Consilience - Edward O Wilson

Consilience means the unity of knowledge, how various fields of knowledge can be united by certain underlying common principles. Wilson's book introduces us to the idea that every problem can be solved by reductionism, that is, every problem can be broken down into smaller and smaller parts, and each of these individual smaller components can be solved. The solution to the actual problem is the combination of the solutions to these parts.

Further, Wilson goes on to suggest that the underlying principle to solve these individual components is the same in every problem, irrespective of which field the complete problem originated from. Ultimately, the solution to the individual components stems from the biological basis of behavior. For example, an artist, says Wilson, is not more creative in the sense as we understand the word, but rather has the ability to appreciate which of the infinite ideas that pass through our mind everyday (ratehr every moment) would be aesthetically appealing (both - to himself and to people). And this ability can be (sometime in the future, not presently) perfectly understood once we have a perfect understanding of the biochemical and neurobiological basis of the brain ans psychology. Ultimately, thus, since all science can be explained by mathematics, the neurobioloical basis of art too can be understood mathematically.

It is an interesting reading, and makes a lot of sense. How evolutionary theory explains art, religion, society and ethics (what we consider the humanities) is a fascinating tale. However, I have a problem with the concept of reductionism being used to solve all problems. The combination of results after reductionism is not a simple additive process... i.e., the addition is more of a vector addition as opposed to a scalar addition. In addition, if every problem can be solved by reductionism, then there must also exist a solution to the problem statement "How can a problem be split into smaller components via reductionism". I have not yet come across a satisfactory solution to this problem.

The other problem I have with the book is the tone used, which (unintentionally perhaps, though I am unwilling to give the benefit of doubt to Wilson) assumes a superiority of scientists over the humanistic scholars. I disagree, and believe that scientists too can learn a lot from the humanities scholars, a fact that Wilson too agrees but does not discuss in detail.

I read conscilience after reading a whole chapter refuting the arguments presented in it by Gould in The Hedgehog, the Fox and the Magisters Pox. Both books try to tackle the existing dichotomy between the sciences and the social sciences, but use different approaches.

All in all, a book to be recommended to everyone who is stuck in the details of their own work with no heed of the work in other fields. As Wilson says, the future belongs not to the person who has more information, but to the person who knows how to combine and understand information from different fields.