Johannes Jaeger
Johannes Jaeger
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Beyond the Cult of Productivity - How to survive and thrive in a cut-throat academic environment
This lecture is a part of my "Surviving and Thriving in Academia" workshop, that comes in various formats, from two 2h-discussion sessions to a whole two-day retreat event (see www.johannesjaeger.eu for details and contact information).
This lecture analyzes the current state of the academic research system, and how it fails to cater to the needs to both researchers and the process of inquiry in general. It identifies three major issues:
1. the cult of productivity
2. the tyranny of metrics
3. a misguided notion of accountability
that hamper the long-term aim of basic science to generate deeper insights into the world we live in and our place within in. I suggest a number of possible remedies at the community-scale, but mainly provide some philosophical tools that allow early-career researchers to cope a situation they are unlikely to be able to change in the short run. These include the distinction between finite games and infinite play, the metaphor of evolutionary niche construction, and the notion of game change (rather than denials or acceptance).
Further reading:
- democratizing (citizen) science: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.231100.
- self-censorship and the cult of productivity: www.johannesjaeger.eu/blog/self-censorship-and-the-cult-of-productivity-in-academic-research
มุมมอง: 1 553

วีดีโอ

Science as Process and Perspective - 11. Science in Context
มุมมอง 9364 ปีที่แล้ว
In this last lecture of the course, I take a look at science in its societal context. This is the subject of study of an interdisciplinary research field called "Science, Technology, and Society (STS)." It considers sciences as a practice embedded in a community/society, and treats the norms of science as emerging from the practices of the community. I start with a critical reevaluation of Mert...
Science as Process and Perspective - 10. Doing Science
มุมมอง 5934 ปีที่แล้ว
In this lecture, I'll turn my philosophical gaze on the actual process - the activity - of doing science. Previously, I've tried to convince you that new knowledge (a) must be built on what is already known, (b) depends on the individual perspectives of researchers, and (c) will always continue to change and expand our view of the world. We've also already agreed that knowledge is not limited t...
Science as Process and Perspective - 09. Process Biology
มุมมอง 7114 ปีที่แล้ว
This lecture deviates a bit from the usual format of this lecture series. It shows how changing philosophical perspective can concretely affect the kind of research you do. I use examples from biology to illustrate how process thinking expands the range of questions we can ask, and the kinds of explanations we accept as valid. If you are not interested in these concrete examples, you can skip s...
Science as Process and Perspective - 08. Process Thinking
มุมมอง 7154 ปีที่แล้ว
This lecture asks the fundamental question: what is reality made of? I argue that it is made of processes (all the way down), and provide a number of thinking tools for process metaphysics. First of all, I discuss why it is both obvious that change is everywhere, but at the same time, it is extremely difficult to think and speak in process terms. We are born as substance-based thinkers. It is m...
Science as Process and Perspective - 07. Scientific Progress
มุมมอง 7414 ปีที่แล้ว
In the last couple of lectures, I established how we can rescue a perspectivist kind of realism from the wreckage of the science wars - the collision between objectivist realists and radical constructivists in the 1990s. Scientific perspectivism allows for constructivist influences, while maintaining that science is still the best way we have devised so far for understanding our relation with t...
Science as Process and Perspective - 06. Perspectival Realism
มุมมอง 8664 ปีที่แล้ว
In this lecture, we look at the richness of our phenomenal world - with all its complexity occurring at different levels of organisation. A modern philosophy of science must take this complexity fully into account, and cannot simply attempt to reduce all phenomena to some simple fundamental level. Here, I introduce the multi-perspectival realism of William Wimsatt, as expounded in his magisteri...
Science as Process and Perspective - 05. What Kind of Realism?
มุมมอง 7934 ปีที่แล้ว
Most of the problems with empirical knowledge we've encountered so far are rooted in the problem of underdetermination. There is always an indefinite number of scientific theories that can explain the same observable phenomena. Reality seems to be capable of sustaining more than one account of itself. In such an underdetermined world, it is difficult to deny that our scientific knowledge is con...
Science as Process and Perspective - 04. Absolute Knowledge?
มุมมอง 1K4 ปีที่แล้ว
In this lecture, I examine what we can and cannot know with certainty. I talk about Descartes' meditation (and his evil daemon), about analytical proofs and certainty, but most of all, I talk about the reasons why empirical knowledge cannot be certain or absolute - and why we can be pretty (but not absolutely) sure about that. Empirical knowledge encounters three problems when it comes to estab...
Science as Process and Perspective - 03. The Standard View of Science
มุมมอง 1.1K4 ปีที่แล้ว
The standard view of science is a view that many researchers hold today. It is usually not an explicitly formulated philosophical doctrine, but a loosely associated set of ideas about how science works and what scientific knowledge is. These ideas stem from three main sources: 1. logical positivism (or logical empiricism), 2. modified by Popperian falsificationism, and 3. Merton's ethos of scie...
Science as Process and Perspective - 02. What is the Philosophy of Science?
มุมมอง 1.8K4 ปีที่แล้ว
In this lecture, I provide a very basic introduction to what knowledge is, what science is, and what philosophy is. I also show that the way we define and view philosophy has radically changed from ancient to modern times, and so has the relationship between philosophy and science. While science started out as an applied branch of philosophy, it was later seen as science's handmaiden, and ultim...
Science as Process and Perspective - 01. How I Came to Philosophy
มุมมอง 1.6K4 ปีที่แล้ว
In this lecture, I tell the story of how I myself came to ask philosophical questions about my research in evolutionary systems biology, and how my intellectual journey took me further and further in the direction of a new kind of philosophical biology. Watching this lecture is not required to understand the rest of the course. It provides a concrete example of how philosophy and science intera...
Science as Process and Perspective - Introduction: Why this course?
มุมมอง 2K4 ปีที่แล้ว
This brief introductory lecture will tell you what this course is about, and whether this course is for you.
13.02 Beyond Synthesis - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 7204 ปีที่แล้ว
Module 13 of "Beyond Networks" concludes the course with some speculation on what an agential theory of evolution would look like, and the a plea for a different kind of academic environment, in which exploratory science becomes a real possibility again. The main point of this last lecture in the course is that we need to find better ways to argue and collaborate with each other, across discipl...
13.01 An Agent Theory of Evolution? - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 8794 ปีที่แล้ว
Module 13 of "Beyond Networks" concludes the course with some speculation on what an agential theory of evolution would look like, and the a plea for a different kind of academic environment, in which exploratory science becomes a real possibility again. This lectures draws the philosophical outlines of a possible agent theory (or better: perspective) for evolution. Such a perspective would hav...
12.04 Homology of Process - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 5054 ปีที่แล้ว
12.04 Homology of Process - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
12.03 Dynamical Modularity - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 9174 ปีที่แล้ว
12.03 Dynamical Modularity - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
12.02 Evolvability and Robustness - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 1.3K4 ปีที่แล้ว
12.02 Evolvability and Robustness - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
12.01 Expeditions into Configuration Space- Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 5514 ปีที่แล้ว
12.01 Expeditions into Configuration Space- Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
11.04 Scientific Bullshit & the Cult of Productivity - Beyond Networks: Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 1.5K4 ปีที่แล้ว
11.04 Scientific Bullshit & the Cult of Productivity - Beyond Networks: Evolution of Living Systems
11.03 The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 2.7K4 ปีที่แล้ว
11.03 The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
11.02 Theory in Evo-Devo - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 1.5K4 ปีที่แล้ว
11.02 Theory in Evo-Devo - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
11.01 Evolutionary Synthesis - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 7954 ปีที่แล้ว
11.01 Evolutionary Synthesis - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
10.04 An Agential Perspective - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 5894 ปีที่แล้ว
10.04 An Agential Perspective - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
10.03 The Reproducer - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 4594 ปีที่แล้ว
10.03 The Reproducer - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
10.02 Process Perspectives - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 4944 ปีที่แล้ว
10.02 Process Perspectives - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
10.01 Structure vs. Function (Again!) - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 5634 ปีที่แล้ว
10.01 Structure vs. Function (Again!) - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
09.04 The Evolution of Organisms - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 5554 ปีที่แล้ว
09.04 The Evolution of Organisms - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
09.03 Open Evolution - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 9594 ปีที่แล้ว
09.03 Open Evolution - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
09.02 Novelty and Innovation - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems
มุมมอง 6574 ปีที่แล้ว
09.02 Novelty and Innovation - Beyond Networks: The Evolution of Living Systems

ความคิดเห็น

  • @michelluc8829
    @michelluc8829 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    If think that the debate is that nonewhistanding the validity of the statistical approach of evolution embodied in population genetics, there is a need for a structural approach explaining the mechanisms involved in phenotypic variation, without that it's a bit like approaching criminality on the sole statistical aspect of it, it could be totally accurate but nonetheless useless to find solutions without taking into account the socioeconomic factors.

  • @adriaanb7371
    @adriaanb7371 4 หลายเดือนก่อน

    So a cell runs on temperature for its internal movements?

  • @ElectricTeaCup
    @ElectricTeaCup 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Omg a lecture with a killer cliff hanger! Now that's novelty!

  • @rockapedra1130
    @rockapedra1130 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Wow, these lectures are incredibly eye opening!

  • @44point5
    @44point5 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Thanks for posting these lectures.

  • @44point5
    @44point5 6 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I really wish these videos were ad free.

  • @life42theuniverse
    @life42theuniverse 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Finite and infinite mean countable and uncountable. Different from ending and unending.

  • @life42theuniverse
    @life42theuniverse 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    To be successful in Academics you must create growth for the wealthy. th-cam.com/video/kZA9Hnp3aV4/w-d-xo.html

  • @Tmesis___19
    @Tmesis___19 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I really loved this. It was a really good presentation.

  • @michaelschrader3007
    @michaelschrader3007 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    A helpful introduction in process philosophy. The idea of substances seduces us to think that substances are real objects.

  • @severianK
    @severianK 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    20 years ago I watched a presentation of a robot for the automatization of PCR. The common comment from the PIs was: "Why should we spend money, when we can use the students to do the same?" And this is what academia is all about: and assembly line full of overqualified workers. What could go wrong?

  • @djlbarr
    @djlbarr 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Haven't watched this yet since it was literally released an hour ago, but I was watching part of the Beyond Networks lecture series a few days ago and was delighted to see this come up on my feed. I wish I knew about your work when I was an undergrad bio student 8 years ago who ultimately eschewed further pursuit of academia. Looking back now, it strongly resonates me with and some of the intuitions I had back then, and if I had gone down that path I would've loved to pursue furthrer study from a processual perspective. Thank you.

  • @PeebeesPet
    @PeebeesPet 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    3 years and then pop goes the weasel.😂

  • @lacinobel1868
    @lacinobel1868 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Congratulations 😊

  • @gfy2979
    @gfy2979 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Evolution only seems to say this, there are heritable characteristics and those who don't reproduce don't pass them along. You don't say, Sherlock?

  • @SarahMMorsy
    @SarahMMorsy 8 หลายเดือนก่อน

    WOW!! thank you, so mind-stimulating and fun to learn!!

  • @WallaceRoseVincent
    @WallaceRoseVincent 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Another kick in the pants and confirmation to what is see and understand. Thank you!

  • @WallaceRoseVincent
    @WallaceRoseVincent 10 หลายเดือนก่อน

    Thanks for the kick in the pants!

  • @doug_sponsler
    @doug_sponsler 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    I'm reminded of the following reflection on Aristotelian causality by David Bentley Hart (from his 2023-2024 Substack series "Reflections on Life and Mind"): "The fourfold system of causality that we associate with Aristotelian tradition, for instance, which was the standard vision of cosmic order in the pre-modern Western and Islamic worlds, depicted the universe as an interweaving of logical relations, some coming from “above,” as it were, some from “below,” but all also from “within.” It is this last that we all too often forget. Of the classical tetrad of causes-the material, the efficient, the formal, and the final-it is often said that modern science retained only the first two; in fact, it retained none. The old model was not a scientific account of reality in the modern sense, nor today would it actually constitute a rival to the sciences as we know them, but we tend to remember the scheme only in broad outline, while rarely recalling what it was a scheme for. Certainly, by the seventeenth century, it had come to be seen by many as the logic of human manufacture illicitly extended to natural kinds, and the illegitimate imputation of a kind of designing logic to nature’s processes. In truth, however, it was simply the logic of predication-one that may not be in any sense an adequate model for the purposes of the sciences as they took shape in the modern age, but that nonetheless, at a more fundamental level, makes the sciences possible."

  • @dialecticalbeing
    @dialecticalbeing 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    :)

  • @doug_sponsler
    @doug_sponsler 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    "Nothing, finally, is as fleeting, as ultimately unreal as a 'fact.' The thousand daily tasks that act out, say, a marriage are embedded in the order of time. In themselves, individually and collectively, they are trivial, capable of being replaced by a wholly different set. Nor is the reality of marriage simply the idea thereof, a set of obligations and privileges which could be itemized in a contract. All those are incidentals. The reality of marriage is its sense, ingressing in time and giving meaning to fact and substance to idea." Erazim Kohák (1984) The Embers and the Stars

  • @sergesolkatt
    @sergesolkatt 11 หลายเดือนก่อน

    ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

  • @mazyar_
    @mazyar_ ปีที่แล้ว

    Fascinating talk thank you. I gather from a Process position, is there is no Kantian Ding-an-sich; What is Whitehead’s critique of Kant?

  • @Suav58
    @Suav58 ปีที่แล้ว

    Kolmogorov complexity is a very powerful concept (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity) allowing to step back and have a broader look on information content. z^2+c is a very simple equation, yet the results of analysing behaviour of this equation for z such, that |z|=1 are rather rich. What information is supplied as the input of such a process? The equation is part of mathematics and *minimal amount of information to do it properly is set theory, so this is a source of information hidden in the environment. When Fatou and Joulia started to investigate these kind of equations, they would have to use thousands of human computers to achiever results not coming close to what any willing, mildly educated and not particularly opulent person could do together with some CAS software. A day or two of work on this equation can produce gigabytes of data, yet these can not be easily compressed without knowledge of the initial information used to create this data set of pixels. There are quite a number of possible models. Every such model is a part of some axiomatic system. Genome interacts with an environment on different levels: the direct environment of gestation, the broader environment of special ecosphere... It is a very important, indeed vital, but an arbitrary decision of the human researcher to declare some parts of this environment as signal and some as noise. *one of possible foundations

  • @Suav58
    @Suav58 ปีที่แล้ว

    Is it possible, that bifurcations in higher dimensions and near double, n-tuple roots might be emerging as a result of adversarial actions of competing control systems? These might be taking place on finance and military activities.

  • @harikrishnanr522
    @harikrishnanr522 ปีที่แล้ว

    Man ur awesome... people don't really understood whitehead

  • @majorlycunningham5439
    @majorlycunningham5439 ปีที่แล้ว

    It is by no coincidence that many of the same process philosophers were also panpsychists… and another related theory is that of open individualism.

  • @independencemp3
    @independencemp3 ปีที่แล้ว

    We believed in Solids. Now we understand them as relationships in Movement.

  • @AdamGeest
    @AdamGeest ปีที่แล้ว

    I had a not so great experience with KLI! I applied for a doctoral fellowship and received violently hostile reviews of my proposed project. Gratuitously violent, deeply unconstructive criticisms. Many of their criticisms were inane and demonstrably false. For example , one reviewer complained that I wasn’t a suitable candidate for a postdoctoral position at KLI because I only had THREE publications one of which had been published by a division of the American Psychological Association and received only 32 citations at the time of my application. But I hadn’t yet finished my phd? I was applying for a doctoral fellowship and not a postdoc!The fellowship I applied for was aimed squarely at doctoral candidates and not post docs. It was bizarre and unpleasant. I voiced my concerns regarding my reviewers’ betrayal of ignorance regarding even the category of fellowship I was applying for and I was told that it was an error of minor significance and that I should accept the decision and move on. One is not even allowed to pushback thereby demonstrating one’s actual competency. I thereafter reframed my problematic so as to remove my work from the prying eyes of dogmatic biologists.Never again!

  • @tinfoilhatscholar
    @tinfoilhatscholar ปีที่แล้ว

    The subjective - objective continuum. Subject: mind is open. Object: mind is closed.

  • @tixch2000
    @tixch2000 ปีที่แล้ว

    do not forget David Bohm..;)

  • @mehrshadgafarzadeh2944
    @mehrshadgafarzadeh2944 ปีที่แล้ว

    Great

  • @marcopivetta7796
    @marcopivetta7796 ปีที่แล้ว

    it's not so much that you can't SAY something ilogical, rather, the very idea of THINKING is impossible outside logical space, as thinking is pointing at something and saying "that" or "not that". "Your hair is monday" is perfectly sayable, yet it SHOWS nothing. Where does "knowledge" enter here? Maybe some of his followers derived that,but not in Wittgenstein, at least not in the TLP.

  • @glenliesegang233
    @glenliesegang233 ปีที่แล้ว

    A cell is not a machine.. Nor is a city.

  • @ayan849
    @ayan849 ปีที่แล้ว

    I prostrate to the Perfect Buddha, The best of teachers, who taught that Whatever is dependently arisen is Unceasing, unborn, Unannihilated, not permanent, Not coming, not going, Without distinction, without identity, And free from conceptual construction. Nagarjuna, Dedicatory verses, Mulamadhyamakakarika.

    • @tinfoilhatscholar
      @tinfoilhatscholar ปีที่แล้ว

      Good words. The wisdom of changes has always lived in the East

  • @AmicusNoctis
    @AmicusNoctis ปีที่แล้ว

    These lectures are perfect

  • @AH-fc4kc
    @AH-fc4kc ปีที่แล้ว

    Probably shouldn't say controversial things like Leibniz invented calculus with no justification in instructional videos if you want people to take you seriously

  • @ubertwerpify
    @ubertwerpify ปีที่แล้ว

    On my 2nd lecture , but I would suggest that context obsoletes facts and information obsoletes knowledge and wisdom. Why? Information flows and self corrects given time and evolves open ended including failures . Knowledge is a “final” closed loop compartmentalized pretense in my view and opinion which necessarily lead to infinite “ defenses” etc to maintain the illusion control, while ignoring the wonder and excitement of the roller coaster of the unknown …

  • @ubertwerpify
    @ubertwerpify ปีที่แล้ว

    Johannes no doubt there will be much I don’t agree with, that remains to be seen and doesn’t really matter anyway haha. Your material very closely aligns with my own anti-philosophy i have been independently developing for many years and am currently writing about as well in science fiction and other formats. Its so very rare to find something so aligned with my core convictions that this is a magnificent surprise - A true gem if a find and one of the best things i have discovered on youtube. Thank you for taking the time to do these lectures. I look forward to comparing notes at some point as i suspect there is much to discuss that would interest us both. ( I come from engineering, manufacturing and business background but i should have been a biologist perhaps haha)

  • @Tmesis___19
    @Tmesis___19 ปีที่แล้ว

    Is it principle possible to have a unified explanation all the way down to the molecular level, or just in praxis incomprehensible

  • @mullerd869
    @mullerd869 ปีที่แล้ว

    Thank you - this is extremly relevant and the right way to go! I wish you great success with your further studies and adequate funding. ❤

  • @yamrzou
    @yamrzou ปีที่แล้ว

    I find the conclusion to be far-fetched. The proposition “We'll never have certain knowledge of the truth” is presented as a certain one and so is self-defeating.

  • @branokrajcovic8863
    @branokrajcovic8863 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Thank you for this personal and frank perspective! Much appreciated!

  • @krzemyslav
    @krzemyslav 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    From a perspective of a scientist questions may be more valuable than answers, because they allow science to march on and scientists to develop their careers. But the goal of science is to first and foremost find answers, even if they are preliminary. No society would pay for science to just find questions. People search for meaning and solutions to problems, answers given by science contribute to that. Without questions science is sterile, but without answers it's pointless. Both questions and answers contribute to knowledge.

  • @fred8097
    @fred8097 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    This is fantastic material! Thank you so much.

  • @yangcui9736
    @yangcui9736 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Truth.

  • @BandhanMukherjee
    @BandhanMukherjee 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Outstanding really really amazing talk. As a neuroscientist metaphysics will help me to think and view the unseen phenomenon inside our brain. Just amazing. Thanks so much.

  • @jorgemedina3144
    @jorgemedina3144 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Can we think in the hubs of the systems as a system in itself? Therefore, can systems be viewed as fractals?

  • @EmptyBuddha92
    @EmptyBuddha92 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Very helpful. I'm currently working on darwinism, process metaphysics, and species. Thanks!

  • @brynbstn
    @brynbstn 2 ปีที่แล้ว

    Thanks for making this video. I started reading Process & Reality many years ago (1985), after my undergrad in Philosophy, and hit a brick wall. Back then there was no internet, so was impossible to find others interested in this line of thought. I gave up. Now I'm picking up this interest again, and it's so much easier. Nice to hear about some current process philosophers and see some "live process philosophizing", as opposed to simply trying to shed light on Whitehead's oeuvre. I'll be checking out your other videos.