Most people have a bias toward seeing the world as they would like it to be. It might be best for some purposes, however, to know the world as it actually is. Unlimited Progress: The Grand Delusion of the Modern World can help in that quest. One of the most misleading ideas permeating the modern world is the concept that progress can be almost unlimited. Most of this book focuses on modern science and how it underlies and influences almost all of our general views about what the world is like. Americans have become hooked on progress. Much of this addiction has developed because of the great advances of modern science and related technology. Author Dennis Knight Heffner, M.D., has a broad-based perspective on science, developed over half a century, that will help you understand that there are limits to progress. Being aware of them can help you make important choices affecting your life- especially political choices.

Unlimited Progress

The Grand Delusion of the Modern WorldBy Dennis Knight Heffner

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Dennis Knight Heffner, M.D.
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-3785-7

Contents

Foreword......................................................................ixPreface.......................................................................xiChapter 1 Progress Is a Percept Solely in the Modern Mind.....................1Chapter 2 The Two Cultures and the Science Wars...............................6Chapter 3 Change and S-Shaped Curves..........................................16Chapter 4 The End of the Transportation Revolution............................24Chapter 5 Medicine: Little Limits in the Bridge...............................32Chapter 6 The Limits of DNA...................................................47Chapter 7 The Digital Delusion of Neurophysiology.............................61Chapter 8 The Artificiality of Artificial Intelligence........................70Chapter 9 Chaotic Dynamics and Society........................................79Chapter 10 The End of Physics.................................................88Chapter 11 The Best Political Attitude........................................96Chapter 12 The Positive Power of the Necessary Negative.......................106Chapter 13 Time for Independents to Fall Off the Fence........................113Acknowledgments...............................................................121

Chapter One

Progress Is a Percept Solely in the Modern Mind

Most of this book will focus on modern science and how it underlies and influences almost all of our general views about what the world is like. To emphasize this powerful effect of science and related technology on our worldviews, it may be helpful to briefly recount some aspects of how people perceived the world in ancient times before the influences of modern science came about. This will serve as a contrast to the modern perspective, and this contrast will highlight and emphasize the extent and strength of the influence science has had on general thinking about the world we live in. To begin, we will try to judge what the word "progress" may have meant to people in the ancient world.

The word "progress" has, not surprisingly, its roots in ancient language. In Latin, the prefix pro means "forward" and gradi means "to step or walk." But this literal meaning of forward walking connotes much less than the greatly expanded meaning that the word has today. There is reason to believe that in the ancient world the word mostly carried only the limited and literal meaning referring to mechanistic forward walking.

Of course, scholars will point out that there are numerous examples in the writings of Greek philosophers that seem to be related to a broader meaning of progress. But these examples seem to me to be mere snippets of progress and, overall, do not indicate very much of what in the modern world is conveyed by the word "progress."

A. Ancient Greece

Indeed, in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, even the idea that there could be such a thing as real motion (e.g., forward walking) was problematic for some, and it was debatable whether reality was fixed or changing. Perhaps the perception of motion was illusory. Heraclitus and Parmenides had contrasting ideas about change and continuity. The former held that there indeed was change, so much so that "one could never step in the same river twice." Parmenides said that, although common sense might suggest that things change, this is an illusion. The world is complete and perfect and therefore cannot change. His pupil was Zeno, the founder of stoic philosophy, and he contrived three paradoxes of motion that are well known and to this day carry some import.

The most well known of these paradoxes is the one describing Achilles chasing a slower individual. Although Achilles was faster, there would be great difficulty in catching up to and surpassing the rival. Consider an example of a starting situation, with Achilles being one hundred yards behind the rival. As the race moves along, there will be a point at which Achilles has progressed to being only fifty yards behind, closing the distance by half. Then comes the point at which he has cut the fifty-yard trailing distance in half, to twenty-five yards. Then he cuts the twenty-five yards in half to twelve and a half yards. The obvious progression of the race is that for the remaining trailing distance, Achilles must continually cut that distance in half. But that will always mean that a remaining half persists to be reduced. This will continue ad infinitum, and thus Achilles will never be able to eliminate entirely a remaining trailing distance, let alone surpass the rival runner. Now, Zeno himself recognized that the conclusion was a contradiction to observation, but his argument was effective for his purpose, and the argument type was a logical one called reductio ad absurdum.

Of course, every modern person recognizes that this result is absurd, and therefore the argument is meaningless. But it is not so in the following way. To try to conversely argue that the story is wrong is a very formidable logical-mathematical challenge. Indeed, counterarguments did not approach cogency until the ideas of differential calculus with conceptions of infinitesimals were developed in the seventeenth century AD (CE). Even then it was problematic to compellingly demonstrate a counterargument. In recent decades there have been scientific (mathematical) articles discussing the challenging problem presented by Zeno's paradoxes. This is an example of the intractability of some philosophical problems that can persist from ancient times. Indeed, most of the major philosophical problems debated by ancient Greeks remain less than completely resolved to this day. The history of philosophy can be paraphrased as the "Long Debate" (Daniel N. Robinson). This by itself is some evidence that progress can be difficult and at least sometimes probably limited.

Regarding Greek philosophy and any ideas affecting the concept of progress, such ideas seem more oriented toward the concept of a stable world rather than a progressive one. Socrates argued that ethical truths were absolute and demonstrable, similar to the truths of geometry. Plato's fundamental view of the important world was one of ideal forms or essences. Yes, the visible, mundane world was one where things change, but these things were not as real and not as important as were the unchanging ideal forms.

Aristotle's ideas can be cited as perhaps including that of progress because of his thoughts in the area of entelechy, or teleological change. That is, change is viewed as aiming toward a goal or end. For example, a child changes (i.e., develops and matures) with the goal of becoming an adult. This certainly seems to imply an idea tantamount to progress. But I point out for our purposes that such ideas obviously entail a limit to the progress, the limit being the aim or goal toward which the progress is drawn. Overall and basically, Greek philosophy is much less underlain by ideas of progress than is our modern world.

B. Roman Law

The development of the ancient Roman Empire would certainly seem to entail ideas of progress for those living within the empire. But some factors would tend to moderate such ideas.

The Greeks are known for great philosophical constructs. The Roman Empire grew upon some of these philosophical achievements, most notably in the realm of...