The current era of modernity is based upon a pseudo religion called ‘science’. Like most religions of currency from the past, it ascribes its tenets as being universal by the fact of consensus of belief. Of course many argue that in the case of science the medium is the massage as opposed to the result that it self of course pales before the means of finding same. The result of science is held up much in the same fashion that previous organized churches held that the result of righteous life is heaven. Both in a sense are ‘pie in the sky’ for the fact that the universe seems to be ever shifting or rather more accurately, the more extended reach of mankind’s sensory ability the more that theories have to accommodate increasingly unfamiliar phenomena.
OK, say the atheists, but this does not prove anything! Especially when the argument however new or old is run through the philosophical blender known as General Semantics. Rhetoricians, and lawyers, are especially adept at distorting the polyhedra of any argument and bending rational logic under the assumption of a mantle of higher knowledge. The usefulness of its claims becomes unavoidably utilitarian in the sense of it empowering politics to drive for the masses of organized humanity forth toward a highly organized unilateral agenda flying under the banner of a betterment of all. Still this does not answer the biggest of mankind’s most eternal questions of the juncture of life and death. This is a province where bereft of an intellectual hand to hold atheists halt and those who give credence to belief unhesitatingly tread. Magic holds sway over the senses whether scientific or animistic. Though some might claim that any given soul has an incremental weight of 21 grams, it avoids the larger question of its simple presence and the effect that it has upon the lives that surround it. Shouldn’t the universe be reckoned more in terms of the dynamics of the contrast of that which is alive in contrast to that which appear inert? The pessimistic notion that life is but a waiting game for individuals in service to a greater whole seems misplaced to anyone who allows themselves to freely contemplate the universe between a microcosm stretching endlessly to a seemingly eternal macrocosm.
For those locked in the necessity of perpetual casuistry as being the only proper motivation for extensive mental postulating, working well within the set boundaries of ‘fence posts’ strictly governed by the rules, could one not prove with equal validity any given individual fantasy to the contrary if the factor of the art of universal persuasion is honestly counted? Perhaps, the experience of life, at any given juncture, is the catalyst for determining the ‘uncertainty’ of the experiment? Are we not all tasked with using the gifts as we each uniquely possess to farm and fertilize during the course of what eventually becomes an all too short existence?
What you say about science is demonstrably false. Science is a tool. It is a system of investigating and reasoning designed to reduce the probability of error and the impact of bias in whatever one investigates. If it is considered a religion by anyone, it is by those who are inept and untrained in what science is, what it does, and what it means. Good science is always incomplete, and scientists and well-informed non-scientists know this. The conclusions of science are always provisional. Well informed non-scientists know this too.
I concede that to say, “It’s science” in response to a request for an explanation is just as much a non-explanation as “it’s magic,” but then, that’s not the mistake that scientists make. As for questions of the soul, it makes no sense to have a discussion about that without defining the term.
Well, my point is that as Von Heisenberg points out, our sense of ‘reality’ affects the outcome of the experiment. People HAVE to be trained to see the same constants to be able to see the same results. This does not mean that because some Hindu Fakir seems to be able to defy the effect of hot coals burning skin that it overturns the fact of same for others. But I think that dogmatic knowledge closes off the possibility of other conclusions and perhaps other levels of consciousness. There appears to be no end to artifacts that defy our sense of history and perhaps a system of understanding that makes our version simple Phlogiston.
It’s true that there are no end to artifacts, but I would say that’s more of a consequence of Godel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem than of the Uncertainty Principle. There will always be things in the universe that our best models will not capture. There will be things that are true that we will never find out about simply because our consistent models are incomplete. That’s no reason to throw them out though, and it doesn’t make them a type of Phlogiston.
Thanks! I think you vindicate my original point with your ardor.