What's Wrong With Science?
As a student of the M'TAM School of Kemetic Philosophy and Spirituality, I have been presented with the fact that scientific thought is of no use to me in achieving my goals at the school. My Master presented this fact to me. It is my duty to investigate and find the truth of it for myself. I work as a professional software architect, a computer scientist. I have also studied science and physics my whole adult life in an attempt to understand the world around me. I have to make the decision to give up my admiration of science and those who have advanced it in order to succeed in my initiation. This has been a difficult task for me.
I have presented a question to myself in order to accomplish this task. The question is, "What's wrong with science?" I pose this as a philosophical question rather than a practical one. The question is not really useful from a practical point of view. One can easily dismiss it by looking at science as a tool. The value of a tool is determined by the context in which it is used. The moral implications of using it are more reasonably placed on the hand that wields the tool, not the tool itself. I pose this question to myself to address the larger philosophical issues within the context of my initiation. From that perspective, I am thinking more about science as a methodology and a means to obtain knowledge of the world. The quick answer to this question is that science destroys life. This is the answer that my Master has given, but this is a very strong statement that deserves some clarification.
When I think about science, I usually think about the scientific method. This method derives from Aristotle's vision of the dual path of scientific reasoning; observing the world, generalizing observations into a hypothesis and predicting further observations that are testable. This process is a kind of outward to inward to outward cycle of action and thought. This way of thinking has become ingrained in my way of life. I have used the scientific method to solve problems in engineering and software development. It works very well most of the time. In my work, it rarely, if ever fails me. How then am I to give up this process as a means to investigate the world around me? My teachers have assured me that the work that I must do does not involve abandoning reason itself. It is scientific reasoning that is useless in the task that I must complete.
A well-respected modern philosopher and historian of science, Thomas Kuhn once argued that observations always rely on a specific paradigm' What we observe is determined very much by how we look at the world. My own experience has proven his statement to be true. Any time I am working on solving a technical problem and having difficulty, I find the most effective path to a solution is to look at the problem differently. By looking at the problem differently, I am able to observe things that I had missed and develop and test a new hypothesis of the failure and solution.
This idea of Kuhn's comes with a very important concept. When I look at science as it has been practiced over the past 2500 years, wonder what paradigm is the basis of the science we use today? If I can know this paradigm, can understand much about the nature of t h e observations that have been made and the theories that form the basis of the technologies that we live and work with every day.
Sir Isaac Newton developed the Sir Isaac Newton laws of motion. These laws were the basis of many great technological advances. When Albert Einstein developed the theories of special and general relativity, they contradicted many of the concepts of Newton, but it can be shown that the concepts of Newton are just a special case of the more fundamental concepts of Einstein? Newton rests on Einstein because Einstein exposed a deeper aspect of the nature of reality, from the scientific point of view. All of science is related and self-consistent within a single larger paradigm, though there are smaller paradigms within it. The question that I have come to ask myself when thinking about what's wrong with science then becomes, "What is the nature of the larger paradigm of modern science?"
The paradigm of modern science found its genesis in the writings and teachings of Aristotle. It was he who lay the foundations of how modern science observes the world. The concepts of objects and things, how they move and how they change were all addressed in his Physicae Auscultationes or lessons on the nature of the physical world. Aristotle is an ancient philosopher of the pre-scientific era. I have mentioned him because modern science generally points to the ideas that he presents as the foundation of the scholasticism of the 12th century.
Persian and Arab scholars had studied the teachings of the philosophers of Athens for years. The Caliphate, the empire that was built under the banner of Islam, extended into southern Europe by way of Spain and translations of these works found their way into the hands of the Scholars who reached a pinnacle of development in the 11th and 12th centuries. This was the Italian renaissance that produced the likes of Copernicus, Aquinas, Bacon and Da Vinchi. The black plague ended all of that and weakened the Catholic Church significantly.
It was the protestant revolution, however, that marked the beginning of modern science. The protestant revolution formed the environment in which the northern European renaissance of the 17th century could flourish. This was the beginning of the era of Modern Science that we live in today. During the time of Martin Luther, the father of Protestantism, the Catholic Church had become so corrupt that the northern component of its domain revolted. The political ambitions and greed of the royalty within the region and the general weakness of the empire itself facilitated this revolt. It is not surprising that the center of power of scientific thought would remain geographically very close, if not concentric with the center of Protestantism.
When I look at the ideas of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, they seem harmless and naive compared to some of the things that we know today, but it is the seeds that they produced that bore the fruit of modern science. These seeds were fertilized in a soil of conquest and empire that lasted for over 1800 years before the protestant revolution. The influence of the despotism of the Roman Empire and the Caliphate in their battle for the hearts, minds and wealth of the world cannot be discounted in the paradigm that was eventually developed.
It occurred to me that the paradigm of modern science, like the teachings of Protestantism, was developed in an environment where the Catholic Church was in a very weakened state and the northern empire chose this time to break away from the tyranny that the Catholic Church represented. It would be reasonable then to recognize that modern science must base its paradigms on a rejection of the basis of religious power. That rejection takes the form of materialism.
Consider that the power of the Church is centered on the disposition of the soul. It has always been the threat of eternal damnation that has been used to control the masses. Modern science very intentionally separates itself from the investigation of the soul. It concerns itself with the "natural" world, the world of energy and matter that can be observed or measured in an empirical manner. Any benefits that accrue from the application of science are therefore free of the control of the church. The fruits of science are none of the Church's business and a reasonable case can be made to support this.
The very idea that an individual human could have the authority to investigate and come to their own conclusions about the world was revolutionary. It could not have flourished outside of the environment created by the protestant revolution. If the Church had been strong enough and information could have been suppressed, modern science might never have flourished in Northern Europe in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as it did. I conclude that the paradigm of science was developed primarily as a means to wrest power from Rome. Any aspect of spirituality must be denied in this paradigm. Even the idea of life itself must be denied.
Modern science considers life to be an emergent property of matter. This idea of emergence can be traced directly back to Aristotle. Emergence is the idea that the whole is something greater than the sum of its parts. So life, according to science, can be the result of an emergent property of dead matter and dead energy. Matter and energy that has no intelligence, no consciousness, no life whatsoever except to the extent that it appears to have it when combined in interesting ways.
The paradigm of modern science comes with the concept that life, as a fundamental aspect of our reality, does not exist. With science, we can see life as an illusion, a trick, some kind of thing that can be manipulated and manufactured, controlled and maintained. It has no intrinsic value, because it does not exist as a real attribute of the fundamental nature of reality. Where there is no life, there is no spirit and no soul.
There are very few examples of actual scientists taking this point of view. It is the patrons of science that utilize the paradigm of science to justify their actions. The philosophies of science and the underlying paradigm are still just as culpable in the consequences that this brings.
This paradigm is a natural consequence of the goal that was presented by the patrons who fostered scientific development during the Northern Renaissance. It is the patron who determines the value of the ideas that they patronize. Just as a patron of the arts will not support an artist that produces junk, a patron of the sciences will not support ideas that will not increase their power and prestige.
The ideas put forth in the Modern Scientific revolution have been spectacularly successful at increasing the power and prestige of those who supported them. It is not necessary for this to have been the result of some evil conspiracy; it just as easily is the natural result of the social forces that were at play at the time.
When I consider the consequences of the application of science, however, I cannot ignore the cost that the world has paid for the application of the philosophical tools that science presents to the world. There has always been war, poverty, disease and disaster in the world. We cannot blame the tools that are used by humans for these things. Science has been successful in many ways and how it. is used is the responsibility of those who use it. It is the idea that we are somehow able to disconnect ourselves from the world around us, and by virtue of our intellect alone, fathom the nature of the universe, that is so dangerous. By adopting these ideas, we are limiting ourselves to the perspective that a human brings. Could it be that there is much more for us to explore?
What perspective must I have that will allow me to ignore the consequences that the application of scientific thinking brings? Our environment is being systematically destroyed. Our children are being turned into consumer automatons. Multinational corporations commit the most heinous of crimes, and we cheer them because the value of our stock portfolios increases as a result.
Kuhn stated that scientific revolution is fostered by the destruction of the existing paradigm. This is the strongest indictment against the philosophical foundations of science. If I am to acquire any knowledge of the spiritual world, I must adopt a perspective that supports its existence. I must develop a basis for interacting with and investigating the world that allows reason to flourish while simultaneously expanding my perceptions beyond the limitations that society has set for me.
What's wrong with science? Science was born from the seeds of a civilization that fostered conquest and the concentration of power on a scale that had never before been seen in the world. From Aristote's pupil, Alexandes and the empires of Persia and Asia, to the empires of Rome and Islam, to the financial empires of today's corporations, the concepts of the Athenian philosophers have supported and expanded the destructive tendencies within the human psyche.
Before the ascendancy of scientific thought, there were great civilizations that lived in peace and harmony with the earth. Evil was contained and good flourished where possible. The balance of life on the earth was not threatened by the ambitions of mere humans. We see the ruins of this great civilization around the world. There are feats of technology, healing and scholarship that we have yet to surpass today inscribed in the walls of the temples and tombs of their sacred places.
Scientific thought has limitations. These limitations are intentional and specific. Since scientific thought has accepted these limitations, there are limitations as to what science can perceive and achieve. The limitations that science has accepted for itself are boundaries that divide the world of the spiritual from the world of rational thought. Since rational thought belongs to science, we must approach spirituality by virtue of belief. This artificial division within the conceptual framework of science is something that indigenous culture does not accept. Why should we not approach spirituality with the rational mind? Why should we give spirituality over to belief? This fault within science cannot be explained by reason. It is an arbitrary division that exists as a consequence of the history of science and the patronage that shaped its development.
This is "What's wrong with science" ', the refusal to apply rationality to the disposition of the spirit, and the refusal to accept the significance and even the preeminence of consciousness and spirit in the totality of creation. Science can never address the most significant questions that a human being must ask. Science cannot approach the deep underlying forces that drive the world that we see, because the world that we see is the only world that science can acknowledge. The honest person making humble inquiries of the world must eventually leave science behind, as the questions that are asked are unanswerable in the paradigm that science accepts. What questions could be more important than the questions of life, consciousness and what lies beyond the gateways of life and death?