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(2017 March) The unbelievable similarities between Hugo F. Alrøe and Egon
Noe’s ideas (2017) and my ideas (2002-2008)
In this paper (2017), I found many similar ideas to my ideas (2002-2008). The amazing thing is
that the authors are, from what I understand, working in the field of agriculture! Finally, we have
also this alternative: the solution to quantum mechanics comes from Agriculture! It seems that
8000 years ago, the agricultures avoided to find the solution to quantum mechanics. The reason?
There was no mechanization/robotics in agriculture, as today! Now, with all mechanisms in
agriculture, people working in this field have time to solve the problems of quantum mechanics
and mind-brain problem!
The authors mention a paper written by Alroe and Kristensen (2002). Let me investigate this
paper and then the paper from 2017.
1. (2002) Hugo Fjelsted Alrøe and Erik Steen Kristensen (Danish Research Centre for Organic
Farming, Tjele, Denmark), Towards a systemic research methodology in agriculture: Rethinking
the role of values in science, Agriculture and Human Values 19: 3–23
The main topic of this article is about Agriculture. “This paper has a practical background in
agricultural systems research and research in organic farming.” (p. 4) or “In this paper, we address the
challenges to agricultural research entailed by the general agricultural development and the intricate relations
between agricultural practices and values in society.” (p. 4)1
The authors relate Agriculture to science, introducing a “holistic” or “systemic” view. We
remark immediately that the authors work within the “unicorn world”, that is, they have no idea
about rejecting the “world”/”Universe”. The investigate the scientific methodology but not the
“world”. They quote Dewey, the notion “Umvelt”, and human cognitive abilities (our
representations about the world) (fig. 1):
Taken as a model of science, the model in Figure 1 suggests a systemic conception of research, where the
representation corresponds to our ideas about the world, acting corresponds to experimentation (or broader:
intervention), and perceiving corresponds to observation. The adaptive aspect of representation can be
identified with scientific knowledge (theories, models, descriptions) and the intentional aspect with the
motivating goals, values, and interests in scientific inquiry. According to the model, these three elements
(acting, perceiving, and representation) of cognitive learning are intimately connected, in the sense that
scientific knowledge depends on the possibilities of experimentation (or intervention) and observation. (p. 6)
The authors also introduce “social, communicational system” (p. 7), (Popper and Peirce being
mentioned). The authors investigate “scientific objectivity”, factual objectivity, language, etc. In
fact, nothing new in this paper. Then they introduce quantum mechanics: Bohr’s
complementarity:
1 “The primary aim of this paper is to contribute to the development of a systemic research methodology
in agriculture and similar sciences. This includes determining appropriate criteria of scientific quality
for systemic research, with special regard to the role of values in science. We take two approaches towards
this goal. The first approach is to investigate science as a learning process in order to see how intentions
enter into cognition in general, how analogies can be drawn to science, and in which respects science is special.” (p.
5)
1
The complementary pictures of quantum phenomena are inseparable from the observational situation – it is
impossible to separate the behavior of atomic objects from the interaction with the measuring instruments that
serve to define the conditions under which the phenomena appear. And Bohr advocated the application of the
very word phenomenon exclusively to refer to the observations obtained under specific circumstances,
including an account of the whole experimental arrangement (Bohr, 1985: 27).
This meant that Bohr had to dismiss the “realistic” presumption of a distinction between mutually
exclusive subjects and objects entailed in the conventional conception of objectivity. Subsequently Bohr’s
“Copenhagen interpretation” of quantum theory was derided as “subjectivist.” But his philosophical analysis of
the observational situation in atomic physics still stands, and it suggests a new conception of objectivity.
According to Bohr, the inclusion of an account of the experimental arrangement and the results of observation
in the language of everyday life and classical physics was the only way to provide an unambiguous description
of the experiences in atomic physics, where the phenomena far transcend the classical physical experiences.
And to Bohr, objectivity meant simply the unambiguous description of experiences.
Furthermore he suggested that the situation in physical science was analogous to the situation as
regards analysis and synthesis of experience in many other fields of human knowledge and interest, such as
psychology and life sciences. We follow Bohr…. (p. 8)
Quite close to my ideas is their following idea:
The distinction between inside and outside viewpoints has been widely, although not consistently, used in
anthropology and other fields under the names emic (inside) and etic (outside).12 We prefer the terms actor
and observer,13 or the simple terms inside and outside viewpoint, for several reasons. (p. 8)
Moving from an inside to an outside viewpoint entails that an overall distinction between the system and its
environment needs to be made – the system has to be identified as an object of observation. This first
movement also involves the determination, or at least presumption, of certain goals and values upon which the
choices and delimitations that need to be made in planning and initiating research, can be made. The ensuing
observations are thus based on these value-laden choices. These choices, together with the initial choice of
system to be studied, determine the relevance of the research. The questions of for whom the research is done
and what intentions guide the research are determined here. In other words, if the observations are to be part of
a learning process for the observed system, or for some specific social system, the choices made need to reflect
the values and goals in that system, because these choices can be decisive when the observations are later used
in the development of the system (no matter whether the research unit realizes this or not). (p. 9)
Even if these ideas seem quite close to my ideas, in these paragraphs, as in the entire paper, we
see only Bohr’s ideas, no more or less. Many other authors used Bohr’s complementarity in their
works. (see my book 2008) The authors continue writing about the objectivity and subjectivity
(human subject with “reflexive objectivity” and “cognitive context”, “societal context” and
“intentional context”, and “observational context”) of research in science, using few elements
from the dynamical system approach2 for grasping the “complex” relationship between subject
and the world.3 The notion of the “world” is not rejected at all, the authors working within a
Kantian (and Bohr) view. No more or less.
2 “The means of ‘objectifying’ experience are the conventional scientific methods of documentation and control of
observations and experiments, etc. In our view, this must also include a full documentation of the contextual
background.” (p. 10) Dynamical system approach, no more or less.
3 “In the observational and historical sciences the research unit acts in the choice and development of tools of
observation and the construction of coherent narratives. Research that considers itself only a detached observer of
the world without also being an actor is thus blind to parts of its own function. On the other hand, research that
operates only as an involved actor fails to be scientific.” (p. 10)
2
We use the term “levels” as an indication of the structure of conditional independence of the observations and
types of context. The observations are influenced by the observational context, while they are independent of
the other levels of context given the observational. The observational context is influenced by the intentional
context and it is independent of the social context given the intentional. And finally the intentional context is
influenced by the societal. For instance, when considering research as a tool for developing organic
agriculture, the societal context is first of all the organic movement. The organic movement has a set of rather
explicit visions, values, and goals that frame the intentional context. And this, at least to some extent,
determines the observational context. On the other hand, some of the organic values are relevant in a wider
societal context. And the research that is actually performed can very well be relevant to other farming
traditions with other goals and values. (p. 11)
In this paragraph, we clearly see Kant’s and Bohr’s view constructed within the unicorn world,
the “world”. Then, the authors writes about the transdisciplinary systemic research” and a
mentioning that in the previous section
a unitary view of science as a learning process has been developed. This view does not presuppose different kinds of
science, such as the established division between natural, social and human science. A second important perspective
for a systemic research methodology is therefore the relation between the different and often quite separate
disciplines in the highly fragmented science of today. In order for science to function as a common learning process,
there is a need for a common framework that can serve as a basis for doing transdisciplinary systemic research. (p.
12)
This paragraph mirrors exactly the framework of the authors: the unicorn world! They promote
holistic view and not reductionism, that also mirrors the framework of the “world”. They also
discuss about the “phenomenological world” vs. “real world” (again Kant and Bohr). Being
holistic, they clear work within the unicorn world.4 Later they authors investigate Habermas and
other thinkers but the main idea is the duality between theories and the world, i.e., “descriptions
of the world”. Nothing new…
Their conclusion clearly shows us that the authors work within the unicorn world and
their “transdisciplinary research”:
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My conclusion is that Alrøe and Kristensen have no idea about the EDWs; they have been
writing this paper within the unicorn world, borrowing some Kantian idea and Bohr’s
complementarity within a transdisciplinary” framework.
4 “In the following, the unitary view of science as a learning process is linked to a framework that can assist
transdisciplinary work. The framework locates different kinds of science in accordance with the kind of motivation
or interest behind the research and their main methodological characteristics.” It is clear, the authors work within the
unicorn world framework.
3
2. Now, let me investigate the article: (2016) Hugo F. Alrøe and Egon Noe (Department of
Agroecology, Aarhus University), “Sustainability assessment and complementarity”, Ecology
and Society 21(1):30. http://dx.doi. org/10.5751/ES-08220-210130
I strongly emphasize that the main ideas of this paper that are very similar to my ideas do not
exist in the previous article (2002). The main notions in this paper: Bohr’s complementarity and
the “conditions for observation”. We have seen that that, in the previous article, the notion of
“observation” is very important but in this paper, the authors introduce exactly this expression:
“conditions for observation”. However, “conditions of observation” is one of my main notions!
In the introduction, Alrøe and Noe write about “holistic view” within the “food system”.
(I recall, the authors work in Agriculture…) They write about “sustainability”, “integration” and
“implementation” in this domain.
We pose the hypothesis that the “stubborn” problems of integration and implementation in sustainability assessment
are, at least to some degree, determined by issues of complementarity. We use complementarity in the radical sense
of Niels Bohr, meaning that two observations of an object, such as the determination of the position and momentum
of an elementary particle, exclude each other in a way that prevents getting the full picture of the object, so that we
are left with complementary phenomena that cannot be combined. Such complementarity is deep; it is based in the
very nature of the object and the observational and experimental possibilities. (p. 2)5
I had the impression that I read a paragraph from my book 2008!
The title of next section: “The complementarity principle”. In my book 2008:
Following Bohr, and considering that a subject cannot use two or more tools of observation at the same time, we can
postulate the next principle – the principle of complementarity: As human attention is a serial process, the human
subject cannot simultaneously observe EDWs. Moreover, an observer cannot pay attention simultaneously to an
entity and its organizationally different parts. Avoiding the unicorn-world, a researcher, as an observer, can try to
see only the correspondences between the entities that belong to EDWs described by different concepts. (2008, pp.
112-3)
Just coincidence: the “principle of complementarity”! They write:
Quantum physical complementarity arises where the necessary interaction with the observed object cannot be
disregarded, because the observed objects are sufficiently small that the quantum of action becomes significant.
Popularly speaking, the position of a particle cannot be observed without the radiation involved in the observation
influencing the momentum of the particle. More correctly, measuring the position will make the momentum
indeterminate, and vice versa (cf. Barad 2007). (p. 2)
My book 2008:
The principle of conceptual containment specific for our analysis:
The set of judgments that describe the phenomena of each epistemological world must follow the rule of
conceptual containment that is given by the conditions and limitations within the concepts of the judgments.
5 The next paragraph: “The reason for posing this hypothesis is that we, in our own research experiences with
assessments of food systems, have often found conflicts that are not merely conflicts of interest, but more
fundamental cognitive conflicts caused by incompatible perspectives and values (cf. Alrøe and Noe 2011, 2014a,
Thorsøe et al. 2014). And we have found that Bohr’s complementarity from quantum physics offers a model for
such stubborn and insurmountable cognitive delimitations (in line with Barad 2007).” (p. 2) Reading these
paragraphs, I was totally block! I have never read something like this in my life!
4
These conditions and limitations are governed by the properties of (internal or external) tools of observation.
(p. 117)
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My book 2008:
According to Kaiser, “one must include the conditions under which an object is perceived in order for judgments
regarding the object to remain meaningful.” (Kaiser 1992, p. 220) The judgments that relate “uncontained concepts”
(i.e., those concepts that ignore the conditions and limitations of sensible intuitions) produce no empirical
knowledge; this knowledge is beyond our possible experience. Bohr applies the same distinction between noumena
and phenomena to the quantum level. He introduces the idea of complementarity for quantum phenomena: because
of the conditions of the measurement apparatus the position and the momentum of a particle cannot be observed
simultaneously; or the properties of light (wave and corpuscular) cannot be grasped simultaneously. “The wave-
particle duality of light... invokes mutually exclusive concepts relating to either wave behavior or particle behavior.”
(Kaiser 1992, pp. 220–221) Conceptual containment is for Bohr a requirement which says that we have to include
the conditions of the observation (i.e. the measurement apparatus) in the definitions of quantum phenomena.
Without such a rule, our judgments relate uncontained concepts and thus these judgments have no objective reality.
(Vacariu 2008, p. 115)
[I]t is therefore only proper for practical reasons as well as epistemological reasons to include the observations
themselves in the definition of the phenomena. Above all, we obtain by such definition a description that involves
no reference to the observing object. Indeed, in account of the experiments, we need not say that we have prepared
of measured something, but only that under certain conditions certain measurable effects open to observation and
reproduction by anybody have been obtained. (Bohr 1957 in Kaiser 2003, p. 230) (Vacariu 2008, p.
115)
Then the authors move to the “generalization of complementarity” (next section).
The quantum of action, which is the key to the necessity of complementarity in quantum physics, is important only
to quantum physics. A generalization of complementarity must therefore be based on Bohr’s broader lesson from
quantum physics, that “‘phenomena’ are the ontological inseparability of objects and apparatuses” (Barad
2007:128), and that, “Not only, of course, have we learnt that every observation involves a disturbance of the
phenomena; we have furthermore realized that the whole concept of observation requires a separation between the
object and the means of observation.” (Bohr 1931, as cited in Favrholdt 1999:521). (Bohr later renounced talking
about the “disturbance of phenomena by observation,” in favor of “observations obtained under specified
circumstances, including an account of the whole experimental arrangement” Bohr 1955:53). (p. 3)
Very important the authors write that
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In my paper 2005 (also my book 2008):
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There are three elements within the EDWs perspective that need to be taken, into account, epistemologically: the
subject, as an observer of both the external world and an internal world; the conditions of observation or conditions
of “having something” that include certain external and internal tools of observation; and the observed object or
entity. These elements constitute a framework that is not new. However, let me consider the mistake that has been
made in some cases in the past regarding the continuity of partition among these elements. (Vacariu 2008, p. 102)
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I indicate to the readers that are reading my paper now that the above paragraph is not from my
works (2002, 2005, 2008, etc.)!
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To save of being accused of plagiarizing my ideas, the authors introduce “perspectivism”, but
what they write about perspectivism are identical to sentences from my works:
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Another sentence from their paper:
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Nothing new! I emphasized these ideas, word by word, in my works. However, we have here just
Bohr’s complementarity. The authors apply this complementarity to “farms”, but this topic is
beyond my knowledge!6 However, see this paragraph:
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Neither this paragraph is from my works! In their section “Discussion”, the authors writes:
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I feel quilt: in my first years of elaborating my approach (2002-2005), I could save many people
from starvation if I were applying my perspective, the EDWs, for developing food in a better
way! I could even save the “world” from many wars, but I did not done. It is my fault, of
course… Look how wonderful write these two authors:
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I had no ideas about this wonderful application. I believe these authors deserve Nobel prize for
Physics and Pace! The readers have to read their section: “
I am sure the readers would agree these authors are nobles, therefore they deserve Nobel!
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Reading this wonderful paragraph, the readers would vote these great, great authors for Noble,
maybe even for Literature!
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This statement is contradictory with their “unite” proposed above. However, it fits perfect with
my EDWs: there are here different “phenomenal worlds”, deeper thatn Kuhn’s
incommensurability, just because of “specific observational apparatus” and “specific forms of
interactions”!!! Again, this paragraph is not from my works!
Later, the authors talk about “complementarity and problem solving”: it means
“complementarity” applied to “cross-disciplinary research”.8 Great! A paragraph from theiri
conclusion:
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We can clearly see the transition from “ontology” to “animal welfare”. These sentences,
“Observer stance complementarity concerns a basic epistemological condition.” And “may
exclude each other because of the conditions for observation and representation.” are not from
my works!
Their Acknowledgments:
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This verdict reflects the difference between working in Philosophy (myself) and working in
Agriculture (all these three authors of these two papers)
My conclusion
If the reader compares the two articles that I investigate, she will see great, great differences
regarding the concepts used in the first article and in the second article. It seems that the common
author changed his framework of thinking!
For Neanderthals, the main preoccupation was agriculture. Therefore, I accuse
Neanderthals of being quite foolish since they did not discover the solution to quantum
mechanics! My verdict: regarding people who plagiarize my ideas, it seems that, because of the
Internet (who saved me but also “killed me”) plagiarism tends toward Ionescu or Beckett’s
“absurd theater. I have the feeling that I am the hero of one of their scene!
9