Our modern science has a metaphysical foundation of logical empiricism. At its core is an ontological assumption of separateness – that the observer is different from the observed, and an epistemological assumption that the only way we can know truth is through the data constructed and collected through observation using our physical senses. But science needs to change, and there are ample reasons to do so.
In this article, Willis Harman cites six major reasons (some of them coming from the hard sciences itself) which contradicts the prevailing view of reality. Harman also revisits W.V.O. Quinn’s theoretical network argument to substantiate his claim that it is time for science to re-evaluate its metaphysical foundations.
Implications for AI
AI development is based on a worldview that is slowly deteriorating. Pushing for the creation of more dangerous kinds of AI (for example, artificial general intelligence, or a “conscious” AI) without regard for the safety of humanity can be likened to the Inquisition of the 12th century. In a few years time, our descendants will wonder how we have knowingly blinded ourselves to the truth – how we betrayed their future. Do we want this generation to be remembered as the one that looked on passively to the evidences that science is presenting about a view of reality that is founded on wholeness and interdependence?
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