As difficult as it may be to imagine how it might have been different in the past, human consciousness today is not the same as it has always been. By human consciousness I’m referring to the cognitive framework and processes that guide our conscious mental activities. How we see reality is as much influenced by how our minds and brains work as by what stimulates them into action. Jill Taylor’s story poignantly supports this observation.
The reality she perceived when a massive hemorrhagic stroke shut down her left brain was different from any she had ever before experienced. In describing the change in her perception of reality, she wrote in her book My Stroke of Insight, “… my perception was released from its attachment to categorization and detail … In the absence of my left hemisphere’s analytical judgment, I was completely entranced by feelings of tranquility, safety, blessedness, euphoria, and omniscience. .. .I think the Buddhists would say I entered the mode of existence they call Nirvana.”
Taylor’s story brings to mind the oft-expressed idea that “perception is reality.” Yet, how many of us really believe that – especially with respect to our own perceptions of reality. Most of us would argue that there is an objective reality regardless of how individual minds may distort it. The tree that falls in the woods does make a sound regardless of whether it is within the reach of a human ear.
In classical Newtonian science, objective existence is independent of human perception. Nothing has so influenced the worldviews of common folk as Newtonian science. Never mind that most of us are untutored in science. When we make our decisions we still think, however imperfectly, like scientists seeking proof of a proposition before accepting it as truth. The ultimate proof of truth is established when different experimenters, using the same methods, get the same outcome.
Newtonian science dramatically transformed human consciousness. Before Newton’s reduction of motion in nature to three basic laws, the Church commanded the greatest influence on how people saw the world. Under the Church, faith, not objective proof, was the foundation of content in most minds. Newtonian science changed that. It offered a more secure platform for determining truth because unlike propositions rooted in faith, propositions rooted in science can be quantitatively assayed.
Philosophers around Newton’s times coveted the certainties obtainable through a platform of Newtonian consciousness. If all events in nature can be expressed in cause-and-effect equations, why cannot human behavior be so parsed? Much of the intellectual agenda during the Age of Reason revolved around the idea that as products of nature humans are subject to the same laws as inorganic nature. Belief in this idea led to the foundation of economics, and ultimately to Adam Smith’s ideas about how markets work in a capitalistic society. Indeed all the social sciences, including economics are descended directly from Newtonian science.
Lately, however, the value of Newtonian consciousness is undergoing sharp questioning. This is in some sense an ironic turn of events given how physicists and engineers came out of their ivory towers armed with massive computer power promising near fail-safe predictions of investment markets.
A recent article in BusinessWeek, which placed much of the blame for the 2008 Crash on exotic software applications that were supposedly superior in judgment to human beings, wryly observed, “With any luck, the physicists and engineers who flocked to trading floors in recent years will head back to science labs to create things.”
Emanuel Derman and Paul Wilmott, experts in financial modeling, took measure of the limitations of Newtonian consciousness in predicting outcomes in financial markets in another BusinessWeek article:
“The complex financial models that got us into this mess too often mask human nature behind false limitations of risk…
“As modelers, we see the fantasy of perfection as the fatal flaw seducing both developers and users. The invisible worm of financial modeling is a dark love of theoretical elegance and excessive precision…
“There are no fundamental laws in finance. And even if there were, there is no way to run repeatable experiments to verify them. Financial theories written in mathematical notation—aka models—imply a false sense of precision. Good modelers know that.”
There you have it. The emperor has no clothes. Two prominent modelers and authors of several books on the subject have revealed some of the most serious limitations of Newtonian consciousness, limitations that played a huge role in precipitating the biggest financial crisis in 70 years. We recommend reading more of their observations.
Albert Einstein famously said, “A problem cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created it.” Following his counsel, a more advanced cognitive platform than Newtonian consciousness is required to save the day as it were. Even before the global financial crash of 2008 companies the world over were trying to get a clearer vision of what lies ahead than Newtonian consciousness can render. The mechanistic and linear cause-cause-and-effect constructs of Newtonian consciousness are too simplistic for taking on the challenges in operating environments that are so filled with paradoxes, ambiguities, uncertainties and ephemeral conditions as they are now.
Next: Liberating Management from
Newtonian Consciousness