of objective truth. By this criterion, for example, the complementarity interpre226 Alan D. Sokal
tationof quantumphysicsdue to Niels Bohr and theCopenhagenschool is seen as postmodernist" is in (1990, 471).39 Clearly,quantumgravity science. Second, "The other this respect an archetypal postmodernist to postmodern science conceptwhichcan be takenas beingfundamental Postmodern scientific theories are constructed from is thatof essentiality. theoretical elements which are essential for the those consistencyand of the theory"(1990, 471-72). Thus quantities or objectswhich utility are in principleunobservable-such as space-timepoints,exact particle or quarksand gluons-ought notto be introduced intothethepositions, While much of modern is excluded this criterion, ory.40 physics by quantumgravity in thepassage fromclassicalgeneralrelativity again qualifies: to the quantized theory, space-timepoints (and indeed the space-time manifold have thetheory. itself) disappearedfrom these admirable fora as theyare, are insufficient However, criteria, liberatory postmodern science: they liberate human beings from the of "absolute truth"and "objectivereality," but not necessarily tyranny fromthe tyranny of otherhuman beings. In AndrewRoss's words,we need a science "thatwill be publiclyanswerableand of some serviceto interests"(1991, 29).41 From a feminist progressive standpoint, Kelly Oliver(1989, 146) makesa similar argument: In order to be revolutionary, feminist cannot claim to describe what theory "natural facts." feminist theories be should political exists, or, Rather, tools, in specific forovercoming concrete situations. The strategies oppression of feminist should be to theories-not goal,then, theory, develop strategic true notfalse butstrategic theories. theories, theories, How, then,is thisto be done? In what follows,I would like to discuss the outlinesof a liberatory withregardto generalthemes postmodernscience on two levels: first, and attitudes;and second, withregardto politicalgoals and strategies. One characteristic of theemerging scienceis itsstress on postmodern and discontinuity: thisis evident, forexample,in chaos thenonlinearity of phase transitions as wellas in quantumgravity.42 At oryand thetheory the same time,feminist thinkers have pointedout the need foran adein particular turbulent quate analysisof fluidity, fluidity (Irigaray1985; as it might at Hayles 1992).43These two themesare not as contradictory first connectswithstrongnonlinearity, and smoothappear: turbulence is sometimes associatedwithdiscontinuity ness/fluidity (e.g., in catastroArnol'd so a is by no 1975, phe theory[Thom synthesis 1990; 1992]);
means out of the question. Second, the postmodern sciences deconstruct and transcend the Cartesian metaphysical distinctions between humankind and Nature,
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One characteristic observer and observed, Subject and Object. Already quantum mechanics, oftheemerging postmodern scienceis itsstress on nonlinearity and discontinuity: this is evident, for inchaos example, and the theory ofphase theory transitions as well as inquantum gravity.
earlier in this century, shattered the ingenuous Newtonian faith in an objective, prelinguistic world of material objects "out there"; no longer could we ask, as Heisenberg put it, whether "particles exist in space and time objectively." But Heisenberg's formulation still presupposes the objective existence of space and time as the neutral, unproblematic arena in which quantized particle-waves interact (albeit indeterministically); and it is preciselythis would-be arena that quantum gravityproblematizes.Just as quantum mechanics informsus that the position and momentum of a particle are brought into being only by the act of observation, so quantum gravity informs us that space and time themselves are contextual, their meaning defined only relative to the mode of observation.44 Third, the postmodern sciences overthrowthe static ontological categories and hierarchies characteristic of modernist science. In place of atomism and reductionism, the new sciences stress the dynamic web of relationships between the whole and the part; in place of fixed individual essences (e.g., Newtonian particles), they conceptualize interactions and flows (e.g., quantum fields). Intriguingly, these homologous featuresarise in numerous seemingly disparate areas of science, from quantum gravity to chaos theory to the biophysics of self-organizingsystems. In this way, the postmodern sciences appear to be converging on a new epistemological paradigm, one that may be termed an ecologicalperspective, broadly understood as "recogniz[ing] the fundamentalinterdependence of all phenomena and the embeddedness of individuals and societies in the cyclical patterns of nature" (Capra 1988, 145).45 A fourthaspect of postmodern science is its self-conscious stress on symbolism and representation. As Robert Markley (1992, 264) points out, the postmodern sciences are increasingly transgressingdisciplinary boundaries, taking on characteristics that had heretofore been the province of the humanities: and Quantum physics,hadron bootstraptheory, complex numbertheory, chaos theory sharethe basic assumption thatreality cannotbe describedin linearterms, thatnonlinear-and unsolvable-equations are the onlymeans to a complex,chaotic,and non-deterministic describe These possible reality. in theories metacritical the sense that postmodern are-significantly-all themselves as rather than as "accurate" theyforeground metaphors descripIn termsthatare more familiar tions of reality. to literary theorists thanto theoreticalphysicists, we mightsay that these attemptsby scientiststo of description notes towardsa theoryof develop new strategies represent of how representation-mathematical, and verbal-is theories, experimental, not a solutionbut partof the semiinherently complexand problematizing, otics of investigating the universe.46
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From a different startingpoint, Aronowitz (1988b, 344) likewise suggests that a liberatoryscience may arise from interdisciplinarysharing of epistemologies: Natural objects are also sociallyconstructed. It is not a questionof whether thesenaturalobjects,or, to be moreprecise,the objectsof naturalscientific of the act of knowing.This question is knowledge,exist independently of "real" timeas opposed to thepresupposition, answered bytheassumption commonamong neo-Kantians, thattimealwayshas a referent, thattempois therefore a relative, notan unconditioned, theearth rality category. Surely, evolvedlong beforelifeon earth.The questionis whether objectsof natural scientific are constituted outsidethesocial field.Ifthisis possible, knowledge we can assume thatscience or art may develop proceduresthateffectively neutralize the effectsemanatingfromthe means by which we produce Performance artmaybe such an attempt. knowledge/art. refutation of the authorFinally,postmodernscience provides a powerful itarianismand elitisminherentin traditionalscience, as well as an empirical basis for a democratic approach to scientificwork. For, as Bohr noted, "a complete elucidation of one and the same object may require diverse points of view which defya unique description";thisis quite simplya factabout the world, much as the self-proclaimedempiricistsof modernistscience might secular preferto deny it. In such a situation,how can a self-perpetuating priesthood of credentialed "scientists" purport to maintain a monopoly on the production of scientific knowledge? (Let me emphasize that I am in no to way opposed specialized scientifictraining;I object only when an elite caste seeks to impose its canon of "high science," withthe aim of excluding a priorialternative formsof scientific production by nonmembers.)47 The content and methodology of postmodern science thus provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political project, understood in its broadest sense: the transgressingof boundaries, the breaking down of barriers,the radical democratization of all aspects of social, economic, political, and culturallife (see, for example, Aronowitz 1994). Conversely,one part of this project must involve the constructionof a new and trulyprogressive science that can serve the needs of such a democratized society-to-be. As Markley observes, there seem to be two more-or-less mutually exclusive choices available to the progressive community: On theone hand,politically scientists can tryto recuperate existprogressive formoralvaluestheyuphold,arguing thattheir eneing practices right-wing mies are defacingnatureand thatthey, the counter-movement, have access to the truth.[But] the stateof the biosphere-air pollution, waterpollution, thousandsof species on the verge of extinction, disappearingrain forests, large areas of land burdened far beyond theircarryingcapacity,nuclear
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power plants,nuclear weapons, clearcutswhere thereused to be forests, nonexistent malnutrition, wetlands, starvation, disappearing grasslands,and caused diseases-suggests thattherealist a rashof environmentally dreamof scientificprogress, of recapturingrather than revolutionizing existing and technologies, irrelevant to a politicalstruggle is, at worst, methodologies of statesocialism.(Markley thatseeks something more than a reenactment 1992, 271) The alternativeis a profound reconception of science as well as politics: of seeing the world not The dialogical move towardsredefining systems, onlyas an ecologicalwholebut as a set of competing systems-a worldheld together by thetensionsamongvariousnaturaland humaninterests-offers thepossibility of redefining whatscienceis and whatit does, of restructuring deterministic schemesof scientific educationin favorof ongoingdialogues in our environment. about how we intervene (Markley1992, 271)48 It goes without saying that postmodernist science unequivocally favors the latter,deeper approach. In addition to redefiningthe content of science, it is imperative to restructure and redefine the institutional loci in which scientific labor takes place-universities, government labs, and corporations-and reframethe reward system that pushes scientiststo become, often against As theirown betterinstincts,the hired guns of capitalists and the military. Aronowitz (1988b, 351) has noted, "One-third of the 11,000 physics graduate students in the United States are in the single subfield of solid state physics, and all of them will be able to get jobs in that subfield." (Although this observation appeared in 1988, it is all the more true today.) By contrast,there are few jobs available in eitherquantum gravityor environmental physics. But all this is only a firststep: the fundamental goal of any emancipaand democratize the production of tory movement must be to demystify scientific knowledge, to break down the artificialbarriers that separate "scientists" from "the public." Realistically, this task must start with the younger generation,througha profound reformof the educational system (Freire 1970; Aronowitz and Giroux 1991, 1993). The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarianand elitistcharacteristics,49 and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the and ecological critiques.50 insights of the feminist,queer, multiculturalist, the content of science is any profoundly constrained by the Finally, its which discourses are within formulated; and mainstream language in the language since been formulated science Westernphysical has, Galileo, But whose mathematics? The question is fundamental, of mathematics.51 for, as Aronowitz has observed, "neither logic nor mathematics escapes
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the 'contamination' of the social" (Aronowitz 1988b, 346).52 And as feminist thinkershave repeatedly pointed out, in the present culture this contamination is overwhelmingly capitalist, patriarchal, and militaristic: "Mathematics is portrayed as a woman whose nature desires to be the conquered Other" (Campbell and Campbell-Wright 1995, 135).53 Thus, a liberatoryscience cannot be complete without a profound revision of the As yet no such emancipatory mathematics exists, canon of mathematics.54 and we can only speculate upon its eventual content. We can see hints of it in the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of fuzzy systems theory (Kosko 1993); but this approach is still heavily marked by its origins in the crisis of late-capitalist production relations.55 Catastrophe theory (Thom 1975, 1990; Arnol'd 1992), with its dialectical emphases on will indubitably and metamorphosis/unfolding, smoothness/discontinuity play a major role in the future mathematics; but much theoretical work remains to be done before this approach can become a concrete tool of progressive political praxis (see Schubert 1989 for an interestingstart). Finally, chaos theory-which provides our deepest insightsinto the ubiquitous yet mysterious phenomenon of nonlinearity-will be central to all futuremathematics. And yet,these images of the futuremathematicsmust remain but the haziest glimmer: for,alongside these three young branches in the tree of science, there will arise new trunks and branches-entire new theoretical frameworks-of which we, with our present ideological blinders, cannot yet even conceive.
and The content of methodology postmodern sciencethus powerful provide intellectual for the support progressive political project, understood inits broadest sense: thetransgressing of boundaries, thebreaking down ofbarriers, theradical democratization ofallaspectsof social,economic, and political, life. cultural
Notes
I thankGiacomo Caracciolo,Lucia Fernindez-Santoro, Lia Gutierrez, and Elizabeth Meiklejohnforenjoyablediscussionswhichhave contributed to this greatly essay.Needlessto say,thesepeople shouldnotbe assumedto be in totalagreement withthe scientific and politicalviewsexpressedhere,nor are theyresponsible for remain. or obscurities whichmayinadvertently anyerrors 1. For a samplingof views,see Jammer 1974; Bell 1987; Albert1992; Diirr et al. 1992; Weinberg1992 (chap. 4); Coleman 1993; Maudlin 1994; Bricmont 1994. 2. See also Overstreet1980; Craige 1982; Hayles 1984; Booker 1990; of ideas Greenberg 1990; and Porter 1990 for examples of cross-fertilization betweenrelativistic and literary criticism. quantumtheory been misUnfortunately, Heisenberg'suncertainty principlehas frequently interpreted by amateur philosophers. As Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1994, 129-30) lucidlypointout, in quantumphysics, Heisenberg'sdemon does not expressthe impossibility of measuring boththe speed and thepositionof a particleon thegroundsof the Boundaries Transgressing
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a subjective of the measurewiththe measured,but it measures interference thatleaves the respective exactlyan objectivestateof affairs positionof two of its particlesoutside of the fieldof its actualization, the numberof independentvariablesbeingreducedand thevaluesofthecoordinates havingthe same probability Perspectivisim, or scientific is neverrelative relativism, .... to a subject: it constitutes not a relativity of truthbut, on the contrary, a of the relative, truth thatis to say,of variableswhose cases it ordersaccordfrom themin its system of coordinates. ing to thevalues it extracts 3. See also Porush (1989) fora fascinating account of how a second group of scientists withconsiderable and engineers-cyberneticists-contrived, success, to subvertthe most revolutionary of implications quantum physics.The main of Porush's critiqueis thatit remainssolelyon a culturaland philolimitation would be immeasurably by an analystrengthened sophicalplane; his conclusions sis of economicand politicalfactors.(For example,Porush failsto mention that Claude Shannon worked for the then telephone monopoly engineer-cyberneticist thatthe victory of cybernetics AT&T.) A carefulanalysiswould show,I think, overquantumphysicsin the 1940s and 1950s can be explainedin largepart by the centrality of cybernetics to the ongoing capitalistdrive for automationof relevanceof quanindustrial production, comparedwiththe marginalindustrial tummechanics. 4. Aronowitz(1981, 28) has noted that wave-particle dualityrendersthe in modernscience" severely "willto totality problematic: The differences within wave and particle of matter, theories physicsbetween the indeterminacy principlediscoveredby Heisenberg,Einstein'srelativity all are accommodations to the impossibility of arriving at a unified theory, one in whichthe "anomaly" of difference fieldtheory, fora theorywhich the presuppositions of posits identity may be resolvedwithoutchallenging science itself. of theseideas, see Aronowitz1988a, 524-25, 533. For further development 5. Bohr's analysisof the complementarity principlealso led him to a social Consider the foloutlookthatwas, forits time and place, notablyprogressive. lowingexcerptfroma 1938 lecture(Bohr 1958, 30): I mayperhapshereremind to whichin certain societies the you of theextent roles of men and women are reversed,not only regardingdomestic and social dutiesbut also regarding behaviourand mentality. Even ifmanyof us, in such a situation, shrink from thepossibilperhapsat first admitting might a caprice of fatethatthe people concernedhave their itythatit is entirely insteadof our own,it is clear culture and not ours,and we nottheirs specific that even the slightest suspicion in this respect implies a betrayalof the in itself. in any humancultureresting nationalcomplacencyinherent 6. This impressive workalso explainsthe intimate connections withG6idel's of formal and withSkolem'sconstruction of systems proofof theincompleteness
nonstandard models of arithmetic, as well as with Bataille's general economy. For furtherdiscussion of Bataille's physics see Hochroth 1995. Numerous other examples could be adduced. For instance, Barbara Johnson (1989, 12) makes no specific reference to quantum physics; but her description of deconstruction is an eerily exact summary of the complementarity principle:
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"Instead of a simple either/or deconstruction to elaboratea structure, attempts discoursethatsays neither nor'both/and' nor even 'neither/nor' whileat 'either/or, the same time not totallyabandoningthese logics either."See also McCarthy 1992 fora thought-provoking analysisthatraises disturbing questionsabout the between(nonrelativistic) "complicity" quantumphysicsand deconstruction. 7. Permit me in thisregarda personalrecollection: Fifteen yearsago, whenI in relativistic was a graduatestudent, led me to myresearch quantumfieldtheory an approachthatI called "de[con]structive quantumfieldtheory"(Sokal 1982). Of course, at thattimeI was completely of JacquesDerrida's workon ignorant in philosophy In retrospect, deconstruction and literary thereis however, theory. a striking of how the orthodox affinity: my workcan be read as an exploration discourse (e.g., Itzyksonand Zuber 1980) on scalar quantum fieldtheoryin four-dimensional "renormalized theterms, space-time(in technical perturbation and thereby to ory" forthe(p44 theory)can be seen to assertits own unreliability undermine its own affirmations. to otherquesSince then,myworkhas shifted but subtlehomologiesbetween tions,mostlyconnectedwithphase transitions; the two fieldscan be discerned,notablythe themeof discontinuity (see n. 42). in quantumfieldtheory, For further see Merz and examples of deconstruction KnorrCetina 1994. 8. Bell 1987, especiallychaps. 10 and 16. See also Maudlin 1994 (chap. 1) fora clear account presupposingno specialized knowledgebeyond high-school algebra. 9. Greenberger et al. 1989, 1990; Mermin 1990, 1993. 10. Aronowitz observation (1988b, 331) has made a provocative concerning in quantummechanicsand itsrelation nonlinear to the social construccausality tionof time: Linear causality assumes that the relation of cause and effectcan be of temporalsuccession. Owing to recentdevelopexpressedas a function mentsin quantummechanics, we can postulate thatit is possibleto knowthe effects of absentcauses; thatis, speakingmetaphorically, effects may anticiof themmay precedethe physicaloccurpate causes so thatour perception renceof a "cause." The hypothesis thatchallenges our conventional conception of linear time and causalityand that asserts the possibility of time's reversal also raisesthequestionofthedegreeto whichtheconceptof "time's arrow"is inherent in all scientific If theseexperiments are successful, theory. the conclusions about the way time as "clock-time"has been constituted will be open to question. We will have "proved" by means of historically whathas longbeen suspectedby philosophers, and social experiment literary critics:thattime is, in part, a conventional its segmentation construction, into hours and minutesa productof the need forindustrial discipline,for rationalorganization of social labor in the earlybourgeoisepoch. The theoretical et al. (1989, 1990) and Mermin (1990, analysesof Greenberger 1993) providea striking example of thisphenomenon;see Maudlin 1994 fora detailedanalysisof the implications forconceptsof causality and temporality. An theworkof Aspect et al. (1982), willlikely be forthtest,extending experimental
coming within the next few years. 11. The intimate relations between quantum mechanics and the mind-body problem are discussed in Goldstein 1983, chaps. 7 and 8. 12. Among the voluminous literature,Capra 1975 can be recommended for
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In addition,Shelits scientific to nonspecialists. accuracy and its accessibility drake 1981, while occasionallyspeculative,is in generalsound. For a sympathetic see Ross 1991, chap. 1. For a cribut critical analysisof New Age theories, a Third Worldperspective, see Alvares1992, chap. 6. tique of Capra's workfrom 13. Newtonianatomism treats as in space and time, particles hyperseparated theirinterconnectedness backgrounding (Plumwood 1993a, 125); indeed, "the themechanistic framework is thatof kinetic only'force'allowedwithin energyof motionby contact-all otherpurported theenergy actionat a forces, including distance,beingregardedas occult" (Mathews 1991, 17). For critical analysesof the Newtonian mechanistic see Weil 1968, esp. chap. 1; Merchant worldview, 1980; Berman 1981; Keller 1985, chaps. 2 and 3; Mathews 1991, chap. 1; and Plumwood 1993a, chap. 5. 14. Accordingto the traditional textbookaccount,special relativity is conin cerned withthe coordinatetransformations relatingtwoframesof reference relativemotion. But this is a misleadingoversimplification, uniform as Bruno Latour has pointedout: How can one decide whetheran observationmade in a train about the stone can be made to coincide withthe observation behaviourof a falling stonefrom theembankment? If thereare onlyone, made of the same falling frames of reference, no solutioncan be foundsince the man in or even two, thetrainclaimshe observesa straight line and the man on the embankment a parabola. . . . Einstein'ssolutionis to consider three actors: one in the one on the and a embankment third the or author train, one, [enunciator] who triesto superimposethe coded observations one of its representants, sentback bythetwoothers. . . Without theenunciator's position(hiddenin Einstein'saccount), and withoutthe notionof centresof calculation,Einstein's own technical argumentis ununderstandable.(1988, 10-11, 35; emphasisin original) In the end, as Latour wittily but accurately boils down observes,special relativity with less privilegecan be to the propositionthat "more framesof reference accessed, reduced,accumulatedand combined,observerscan be delegatedto a fewmoreplaces in theinfinitely small (eleclarge (the cosmos) and theinfinitely His [Einstein's] book trons),and the readingstheysend willbe understandable. forBringing Back Long-Distance Sciencould well be titled:'New Instructions tific Travellers'"(22-23). Latour's critical analysisof Einstein's logic providesan to special relativity accessibleintroduction fornon-scientists. eminently 15. It goes without sayingthatspecial relativity proposes new conceptsnot as Virilio only of space and time but also of mechanics. In special relativity, (1991, 136) has noted, "the dromosphericspace, space-speed, is physically describedby whatis called the 'logisticequation,'theresultof theproductofthe MxV." This radicalalteration of mass displacedby the speed of itsdisplacement, has profound in thequantum the Newtonianformula consequences,particularly see Lorentzet al. 1952 and Weinberg1992 forfurther discussion. theory; on the crux of the difficulty, 16. StevenBest (1991, 225) has put his finger whichis that"unlikethe linearequationsused in Newtonianand even quantum mechanics, nonlinear equations do [not] have the simple additive property wherebychains of solutions can be constructedout of simple, independent
parts." For this reason, the strategies of atomization, reductionism, and contextstripping that underlie the Newtonian scientificmethodology simply do not work in general relativity.
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17. G6del 1949. For a summaryof recentworkin this area, see 't Hooft 1993. 18. These new notionsof space, time,and causality are inpartforeshadowed Alexander in Thus, Argyros (1991, already special relativity. 137) has notedthat "in a universedominatedby photons,gravitons, and neutrinos, that is, in the veryearlyuniverse,the theoryof special relativity suggeststhatany distinction betweenbeforeand afteris impossible.For a particletraveling at the speed of a distance thatis in the orderof the Planck length,all light,or one traversing events are simultaneous."However, I cannot agree withArgyros'sconclusion is therefore that Derridean deconstruction of inapplicableto the hermeneutics to thiseffect is based on an imperearly-universe Argyros's argument cosmology: use of special relativity coormissibly (in technicalterms,"light-cone totalizing is inescapable. (For a similarbut dinates") in a contextwheregeneral relativity less innocenterror, see n. 20.) Jean-FranoisLyotard(1989, 5-6) has also pointedout thatnot onlygeneral but also modernelementary-particle relativity, physics,imposes new notionsof time: In contemporary . . . a particlehas a sort of elephysicsand astrophysics a temporal This is whycontempoand consequently filter. memory mentary tendto think matter thattimeemanatesfrom and thatit itself, raryphysicists is not an entity outsideor insidethe universewhose function it would be to It is onlyin certainregions timesinto universalhistory. gatherall different thatsuch-only partial-synthesescould be detected.There would on this wherecomplexity is increasing. view be areas of determinism Michel Serres (1992, 89-91) has noted thatchaos theory(Gleick Furthermore, the traditional lin1985) have contested 1987) and percolation theory(Stauffer ear conceptof time: Time does not alwaysflowalong a line. . . or a plane, but along an extraoras if it showed stoppingpoints,ruptures, sinks complex manifold, dinarily d'accelration [puits], funnels of overwhelmingacceleration [chemindes rips,lacunae, all sown randomly.... Time flowsin a turbulent foudroyante], mine.Note thatin thetheory and chaoticmanner;it percolates.(Translation of dynamicalsystems, "puits" is a technicaltermmeaning"sink," i.e. the oppositeof "source.") These multiple intothenatureof time,providedby different branchesof insights of the complementarity are a further illustration physics, principle. can arguablybe read as corroborating the Nietzschean General relativity deconstruction of causality(see, e.g., Culler 1982, 86-88), althoughsome relaIn quantummechanics,by contrast, findthis interpretation tivists problematic. this phenomenonis ratherfirmly established(see n. 10). General relativity is and physical also, of course, the starting point for contemporary astrophysics cosmology.See Mathews 1991 (59-90, 109-16, 142-63) fora detailedanalysis of the connections between general relativity (and its generalizationscalled and an ecologicalworldview. For an astrophysicist's "geometrodynamics") speculationsalong similar lines,see Primackand Abrams 1995. 19. Discussion of Derrida (1970, 265-66). 20. Right-wing criticsGross and Levitt(1994, 79) have ridiculedthisstateit as an assertionabout specialrelativity, in which ment,willfully misinterpreting
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the Einsteinian constantc (the speed of lightin vacuum) is of course constant. No readereven minimally conversant withmodernphysics-except an ideologito cally biased one-could fail to understandDerrida's unequivocal reference general relativity. 21. Luce Irigaray(1987, 77-78) has pointed out thatthe contradictions and fieldtheory are in factthe culmination of a historbetweenquantumtheory ical processthatbegan withNewtonianmechanics: The Newtonianbreakhas usheredscientific into a worldwhere enterprise is worth a worldwhichcan lead to theannihilation sense perception of little, theverystakesof physics'object:thematter thepredicates)of the (whatever universeand of the bodies thatconstitute it. In thisveryscience,moreover [d'ailleurs],cleavages exist: quantum theory/field theory,mechanics of of fluids, forexample.But theimperceptibility of thematter solids/dynamics in disunder studyoftenbringswithit the paradoxicalprivilege of solidity coveriesand a delay,even an abandoningof the analysisof theinfinity [l'infini] of the fieldsof force. I have here correctedthe translation of d'ailleurs, whichmeans "moreover"or "besides" (not "however"). 22. Sheldrake1981, 1991; Briggsand Peat 1984, chap. 4; Granero-Porati and Porati 1984; Kazarinoff1985; Schiffmann 1989; Psarev 1990; Brooks and treatment of Castor 1990; Heinonen et al. 1992; Rensing 1993. For an in-depth the mathematical see Thom 1975, 1990; and fora backgroundto this theory, brief but insightful of thisand related analysisof thephilosophical underpinnings approaches,see Ross 1991 (40-42, 253 n. 20). field mightbe 23. Some early workersthoughtthat the morphogenetic but it is now understood thatthisis merely a relatedto the electromagnetic field, Note also suggestive analogy:see Sheldrake1981 (77, 90) fora clear exposition. point (b) below. see Chomsky1979 (6-7). 24. For another exampleof the "turf"effect, I should mention 25. To be fairto the high-energy-physics establishment, reason fortheiroppositionto thistheory: thatthereis also an honestintellectual inasmuchas it posits a subquantuminteraction the patterns throughout linking a "nonlocalfieldtheory." it is, in physicists' Now, thehisuniverse, terminology, Maxwell'selectrophysicssincetheearly1800s, from toryof classicaltheoretical can be read in a verydeep sense as a dynamicsto Einstein'sgeneralrelativity, in trendaway fromaction-at-a-distance theoriesand towardlocalfieldtheories: technical theories terms, expressible bypartialdifferential equations(Einsteinand Infeld 1961; Hayles 1984). So a nonlocal fieldtheory definitely goes againstthe have convincingly the hand,as Bell (1987) and others argued, grain.On theother its non-locality, as expressedin of quantummechanicsis precisely keyproperty a nonlocalfield Bell's theorem and itsgeneralizations (see nn. 8 and 9). Therefore, to physicists' classicalintuition, is not onlynatural but in theory, although jarring in thequantumcontext. This is why factpreferred (and possiblyevenmandatory?) is a local fieldtheory, whilequantumgravity classical generalrelativity (whether nonlocal. weave,or morphogenetic field)is inherently string,
26. Differential topology is the branch of mathematics concerned with those properties of surfaces (and higher-dimensional manifolds) that are unaffected by smooth deformations. The properties it studies are thereforeprimarily qualitative rather than quantitative, and its methods are holistic rather than Cartesian.
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27. The alertreaderwill noticethatanomaliesin "normalscience" are the usual harbinger of a future paradigmshift (Kuhn 1970). 28. The flowering of the theoryof phase transitions in the 1970s probably an increasedemphasison discontinuity reflects and rupture in the widerculture (see n. 42). 29. For an in-depthanalysis of Lacan's use of ideas frommathematical see Juranville 1984 (chap. 7); Granon-Lafont1985, 1990; Vappereau topology, 1985; and Nasio 1987, 1992; a briefsummaryis given by Leupin 1991. See connectionbetweenLacanian topologyand Hayles 1990 (80) foran intriguing she does not pursue it. See also Zizek 1991 (38-39, chaos theory; unfortunately betweenLacanian theory and contemporary 45-47) forsome further homologies number physics.Lacan also made extensiveuse of concepts fromset-theoretic see, forexample,Miller 1977/78and Ragland-Sullivan1990. theory: In bourgeois social psychology, topological ideas had been employed by Kurt Lewin as earlyas the 1930s, but thisworkfoundered fortwo reasons:first, because of its individualist ideological preconceptions;and second, because it reliedon old-fashioned thanmoderndifferential point-set topologyrather topolthe second point,see Back 1992. ogy and catastrophe theory. Regarding 30. "Il suffit, a cettefin,reconnaltre enfin a la pensee de que Lacan conf&re Freud,les conceptsscientifiques qu'elle exige."This famousessayon "Freud and Lacan" was first publishedin 1964, beforeLacan's workhad reachedits highest level of mathematical in Englishtranslation in Althusser rigor.It was reprinted 1969. 31. This articlehas become quite influential in film see, forexample, theory: citedthere.As Strathausen Jameson1982 (27-28) and thereferences (1994, 69) indicates,Miller's articleis tough going for the reader not well versed in the mathematics But it is well worththe effort. of set theory. For a gentleintroducsee Bourbaki1970. tionto set theory, 32. Homologytheory is one of the two main branchesof the mathematical fieldcalled algebraic For an excellentintroduction to homologytheory, topology. see Munkres 1984; or fora more popular account,see Eilenbergand Steenrod 1952. A fully relativistic is discussed,forexample,in Eilenberg homology theory and Moore 1965. For a dialecticalapproach to homologytheoryand its dual, see Massey 1978. For a cybernetic cohomologytheory, approach to homology, see Saludes i Closa 1984. 33. For the relationof homology to cuts,see Hirsch 1976 (205-8); and for an application in quantumfieldtheory, to collective movements see Caracciolo et al. 1993 (especiallyAppendixA. 1). 34. It is, however, worthnotingthatthe space RP3 is homeomorphic to the of conventional three-dimensional Euclidgroup SO(3) of rotational symmetries ean space. Thus, some aspects of three-dimensional Euclidicityare preserved (albeit in modifiedform) in the postmodernphysics,just as some aspects of Newtonianmechanicswerepreserved in modified formin Einsteinian physics. 35. See also Johnson 1977 (481-82) foran analysisof Derrida's and Lacan's efforts towardtranscending the Euclidean spatiallogic. Alongrelatedlines,Eve Seguin (1994, 61) has notedthat"logic saysnothing
about the world and attributes to the world properties that are but constructs of theoretical thought. This explains why physics since Einstein has relied on alternative logics, such as trivalent logic which rejects the principle of the excluded middle." A pioneering (and unjustly forgotten) work in this direction, likewise
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inspiredby quantum mechanics,is Lupasco 1951. See also Plumwood 1993b feminist on nonclassicallogics.For a critperspective (453-59) fora specifically to the ical analysisof one nonclassicallogic ("boundarylogic") and its relation see Markley1994. ideologyof cyberspace, 36. This essay originally appeared in French in Irigaray1982. Irigaray's as "theoryof sets,"and bords is can also be rendered des ensembles phrase theorie usually translatedin the mathematicalcontext as "boundaries." Her phrase fieldof "fuzzy sets" (Kaufensembles flousmay referto the new mathematical mann 1973; Kosko 1993). therehas been a long-standing of mathematics dialectic 37. In the history of its "pure" and "applied" branches(Struik1987). Of betweenthedevelopment in thiscontext have been those course,the "applications"traditionally privileged to capitalistsor usefulto theirmilitary forces:for example,number profitable (Loxton theoryhas been developed largelyforits applicationsin cryptography 1990). See also Hardy 1967 (120-21, 131-'32). of all boundaryconditions is also suggested 38. The equal representation by of "subatomicdemocracy":see Chew 1977 foran introChew's bootstrap theory duction,and see Morris 1988 and Markley1992 forphilosophical analysis. of the Madsen-Madsen analysisis thatit is essen39. The main limitation tiallyapolitical;and it hardlyneeds to be pointedout thatdisputesoverwhatis affected truecan have a profoundeffect on, and are in turnprofoundly by,disThus Markley(1992, 270) makes a pointsimilarto putes overpolitical projects. situatesit in its politicalcontext: thatof Madsen-Madsen,but rightly of determinRadical critiquesof science thatseek to escape the constraints conceiveddebatesabout realism isticdialecticsmustalso giveovernarrowly be and truth to investigate what kind of realities-politicalrealities-might Within a dialogicallyagitated engenderedby a dialogical bootstrapping. debates about reality environment, become, in practicalterms,irrelevant. is a historical construct. "Reality," finally, See Markley1992 (266-72) and Hobsbawm 1993 (63-64) forfurther discussion of thepoliticalimplications. but equally 40. Aronowitz (1988b, 292-93) makes a slightly different, of criticism (the currently quantumchromodynamics cogent, hegemonictheory bound statesof quarksand gluons): drawnucleonsas permanently representing ing on theworkof Pickering (1984), he notesthat in his [Pickering's] account,quarksare the name assignedto (absent) phethan fieldtheories, nomena thatcohere withparticlerather which,in each case, offer different, althoughequally plausible,explanationsforthe same That the majority of the scientific chose observation. community (inferred) is a function of scientists' for tradition rather one overanother the preference thanthevalidity of explanation. of does not reach back farenoughintothe history However,Pickering physicsto findthe basis of the researchtraditionfromwhich the quark butin theideemanates. It maynotbe foundinsidethetradition explanation
ology of science, in the differencesbehind field versus particle theories, simple versus complex explanations, the bias toward certaintyrather than indeterminateness.
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lines,Markley(1992, 269) observesthatphysicists' preference Alongverysimilar over Chew's bootstrap theoryof "subatomic for quantum chromodynamics thandata: democracy"(Chew 1977) is a resultof ideologyrather It is not surprising, in thisregard, thatbootstrap has fallenintorelatheory tive disfavor seekinga GUT (Grand UnifiedTheory) or among physicists to explainthe structure of theuniverse.ComTOE (Theory of Everything) are productsof theprivileging theories thatexplain"everything" prehensive of coherenceand orderin westernscience. The choice betweenbootstrap thatconfronts does nothave to theoryand theoriesof everything physicists offered do primarily withthetruth-value by theseaccountsof availabledata or deterministic-into but with the narrativestructures-indeterminate whichthesedata are placed and by whichtheyare interpreted. of physicists are not yetaware of these incisive the vast majority Unfortunately, held dogmas. critiquesof one of theirmostfervently For another critique of the hidden ideology of contemporaryparticle physics,see Kroker et al. 1989 (158-62, 204-7). The styleof this critiqueis rather too Baudrillardian formy staid taste,but the contentis (except fora few on target. minorinaccuracies)right 41. For an amusingexample of how thismodestdemand has drivenrightinto fitsof apoplexy ("frighteningly Stalinist"is the chosen epiwing scientists thet),see Gross and Levitt 1994 (91). has been deeplystudiedby cultural 42. Whilechaos theory analysts-see, for 1991; Best 1991; Young 1991, 1992; Assad example,Hayles 1990, 1991; Argyros has passed largely 1993 among many others-the theoryof phase transitions unremarked. (One exceptionis the discussionof the renormalization group in because discontinuity and the emergence Hayles 1990 [154-58].) This is a pity, in thistheory; and itwould be interesting to of multiple scales are central features of thesethemesin the 1970s and afterwards is conknowhow the development nectedto trendsin the widerculture.I therefore suggestthistheoryas a fruitful fieldfor futureresearchby culturalanalysts.Some theoremson discontinuity whichmaybe relevant to thisanalysiscan be foundin Van Enteret al. 1993. 43. See, however,Schor 1989 for a critiqueof Irigaray's undue deference towardconventional science, (male) particularly physics. theCartesian/Baconian RobertMarkley(1991, 44. Concerning metaphysics, 6) has observedthat of scientific Narratives progress dependupon imposing binary oppositionstheoretical and experimental true/false, right/wrong-on priviknowledge, overmetaphor, legingmeaningovernoise,metonymy monologicalauthority . . . These attempts overdialogicalcontention to fixnatureare ideologically coercive as well as descriptively limited.They focus attention only on the smallrangeof phenomena-say, lineardynamics-whichseem to offer easy, oftenidealized ways of modelingand interpreting humankind's relationship to theuniverse.
While this observation is informed primarily by chaos theory-and secondarily by nonrelativistic quantum mechanics-it in fact summarizes beautifully the radical challenge to modernist metaphysics posed by quantum gravity. 45. One caveat: I have strong reservations about Capra's use here of the
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wordcyclical, whichifinterpreted too literally could promotea politically regressive quietism.For further analyses of these issues, see Bohm 1980; Merchant 1980, 1992; Berman 1981; Prigogineand Stengers1984; Bowen 1985; Griffin 1988; Kitchener1988; Callicott1989 (chaps. 6 and 9); Shiva 1990; Best 1991; Haraway 1991, 1994; Mathews 1991; Morin 1992; Santos 1992; and Wright 1992. 46. A minor quibble: it is not clear to me that complex numbertheory, branchof mathematical whichis a new and stillquite speculative physics, ought to be accordedthe same epistemological statusas thethreefirmly established sciences citedby Markley. 1993 (17-20) foran incisiveand closelyanalogous account See Wallerstein of how the postmodern to borrowideas fromthe historical physicsis beginning social sciences; and see Santos 1989 and 1992 fora moredetaileddevelopment. scientist's 47. At this point,the traditional responseis thatworknot conto the evidentiary standardsof conventional science is fundamentally forming not worthy of credence.But this thatis, logicallyflawedand therefore irrational, is insufficient: refutation for,as Porush (1993) has lucidlyobserved,modern of the and physicshave themselves admitteda powerful "intrusion mathematics in quantummechanicsand G6del's theorem-although, understandirrational" centuries scientists have twenty-four ably,like the Pythagoreans ago, modernist irrational as besttheycould. Porush to exorcisethisunwanted element attempted makes a powerful thatwould retainthe plea fora "post-rational epistemology" bestof conventional Western sciencewhilevalidating alternative waysofknowing. Note also thatJacques Lacan, froma quite different point, came starting of theinevitable in modern role of irrationality appreciation long ago to a similar mathematics: If you'll permitme to use one of those formulaswhich come to me as I as a calculus in whichzero was writemynotes,humanlifecould be defined This formula is just an image,a mathematical irrational. When I metaphor. I'm not to some but unfathomable emotional state say "irrational," referring number.The square root of minus to whatis called an imaginary precisely one doesn'tcorrespond to anything thatis subjectto our intuition, anything sense of theterm-and yet,it mustbe conserved, real-in themathematical givenin along withits fullfunction. (Lacan 1977, 28-29; seminaroriginally 1959) in modernmathematics, For further reflections on irrationality see Solomon 1988 (76) and Bloor 1991 (122-25). 48. Along parallel lines, Donna Haraway (1991, 191-92) has argued elo"partial,locatable,criticalknowlquentlyfora democraticscience comprising of in politics the webs of connections called solidarity edges sustaining possibility in epistemology" and foundedon "a doctrine and pracand sharedconversations that privilegescontestation, tice of objectivity deconstruction, passionate conand hope fortransformation of systems of knowlwebbedconnections, struction, developed in Haraway 1994 edge and ways of seeing." These ideas are further and Doyle 1994. see Sokal 49. For an example in the contextof the Sandinistarevolution,
1987. 50. For feminist critiques, see Merchant 1980; Easlea 1981; Keller 1985, 1992; Harding 1986, 1991; Haraway 1989, 1991; Plumwood 1993a. See Wylie et al. 1990 for an extensive bibliography. The feminist critique of science has, not
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been the objectof a bitter For a sampling, counterattack. surprisingly, right-wing see Levin 1988; Haack 1992, 1993; Sommers 1994; Gross and Levitt 1994 (chap. 5); and Patai and Koertge 1994. see Trebilcot1988 and Hamill 1994. For queer critiques, For multiculturalist critiques,see Ezeabasili 1977; Van Sertima 1983; Frye 1987; Sardar 1988; Adams 1990; Nandy 1990; Alvares 1992; Harding 1994. As withthe feminist has been ridiculedby critique,the multiculturalist perspective witha condescensionthatin some cases borderson racism. critics, right-wing See, for example, Ortiz de Montellano 1991; Martel 1991/92; Hughes 1993 (chap. 2); and Gross and Levitt1994 (203-14). For ecological critiques, see Merchant1980, 1992; Berman 1981; Callicott 1989 (chaps. 6 and 9); Mathews 1991; Wright1992; Plumwood 1993a; Ross 1994. 51. See Wojciehowski1991 for a deconstruction in of Galileo's rhetoric, method can lead to direct particularhis claim that the mathematico-scientific of "reality." and reliableknowledge A veryrecentbut important contribution to the philosophy of mathematics can be found in the workof Deleuze and Guattari(1994, chap. 5). Here they introduce thephilosophically fruitful notionof a "functive"[Fr.fonctif], whichis neithera function[Fr. fonction] nor a functional but rathera [Fr. fonctionnelle] more basic conceptualentity: "The object of science is not conceptsbut rather in discursive functions thatare presentedas propositions The elements systems. of functions are calledfunctives" (117). This apparently simpleidea has surprisconsequences;its elucidation requiresa detourinto inglysubtleand far-reaching chaos theory(see also Rosenberg1993 and Canning 1994): The first difference betweenscience and philosophy is theirrespective attitudes towardchaos. Chaos is definednot so much by its disorderas by the infinite speed withwhicheveryformtakingshape in it vanishes.It is a void thatis not a nothingness but a virtual, all possible particlesand containing whichspringup onlyto disappear immedidrawingout all possible forms, or reference, withoutconsequence. Chaos is an ately,withoutconsistency infinite speed of birthand disappearance.(117-18) cannotcope withinfinite But science,unlikephilosophy, speeds: It is by slowingdown thatmatter, as well as the scientific thoughtable to penetrateit [sic] with propositions,is actualized. A functionis a Slowmotion. Of course, science constantly advances accelerations, not only in but in particleaccelerators and expansionsthatmovegalaxiesapart. catalysis However,the primordial slowingdown is not forthese phenomenaa zeroa conditioncoextensive instant withwhichtheybreakbut rather withtheir whole development.To slow down is to set a limitin chaos to which all a variabledetermined as abscissa,at the speeds are subject,so thattheyform same time as the limit forms a universal constant that cannot be gone beyond (forexample,a maximumdegreeof contraction).Thefirst functives and thevariable, are therefore thelimit and reference is a relationship between
values of the variable or, more profoundly,the relationship of the variable, as abscissa of speeds, with the limit. (118-19; emphasis mine)
A rather intricate furtheranalysis (too lengthy to quote here) leads to a conclusion of profound methodological importance for those sciences based on mathe-
241
maticalmodeling:"The respective independenceof variablesappears in mathematicswhen one of themis at a higherpowerthan the first. That is whyHegel in the functionis not confinedto values that can be shows that variability (a = 2b) but requiresone of the changed (2/3 and 4/6) or are leftundetermined = P)" (122). (Note thattheEnglishtransvariablesto be at a higher power(y2/x F an amusingerror lationinadvertently writes thatthoroughly y2/x P, manglesthe logic of the argument.) fora technicalphilosophicalwork,thisbook (Qu'est-ceque la Surprisingly in France in 1991. It has recently was a best-seller philosophie?) appearedin Engto compete successfully lish translation, but is, alas, unlikely with Rush Limlistsin thiscountry. baugh and Howard Sternforthebest-seller 52. For a viciousright-wing attackon thisproposition, see Gross and Levitt 1994 (52-54). See Ginzberg 1989; Cope-Kasten 1989; Nye 1990; and Plumof conventional wood 1993b forlucid feminist mathematcritiques (masculinist) the modus and thesyllogism. ical logic,in particular the modus ponens Concerning 1988 see also and Bloor 1991 and (45-46) (182); ponens, Woolgar concerning see also Woolgar 1988 (47-48) and Bloor 1991 (131-35). For an the syllogism, mathematical of infinity, see analysisof the social imagesunderlying conceptions ofthe social contextuality of mathematHarding 1986 (50). For a demonstration ical statements, see Woolgar1988 (43) and Bloor 1991 (107-30). 53. See Merchant1980 fora detailedanalysisof the themesof controland in Western mathematics and science. domination Let me mentionin passingtwo otherexamplesof sexismand militarism in thatto my knowledgehave not been noticedpreviously. mathematics The first concernsthe theoryof branching processes,which arose in VictorianEngland of families" and whichnow playsa keyrole from the "problemof the extinction interalia in the analysisof nuclearchain reactions(Harris 1963). In the seminal (and thissexistword is apt) paper on the subject,Francis Galton and the ReverendH. W. Watson(1874) wrote: The decay of the familiesof men who occupied conspicuous positionsin and has givenriseto varresearch, past timeshas been a subjectof frequent that were once common have since become scarce or have whollydisapis universal, of it,the conclusion and, in explanation peared. The tendency been drawnthata risein physicalcomfort and intellectual has hastily capacin 'fertility'.. ityis necessarily accompaniedby a diminution Let p0 p1,P2, . . . be the respective probabilities that a man has 0, 1, 2, of sons of his own, and so . let each son have the same probability .sons, on. What is the probability thatthe male line is extinct afterr generations, forany givennumberof descenwhatis the probability and moregenerally dantsin the male line in any givengeneration? One cannotfailto be charmedbythequaintimplication thathumanmalesreprothe classism,social-Darwinism, and sexismin this duce asexually;nevertheless, passage are obvious. The second example is Laurent Schwartz's 1973 book Radon Measures.
While technically quite interesting,this work is imbued, as its title makes plain, with the pro-nuclear-energy worldview that has been characteristic of French science since the early 1960s. Sadly, the French left-especially but by no means solely the PCF-has traditionally been as enthusiastic for nuclear energy as the et al. 1980). Touraine right (see 54. Just as liberal feministsare frequentlycontent with a minimal agenda of ious conjectures . . . The instances are very numerous in which surnames
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legal and social equalityforwomen and "pro-choice,"so liberal(and even some are oftencontentto workwithinthe hegemonicZersocialist) mathematicians its nineteenth-century melo-Fraenkel framework liberal ori(which, reflecting theaxiom of equality)supplemented onlybytheaxiom gins,alreadyincorporates is grossly insufficient fora liberatory of choice. But thisframework mathematics, as was provenlong ago by Cohen 1966. 55. Fuzzy systems cortheoryhas been heavilydeveloped by transnational in Japanand laterelsewhere-to solve practicalproblemsof effiporations-first automation. ciencyin labor-displacing
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Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity Author(s): Alan D. Sokal Source: Social Text, No.

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