The Perils of Pixel Microlensing

How do we navigate? Inward, not outward.

Following the Scientific Revolution, the resolution of scientific lenses, or ontologies, was dramatically sharpened, as was the sheer swiftness of sharpening, thanks to ever improving instrumentation and methodologies. This opened the floodgates of exponential progress across the natural sciences, and engendered a process we shall call microlensing: resolving near-infinite detail inside scientific lenses at the cost of rendering them resistant to change. The consequences of microlensing were threefold:

First, realms of science previously wholly graspable by a scientist in one human lifetime became increasingly subdivided into sub-disciplines, each with ontologies of spiralling complexity, rendering the discipline-spanning achievements of polymath Enlightenment thinkers more and more unattainable.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Second, the ungainly nature of complex ontologies justified division of labour. Combined with the commodification of science through widespread publish-or-perish practices, the need to microlense disciplines was further exacerbated; knowledge silos have proliferated, and generations of overspecialised experts have become primed against all interdisciplinary research due to ingrained biases and perceived opportunity costs.

Third, ontological and cultural drift provoked by prolonged siloing have resulted in a scientific speciation, the direct consequences of which are communication breakdown: The geneticist cannot comprehend the condensed matter physicist, who cannot speak the thorny language of the biologist, who ignores the cryptic machinations of the computational neuroscientist — all of whom gape, slack-jawed, at the oracular hieroglyphs of the deep learning data scientist.

This division of scientific labor is mainly due to the reduction in complexity for the individual when concentrating on one specific aspect of… research (Pierce, 1991). Disciplinary division helps to organize knowledge and leads to specialization, but also results in disconnected knowledge silos (Bitner & Brown, 2008)… Studies of knowledge transfer across disciplines reveal notable barriers to communication (Biehl, Kim, & Wade, 2006).³

The process of pixel microlensing

A scientific lens’ configuration of disciplines, their overlap, inclusion and exclusion, combine to form a paradigm. These disciplines may possess multiple sub-disciplines. Each sub-discipline is governed by one or several ontologies, comprised of many pixels (building blocks of scientific knowledge). A pixel’s complexity — say, the General Theory of Relativity, or the Theory of Evolution — may justify the creation of an entirely new field with its own hive of pixels.

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which when you looked at it the right way did not become still more complicated. — Poul Anderson

Realms outside our own

The Adjacent Possible is where researchers dare not fly — it lies outside the bounds of their comfortable paradigms; and yet, it is in the neglected realms outside our own that the most revolutionary ideas are found. Broad research is the first step to leaving the harbour of the known, and forging cross-boundary channels of communication is akin to picking the right crew, stocking the ship and, like that cunning Achaean seawolf, plotting a course into the unknown.

Drawing attention to the value of interdisciplinary research in finding solutions to complex challenges, Bateman suggests,

the big problems we face today demand interdisciplinary innovation. Look no further than the international climate talks… Big ideas come from understanding the big picture and making cross-boundary connections, not only from eking out incremental advances in an esoteric subfield. … Deep and broad research approaches both have advantages and disadvantages. So why do people in different scientific specialties so rarely engage in meaningful collaborative projects? Amidst the calls for boundary-spanning collaboration… most scientists work within institutional and professional contexts that overwhelmingly favor and reward deep specialization. (Bateman, 2015)

We have sealed ourselves away behind our money, growing inward, generating a seamless universe of self. — William Gibson

Interdisciplinary research happens when a bridge is built between lenses, fostering cross-boundary understanding. But mapping any high-resolution ontology onto another is a colossal task — No two ontologies are co-extensive, leading to a great deal of knowledge being lost in translation. This illustrates the sheer scale of the problem scientists face when navigating stormy interdisciplinary seas in their flimsy Argos of thought.

Indeed, pixel resolution may be inversely proportional to ontological interoperability. Higher resolution ontologies discourage interdisciplinary work, owing to pixel microlensing. This counterintuitive notion suggests another strategy for us to overcome our fears, begin mapping the space of all human concepts — the Aleph of Ideas — break into the Adjacent Possible, and spur innovation across all realms of science.