Dark Energy and the Ethics of Curiosity Roger F Malina Observatoire Astronomique de Marseille Provence (OAMP) Leonardo/ISAST: International Society for the Arts-Sciences-Technology

A couple of confessions: I am a positivist o Critical realist, constructivist o World exists, is knowable o Reliance on the senses and their extensions o Scientific method I am an atheist o Emergence in complex systems

Concordance Model of Cosmology: Big Bang..Re-ionisation..Large scale structure..stars and galaxies..planets..life

The Dark Universe: A billion pound Scientific Controversy Astronomers now believe only 3% of the content of the universe is made of the same stuff as us. And maybe Einstein’s Theory of Gravity needs to be modified, is wrong on large scales And, Or ?

Dark Matter 1/3 Dark Matter, whose gravity holds together the structures we see

2/3 is Dark Energy that drives the acceleration of the expansion of the universe

A satellite to study dark energy and dark matter Massive collection of data A international scientific collaboration Total End to End cost: 1 billion pounds Womb to Tomb schedule: ? 20 years… Ten different research labs and universities 80 person core collaboration already..hundreds Societal Limits to curiosity

Three linked approaches within the scientific method that stop curiosity Explanation through New Physical « Laws »: o Compact Descriptions of the World o Experiments on the world o Modified Gravity, Quintessence Simulations: o Virtual Worlds that mimic our World o Retrodiction vs Prediction Pattern Recognition: o « Petabyte » era, Massive Cataloguing, Virtual Observatories o Doing experiments on data about the world o Extrapolation vs Explanation…The End of Theory…

When does one stop looking ? What is the limit of curiosity ? o Scientist: When one has a tested explanation that makes sense o Artist: When one has generated an experience that creates meaning/changes perception/realised self expression What kinds of explanations make sense ? o Scientist: When we are dealing with epistemologies/ontologies that are commensurate with our current science o Artist: When it is relevant to the human condition and experience. Individual and shared..intensity Is there an ethics of curiosity ? o Science and the Ethics of Curiosity, Sundar Sarukkai, 2009 o Most Scientists would say: No o Most Artists would say: Yes

Curiosity as a driver of technology : “ Most” of the content of the Universe is “unobservable” Not observable with unaided human senses Not observable with existing technologies: o Augmented senses o Extended Senses o New senses Not observable because of measurement method Theoretically unobservable Conceptually Unobservable

Sensory paradox : Most of our information about the universe now comes in ways, contexts where we have no basis for intuition, language, metaphorical frameworks. These devices « hallucinate » in ways with which we have no experience. How to do « ground truth » experiments ? How to decide what to be curious about ?

New Senses: Gravitational Wave Observatories LIGO in USA VIRGO in Italy

New senses: The Antares Neutrino Observatory under the Mediterranean

What path to take through the universe ? cf Cheese Diagram Guardans, Czegledy SLOW FAST SMALL OUR SIZE LARGE

Scientific Curiosity Scientific curiosity is ‘pure’, driven by a child like desire to understand ourselves and the world around us o Pure Science vs Applied Science o Note: Fine Art vs Applied Art Curiosity does not accept authority, but relies on confrontation of hypotheses/meanings with experiments/experience. o No function of ‘science critic’ cf ‘art critic”

Ethos of Scientific Curiosity cf Bunge 2006, Morton Intellectual Honesty Integrity Epistemic Communism Organized skepticism Dis-interestedness Impersonality Universality

Towards an Ethics of Curiosity cf Sundar Sarukkai: Science and the Ethics of Curiosity 2009 Curiosity is embodied Curiosity is enacted Curiosity is cultural Curiosity is social Curiosity is collective The claimed distinction between “pure” and “applied” science is not sustainable In some cultures, eg some Indian traditions, doubt rather than curiosity is a dominant driver ( cf Descartes) “Beware of binary oppositions” !

Curiosity is embodied: Varela: All knowledge is conditioned by the structure of the knower Stelarc Char Davies

Curiosity is enactive eg Marcel.li Antunez Roca Richard Feynman: What I cannot create, I cannot understand

Curiosity is Social Marco Peljham and Makrolab

Curiosity is Cultural Saint Augustine: It was curiosity led me along the false trails before submitting to christian baptisms Francis Bacon : It is Charity that must motivate the knower, not curiosity Donna Cox Ruth West Weather Data Bases Protein Sequence Data

Curiosity is collective: Frank Malina/WAC corporal team: first man man object in space 1947 Alan Lightman: Individual scientists are not emotionally detached from their work, it is through their collective activity that objectivity emerges

Modern Science doesn’t make common sense New scientific knowledge comes through the use of instruments that have contact with a world that is not our world o Our languages, metaphors, descriptions are disconnected from these worlds o We are trained on the wrong data set for survival Einstein:” The universe of ideas is just as independent of the nature of our experience as clothes are of the form of the human body” Science has become a cargo cult

Science as a Terrain for Art Forming intuition on mediated sensory data Designing/Interacting with simulated systems Making sense/meaning of dense data, petabyte era Making Science Intimate, Peoples Science, Micro Science New Ontologies, New Intuitions,New Sensuality

Curiosity: D’ou venons nous ? Que Sommes Nous ? Ou Allons Nous ? Ethics of Curiosity: “the nature of the task of the “ought’ is the other-directedness of the “is”