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The Role of the Observer
BY
NORBERT WIENER
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308 The Role of the Observer
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N. Wiener 309
sculptor represents eyes and hair true to their form, his repre-
sentation belies their appearance; if true to their appearance, it
belies their form.
It is however in literature and in the kindred art of illustra-
tion that the observer intrudes himself most insidiously. When
I was a boy, I possessed a copy of "Treasure Island" with an
illustration which troubled me not a little. It showed the hero
being chased through the rigging of the ship by one of the muti-
neers. The point of view from which it was supposed to be seen
was about ten feet to the side of one of the masts. "This pic-
ture," I said to myself, "represents the scene as somebody sees
it. Now, it is explicitly stated that only the two characters
shown in the picture are aboard. Moreover, if a third person
were aboard and were to see the scene as it is represented, there
would be no place for him to stand." In literature, the author
also constitutes an extra character, who sees the invisible and
divines the unknowable. The more "psychological" a novel is,
the more this extra character intrudes.
In psychological works of the imagination, and above all in
that great work of the imagination known as psychoanalysis, the
author can only reveal by falsifying. It is his task to bring the
subconscious motives of his characters to light, but a subcon-
scious motive brought to light is no longer a subconscious motive.
It has an outline and a body which are foreign to its original
nature. Without doubt the methods of psychoanalysis have a
real validity of some sort. Equally without doubt, this validity
does not consist in merely tearing aside a veil behind which our
original unconscious motives remain unaltered.
Psychoanalysis is not the only branch of medicine in which the
examiner has at his disposal only methods which are to some
degree destructive. In an abdominal emergency, the surgeon
may have to perform an exploratory laparotomy, but an ex-
ploratory laparotomy is itself a somewhat drastic surgical pro-
cedure. A proper examination of the eye demands the use of
mydriatics, which however have blinded many a glaucomatous
eye. The physician learns his trade on a dead, preserved
cadaver, which death and the use of fixatives have altered in
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3I The Role of the Observer
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N. Wiener 3 I
mine the position of a particle is a loss in the accuracy with
which we determine its momentum.
One might suppose that it is still possible to maintain that a
particle such as an electron still has a definite momentum and
a definite position, whether we can measure them simultaneously
or not, and that there are precise laws of motion into which this
position and this momentum enter. Von Neumann has shown
that this is not the case, and that the indeterminacy of the world
is genuine and fundamental. There are no clean-cut laws of
motion which enable us to predict the momentum and position
of the world at future times in any precise way in terms of any
observable data whatever at the present time. In other words,
while it is possible to give an account of the world in terms of
our observations which themselves disturb our world, this ac-
count has only statistical validity, and cannot be brought closer
to precision by any chain of observations.
Thus physics, the most exact of all sciences, has had to have
a thorough logical housecleaning. We no longer conceive the
laws of physics to apply to some mystical world of reality behind
our observations and instruments: they merely constitute an
intelligible statement of the manner in which our observations
and the readings of our instruments hang together. About any
proposition of physics, we must ask: does it enable us to predict
the result of an actual or possible experiment. If it does, it
stands or falls with this experiment; if not, it has no meaning
whatever. Physics is merely a coherent way of describing the
readings of physical instruments.
There is no reason why a similar criterion should not be ap-
plied to all branches of knowledge. Biology should be an ac-
count of the outcome of dissections, physiological experiments,
and observations of the behavior of animals. Psychology should
be a reasoned history of introspections and observations of be-
havior, which will allow us to fit in new observations and intro-
spections. Mathematics should be an account of theorems and
their recognized criteria of truth or falsity, which will allow
us to place new theorems in this respect. Whatever view we
have of the "realities" underlying our introspections and experi-
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31 2 The Role of the Observer
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N. Wiener 313
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3 4 The Role of the Observer
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N. Wiener 315
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316 The Role of the Observer
sheer blunder. Once the key will go into the lock, and the bolt
begins to show signs of turning, it is a matter of mere file-work
and oil to get a perfect fit. The final deductive finish is impor-
tant for a pretty job, but may be left in the hands of any com-
petent apprentice.
The philosophy of Hume furnishes the dreadful example of
what happens to an empiricism which seeks its fundamental
reality in the fugitive sense-data of immediate experience. If
the raw stuff of our experience does not contain something of a
universal nature, no manipulation can ever evoke anything which
might even be mistaken for a universal. What Hume has parted
asunder, let no God join.
Science is the explanation of process. It is neither possible
under a rationalism, which does not recognize the reality of
process, nor under an empiricism, which does not recognize the
reality of explanation. The problem of the justification of in-
duction, and of the formation of a real inductive logic, which has
been one of the eternal scandals of philosophy, arises from the
attempt to fit induction into a system originally conceived
without reference to induction, in which inductive knowledge is
derivative instead of primary. The difficulty is the same as
that which we incur when we try to force quantum theory into
the frame of classical mechanics.
In Kantian terminology, inductive knowledge is synthetic,
for it gives us actual new information. It is certainly at least in
part a posteriori, but the mind does not receive it purely pas-
sively, so that it may be said to contain an a priori element.
Deductive knowledge is analytic, for the simple reason that no
perfect universal has been defined until all possible questions
concerning it have been answered, and are consequently con-
tained in its definition.
A particular case of induction which contains much that is
typical of more general cases, and merits detailed discussion, is
given by periodogram analysis. Periodogram analysis is a
method used when it is desired to throw light on the irregular
changes of a measurable quantity, such as the air temperature
at a particular observing station, and to uncover hidden periodic-
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N. Wiener 317
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318 The Role of the Observer
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N. Wiener 319
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