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Chicano Artist Depiction of Teotihuacan Potential Shelter from an Asteroid |
Extract from Scientific Revolutions, Chicano Art, Social Change (or, * Tractatus Chicanus Philosophicus): author, Sonny Boy Arias
Somos en escrito Magazine is honored to premiere an astounding discovery by Sonny Boy Arias, a stone-cold Chicano from San Diego, that is, his plan to merge Chicano art and astrophysics and evolve a plan that will save (some) humanity from the asteroid that is sure to come, sometime.
Continue from Part I
13 Teachinga ScientificRevolutions/Chicano ArtClass at OxfordUniversity: The Ceremonial “Last Lecture”
As evidencedby the strategyI have laid out thus far—as well as in my ceremonial and eventful last lectureI delivered in my capacity as a Fellow at OxfordUniversity(which follows)aboutthe importantinterplaybetweenfeelings,brush strokes, emotionalresponsesto Chicanoart—howwe constructour reality in daily life, social action, social change,projectstrategiesand fundingand the realitiesof preparingto deal with any oncomingasteroids,quantumcomputing,astrophysics,astronomyas well as the natureof the scientificmethodand analysesat the micro,meso and macrolevels are told withinthe realm of somewhatcomplicatedlogics cogentlytold in this book in rather simplistic terms.AlthoughI didn’tknowit at the time I was overcomeby what Edward O. Wilson(sociobiologist)calls a “consilienceof knowledge”in his book Sociobiology, 1975.I did feel a new levelof knowledgecomingtogetheras I deliveredthe lecture I am about to describe, the one we called “The Last Lecture”.I haven’t reflected on this untilnow, similarly, this becomesthe problemof investigatinghow to dealwith the idea of oncoming asteroidsandenvisioningsolutions through a Chicano model for viewingart, physics,computingand social psychology.Okay,so I have cast a very wide net, wider than mostpeoplecan fathom,I did so intentionally,as I gatheredadvicefrom some of the greatestminds of our times, all the while,subconsciously,I am in searchof a rhetoric that will help you change your mind aboutwhat we (humanity)need to do to deal with the realitieswe are beingpresentedwith, no matterhow strongthe unpalatabilityfactorbut the fact is scientists change their minds all of the time, perhaps more often than you would like to think:
“In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.” Carl Sagan, Astronomer & Futurist, 1987.
Peculiarly curious ideas are not uncommon and may in fact someday be the answer to catastrophic events like James Lovelock has suggested: when the sea-level rises “build sea defenses” (A Rough Ride to the Future, 2014) or as the Silicon Inventor of the Year Yorman Bumgardner suggests about controlling the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer, “spray the ozone layer with sea water” an interesting guy who I believe was the co-inventor of the spray-color-cartridge for Hewlett Packard.
I have to admitbeing Chicano in a Visiting Fellow positionat Christ’s ChurchCollege (OxfordUniversity) in search of the Truthalteredmy experiences. Several of the Oxford scientists I had brought to the Big Sur Environmental Institute had paved the way for many new introductions to world-class thinkers at Oxford so my reputation as an out-of-the-box thinker preceded my arrival and was the reason I attracted so many Oxford Dons to attend my class on the Philosophyof Science & Scientific Revolutions.
Pictured are Dr. Sonny Boy and Dr. James Lovelock, Gaia theorist presenting the fact-based theory that in terms of global warming the earth has already surpassed its “tipping point”. In short, no matter what we do as humans to correct pollutants of all sorts, we have already done damage enough to drive the extinction of the human race to just one-hundred twenty-five years. Photo credit: Dr. Sonny Boy.It was James Lovelock (The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back—and How We Can Still Save Humanity, 2006), Gaia theorist, inventor of the electron capture detector (measures the depletion of the ozone layer), world renowned independent scientist and inventor who was asked by nearly 3,000 of his worldwide peers in addition to the full membership of the Association of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy to represent their perspective on global warming to the United Nations and who helped me make several key contacts at Oxford University. We met when I brought him to the Big Sur Environmental Institute to meet with world-class thinkers. You may be interested to know that Lovelock is a mentor to Rachael Carson, who wrote the epic book Silent Spring (1962). From the onset he and I began our sparkling interchange of ideas surrounding the fate of humanity by discussing William Golding’s book Lord of the Flies (1954); Golding was Lovelock’s good friend and neighbor for many years prior to his passing. It was this dialog that caused a cognitive shift in my thinking about how Chicanos have a paradigm for looking at daily life much as do scientists, especially in terms of other ways of knowing and experiencing the world.
Interestingly enough, the title of his lecture was “Earth’s Environmental Crisis and the Fate of Humanity,” a title that stuck when I paraded Lovelock around regional universities. On the day of his lecture, I brought a dozen Chicanitas from group homes (ranging in ages from 12 to 16) and from Captain Cooper School in Big Sur to help me set-up and coordinate logistics. Once they heard his message that or “that we [humanity] have passed the ‘tipping-point’ and that humans will be extinct in 125 years” the young ladies became dismayed, yet at the same time spirited to do something with their lives’ and to turn the environmental trend around.
Two Oxford scientists who came to Big Sur had successfully impressed upon the Head Tutor(Headof the PhilosophyDepartment)their interestin my offering a course with a cross-disciplinary approach (“marrying” the arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences to the hard sciences); besides they helped market the course and it filled with eager students. The professor who normally taught a similar course was said to have experienced a nervous breakdown butI know first-handthat this was not the case as he was busydevelopingand documentinghis methodologyfor gazinginto a crystal egg (an idea he got from a storyby H.G. Wells), and, at the time preferredto do that insteadof teaching said class. I found it interesting that once I left Oxford,my colleague,the philosopherRenee Johnson Cliffords, took over teaching Philosophy of Sciencecoursesthat took into account the Chicano perspective. It’s a good thing too becausewe shared a similarparadigmfor lookingat all the sciences,similar to that of FriedrichNietzsche (1998)that:
“All sciencesare now under the obligationto preparethe groundfor the futuretask of the philosopher,which is to solve the problemof value, to determine the true hierarchyof values.”
[Interesting to note that Oxford University held a Department of Philosophy and Physicsfor over five hundredyears.]
So here I was at OxfordUniversity, what the locals refer to as “Universitas Oxoniensis,”teachinga class in the Philosophyof Science and Scientific Revolutionsand quite naturally I beganincorporatingsocial psychologicalideasabouthow Chicanos,while using Chicanoart (especiallymurals)as pictorialdevices,socially constructtheir realitiesbasedon experiences stemming from communitiesof struggles and in turn this is how it is that this has had an impact on developing stages of the subjectivethinking process and emotional experiences ofChicanoart. What?Let’s go back and think aboutthe aforementioned ideas analyzedabove aboutCheech’sparadigmfor lookingat Chicano art. I beganto use his thinkingand applyingit to “How science gets done.”What? In otherwords, howdo scientists knowwhat they know about what they claim to knowand/ordiscovered?Whatis their recipe for knowing?One key exampleis how Chicanoartists and physicistssee the world very differentlythan the average personon the street.In each case they are often viewed as “strange”in the same social psychologicalmannerand along the same continuumas we viewstrangers.In turn they come to see themselvesas strange as well and continueactingout their strangeness. Fact is, what I came to understand was that the university (most any university) is so tangled an institution, driven by so many different purposes and even ideologies, that my new found colleagues are likely to be at least as radical as they are stick-in-the-mud, that is, until I assisted them in unraveling their stuff-shirt attitudes with several pints of dark beer at the more than seven hundred year-old Turf Tavern. Ironically,this is perfectlynormalbehavior.Theyare very much like Chicanos, rule-breakersoften not staying within the confinesexpectedof them.Theyoften envisionnewparadigms(seemingly impossible ones)for lookingat phenomenon.Are you startingto get the picture?I had a lot of fun doing this and then I startedmakingserious connections about how to see through the lens of the Chicano artist in order to develop a paradigm for looking at how to thwart any asteroids that may be headed towards the earth and also how to avoid the spread of the Ebola virus.
By the end of my class on the philosophy of science and scientific revolutions and throughconstantinquiryof my internationallymindedstudentsand OxfordDons I was able to show a completeanalogywith the processof how one comes to understanda theoreticalpropositionsuch as the scientificmethod,a paradigmbreakthrough and/orscientificrevolution and the process of creating Chicano artin this way.WhatI learnedby teaching this class in an interdisciplinaryfashion(“marrying”physics, logic,quantumcomputing, philosophy to Chicanoart) was that in order to understand an existing stock of knowledge (whether it be Chicano culture, quantum computing or physics) one must first learn to understandthe meaningof the conceptsemployed.This is anotherway of saying,if you understandthe conceptof things like “barrios,”“subcultures,”“struggle,”“exploitation,”“sociolinguistics,”“racism,”“Aztlan”and the like, you too can understandChicanoart and its relationshipto scienceas well as its conceptsof things like “theory,”“methods,”“breakthroughs,” and “scientificrevolutions.”The experienceof scienceand the act of performingscientificresearchdrawsyou in for a lifetime, just as does Chicanoart; it is a sensualmediumin this way—it has for most Chicanosdeep visual meaningwith emotiveconnotation. In his capacity as a career independent scientist James Lovelock understands and often reflects on this phenomenon:
“Any artist or novelist would understand—some of us do not produce their best when directed. We expect the artist, the novelist and the composer to lead solitary lives, often working at home. While a few of these creative individuals exist in institutions or universities, the idea of a majority of established novelists or painters working at the ‘National Institute for Painting and Fine Art’ or a university ‘Department of Creative Composition’ seems mildly amusing. By contrast, alarm greets the idea of a creative scientist working at home. A lone scientist is as unusual as a solitary termite and regarded as irresponsible or worse”.—James Lovelock, Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scholar(2000).
Within thisspirit of independent scientists (Chicano artists included) or those scientists who work at home and often turn to philosophical analysis, this is what drew me to the study of the philosophy of science and the nature of scientific revolutions. ThomasKuhnhas stressedthe importanceas well as the role of philosophy in this way:
“It is, I think,particularlyin periodsof acknowledgedcrisis that scientistshave turnedto philosophicalanalysisas a device for unlockingthe riddles of their field” (from Thomas Kuhn’s The Structureof ScientificRevolutions, 1962, a classic book that “caused a scientific revolution” in its own right).
The ideasI shared in class moved even beyond“The Turf Tavern University”(a place for reallearning)as my class was frequentedby a cross- disciplinaryvariety of OxfordDons, all of whomappearedtaciturn(silent and at the same time indifferent)during class; I noticed how they wouldn’tstop talking about my ideas outsideof class however. Truth be told, it was often the case our sparkling interchange of ideas went on for several minutes in an almost screaming mode as Great Tom, the premier bell at Oxford rang out 101 times each night at the tower of Christ Church at five minutes past nine just outside my classroom window, providing our conversation with a symbolic tocsin and we were suddenly reminded that the pearly gates to the entrance of the campus would be closing; it always caused us to hold old conversations in abeyance only to take them up again immediately following the last ring. I would call these interactions “difficult dialogs” said in a positive sense, always starting with common assumptions, leading to uncommon conclusions. [An analysis of this phenomenon can be found in Richard William’s book The Language and Methods of Science: Common Assumptions and Uncommon Conclusions, 2005.]
Truth seekingas a social and behavioralscientistis much like searchingformeaningin Chicano art and in my search for Chicanoidentity,who I am and what I stand for. Micro social psychologicallyspeaking,my Chicano Self is essentiallyalteredwith every significant interaction, as in physics, as they say, “For everyaction there is a reaction;” especiallywith other Chicanos, Chicanoartists and also in experiencingand interactingwith their art.
“This becomesmy personalphilosophyof sciencewhich is I don’tever want to be drainedof the very thing that movedme in the first place or the act of searchingfor the truth while applyingthe scientificmethodand other waysof knowingand experiencingmy ChicanoSelf, it’s very existentialinasmuchas I would haveto say withoutmy Chicanismo,I’d ratherbe short-lived” [see my forthcoming book, Latino Existential: The Meaning of Chicano Art & Life, 2015].
This is my existentialunderstandingof the studyof the Chicanohuman experience-in-the-world (or existence)and the manner,in whichI come to understandmy ChicanoSelf – nullumhominemChicanusmy Latin speakfor “Yo soy Chicano!”This seemed to be the core connectionI developedwith the OxfordDons and students.That year it became commonto find us at the Turf Tavernand the donsspewing“Yo soy OxfordDon!”Once they all agreedto adaptthe nickname“Joaquin”(after the MexicanrevolutionaryJoaquinMurrieta),I created a ceremony right there at the Turf Tavern on the back patio overlooking the River Thames. I “Knighted” them (old English styles) making them all honoraryChicanos.Duringmy class I wouldoften call on them by scanningthe backseatsin a big way with myeyes wide open blurting“Joaquin!”and they would all together sit-up and take notice.They could more than sense my passion for seekingfor the Truth,for remainingpassionateabout ideas and for couchingthese within Chicanorealities(mostly against the backdrop of Chicanoart). I think that my Oxfordcolleaguesweremore at ease withmy articulationof these ideasthan I, yet my ideasabout the importantinterplaybetweenChicano art and astrophysics and saving humanityand the world keptcoming;manyof which cameto me during the delivery ofmy last lecture where I often paused, pulled out my index cards and made “Notes to Self.”
Did I imagine it? Duringone of my classes, sitting there in his Oxford gown, all donnedup, I thoughtI heard one of those OxfordDons (a full professorwith tenure) say “Ya vas, carnal,ya vas!” or “Righton brother,right on!” But I’m not certain as my sight is bad and I don’t’hear that well havingspentover eight years in a rock-and-rollband, playingtunesby Carlos Santana, Los Lobos, Jimi Hendrix, Cold Blood, Buddy Milesand the RollingStones.I shouldhave taken a moment,paused and asked him whathe said. Whatever it was he said he certainly motivated me and the graduate students as well. Interesting to note is that unlike in U.S. universitysettingsit is quite commonfor facultyfrom one discipline to visit your lectures, especially once word gets out from graduate students to senior professors about how they are enjoying your course. Abouthalf way throughthe term there were oftenmore than a dozenOxford Donsstretchedout across the back of my class, nevermakingeye contact,taking occasionalnotes and invitingme out for a warm beerand sparklinginterchangeof ideas following each and every class. There was one man in particularwho was in attendanceat all of my lectures.He sat in the back of my classroomamongstthe OxfordDonsalways in the same grey suit taking cogentnotes (more than anyone in the room)and he did so with a pocketof numbertwo pencils on a large tattered ribbedbright yellow notebookat everyclass meeting;he wrote so vigorouslyas if he were an ethnographer performing field research. It was not until my fifth lectureI was able to convenientlyblockthe exit door just prior to endingmy lecturebecauseyou see he always foundhis way out the door beforeI could catch him. As it turnedout the man didn’twear an Oxfordgown becausehe was not a professor.I simplyassumedhe was one becausehe had such excellentrapport with the growingcadre of professorsattendingmy class; at timesI wouldmeanderon purpose just prior to my lecture to see which OxfordDonsmixedit up with this man. I heard he had earnedhis doctoratein physics at Oxford and as a hobby studied the philosophy of science,we looked aboutthe same age, but he was pale and skinny.I heard that he didn’t like to teach,but he loved to theorize,performresearch and provide public lectures,and imagine what the universewas really like, differentfrom the one we are experiencing,as it turnsout it was Peter Pense, often mistaken around Oxford Town as David Deutsch whose work and methodologies I find fascinating, and who is fondly known as the “foundingfatherof quantum computing”and authorof two classic scientificrevolutionarybooksThe Fabric of Reality (1997)and The Beginningof Infinity (2011). Deutsch’s notion of “parallel universes” made the connection for me between logically possible environments in quantum computing and Chicano art. My knee-jerk response to this idea was “Why not?” I am convinced that Deutsch’s ideas about “explanations that transform the world” are those that connect everything, we just can’t see them because we are trained (at the Ph.D. level) to see only those ideas presented to us within the realm of the existing paradigm for looking at science. Hence, as science writer John Horgan observes of Deutsch’s kernel idea that, “we see a particle follow only one path in our world; it actually follows all possible paths in other universes” (To Err is Progress, 2011). This is precisely the logic of inquiry I follow to link social inquiry with physics inquiry in this book; it’s an attempt to demonstrate the linkages between physics and Chicano art and how said connections may lead to an explanation about how to prepare for a massive natural disaster (asteroid hit) that will transform the world—it makes absolute sense to me! I make similar linkages between the values and beliefs of César Chávez and scientific thinking (a la the scientific method) in my forthcoming book Theorizing César Chávez: A Treatise in the Social Psychology of Scientific Thinking in Everyday Life, forthcoming, 2015.
WhenI stepped in front of his curious stride, he said, “Oh hello, Dr. SonnyBoy; can you teach me the Chicanohandshake,you oncementioned?”and as he was finishinghis sentencehe pointed to a spot in his notes aboutsaid handshake.As we stood in the doorwaypracticingthe Chicano handshake,blockingthe studentsfromexitingthe favoreddoor, no one seemed to mind and severalstudentsbeganto imitateus, learningthe Chicanohandshakequite well. Pensedidn’t appearshy, not socially awkwardas I wouldexpect,rather,he was warm, made eye contact (more than I) and was truly sincere. After this severalof us (includingPense)headedover to the Turf Tavernfor some beers.And to make a very long story, very short, I foundmyselfdescribingto Penseand the otherphysicists (astrophysicists included) and graduate students that the overarchingcommonalitybetweenChicanosandphysicistsis thatwe are quite different than averagemembersof society.I listed over two dozen similaritiesin this way, like how we speakdifferently,often vacillatingbetweentheEnglish languageand vernacularfoundin our respective realities and/or academicdisciplinesor how we try to advanceour intentionsor ideasby presentingideasthatmanymightfind absurdsuch as the notionof“Aztlan”(mythicalChicano nationthat caused a new paradigmfor lookingat the world ideologically, much like Karl Mannheim examined in his epic book, Ideology & Utopia, 1936) or the idea of smashingparticlesso small that we will find the essenceof the Big BangTheory.Keep in mind that I am not a physicist.It didn’tmatterwhat topic I broughtup he, the Dons and the graduate students never seemedto mind, and again, unlike my colleagues in the States, they listened to me with great intent.
So, whenI broughtup the idea of comingup with a project to rid ourselvesof the problemof asteroids striking the earth they always embarkedon conversationsabouthowit wouldbe necessaryto constructa space-rocketthat could travel at very high speeds using new space-age propulsion systemsin order to reach the asteroid in due time, turn around and stay with the asteroidwhile at the same time nudgingit to a newpath awayfrom the earth; yet they always concluded that given present day technology, it wouldnot be physicallypossible.
As Peter Penseand I sat to one sideof the conversation,we observedthat for the most part the groupof physicistsnever thoughtoutsidethe existingparadigmfor astrophysicsand we summarized that this was the problemwith the whole of science.By the end of this particularconversation it was quite curious for me to hear that we (humanity)shouldn’treally start to worry about any asteroiduntil it is aboutten yearsout as the idea is that we wouldhave a solution as well as the technologyto deal with the oncomingasteroidby that time. There was an astronomerthat wouldcome aroundour table and he wouldsay things like “We have an entire systemof professionaland non-professionalastronomersall networkedand watchingoverone-thousand potentialthreatsto our world so we shouldn’tworry”.I had actually heard something similar at one of the high-level meetings I held at the Big Sur Environmental Institute (a.k.a. “Camp David for the environment” by the director of the Vulture Satellite Program, I mean he acted like satellites could see everything headed in our direction; it was uncanny. I was once the administratorover a large-scaletelescopelocatedin South Texas so I was accustomedto hearingconversationsof astronomersthey talked as if simply identifyingan asteroidwas going to keep it from hittingus. Penseadded that “Whenwe take into accountthe manyuniversesthat exists chancesare one in a million that we will take a directhit”, and Peter added “We took a prettynastyhit by an asteroidaboutone- hundredmillion years ago, anywayyou look at it, chancesare one-hundredpercent,we may be just a grain in the universebutwe will most certainlytake a hit in the next one-hundredmillion years.It could happen tomorrow.We could get hit by an extremelyfast movingdark starand not even knowit was comingour direction”. Dios mio! (My God!)
The more we thoughtaboutthe similaritiesbetweentraits foundboth in physicistsand Chicano artiststhe more linkageswe made,at timeswith the beers and at timeswithoutthe beers. To be sure, Pensecould especiallyrelate to the fact that althoughhe learned the waysof the Academy (scientific community) by earninga doctoratehe could not in his heart continuedown a path he didn’t believe in and therefore“wascalled”to see the world differently,he did, and his viewsof multipleuniverseswhat he calls “ManyWorlds”is the mostwidelyexceptedtheory in quantum physicstoday.He often sharedwith me howit is his ideas were viewed as “crazy”and “impossible”and like me once a person from his old neighborhoodwho had never attended collegetold him his ideas “sucked”.I foundPeter to be overly kind as he use to make me deli sandwiches wrapped in foil and give them to me during our class breaks. Once when I invited him out for dinner at the Mayflower Restaurant near my favorite common store Zacharias, he forwardeda test - tube filled with two-hundredyearold sourdough starterfor me to take back to the states. [When I got home to the states I opened the test – tube and it actually moaned.]
As my finalday of teachingapproachedPeter arrangedfor my last class tobe taught at Oxford’s ClarendonPhysics Laboratoryit is a classic,historicaland classysciencesetting – “very Oxford” one might say, both modern and at the same time historical. Peter took it upon himself (as he occasionally does for Visiting Fellows that develop a following) to make special arrangements for my last lecture, he was quite a gentleman and a scholar in this way. One evening while at the Turf Tavern, he said he was having flyers and brochures printed up for distribution and he wanted a “snappy title” for the lecture. We plowed through several titles of past lectures given at the Clarendon Lab to include titles like “Exploringthe Local Universe& MassiveStars”or “ Quasar AbsorptionSpectra”and “SuperMassiveBlack Holes in CosmicStructureFormation”.The lectureshe coordinatedwere widelyknownand mostoften entertainingmostoften only appealingto hard and/or natural scientists.This time Peter marketedthe lectureuniversitywideand pitchedit as both “interdisciplinary” and “integrated”thus attractingsocial and behavioralscientists,artists,and peoplefrom the humanitiesas well as hard and natural scientists, it was a grand gatheringas such a diverse group was never called by any memberof the university -- before changinghis mind (again)hecalled it “Last Lecture- Scientific RealitiesWithin ScientificMethodologies”. Pitchingthe lecture as a “last lecture”is the same as when a universityprofessorretires after a life time of teaching at a university and presentstheir last formallecture just prior to retirement.Pense was well respectedand had a reputationfor reachingout to disciplinesother than physics and computing.He promoted my lectureas one that “If you listenclosely you wouldhear a newparadigmfor structuringthe scientificmethodthroughnew interpretations of experiencingart, Chicanoart”. Wefinally agreed to call my last lecture“NewRules of the ScientificMethod”.If you were to ask me the mostappropriatetitle wouldhave been withinthe spirit of LudwigWittgenstein“Tractatus Logico Chicano-Philosophicus”.Pensewas known for the lectureshe organizedand he had no problemgarneringfinancialsupportfor the receptionthat followed,but he only placed his effortsinto very few lectureseveryfew years as he was not a professorat the universitywith accessto fundsof this natureand besideshe was a bit of a recluse;he wasn’ta hermitby any stretchof the imagination,he was just like me, he just liked to think a lot while alone (some say I am becominga bit of a recluseI can assureyou I am not I simply think for a living and work in doors and besidesI still have a tan, Peter is like many Brits, translucent in skin color).
At the onsetof my last lecturein the room adjacentto the ever so charmingClarendonPhysics Laboratorystudentspresentedme with a fresh scotch-eggfor dinner(my favorite)and Peter broughtin a few pintsof warm Guinnessbeer, you knowthe dark beer known to haverat excrementin it that floatsup from the aged giant oak vats. At one pointthe lights in the lab flashed,Peter stood up drankdown his beer and steppedoutof the roomheaded for the podium. He wastedno time and started into his introductoryremarksof me. I stood there drinkingmy warm beer, smellingof scotch-eggscanningthe lab, dozensof stationlights were on low thus giving a nice lightingeffectthroughoutthe audience.There was standingroom opportunitiesonly filled with robedOxfordDonswearingblack robesbut no mortarboards, some four-hundredpeopleor so, a hundred and fifty lofted on the balcony, all the formalseatswere takenup in the front two rowsby high level thinkers,studentssat on the stainlesssteel sinksand faculty againstthe walls ofhistory lined with pictures,manyhundredsof yearsold. I have to confess, earlier in the day, while thinking I would no longer have access to the ClarendonPhysics Laboratory, I placed a painting of Frida Khalo by “Little Frida” a Chicana artist named Alejandra Oseguera between two five hundred year old paintings and it was there when I delivered my lecture, I’m wondering if it is still hanging on the wall. You may find it interesting that I am known for placing Chicano art pieces in museum exhibits as well.
Even thoughI had twentypagesof notes, looking out over the audience I suddenly found that I was vowing-to-Self only to speakfrom the heart.I glancedoverat Peter, Pense, he was wearing the same suit he wore to my class all summer, but it looked as though it had been cleaned and I noticedhis bright yellow notebookin front of him the self-same notebook he had been using to take notesin my class, it looked as if he had been carryingit around for years; he neveronce glanceddown to referencehis notes to back his introductory remarks as he was speakingfrom the heart and this gave me even more encouragement.I don’t recall what he said in his ten to fifteen minute introductory remarks,but I do recall the very momenthe invitedme to the podium, he said“I wouldnowlike to introduceto you Dr. Sonny Boy!”I chuggeddown the rest of my beer and as I steppedout onto the stagehe whisperedin my ear:
“We are both truthseekersyou and I, old chap, tell them what it is like to be one of us, they will understandwith envy, most of all tell themhow you feel about your work as one who follows hard scientistsaroundthe lab makingsure they don’tmiss a step in documentingtheir scientific methods.You can never go wrong with a groupof hard scientistthen by telling themhow you feel abouttruthseeking,that’sreally what they wantto hear!”
And so I did what Peter suggested, standingthere in my full robe with gold cord and blackvelvet sleeve I felt like a tentso I kept it unzippedin the front (as I had never done before) and for the next ninetyminutesor so I sharedwith the audience howmuch I love to searchfor the truth, howeveryday of my life could notbe anybetter challengingmyselfto think up ideasnever really grappledwith before,to search for new methodologiesand new theories,to make suggestionsto all typesof scientistsfor improving upon their bench work,theories,methods,grant writingand more. At the pointwhereI beganto reflecton the linkagesbetweenseeingthe world through the lens of the Western scientificmethodcoupledwith the lens of Chicano waysof knowingthe lab becameespecially quiet and all at once I became aware of this especially since Peter was taking notes like a madman. At first I didn’tknow what to make of their silence as lecturingto a highlyeducatedinternationalgroupwas differentthan doing so in the states, their global-competency allowedthem to interpretmy messagedifferently,so I took a cue from my Philosophyof Scienceclass and decidedit was a signal from the hive mind of the audience that sensedI was aboutto say somethingthey wouldreallybe interestedin hearing. I switched my deliverymode into high gear and said to the audience:
“Much like quantumphysicistsdo, I will take greatlibertiesin laying out a newparadigm(that is,solution)for looking at how to thwart asteroids that may be headed our way (to strikethe earth) which is the primaryreasonPeter askedme to speakthis evening.I will discuss briefly a logicalvisionof howChicanoart will make originalscientificcontributionsto the existingscientificknowledge in the fields of astrophysics,quantumphysics,quantumcomputingand actas a viable tool for nudgingasteroidsheadedfor earthjust enoughto avoid a collision”.
[From my notes for my “Last Lecture”.]
Suddenlymy subconsciouskicked-in (as it always does when I speak in public settings)and I could imaginemy mothersaying“What?What did SonnyBoy say he was goingto talk about? Esta loco mi hijo [my son is crazy],he never talkedlike that before he went to the university, but he was always very different from other children?” She has been saying the same thing for yearsI just wonderwhat she means“he was different from other children”,different how Mama? [The only other historical referenceshe always made was “beforethe war”but I wasn’teven born then, World War II that is.]
Public speakingis a curiousthing for me as I love to lecturein my classes and I love to lecture in formalsettings,this was definitelya formalsetting,you might say it doesn’t get muchmore formal and internationalthan this. And yet as I spoke I was able to layoutmy theoreticalideas that hadme stewingand all I could think aboutwas howI wouldnotbe taken serious in the states;nowI knewwhy Peter loved only lecturingin formalsettingsand not teachingfor a living, plus he had such vitality. To be sure I was well preparedand I am very passionate and excited aboutthe ideasI presented but I have this conditionwheremy best performancesare ones I can’t actuallyremember. Peter’stheoryaboutthis phenomenon is one he can surely relateto as he puts it:
“Whenyour lecturestake on philosophicaldepth,when one gets philosophical,we use a part of the brain that doesn’t recordas well as the part of the brain that does;you mightsay that’swhatmakesfuzzy-logic, fuzzy, it’s best that we keep it that way”.
I took him to mean that it is like creatinga stateof mind whereone can forget aboutthings like administrativeduties,financialwoes,one’snext publicationand the like and escapein a purelysparklinginterchangeof ideas in one’shead sort of realm. I’m reminded of Hacker’s analysis of Wittgenstein’s behavior in Insight and Illusion: Themes in the Philosophy of Wittgenstein, 1986, where he briefly discusses mini spells Wittgenstein experienced as a result of a flood of ideas he called “white sheet flashes”. Some of my best spells or “white sheet flashes” as I prefer to call have comeduringmy formal lectures and were quite frankly (upon reflection) quite vital to my intellectualevolution,that’s why I carry index cards with me and write ideasdown while in the midst of a lecture.I’ve tried to stop doing this howeverbecausea few timesI just kept writingand forgot aboutthe audience.It’s quite anemotionallandscapein which to dwell, it must be like paintingwithoutinterruptions.Sure I had downed at least two pintsof warm beerI could handle that but when speakingin formalsettingsmy thoughtsalways travel to Saint Elsewhere(from the onset) and I’m okay with that, and my deliveryis always at a high level, I just can’t rememberwhat I said.
Mostpeoplecall this phenomenona “surrealexperience”like when they are called to the stage to receivean award, for me, I experience (all at once) parallelrealities.I understandthat mostcognitivepsychologistswouldsay this is “not cognitivelypossible”yet I feel that it is, much like when I was youngerandcould interactwith peoplewhile asleep;I’ve been testedfor this conditionthrough adulthood,it’s a fascinatingexperience. My point is that, I am able to delivera high level lecture in a flowmode (not an automaticmode there is a major difference)while at the same time analyzingthoughtsemergingsimultaneouslyfrom my subconscious;somehowthe phenomenon of the emergenceof subconsciousideaselevatesmy levelof deliverythrusting me into deeperlevelsof predicationwhile public speaking,becomingespeciallyphilosophical, this is my way of speakingfrom the heart.I have never sharedwhat I am aboutto say, you might call it a “confession”as in my deepestdarkestmomentsI struggle with the real stuff that makesup my heart the stuff that makesme truly reflect aboutwhetheror not I give a hoot about the environmentalcrisis and the fate of humanity much like my friendJamesLovelockpointsout “I’m only going to live so long.” In reality I get more excited aboutraising newresearchquestionsto be answeredthan I do at savinghumanity,but for moral not scientificreasons,I just can’t bring myselfto say this in public lectures.If I said this the groupmight suddenlyturn into a crowd and the mind of the crowd wouldtake over the mind of the individualand I wouldmost likely be “burned at the stake” while the true Truth seekers,the truly-trueTruth seekerswould seek refugein the back of the room while I burn out like a meteoriteenteringthe earth’satmosphere knowingall too wellmy angst for dedicatingmy heartand soulto the scienceof truth-seeking. Truth is, I just want to knowthe scientificmeaningof everything,membersof the scientific communitywould recognizethis, it’s like choosingthe right placeto live, I am comfortablewith my uncomfortableness (like being from Southern California and moving to South Texas)I have fitted myselfinto it tant bein quemal that is, until the next contradiction(in ideas)thrustingme forward to always ask newand deeperquestions.And for this eveningbilled as my “last lecture”I just wanted to share a vision for how Chicano artists can (in their “out of the box” thinking) contribute to (that is, devise and design) to the scientific methods for thwarting a direct hit by any asteroid headed our way and of course at the same time save all of humanity. Peter more than sensed this characteristicin me as if it were part of my social psychological genetic code to be born in this way it became a bond in our friendship.
OnceI was invitedby the NationalScienceFoundationto give a lectureon “The Role MethodologyPlays in ScientificDiscovery”at their annualmeetingof project directors.While meanderingbackstageI happenedto checkmy telephonemessagesaboutthirty seconds beforedeliveringa formallecturein the GrandBallroomat the MayflowerHotelin Washington, D.C. (the same room the balls are held for newly electedpresidents)and discoveredthat one of my best friendshad just been killed in a head-oncollision in the same hour. All at once a very sad feelingcame overme as I deliveredmy lectureand all I could think about were the many incidencesmy deceased friend and I had stealingmusicalinstruments while playing in a rock-and-roll band;oh, and I was also thinking about the lady at the bar who lookedlike MonicaLewinskythat peoplecouldn’tfigure out whethershe was or was not the real deal. Honestly, it is so strange but duringthe courseof my lectureeach respectivecontradictionhad me thinking.Like a lot of thoughtwe have in daily life, I really didn’tcare aboutthe thoughtsthey seemedfleeting,but the experienceof the contradictiondidn’t go away (it was rather phenomenological). During my lecture in this rather impressive hall I kept thinking“Was she or wasn’t she MonicaLewinsky?”Nobodyasked and when we asked the bartenderhe only gave us the “look” and she liked it that way, go figure? At the onsetof my lectureI do recallmakinga joke about PresidentBill Clintonbecausehis motorcadehad just passedin front of the hotel alongwith the SecretService vehiclesand ambulancethat soundedlike it needed a newmuffler,I caughta clear viewof him, he looked like he had just had a Clinique (make-up) make over, Now howWashington,D.C. is that? I thoughtto myself“Bill and Monicain one day”upon furtherreflection,each of them lookedlike a reflectionof themselves,not the real deal. I used this notion to make a pointaboutthe role serendipityplays in scientificdiscoveries.I noticedthat at thatmomentRalph Black a geniusfriendof mine betterknownas “Number Thirty-Five”(becausehe was the twenty-fifthpersonhired at the Digital Equipment Corporation)stood up and walkedout the door. I thoughthe eitherhad to use the restroomor he was goingto have a drink at the bar and ascertainwhetheror not it was MonicaLewinsky. As it turnsout he went to the bar and over the courseof the next two days Ulf reflectedon whetheror not it was her. My other friendhad him convincedit was her. Other subconscious thoughtsof major concernwere now comingto the forefrontof my thinking,again even as I continuedto lecture.For several minutes at the onset of my lecture at the Mayflower Hotel all I could think of was that nowthat my good friendhas passedwhat will becomeof the guitar we once took from Albert’sMusic Store and agreedon co-ownership?We literallyran out of the store holdingit together.It was a hollow-body,sunburst,GS 12 Les Paul Gibson guitar, with an indestructiblecase, very expensive.And for a split-secondthat thoughtalone becamemore importantthan the lectureI was giving. I guess this is howmajor slip-upsoccur duringpublic speaking. My lectureshave historicallybeenon the same theme the “contradictionsfound in science”.I think that in my own mind as my subconsciousstirs up the main themes,and it alwaysdoes, I canmake a “CrackerJack”deliverywhile at the same time taking into accountcompetingthoughts,as evidencedby the standingovationI receivedthat day. I don’t rememberwhat I said but I took away a grand feelingstill with me today,with one exception,not telling them the whole truth.
As you are aware there is somethingsurrealaboutgiving a formallectureespeciallyin a packed room, laboratory, formal setting and/or countryother than yourown, especiallya communistcountry. And my last fleetingand competingsubconsciousthoughtthat occurredjustprior to the end of my lecture was howwe need to train Chicanos and Chicanas to become quantummechanicsand quantumcomputingphysicists (ideally artists)becausethey experiencethe world differentlyand this is an innatefactor we musttake seriously,especially while searchingfor new scientificbreakthroughs. Even with the advent of the STEM federal program, science has yet to realizethe manyoriginalscientific contributionsChicanoscan make as I discussedin my last formal lecture.
I also shared with the audiencemy first encounterwith Peter Pense,notknowingat the time that he was a big name in quantumcomputingand celebrity-intellectualat Oxford and said to myself “This guy thinks and acts like a Chicano.He thinksout of the box aboutevery idea”.That ended my “last lecture”at OxfordUniversity.The crowd roaredand as they gave me a standing ovationand the studentsseatedon the stainlesssteel sinks clicked the low-level lights on-and-offat the same time Peter gave me a Chicanohandshakefor all to see and through the cornerof my eye I spottedmy graduate studentsas diverse as can be, giving each otherthe Chicanohandshakeas well. Peter providedme with a warm hug and whispered in my ear,“ExistentialChicano, that’swho you are!”Thanks to Peter at the receptionthat ensuedI was askedto do two things: first I was asked (no less than fifty times) what methodology to employ to thwart impendingasteroids,and second, I was asked howto do the Chicanohandshake.The real scientificdialogbegan followingthe receptionat theTurf Tavernas we were gracedwith the presenceof numerousintellectuals who were in attendance at my last lecture, PaulFeyerabend(authorof Science in a Free Society, 1978),MonicaAli authorof Brick Lane, 2006, Sir Tim Berners-Lee,inventorof the World WideWeb, Rom Harrare and John Bundy (world-renowned tribal legal scholar);both Rom and John are publishedin The JournalMindthe world’smostcompetitive intellectualjournal in the world and of course David Deutsch known as the “foundingfather”of quantum computingand authorof the classic scientificrevolutionarybookThe Fabric of Reality (1997)and The Beginningof Infinity, (2011).
Once again my friendsand colleaguesat “The Turf TavernUniversity,”the place where I learnedthe most,kept me suspendedexistentiallycaught in a web of contradictions;it’s whereI love to be, it’s one of the few places that seems to remain the same amongst the labyrinthine purlieus of the many Oxford colleges; so too is the case at La Taberna (The Tavern) at the Universidad de Guanajuato in Mexico where a statue of Spinoza points the way to intellectual grandeur—it makes you never want to leave.
Wedged between ancient mixtures of concrete and red brick, and dormitories with a dozen different types of wall-paper no one ever bothers to remove, hidden behind a Georgian wall, it’s a very special place where my dear friend Francesco washes-up the dishes while earning his D.Phil. (doctorate in philosophy, unlike the Ph.D. doctorate degree offered in the States) degree in physics. Perhapsyou think I talk a bit too much aboutdrinkingbeer and frequentingthe Turf Tavern; it’s becausein the statesour bars are amusementparks with too many giant LCD panels and loud music,all designedfor distraction.It’s difficult to find a bar withoutmultiple televisionsets blaringin your face at fullvolumeand people engagedin surface levelmindlessdiscussionswhile at the same time furtherdistracting themselveswhile textingon their iPhones.At theTurf Tavernthere are no televisionsets, no backgroundmusic and the culturediscouragesiPhoneuse; people go there for the intellectual interactionand of coursesome warm beersand the god awfulsmell of the RiverThames that once you’ve had enough beer begins to have a pleasantly odd odor. [Note:Personally,I prefermartinis because they are d-e-l-i-c–i-o-u-s,as John Steinbeck once put it, “Whenthey becomedeliciousyou’ve had too many” and for me having too many means it’s time to stop and at timesI’ve neededto know when to stop.] It’s a constantgatheringof intellectual luminaries at the Turf Tavern,filled with internationallyknown pedagoguesand social activistsand individualsabsolutelyfaithfulto developingtheoriesand methodologiesfor searchingfor the truth,The Truth; conversations that emphasizethe sparkling interchangeof interdisciplinaryideasthe goalbeingto reachdeeperand deeperlevelsof predicationand understanding.
I met dozensof the greatestminds in the world at the tavernon a regularbasis;our exchanges always felt effortless;one did not need to build up courage to engagethe constantstreamof great thinkersthat frequentedthe place,one only had to deem our interactions as effortlesssociability; I could only think, “What a way to learn!” It’s increasinglydifficult to find similarsettingsin the states,even when you try to create them, intellectuals in American society are less worldly, and this, in my opinion places a damper on their ability to seek the truth. Chicanos would call them “tapados” (close-minded); well, at least in the states we have DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) an agency quite tolerant of researchers who make a lot of mistakes and doesn’t stigmatize them along the way.
It was an interestingtransitionalperiod living, workingand playingat the more than one thousandyear-old university while at the same time developing quite a reputation as the professor who has a passion for integrated cross-disciplinary thought in promoting the idea of “marrying” quantum physics and Chicano art. My students came from places both similar and dissimilar then my own, those from the Third World I saw as kindred spirits from barrios such as mine for we knew what it was like to be so poor; we had to pile through cow dung looking for seeds and beans to boil-up for our next meal. Never thinking we were ever poor, we could always find something to eat. How could we possibly rise from such existence? I believe in miracles and a little hard work and discipline; I should call my father right now and thank him for my first work chart. It was the caldito (soup) of ideas or should I say “menudo”(mixer of soup) I brought that my students enjoyed and so too did the Oxford Dons who came to my lectures out of pure curiosity turned collegiality and became life-long comrades in seeking for the truth. One of the Dons who was in attendance at each of my lectures exclaimed “Your ideas are like something I’ve never tasted before, even my mother’s best dish could not hold me at bay.” Hearing this I thought, “Maybe I became their jalapeno?” Whether it was the wisdom of Oxford University or the Turf Tavern, each provided an atmosphere for ideas never so far-fetched so as not to be taken seriously because they were taken as f spoken from the soul; I mean after all we can’t possibly leave one stone unturned if we are seeking for an answer to save humanity and Gaia (Mother earth).
I’m Not Stuck in the 1960s, 70s or 80s!
In the 1960s and 1970s, Chicano leaders did not possess a paradigm for looking at how social movements “get done;” they had no systematic methodology for doing so as Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez of Colorado said to me one day “We are making it [the Chicano movement] up along the way.” Even as I worked alongside Corky, we held organizing meetings at both the Crusade for Justice and the Escuela Tlatelolco in Denver and it appeared we knew what we were doing--we had the appearance of truth; this is why institutions of higher education as well as the FBI found Chicanos so threatening—at the very least what we were doing felt right. From purely a process point of view, scientists often feel the same way as they feel their way into their methodological approaches in the absence of a paradigm for looking (that is, roadmap) and their actions (mostly outside the lab) often threaten the values and beliefs of existing institutions to the point where they begin to lose support for their ideas and work. Social psychologically speaking, in American society as long as Chicanos didn’t venture outside the barrio things remained stable, and the same went for scientists as long as their political issues didn’t leak outside their respective labs, they were seen as okay to carry out their research. Many times people without a paradigm for looking are seen as deviant or as loose cannons who choose to go with their gut feelings—some might call this “instinct.” I like the analogy connecting the Chicano Movement to the scientific movement because both were in search of a new paradigm:
“Kuhn used the term [paradigm] to refer to a collection of procedures or ideas that instruct scientists, implicitly, what to believe and how to work. Most scientists never question the paradigm. They solve “puzzles,” problems whose solutions reinforce and extend the scope of the paradigm rather than challenging it. Kuhn called this “mopping up,” or “normal science.”
To be sure when the San Diego City Council voted to displace several Chicanos from their homes in order to build the Coronado Bridge, what they left was a twenty acre patch of lawn beneath the bridge with concrete spikes right through the heart of the community. My grandfather whose favorite place to hang-out with his buddies was Amador’s Market in Chicano Park put it this way: “The patch of lawn they gave us is like the pile of green stuff they put on your plate at Denny’s; you can’t eat it but they make you think you got something.” Similarly, in Denver we created full scholarships for members of the Chicano community by the building of the Auraria Higher Education Center. I mean we had to scramble to get what we could. But again, there was no roadmap; the Chicano Movement was timely, viable and important but it was not a true paradigm--it was rather a model for teaching and learning, which is good for educational purposes, and, learn we did. To be sure there were numerous public marches, youth conferences, and sit-ins occupying buildings and all, I know, as I participated, yet our approach was not a real tool for social change. At the time there were numerous other group behaviors throughout the world that even though didn’t appear to be directly linked to the Chicano Movement (labor strikes in England), I would argue were operating in a “parallel universe” during the same time period; scientists (especially physicists) were experiencing the same thing in the world of computing as they felt they were fighting the system and rebuking existing assumptions. [Note: I like David Deutsch’s term “parallel universes” as described in his seminal book, The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes – and Its Implications (1997), as it really shook the scientific world to think that there could actually be other universes linked to our own but here I am only using it as an analogy to make a point about how behavior in very different realities, such as the Chicano Movement and the world of quantum computing and quantum physics is connected.] Think about it? Computers had not yet been invented and the scientific community was grappling with ideas and computations that clearly needed a paradigm where one did not exist. Chicanos were coming up with ideas we had never seriously considered and at the same time drove people to action. In the same manner the Chicano Movement rose up in the American Southwest with a handful of charismatic leaders and ideas that could transform our limited world. César Chávez rose up as a charismatic leader yet people (Chicanos alike) had a hard time disambiguating the plight of the United Farmworkers and the Chicano Movement (see my forthcoming book Theorizing César Chávez: A Treatise in the Social Psychology of Scientific Thinking in Everyday Life, forthcoming, 2015).
What we need to realize is that we observed the same sort of behavioral phenomenon in the field of physics as the quantum physicists who in a manner of speaking were protesting in their own right. They started to define the world in terms of “parallel universes,” a new scientific ideology and this was their “revolution”, while the particle physicists were beginning to redefine their work in terms of searching for the essence of the Big Bang Theory, soon thereafter to proclaim a new postulate in the form of locating the truth (true about science) in the “god particle” and these were very different paradigms (that is, roadmaps) to follow. Analogous to this is that the United Farm Workers saw the world in one way and people in the Chicano Movement (while sympathetic) saw a differently prioritized world.
So, too, other movements were stirring: one became the advent of the Quantum Computation and Cryptography Research Group at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. This is another way of saying that using quantum computational logic in its capacity as a “parallel universe” to that of the Chicano Movement, using their own logic (back on themselves) you could not have one without the other; their disassociation is their association and their association becomes their disassociation, but any way you look at it within the realm of a universe where everything is connected, the Chicano Movement and the movement towards quantum computation happened because the times were ripe for displaying and acceptance of social change; protests for the Chicano Movement were a good thing equivalent to failure in science and to be sure we can only learn from our mistakes. So that even though Chicanos were not challenging any paradigm, they were keeping La Familia (The Family) together, creating new realities in the form of possibilities for social change, Chicanos are high-contact people, something increasingly harder to find in today’s world of social media. Much like Chicanos, physicists, especially quantum computational physicists, are high contact, very hands on, perhaps it is a desire to be this way because in their scientific enterprise they develop methods for measuring things they can’t touch--at least that’s my social psychological theory. High contact for physicists came in the form of literally creating new scientific communities to join in support of their research. At the site of the Hardon Super Collider Project in Southern Switzerland and the North of France more than two thousand families associated with the project have found housing within the physical ring of the super collider, now that’s barrio-behavior if you ask me. Chicanos were challenging the “system” and physicists were challenging the existing paradigm; from a behavioral standpoint, we were hermanos (soul brothers) and didn’t even realize it. This is one of many examples I shared with my colleagues at Oxford and part of the reason I call them “Chicanos” and they except the label. Moreover, an area where scientists and Chicano leaders share a kindred spirit is they know that in order to survive and prosper they must become powerfully convincing. Whether it is challenging the system or challenging an existing paradigm, the act of challenging or strapping-on a challenge of such magnitude (one that will cause true change), social and/or scientific, is a behavioristic characteristic few will experience: this becomes the common indestructible bond I made clear while at Oxford and another example of one of those ideas fully acceptable in England that would only fall on deaf ears in the States.
Even when hard scientists keep cogent notes about their bench work, scientific breakthroughs were not coming to fruition and in their daily work scientists simply performed work in support of the existing paradigm; not very creative if you ask me. The sorry thing about this is that scientists were even stigmatized for having original thoughts, but yet it’s part of the scientific enterprise it’s what they do, especially when research-professors try to earn tenure, they often experience years of what Erving Goffman calls a “degradation ceremony” (1967). I believe there were similar logics being experienced between dissimilar worlds (universes such as that of the Chicano Movement and the scientific world of physics) yet the logics being experienced were in fact similar. Think about it this way: the great pyramids all over the world were being built during the same time periods but there was no contact or flow of information between the civilizations that were building them, now why is that? You might say that Kuhn would have never written “Structure” had there been no Chicano Movement; now this may sound absolutely absurd, but you need to know that this was Kuhn’s kernel logic--I simply turned Kuhn on himself to come up with this insight. Concomitantly, when it comes to the overarching premise of the theory of parallel universes today the law of quantum computing is in support of the logic I just laid out above: you simply cannot have one without the other—the problem is describing how this is all possible.
This is why I am suggesting that in the new Chicano Movement, we integrate systematic scientific behavior that will truly cause a paradigm shift in how social movements are achieved or that we borrow a page from successful scientific revolutions. One thing for sure is that once we study the manner (that is, methodology) in which science and social movements happen, it’s not difficult to see the similarities. The affiliation between logical thoughts similar in nature between parallel universes is not accidental. Hence, using Kuhn’s own logic on itself, his book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), can also be a study of the structure of the Chicano Movement as a “revolution” few and far between, but with all the potentiality (socially, politically, culturally and scientifically) as described in Armando Rendon’s epic book, Chicano Manifesto (1996). It’s important to make clear, however, that during the height of the Chicano Movement, the term “paradigm” was not viewed as an entirely new way of viewing the world; it was viewed more like a model, not a completely new world view. It was for the most part what the movement in fact became, more of a cultural phenomenon because Chicanos much like hard scientists didn’t question the paradigm. This was the problem with the Chicano Movement and with modern day science for that matter; we are trained to never question the paradigm. I say “Que viva el paradigm shift, cabrones!” Let me state this another way “I am not stuck in the 1960s vato. I am more than suggesting a new paradigm for looking at the Chicano Movement; the real challenge isn’t in the streets, it’s in the interchange of ideas that will prevail. It’s like this: no one ever really knew what Chicano Power really was. I am telling you that the power in Chicano Power is powerfully convincing ideas, new logics that will truly make contributions not only to existing ideas (especially in the STEM fields) but in causing a paradigm shift. Talk about “La Causa”—what we need are new original ideas that cause a paradigm shift—now that’s the new “La Causa”. This is why I argue that by infusing Chicano values and beliefs to the scientific community at-large (on a global basis even if not accepted in the U.S.), we will in fact become a true Chicano Movement in an overall widely accepted scientific movement; it’s like becoming a supportive or mini paradigm in support of the overall paradigm.
Continued and concluded in Part III
Sonny Boy Arias, a lover of causing science friction, is a social psychologist by trade and a story teller at heart, who promotes the idea of the “marriage” of the arts (Chicano art) and sciences (physics/astrophysics) as a way to entice Chicanos and Chicanas to study areas in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). He has two forthcoming books in the works also toward this end: Theorizing César Chávez: A Treatise in the Social Psychology of Scientific Thinking in Everyday Life and Latino Existential: The Meaning of Chicano Art & Life, due in 2015 from Arts & Sciences World Press.Copyright © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior permission in writing of the Arts & Sciences World Press® 2015. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department at:www.artsandsciencesworldpress.com.