Life is but a dream - or more accurately a neurochemical induced illusion. Some people don't believe in objective reality. They think, therfore it is... as they imagine it to be. It's a nice story but not true at all. We are surrounded by the proof.
Baby's don't need to be educated to accept gravity's dominion. The first time they roll over on the couch, the objective reality of gravity becomes apparent. Through repeated post acceleration impacts, the reality of gravity becomes law in even the most stubborn of humans.
In the beginning lore was needed to educate kids to not stand under that rock they just threw into the air. They didn't understand the invisible forces at work but were able to process the sensory feedback of headache when it returned to the ground, first striking them on the head. Generations later would be able to take that unerring observation and work out the math.
Lore served a useful purpose in that it was a form of history, often with practical morals attached. It's all we had for a really long time. Until science provided another way to define reality. Actually that isn't true. In fact the semantics of that sentence is the root of the problem. Science did not define reality at all. Science is a set of methods and practices that allows an observer to reliably document a set of observations, limiting as many variables as possible, so that reality can be clearly observed. These repeated observations allow a scientist to develop a predictive model that can be tested through additional observations to determine if the model can accurately predict what will happen. If it does enough times without fail, then we call it a model of reality. A model of reality. With time the model gets better and covers more and more levels of observation. Models predict future observations, not in the vague Nostradamus way of 'something will happen', but in the way that Darwin was able to predict that a particular butterfly and flower morphology would eventually be found in Madagascar. That's predictive modeling! Science doesn't define reality - it tries to describe what reality is with greater precision and accuracy. Gravity did not wait for Newton in the garden (Hmmm - revelations in a garden. Where have I heard that before. The tree of knowledge that dropped an apple on Issac's head, leading to the unraveling of the rainbow. Cast out from the garden of ignorance...)
Semantics are critical and often the problem. In a frustrating round at a blog I visit when I feel the need to be frustrated, there was another pointless round robin about emotions being something outside of the grasp of science. Nonsense. Emotions are neurochemical processes (some very pleasant in the same way as Ste B's Salvia no doubt...). But lore kicked in during antiquity and humans defined emotions as something otherworldly - spiritual. Spiritual is that place that things go to hide from critical study. Of course just because humans defined emotion in that way did not alter the fabric of reality. The neurochemistry is still the same. Dogged denial won't change that in the least. Emotions and other spiritual things resist science not because science has nothing to say about them but merely because people refuse to give up these artificial definitions that we have grown so attached to. But reality does not define emotions in that same way. And never will.
It's a common tactic against science. Claiming that it's just another way of defining reality. No it isn't. It is the only way we have of actually matching our evolving models of reality to what really is happening around us. The more we learn the less we trust our unadorned perceptions. Unless one's unadorned perceptions are central to one's notion of self, in which case nothing will dislodge that meme from its deep burrow. And just because our inner fantasy world is a construct of natural chemical processes doesn't make it any less of an enjoyable place to live.
So why could people give up the lore of gravity for the Law of Universal Gravitation? Simple. Gravity is not a construct of our mind. It doesn't define our very being or what we would like to think of as our soul. When scientists described the process by which that rock fell on your head, people could accept that this new theory fit with their own experiences. When neurochemists came along and said, 'here are the processes that occur when one experiences a reaction we have defined as love', people said 'no way'. "I know what I feel! It's not some organic chemistry! Its sublime and spiritual! You know, and other words that we made up to describe these sensations..." It's ok, even comforting, to think of grand processes like gravity that tirelessly work keeping things as they should be in an almost clockwork fashion. It's not so much fun to think that our minds are pretty much the same.
Baby's don't need to be educated to accept gravity's dominion. The first time they roll over on the couch, the objective reality of gravity becomes apparent. Through repeated post acceleration impacts, the reality of gravity becomes law in even the most stubborn of humans.
In the beginning lore was needed to educate kids to not stand under that rock they just threw into the air. They didn't understand the invisible forces at work but were able to process the sensory feedback of headache when it returned to the ground, first striking them on the head. Generations later would be able to take that unerring observation and work out the math.
Lore served a useful purpose in that it was a form of history, often with practical morals attached. It's all we had for a really long time. Until science provided another way to define reality. Actually that isn't true. In fact the semantics of that sentence is the root of the problem. Science did not define reality at all. Science is a set of methods and practices that allows an observer to reliably document a set of observations, limiting as many variables as possible, so that reality can be clearly observed. These repeated observations allow a scientist to develop a predictive model that can be tested through additional observations to determine if the model can accurately predict what will happen. If it does enough times without fail, then we call it a model of reality. A model of reality. With time the model gets better and covers more and more levels of observation. Models predict future observations, not in the vague Nostradamus way of 'something will happen', but in the way that Darwin was able to predict that a particular butterfly and flower morphology would eventually be found in Madagascar. That's predictive modeling! Science doesn't define reality - it tries to describe what reality is with greater precision and accuracy. Gravity did not wait for Newton in the garden (Hmmm - revelations in a garden. Where have I heard that before. The tree of knowledge that dropped an apple on Issac's head, leading to the unraveling of the rainbow. Cast out from the garden of ignorance...)
Semantics are critical and often the problem. In a frustrating round at a blog I visit when I feel the need to be frustrated, there was another pointless round robin about emotions being something outside of the grasp of science. Nonsense. Emotions are neurochemical processes (some very pleasant in the same way as Ste B's Salvia no doubt...). But lore kicked in during antiquity and humans defined emotions as something otherworldly - spiritual. Spiritual is that place that things go to hide from critical study. Of course just because humans defined emotion in that way did not alter the fabric of reality. The neurochemistry is still the same. Dogged denial won't change that in the least. Emotions and other spiritual things resist science not because science has nothing to say about them but merely because people refuse to give up these artificial definitions that we have grown so attached to. But reality does not define emotions in that same way. And never will.
It's a common tactic against science. Claiming that it's just another way of defining reality. No it isn't. It is the only way we have of actually matching our evolving models of reality to what really is happening around us. The more we learn the less we trust our unadorned perceptions. Unless one's unadorned perceptions are central to one's notion of self, in which case nothing will dislodge that meme from its deep burrow. And just because our inner fantasy world is a construct of natural chemical processes doesn't make it any less of an enjoyable place to live.
So why could people give up the lore of gravity for the Law of Universal Gravitation? Simple. Gravity is not a construct of our mind. It doesn't define our very being or what we would like to think of as our soul. When scientists described the process by which that rock fell on your head, people could accept that this new theory fit with their own experiences. When neurochemists came along and said, 'here are the processes that occur when one experiences a reaction we have defined as love', people said 'no way'. "I know what I feel! It's not some organic chemistry! Its sublime and spiritual! You know, and other words that we made up to describe these sensations..." It's ok, even comforting, to think of grand processes like gravity that tirelessly work keeping things as they should be in an almost clockwork fashion. It's not so much fun to think that our minds are pretty much the same.
9 comments:
Personally, I find comfort in the understanding of my emotions as complex neurochemical exchanges. Why so many people find it upsetting really confuses me...
Me too actually. I suspect at least 2 reasons why people find this so unsettling.
1) the evolution of emotions over time has created an exceptional simulation environment that 'seems' so real. The fact that chemicals and drugs can replicate all those emotions is lost on people.
2) gods haven't retreated to the gaps between atoms but within our minds. As long as people can convince themselves that their minds are special, and not natural mechanisms, then other special things outside of objective reality can exist too.
I'm still me but if there isn't any etherme as well, many people feel despondent.
I suspect the reaction you are not understanding is an emotional reaction. Many people do not like (emotionally) being reduced to a bag of chemicals. Chemicals have no intrinsic value. Chemicals are not special. Chemicals are just that, chemicals. They have no rights, no aspirations, no dreams. Just chemical potential.
There is not a lot of poetry in that image.
Then there is the problem of understanding science. It is a complex way of thinking/seeing which does not appeal to some hearts/minds. How much knowledge is enough for actually 'knowing?' Other ways of seeing the world promise "knowledge" more in tune with the knower.
Jared has demonstrated an excellent mind in tune with thinking as a scientist. He can recall information in detail and see relationships. Some minds don't work like his. Those minds will find another way of seeing/knowing.
Objective reality will be interpreted subjectively by the subjects. They will choose the way of knowing/seeing largely through their hard-wiring and experience. Science will be the chosen path of some, but not all.
Speak for yourself! Many bags of chemical compounds have great worth...
I meant no offense, and do not hold humans to be of little worth. However, chemicals do not intrinsically have any rights. The framers of the Constitution used God as the source of rights, a source above mere government. Minimally, in a God-oriented society, this provided some check on the sometimes inhuman mode of behavior by governments toward the governed. That was one of the points I intended but apparently failed to make.
No offense was taken at all Mike -sorry if my joke feel flat.
Ah. Humor. I should have recognized it. I have lost my edge after an intense year of dealing with my mother-in-law. Her borderline personality disorder has been augmented by early stages of dementia. Life has been interesting. That and the madness of my own, trying to sell a house in this market.
Why is the security word "thoride?" It sounds ominous. So... chemical.
Sorry to hear of your trials my friend. I know the feeling as well all do when of a certain age. The baton is being passed from one generation to another and I can't say I like it too much.
As for the security word, you get chemical sounding ones, I get theological sounding ones - sounds like the great GOOGLE is messing with us both ;)
Oh, also - I do recognize the emotional element to these concepts and I understand that it is disconcerting. As for the poetry - I am inspired to pen and Ode to the chemical - You have no one to blame for that than yourself...
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