Panel: UNITY AND DIFFERENTIATION. INQUIRING NON-DUALISM AS INTERDISCIPLINARY PARADIGM



644_2.1 - NON-DUALITY IN A QUANTUM SOCIETY: THE TRIALS, TRIBULATIONS AND JOY OF ATTEMPTED TRANSDISCIPLINARITY BETWEEN SCIENCES AND THE HUMANITIES

AUTHORS:
Hall-Wilton R. (Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy) , Hejazi S. (Bruno Kessler Foundation ~ Trento ~ Italy)
Text:
The naive goal of transdisciplinarity is to attempt a non-duality - unity even - between disciplines. Since a couple of years, the authors (an anthropologist & a particle physicist) have attempted to create such a non-duality, under the umbrella of "The Quantum Society" with a loose collaboration of interested parties to look at the impacts of the hard sciences on society, and the impacts of the humanities and societal considerations on scientific enquiry. The non-duality of the disciplines can be epitomised thus: The two cultures observation of CP Snow has divided the sciences from the humanities for at least the past 75 years; the advances of knowledge into ever more specialised silos have been a great success. At the same time, something is lost by this ever more radical compartmentalisation of the disciplines. In a recent issue of Humanitas, the authors postulated that taking concepts and different frames of thinking from science applied to research questions and critique in the Humanities may lead to novel interdisciplinary insights. More recently at Nanoinnovation 2025, and a subsequent paper on "what have the humanities ever done for us?", which explored how new thinking inspired from the humanities might lead to useful insights and investigations by taking different perspectives and centralities in approaching research problems in nanotechnology. This raises the possibility of original new thinking: taking methodologies and concepts from the humanities to look at scientific problems; in particular complex ones. In this paper, the non-duality is looked at from both "sides". Firstly, it is asked what quantum physics can offer the humanities. Secondly, the reverse is posited: what have the humanities ever done for the hard sciences? Lastly, the trials, tribulations and joy of attempting a transdisciplinary approach is explored - is unity feasible or a utopia? It is hoped that this gives a glimpse into what a "Quantum Society" might be.