Thales’ Riddle of the Night

Which is older: day or night? Thales is said to have answered “Night is the older by one day.” Recent research bridges this mysterious riddle with the first conceptual puzzle published by Lewis Carroll: “Where does the day begin?” Once understood in its context, Thales’s day and night riddle presents an opportunity to view astronomy in a sort of reverse perspective. In addition to stimulating this gestalt switch, the day and night riddle fuels speculation that Thales had an insight into the hidden antiquity of the night (and day) and that he correctly inferred that the night is older than the Earth itself.

Permanent Revolution In Science: A Quantum Epistemology

This article is the preface to the Russian translation of my Kuhn vs Popper. I use it as an opportunity to re-examine the difference between Kuhn and Popper on the nature of ‘revolutions’ in science. Kuhn is rightly seen as a ‘reluctant revolutionary’ and Popper a ‘permanent revolutionary’. In this respect, Kuhn sticks to the original medieval meaning of ‘revolution’ as restoration of a natural order, whereas Popper adopts the more modern meaning of ‘revolution’ that comes into fashion after the French Revolution, which suggests a radical renewal. A key to understanding this difference in revolutionary mentalities lies in Kuhn’s and Popper’s respective treatment of the ‘Gestalt switch’ phenomenon. Kuhn sees the ambiguous Gestalt figure from the standpoint of the subject, and Popper from that of the experimenter. Behind this difference lies alternative interpretations of the significance of quantum mechanics for scientific epistemology, a preoccupation that Kuhn and Popper shared with the original Gestalt psychologists and is beginning engage the interest of social scientists.

Disruption as worldview change: A Kuhnian analysis of the digital music revolution

Why is it that technology-enabled industry disruptions appear entirely inevitable with hindsight, yet practitioners in disrupted businesses typically struggle to detect and respond appropriately to disruption while it is unfolding? We term this surprising contradiction ‘interpretive discontinuity’ and use it to problematize the established understanding of disruption in the literature. We suggest that the contradiction at the heart of interpretive discontinuity holds an important key to what exactly changes during disruption and why. By juxtaposing an empirical case of disruption in the music industry with theoretical resources sensitive to the nature of radical change – Thomas Kuhn’s work in the unrelated field of scientific practice – we demonstrate that it is productive to understand disruption as a Kuhnian paradigm shift. We are then able to trace interpretive discontinuity to the gestalt switch in worldview that accompanies such a paradigm shift. This insight sheds new light on both what is actually ‘disruptive’ about disruption and also on the limitations of prior work theorizing disruption. Our work is important because it adds to the literature on disruptive innovation important yet overlooked conceptual tools in Kuhn’s work – the role of exemplars, the worldview aspect of a paradigm, and paradigm incommensurability.

Introduction

Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought.

Blurb

Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought.

Oscillations and Incommensurable Decisions

The children’s book Duck! Rabbit! dramatizes the lesson that just because one is right, others don’t have to be wrong. An endless dispute is quickly settled once the quarrellers experience an aspect change or gestalt switch and thereby realize that the same picture can be seen in different ways. This simple scenario offers an intriguing model for arbitrating between conflicting positions by going back and forth between different aspects and thereby realizing that conflicting accounts can be equally valid.

Multistable Figures

Multistable figures offer an intriguing model for arbitrating conflicting positions. Moving back and forth between the different aspects under which something can be seen, one recognizes that mutually contradictory descriptions can be equally valid and that disputes over the correct account can be resolved without dissolving differences or establishing a higher synthesis. Yet, the experience of a gestalt switch also offers a model for radical conversions and revolutions – that is, for irreversible leaps to incommensurable alternatives foiling ideals of rational choice while providing the possibility and necessity of decision. Accentuating the temporal dimensions of multistable figures, this multidisciplinary volume illuminates the critical potentials and limits of multistability as a complex figure of thought.

KONSTRUKSI TEORI PARADIGMA THOMAS S. KUHN

Thomas Kuhn memberikan gambaran bahwa kebenaran sains akanditemukan berkali-kali ataupun berganti-ganti bentuk ilmiahnyawalaupun dari satu objek yang sama. Formulasi teori paradigma yangmencetuskan bahwa sebuah kebenaran sains (legatimed truth) identikdalam target teleologis yang didasari pada detection dikenal sebagaifinal cause (end). Kebenaran sains bukan continuous (lanjutan),improvisasi, evolusi atau kumulatif, melainkan terjadi paradigmshift (pergeseran paradigma) atau disebut juga dengan revolusi.Paradigma melalui shift moving (pergerakan pergeseran) dipahamisama dengan gestalt switch (perpindahan secara keseluruhan atautidak sama sekali). Di dalam gestalt switch yang diungkapkan adalahverifikasi terjadi sekaligus atau tidak sama sekali (all at once ornot at all). Konsep paradigm shifts membuka kesadaran bersamabahwa para pengkaji sains tidak akan mungkin bekerja dalam suatusuasana objektivitas yang mapan. Paradigma men-design kerangkaworld view (pandangan dunia) atau perspective (cara pandang)untuk lebih important, legitimate, and reasonable. Hal ini membuatsebuah detection (target teleologis) tidak akan terevolusi atautereleminir karena kemampuan eksperimentalnya mengakomodircounterinstances (ketahanan berkompetisi teori). Paradigma yangbertahan merupakan winnowing (keunggulan) baru dari sebuahdiscovery, supertitian (temuan besar) atau novelty (terbaharukan).Paradigma bertahan akan tumbuh menguasai normal scienceselama belum eksisnya anomaly (ketimpangan). Paradigma barumemiliki kriteria neater (rapi), more suitable (lebih cocok), simpler(sederhana), or more elegant (lebih elegan). Paradigma akan terusbertransformatif dengan paradigma baru karena sistem bekerjaparadigma mengalihkan padigma menuju revolusi ilmiah di manarevolusi ilmiah dengan perubahan fundamental akan meresap dalammetode dan pemahaman.