In his book David Peat endorses the claim that the world is much more
complex than the clockwork model projected and, in consequence, the idea of
progress as envisioned by Enlightenment is in a glaring need of revision. Science
no longer, he claims, can be expected to proclaim a unifying “grand” vision of
this complex world as there will always be uncertainty that science will not be
able to cope with. This claim is perspicuously substantiated by Peat’s
remarkably lucid exposition of the advancement of science in the 20^th
century (e.g. Gödel’s proof of incompleteness of mathematics, Quantum
Mechanics, or Chaos Theory). In his argument he characteristically manages to
combine the awareness of the principled limitations of science with a deep
understanding of it. The moral Peat draws amounts basically to the
acknowledgement of the fact that uncertainty and risk are inherent in our ideas
and that we should recognize this in our individual, social and political plans
allowing thus for more diversity and self-organization of scientifically
unpredictable systems. At points, however, Peat apparently goes much further
than that and reveals Rousseau-like nostalgia for the “ideal” and primitive
(i.e. independent of science and technology) social relationships.

For undergraduates this book will be an inspiring survey of the most
spectacular scientific, technical and artistic ideas of the 20^th
century; Peat is exceptionally effective when it comes to a graspable
presentation of the most sophisticated theoretical accomplishments in science,
like Gödel’s theorem or Chaos Theory. Advanced readers will surely enjoy the
exuberant style of the book and will be stimulated to share the author’s
concern for the commencing millennium.

The preface focuses on the “auspicious” year 1900. In many respects it
indeed was exceptional: around this time many accomplishments in science,
technology, engineering, economics and politics made themselves transparent.
Taken as a whole, this apparently was an excellent evidence to sustain the
expectation that a new epoch for humanity had already began; an epoch of
“Peace, Prosperity, and Progress”. It was the same year 1900, however, that
triggered off a revolution of ideas that was to transform the world. The first
paper on the quantum by Max Planck was published, Albert Einstein finished his
graduate studies in Zurich, and the following year Werner Heisenberg was born –
three physicists who contributed most to dramatically change modern science as
well as the resulting vision of the world. This is only an illustration of the ­wealth
of – though sometimes undue and unrelated – facts that Peat refers to in order
to sharpen the contrast between mentalities of the 19^th and 20^th
centuries. For some reason, he takes the year 1900 as the first one of the new
century, but still the style of the preface makes the reader expect the
historical line of argument in the remainder of the book; the argument which
will pin down in terms of historical detail how “certainty dissolved into
uncertainty”.

Only chapters one Quantum
Uncertainty, two On Incompleteness (and the accompanying appendix on
Gödel’s theorem) and six From Clockwork to Chaos meet the aforementioned
expectation. Indeed, they sum up to form a plausible and expound case. The
inessentials aside, Peat allows the reader to move straight to the debate
between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr on what there is in the quantum world.
The former, despite his ingenuity and contribution to physics, represents for
Peat the 19^th century mentality of certainty and unlimited realism.
The latter’s thought is unmatched in its subtlety and more open to
acknowledgement of uncertainty inherent in the world itself. Due to Peat’s
profound understanding of the issues involved and his exceptionally lucid style
the reader can easily follow the core issues of the debate and appreciate the
ingenuity of both adversaries. We get involved in this discussion and cannot
help reading Einstein’s next thought experiment and Bohr’s fatigueless attempts
at even more sophisticated counterarguments. The latter seems to be finally
stuck with the EPR thought experiment, but still, we take the opportunity to
follow Peat’s exposition of the ingenuity of Bohr’s response.

Since physics, contrary to what was
supposed in the 19^th century, cannot support certainty, why not try
mathematics? Peat gradually advances more pressing questions concerning
completeness and consistency of mathematics. Against this background Gödel’s
theorem seems to be nothing but a natural way to proceed. For those unfamiliar
with the latter it might seem almost inconceivable that it has been proved that
mathematics is incomplete. In the appendix Peat develops a step-by-step version
that almost everyone can easily follow and acknowledge Gödel’s inventiveness.
The moral, however, is that neither physics nor mathematics can sustain
certainty.

Chapter six reconsiders the same
issues as chapters one and two, but from a more general perspective. Since
neither physics nor mathematics support unlimited certainty then the broader
view of the workings of the world in Newton’s clockwork model need to be
reexamined. The clockwork model epitomizes the age of certainty – it would be
enough to know the initial state of the world and all the laws under which it
is subsumed to know to any degree of precision any future state of the world.
This certainty was put to an end not only by the existence of chance phenomena,
discussed by Peat in chapter one, but also by chaos. While we are all familiar
with this word, for many it still remains an open question how is this possible
for a negligible event to have such a gross effect as to make the whole system
behave in an unpredictable way? Again, Peat in characteristically lucid
exposition delineates how chaos does really work.

Chapters three (From Object to Process), four (Language)
and five (The End of Representation) illustrate that the transition from
certainty to uncertainty is not specifically scientific phenomenon, since it is
a wider cultural process. One of Peat’s arguments appeals to the revolution
brought about by impressionists – paintings seek not only “to represent
reality”, but also engage “the essential way in which we actually see
the world” (105) inseparable part of which becomes now “participatory seeing”.
The same process takes place in our language and in the way we represent the
world. However, the problem of transition from certainty to uncertainty is not
a 20^th century invention as it is a recurrent theme in the history
of humanity. This broad historical perspective is not entertained in Peat’s
book, and therefore its conclusion largely hinges upon the current state of
science. This apparently undermines the initial argument.

The remaining chapters (seven: Reenvisioning
the Planet and eight: Pausing the Cosmos) focus on “far more
pressing issues” of daily life rather than “case histories from science,
philosophy, and mathematics” (155). In fact, they seem to support a different
argument to the effect that no longer we can conceive of science, or anything
else, that would support the expectation of there being uniquely best plan for
everyone. None such plan is workable in principle because of uncertainty and
the fact that the order we perceive in nature or society often results from an
unpredictable chaotic state. Therefore, we have to rely more on the
intellectual and moral capacities of individuals than on “grand ideas and
schemes”. Along these lines Peat appeals to our imagination and responsibility
– there are many actions which we think of as trivial and unimportant, but
which multiplied by millions or billions of ordinary people like us will yield
the beneficial effect for the whole planet – “[w]e have left the dream of
absolute certainty behind. In its place each of us must now take responsibility
for the uncertain future” (215), concludes Peat.

The moral he draws from the ubiquitous uncertainty is apparently in the
positive – since “we have learned to suspect grand, overarching schemes and
ideas” (47) the future is left open to be determined by our creative actions.
Sometimes, however, he seems to endorse a more grim suggestion. Given the fact
that “our most sophisticated science and technology are being put to the
service of our most primitive drives and reactions” (191) the former have to be
reassessed – or even replaced by alternative approaches like “Blackfoot
physics” – and in the last resort – “[w]ithout idealizing early and indigenous
cultures” – we should give more thought to this model of social organization as
“they were relatively peaceful and offered no major threat to each other or to
the surrounding environment” (196). Peat, however, is silent on how to work out
the details of this idea.

While written as an exercise in the history of ideas, From Certainty
to Uncertainty is a book full of philosophical wisdom. It is from this
perspective that Peat highlights the most urgent problems of the commencing
millennium which also pertain to our everyday decisions and actions. An
admirable companion to reconsider – at the beginning of the 21^st
century – the most noteworthy ideas of the preceding one.

© 2002 Pawel Kawalec

Pawel Kawalec Ph.D., Faculty of
Philosophy, Catholic University of Lublin, POLAND

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