On the contrary, says Polanyi, it proves just the opposite, since machines, though
of physical necessity, cannot be “explained” in terms of physics and chemistry. In
his major work Personal Knowledge he wrote, “The complete [physics and
chemistry] knowledge of a machine as an object tells us nothing about it as a
machine” [6]. This is because what defines a machine is its operational principle,
which patent offices of all nations recognize as a different kind of knowledge from
scientific knowledge (see what he wrote below). Polanyi reasoned that if living
organs function like machines (indeed, their functions can sometimes be performed
by man-made machines, for instance, a kidney replaced with a kidney machine),
then life transcends as machines do the domain of physics and chemistry. I am
interested here not so much in understanding life but in better appreciation of how
the application of the first law and the second law to machines involving shaft work
is different from the typical application of scientific laws in the practice of applied
sciences. (Though, we can learn a great deal from life phenomena on how to
manage the planet Earth for its wellbeing rather than as an object from which man
extracts resources.) That is, knowledge about a machine that either produces or
consumes shaft work is more than mere scientific knowledge, as general engineering knowledge is different from scientific knowledge, which is based on the
notion of observing.
Engineering knowledge involves the additional notion of contriving. Even
though the notion of contriving applies to all engineering devices including, e.g.,
heat exchangers, there is a degree of difference in the kind of contriving required for
shaft work machines from simpler ones. Polanyi noted on contriving the following:
…the physical sciences are predominately observational, while biology and
[man-made-things]…, in which observation plays but a subsidiary role…The logic of
deductive reasoning has been systematically studied for two millennia, and the logic of
empirical inference has been a major preoccupation of philosophy for centuries, but the
logic of contriving has found its way only into scattered hints…a machine or a technical
process is characterized by an operational principle, which differs altogether from an
observational statement. The former, if it is new, represents an invention and can be
covered by a patent; the latter, if it is new, is a discovery, which cannot be patented.
Contrivances are classes of objects which embody a particular operational principle. [6:87]
In a 1968 paper in Science [7] he reiterated the matter this way
If all men were exterminated, this would not affect the laws of inanimate nature. But the
production of machines would stop, and not until men arose again, could machines be
formed once more. Some animals can produce tools, but only men can construct machines;
machines are human artifacts, made of inanimate material… In constructing a machine and
supplying it with power, we harness the laws of nature at work in its material and in its
driving force and make them serve our purpose. This harness is not unbreakable; the
structure of the machine and with it its working can break down. But this will not affect the
forces of inanimate nature on which the operation of the machine relies; it merely releases
them from the restriction the machine imposed on them before it broke down. So the
machine as a whole works under the control of two distinct principles. The higher one is the
principle of the machine’s design, and this harnesses the lower one, which consists in the
physical chemical processes on which the machine relies.
286
10 A Theory of Heat as a Prelude …
of physical necessity, cannot be “explained” in terms of physics and chemistry. In
his major work Personal Knowledge he wrote, “The complete [physics and
chemistry] knowledge of a machine as an object tells us nothing about it as a
machine” [6]. This is because what defines a machine is its operational principle,
which patent offices of all nations recognize as a different kind of knowledge from
scientific knowledge (see what he wrote below). Polanyi reasoned that if living
organs function like machines (indeed, their functions can sometimes be performed
by man-made machines, for instance, a kidney replaced with a kidney machine),
then life transcends as machines do the domain of physics and chemistry. I am
interested here not so much in understanding life but in better appreciation of how
the application of the first law and the second law to machines involving shaft work
is different from the typical application of scientific laws in the practice of applied
sciences. (Though, we can learn a great deal from life phenomena on how to
manage the planet Earth for its wellbeing rather than as an object from which man
extracts resources.) That is, knowledge about a machine that either produces or
consumes shaft work is more than mere scientific knowledge, as general engineering knowledge is different from scientific knowledge, which is based on the
notion of observing.
Engineering knowledge involves the additional notion of contriving. Even
though the notion of contriving applies to all engineering devices including, e.g.,
heat exchangers, there is a degree of difference in the kind of contriving required for
shaft work machines from simpler ones. Polanyi noted on contriving the following:
…the physical sciences are predominately observational, while biology and
[man-made-things]…, in which observation plays but a subsidiary role…The logic of
deductive reasoning has been systematically studied for two millennia, and the logic of
empirical inference has been a major preoccupation of philosophy for centuries, but the
logic of contriving has found its way only into scattered hints…a machine or a technical
process is characterized by an operational principle, which differs altogether from an
observational statement. The former, if it is new, represents an invention and can be
covered by a patent; the latter, if it is new, is a discovery, which cannot be patented.
Contrivances are classes of objects which embody a particular operational principle. [6:87]
In a 1968 paper in Science [7] he reiterated the matter this way
If all men were exterminated, this would not affect the laws of inanimate nature. But the
production of machines would stop, and not until men arose again, could machines be
formed once more. Some animals can produce tools, but only men can construct machines;
machines are human artifacts, made of inanimate material… In constructing a machine and
supplying it with power, we harness the laws of nature at work in its material and in its
driving force and make them serve our purpose. This harness is not unbreakable; the
structure of the machine and with it its working can break down. But this will not affect the
forces of inanimate nature on which the operation of the machine relies; it merely releases
them from the restriction the machine imposed on them before it broke down. So the
machine as a whole works under the control of two distinct principles. The higher one is the
principle of the machine’s design, and this harnesses the lower one, which consists in the
physical chemical processes on which the machine relies.
286
10 A Theory of Heat as a Prelude …