I have a bone to pick with my science brain. I realise that to do so I need to establish some bona fides for the rest of my brain.
I am not a Creationist. I am convinced of human-driven climate change. I have no argument with the conclusions of science based on the scientific method. I'm not sure whether I am a deist or not - I find atheism terrifying but seductive to my rational self - but I am certainly not on a mission from God, spiritualists, homeopaths, water diviners, flat-earthers or alien abductees. (But I invite all of you who fall into those categories to read on - you may like some of what I have to say.)
First I'd also like to say some nice things about science.
Science has saved my life at least three times, with various medical interventions for the same kind of gallstones that probably killed one of my genetic antecedents. It has eased and lengthened my existence, with salbutamol and steroids for my asthma and eczema.
It has made so many things possible (this blog for example) that it would be a tedious bore to all for me to list one millionth of them.
Science has also fed my desire for understanding. It turns me on that the sky is deeper than it looks, that sunbirth and sun-death in space are rent with a glory beyond the imagining of gods.
But I also have a fondness, an attachment to the intangible, even if going steady with her is still beyond me.
Smartasses have been poking fun at the intangible for a long time. Around the time I was born, knowing people delighted in pointing out that humans are just a cheap bag of chemicals, and that love and all other expressions, sensations and thoughts are simply the product of electro-chemical interactions within that bag. Judging by various forums on the source of all truth, the ineptnet, that idea is alive and well. And I just saw a man on television with a bottle of water, some chalk, a few matches and some carbon saying "I've calculated the value of the chemicals in the human body and it comes to just a few pounds!" Well done.
While all that is true as far as it goes, it doesn't go very far. What goes further is the more profound idea that complexity can be generated from simple elements and interactions. Of this, more later.
On the other hand, some people still attempt to preserve some space for God or spirit in the face of the Panzer-like advance of scientific understanding of human behaviour, relationships and neuroscience. God/Spirit now looks like an increasingly amorphous blob in a shrinking pond, sluiced with water by panic-stricken acolytes who constantly reassure Them, Him, Her or It that, despite all evidences to the contrary, the pool of unknowing *will* get bigger again.
It is not therefore surprising that devotees of science can make the mistake of all conquerors and believe that their simple and elegant system can be applied to everything - in this case, everything within human apprehension.
Still to come...in Part 2, the scientific method goes up against homeopathy and astrology and loses on a DNS, love conquers all, and meaning is generated from amoeba simply by re-arranging and replacing a few letters. Don't miss it!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteComment from Clifford via Facebook:
ReplyDeleteOf all the gullible people on earth, we each must eventually admit that the one most easily deceived is oneself. Science is nothing more than a technique for cutting through that self-deception. Conclusions of science? S...cience can only eliminate wrong conclusions, leaving behind possibilities... including mystical possibilities. However, where a non-mystical possibility exists, the mystical alternatives seem less likely. That's not science, however, just Occam's razor, the voice of long experience. Furthermore, the exploration of the residual fields of possibility has often allowed us to discover new capabilities, and it's those capabilities (such as those which allow me to comment here!) which most reinforce science's position in the modern mind. Your kidney-stones weren't a curse from a god, but a genetic disorder which caused a chemical imbalance. Knowing that, both the genes and the chemistry become targets for investigation and cure, but that's technology, not science.
Don't worry; the natural world is quite magical enough for the most determined mystic to find satisfying. Inside a computer, or a pile of paper, hides a book, a beautiful story, a novel. Inside moving air, a tornado or a cloud. Inside other groups of molecules-in-motion, lie the incomprehensibly wonderful complexity of individual human personalities. These are not material things; they're processes. They're not deteministic nor self-contained however. Instead, the future of each process is open directly to influence by interactions with every single particle in the universe, and indirectly to pure quantum randomness. They exist within, but are not bound by the physical world, which endows them with all the magic they require.
@Clifford: Gallstones not kidney stones - but I take your point. Stay tuned for Part 2, which you have anticipated to some degree.
ReplyDeleteI have been loose in not differentiating technology from science. I read technology as praxis - the application of science to the solution of a specific problem set.