Many of us have the feeling that the world is empty and sterile. There are no mysteries anymore, or magic. Many of us have a deep need for mystery and magic as demonstrated by the popularity of such books, TV shows and movies. We retreat into a more exciting and meaningful world of fiction to escape the grey and mechanistic reality which increasingly seems to be sucking our life force out of our bodies. We are told by all the experts and scientists that this is a normal state of affairs. They say we live in an age of reason; in enlightened societies where science has triumphed. We finally understand how the world works they say. When they say “we” they are obviously talking about themselves, not us. We just have to take their word for it.
What you're describing only applies to a subset of the scientific endeavour, specifically western corporate and government financed science, not the entire enterprise.
A fallacy of composition is the flawed reasoning that concludes what is true for individual parts must also be true for the entire group or system they belong to.
Furthermore, This is not a new phenomenon as Thomas Kuhn made explicit in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." First year reading.
As for not knowing what a particular thing (such as electricity) "IS" that ground was covered by Kant 200 years ago. A basic feature of all descriptions of the world is that we only know what our senses (extended to include instruments) reveal about an object, not its 'true nature' (if such a thing even exists). In practical terms this means I don't need to know what an electron "is" in order to build a device using Maxwell's equations with confidence that it will work as intended.
The basic problem with science today is that it lacks a solid foundation in Epistemology, and more specifically, General Semantics (see A. Korzybski). If these were more widely taught the fallacy of trying to describe what a thing IS would be much clearer. First realization would be that we can only describe things by analogy to other things using words as our foundation. Try and describe anything without using words, then try to define the words you must use to convey information. Notice how they're defined using other words? No escaping the trap.
What this means is that we have only our senses and extensions of our senses to describe what things DO, not what they ARE. Again, in practical terms, this means that we can build any number of sophisticated devices without the need to know more than their predictable attributes, such as like charges repel, unlike charges attract. We don't need to know what "charge" IS, only what it does. This may seem frustrating to an outside observer, but anyone properly trained in the scientific method knows this. We measure the world in terms of what things DO, not what they ARE. The error arises when we try to equate the two.
Very good points, thank you. I wasn't really focused on epistemology when I wrote the piece. I was focused more on the "social mechanics" of the issue. My main concern is that the distinction between, to put it banally, understanding and describing, was being ignored by scientists (not all as you point out) for the specific purpose of enhancing their power and status. I'm concerned that pretending to understand things when they can, at best, describe them, is retarding the advancement of science more and more. So, in order to be the oracles of our age and wield the power that comes with it, they systematically pretend to understand what they don´t. Admitting ignorance is not a trait of an oracle, and if you understand all these things, there's no reason for paradigm-shifting research or theories. In fact, any radical theory becomes a threat because it exposes their ignorance and erodes their power. The logical response on their part is therefore to enforce the "mainstream view" through scientific consensus. Scientific consensus is therefore a control system, defending mainstream science and their status and power. Their acceptance of mainstream science as "truth" is the foundation of their power and mystique and cannot be threatened. This has long been the case (remember Galileo and Bruno) but my argument is that this consensus-control-prestige mechanism has been co-opted by certain forces in society and is used actively against the populations - primarily in the West. How and why did this happen to begin with? That would be a good subject matter for another article.
Institutional corruption is widespread these days, and scientific institutions are no exception, so your point is well taken. I wouldn't describe the entire scientific enterprise as corrupt though, just the part that's influenced by government contracts, private wealth and self-appointed elites. IOW the collective West.
The good news is that science is still respected in many parts of the world, for example Russia, which recently abandoned the Bologna Process and returned to the old Soviet model, with its emphasis on STEM.
Fun fact: According to a 2016 OECD estimate, 54% of Russia's adults (25- to 64-year-olds) have attained tertiary education, giving Russia the second-highest attainment of tertiary education among 35 OECD member countries.
An important point is that you don't have to bury yourself in debt to earn a degree, which leaves you far more options including the ability to walk away if you don't like an employer's policies or politics. Try that with $1/4 M debt hanging over you.
Another country where science (and education in general) is highly respected is Iran. If you can pass the entrance exams you're in, and like Russia, the cost is very low.
<<I wouldn't describe the entire scientific enterprise as corrupt though, just the part that's influenced by government contracts, private wealth and self-appointed elites. IOW the collective West.>>
Preach; lol. I followed the link to your 'Stack and have subscribed (alas, the povvo free option). The more I discover contemporary Russian music the more I like it. Only scratching the surface and I forget many of the names but mostly ambient/electronic music, some Theodor Bastard, etc. In the West we are doing ourselves a disservice by shutting our ears to these sounds and that's another way in which philistinism is becoming entrenched in the West.
Welcome and thank you! There's no subscription, the site will always be free. (I may have to change my welcome page though - forgot about that). There's over 20 hours of music across multiple genres, so I'm sure you'll find something you like. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas! (we can still say that, right?)
I'm not so sure about that...lol. Most of what I thought I knew turned out to be far less substantial than it appeared at first glance. A lot of things in life are like that. Eventually you reach a point where you're wary (weary?) of anything that involves a lot of effort. To do justice to what you've put together (I peeked) would take more time than I have at the moment, being Baby Jesus Week and all, but I will read (not skim) what you've written and weigh in at some not too distant moment if you feel that would help. We're on the same page with RAW, so that's a point of reference. Are you "tuned in" to McLuhan? How about Douglas Hofstadter or Alfred Korzybski? Those are the three names I drop to see what's already been covered and/or can form a basis for further exploration. This medium is very suitable for collaborative research, as long as we realize its limitations, one of which is time. I have unfinished projects stacked up all around me, some going back years. Here's one example, still on the drawing board: https://cafe22.substack.com/ The by-line is an aphorism from Soviet times that's highly applicable in the West now.
This is a wonderful piece and an important one, too.
My only caveat is that the emptiness that comes from destroying mystery and the spirit of enquiry, aka curiosity, is primarily a western illness.
Just my ten cents but what you're describing is the inevitable outcome of a toxic, malign narcissism & hubris that has infected the West, emanating from the United States.
I have noticed that at school, kids aren't taught how to think anymore. They're increasingly taught what to think. It's a subtle shift but a real one, with disastrous outcomes that you have described so well.
There's a terrible emptiness that is created when you rob human beings, in particular young ones, of the awe and power of mystery, of knowing that there is so much we just don't know.
I always say to my kids that almost all of the things they use in their ordinary lives today were not just considered impossible in the past, but weren't even conceived of. I encourage them to see their lives as part of a great human adventure, an odyssey to discover (in their own way) what they thought was impossible and perhaps what is unknown. A journey that they can contribute to.
However that means you have to have the humility to accept not just that what seems impossible is in fact possible, but that we have yet to discover many impossibilities.
That's to say, humans live happier lives when they understand and accept that there are realities beyond what they can see or even think about. It drives them forward.
For example and on an even more philosophical level, just because we experience a 24 hour day, in reality there is no 'beginning' or 'end'. The universe never 'started' and it will never 'end'. There is no 'time' save for that we have invented as humans.
On a deeper level, the universe itself has no end. Our galaxy is one of billions, trillions, more. Like the 'experts' in the middle ages, who believed the world was flat, many like to think that there must be an 'end' to the universe, because they can't accept that there is no end and that as humans, we haven't yet been able to understand and prove such an impossibility.
Once you start understanding the jaw dropping mystery of these revelations, you start to become humble and curious. Humans start asking questions and searching for the truth.
Every single 'impossibility' that has become real in our world has emerged from societies that value a sense of mystery, societies that have the humility to accept that as humans we not only can't know everything about reality, but in fact know very little. From that acceptance comes curiosity, a spirit of enquiry, a 'spark' if you will, that drives a society forward.
Revealing previously unknown truths and 'impossibilities' isn't easy. It takes hard work, using agreed methods developed over millenia, to discern new realities. Often only a very few of us have the mental heft to make genuine breakthroughs (eg Einstein), although even geniuses like him admitted that what they discovered required the hard work of many others before them.
Once a society loses that spark, which comes from a sense of mystery, it starts to decline. Evidence of decline can be found using various
measures, but a good indicator is when junk philosophies become rife, and lies replace truth. A form of intellectual totalitarianism emerges, where a small elite convince themselves that they in essence know everything, and then dictate to the rest what reality is.
In turn, 'the rest' become deprived of purpose and meaning. They are programmed not to question or to think, but simply to accept what they're told as truth. Over time, they develop an inner sense of hopelessness and futility, of spiritual emptiness, that many can't understand or explain. Life is reduced to 'going through the motions', to 24/7 conformism.
It's not hard to see how societies that submit to this sickness start to lose the will to resist lies, and eventually come to believe and promote them. Evil frauds and liars become their leaders and prophets. Truth tellers and those who resist , become societies enemies.
This illness has sadly infected many Western societies. Just my view but it started with French postmodernist philosophy, a fraudulent movement that proposed that there is no such thing as objective reality (there is), and all truth is subjective (it isn't). Lost on the arrogant frauds and hypocrites (Foucault, etc) who started this movement was the contradiction that they themselves were proposing an objective reality, but being the scum they were, they dismissed all opposing voices and moved on to take a stranglehold on western academia.
Sadly their junk philosophy has spawned many others and ihas become pathological in modern America, in particular among the elites who run academia and government. Like a virus, this fundamentally inhumane and toxic philosophy has in turn spread like a virus through western societies, most of them heavily influenced by the United States.
It must be rejected by all humans who value progress and humanity, and by those who want their children to rediscover the mystery that enriches our fleeting existence.
Please forgive my long reply and thank you again for such a thought provoking and important piece.
I think your condemnation of those that call themselves Foucauldians is valid, but of Foucault himself, not so much.
A thought that occurred to me while reading your comment Scipio was the interesting coincidence between the rise of AI, and the ways in which everyday life is being algorithmized. I doubnt that is a real word, but the self-service checkout is a decent example. By comparing the weights of the two sides of the till the device can detect any blatant attempts to move an item from the basket side to the bag-you-take-home side. This is sensitive to the extent that if you pick up your bag to adjust the arrangement of items and fit more in the machine may wail for assistance from an authorised human. Hence I train myself to only adjust the contents at the end. Just as I train myself to pick up and scan one item at a time , even if there are several incidences of the same item. So I am being trained, algorithmized, to do things the way the machine wants me to.
Ten years into the future human who take initiatives and don't do what they are told to do will be forever banging their heads against these inconveniences. I might be dust, or might still be here refusing to do what I'm told. In the latter case watching this all unfold is fascinating but also horrific.
The loss of the spark will ultimately doom us all to servile obedience.
Yes I agree. The commoditisation of human beings and programming of humanity in the West that you so well describe, is going to lead to very negative outcomes. We already see it in the younger generations, now engulfed in unprecedented levels of depression and anxiety, or worse.
I used to be interested in Foucault until I discovered to my horror that he was a sexual predator of the worst kind - a pedophile who secretly preyed on little Tunisian boys,.often assaulting them in Islamic cemeteries in Tunisia. He was a bad, evil man, a monster, and this immediately infected and undermined him and his work, at least in my view.
Thank you, and point taken re MF's perversion, the biography by Miller touches upon this (I forget the full details and my copy is packed away prior to a house move). I must reread.
Once upon a time, our ancient ancestors lived exclusively within a natural environment in which severe hazards and existential threats were routine features of everyday life and evolutionary selection was a harsh mistress. In other words, the feedback loop for lack of fitness was ofttimes death and the elimination of your genes from the reproduction pool. Over time, this made our species (and all others) generally stronger, smarter, better, and more robust.
And then civilization happened and gradually hardship and existential threat become largely extinct. This resulted in the demise of the natural evolutionary selection process and the emergence of prolonged DNA pollution. For example, being stupid no longer got you dead at an early age and kept your DNA out of the gene pool. Those chickens are coming home to roost and today's post describes the end result of the dysfunctional artificial evolutionary process that has replaced a system that worked quite well for about a billion years.
All of the problems arising in the sciences as described by our host are attributable to the lack of an effective feedback loop to rid us of the malpractice that infests these institutions and its composite membership of poseurs, imposters, idiots, and deliberate deceivers. Whining about it won't solve this problem. Only a return of accountability (accompanied by severe consequences) can right this ship.
This piece feels rather Fortean, if rather more readable than quite a lot of Charles Fort's writings. He was known to throw away his manuscripts and the research that had gone into them.
Among his many aphorisms:
“[Wise men] have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.”
The (brilliant) first chapter of M Foucault's The Order Of Things, consciously or otherwise, borrows from this truism of Fort's. He is rather obtuse in his style of writing too.
Needless to say Fort was widely despised during his lifetime and mostly lived in poverty, as so often befalls those of us who won't bloody well believe what we're told by our betters. On which subject, and in response to criticisms that he frequently contradicted himself, Fort drily commented that he never believed any of it in the first place. Worth remembering when he explains his 'belief' in an extra-terrestrial super-sargasso sea, the source of frog rainfalls and the like.
It is admittedly a bit Fortean. :) I've been considering writing a piece that would be far more Fortean than this one. Not sure I should do it though. :/
I agree. Amazing insights here. I cross-posted it. Not only does the Emperor have no clothes. He has hired or blackmailed everyone in authoritative status to prove that to everyone.
Amazing writing! One of the best pieces on the topic of "science" I have read as of lately. Look at neuroscience, for example. The whole animal models thing: mice, tats, fruit fly, zebra fish, etc... It's all bur a huge waste of time and resources. If we understand neuroscience to be the study of the human brain, then such methods have little to no place in it. Of course one may try to leverage some body of knowledge that has been yielded by the so-called animal models but those belong to the domain of zoology ans should never be regarded as the ultimate goal or the end-all be-all of neuroscience. Computational models of the brain have recently (last few decades) become very popular but those have many obvious limitations as well.
There's a lot of inappropriate modelling being done, no question about that. I would however like to point out that I'm not condemning all models. What I'm referring to are models which are selective and adjustable at will to serve some nefarious goals. The issue with climate models is that they select a tiny proportion of all variables active in the real world. Then each variable in the model is assigned value based on whatever. Both processes are controlled by the scientists and they can and will get the results they want - even if they didn't intend it. I think it was Enrico Fermi who said that if a model (statistical or otherwise) contains three or more variables, you can get any result you want. Models are easier to abuse the more complicated they are and I've seen a lot of abuse. I've even myself been involved in work where models were abused like that - large scale and with negative consequences for society. It was something I got trapped in and couldn't get out of because of obligations I had made. If you sense bitterness in this article, that is partly the reason.
They can't tell me with any accuracy next week's weather, but they want to tell me how we're all gonna die in X years because CLMATE!™. Give me a freaking break.
Sadly, knowledge is increasing exponentially, but wisdom is fading. Just look at the Harvard debacle...
May of 1921, Walter Russell at the age of 49 years old experiences a 39 day and night period of illumination, writing down some 40,000 words given to him from the Light of Cosmic Consciousness – later published as "The Message of the Divine Iliad."
"This means that most or all mainstream scientific models and theories are logically wrong and the only way of having a chance of being right is to be in disagreement with mainstream science."
Yeah that's the key to finding the magic feeling again of discovery. Just noticing everything done wrong or not at all by the generation Baby Boomers presided over is enough to make one marvel. Regarding electricity and how important it is to basic human physiology I only recently learned that bones are piezoelectric and that the electricity that your bones generate is vital in directing growth and whatnot. So, for osteoporosis, instead of shitty meds that tack bone spurs onto the outside of the bone they really should have been looking into that electrically driven strengthening. Exercise is the most basic one, but increasing the charge that flows through via other means has been a minor obsession of China and Russia. It might even be a cure for short men.......! Imagine that.
I'm afraid you are conflating science with "political science"
Scientists work with models because we KNOW that we don't know... hence we use models which are a method to try to make some sense of what we see around us. We make the point of using the word "model" because we make no claim. Models attempt to make working assumptions about why things are how they are... and hopefully make predictions that lead to more discoveries.
So, even though we don't know what makes electricity, for example, we can still create semiconductors and computer and the like. We don't know what creates gravity but we sure can do trajectory and architectural calculations for satellites and bridges.
Political scientists, and to a degree engineers, think science knows... they are wrong. Political Scientists are the ones you should target. They are the ones that have co-opted many "scientists" into "bad science". Offer money in exchange for BS.
There is NO consensus in science. Run away from anyone that claims so.
But don't run away from models, that's just a tool for research. Western Science works very well when it is freed from politics.
Yes, Climate Change is a lie.... oh, yeah, I'm a physicist.
There may even be level 11 of weirdness: people that recognize that mystery and magic is exactly the true knowledge and understanding of the world, which is a never ending discovering process based on the scientific method.
Actually I don't think science has the goal to "know" things. You are right, we don't know what light "is". Maybe we will never know, and if so, who cares? Maybe some indian guru after years of lonely meditation will know what light "is"... so what? What will be the use for humanity?
But science get closer and closer to what light "is", in an infinite limiting process, by discovering what light "is for us".
The truth of science is not and will never be complete. The truth of science is a process, an infinite never ending process.
Maybe for the human mind it must be like that, because the human mind works by finite discrete steps, 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., but nature is continuous, like Pi=3.14.......
We can write as many digits of Pi as we want, provided we can wait enough, but we will never write it all.
That said, many scientists themselves seem not to know what is the scope of their knowledge.
Thanks so much for writing this! So refreshing to see someone talking sense!
You might enjoy something I wrote called WHY SCIENCE IS BULLSHIT. Here's an excerpt:
If you ask me, here’s a reason why physics has been at an impasse for the past hundred years. It’s because the materialist conception of reality is simply false. The data has been in on that one for quite some time. Look into Bell’s Theorem or Neumann’s Catastrophe of Infinite Regress if you don’t believe me.
Incidentally, Robert Anton Wilson was also the most insightful writer on the subject of quantum physics that I have ever read. He came to believe that the psychedelic experience and quantum physics were saying the same thing.
RAW uses a parable by a mathematician named J.W. Dunno to describe the problem.
A painter, who had escaped from the asylum to which he was (justly or unjustly) confined, decided to paint the field in which he found himself. Finished, he looked at the result and realized that something was missing: namely, himself and his canvas, which were part of the field. So he started over and painted himself and his canvas in the field. But, examining the results with philosophical analysis, he realized that something was still missing: namely, himself and his canvas on which he was painting himself and his canvas in the field. So he started a third time.. .and a fourth....ad infinitum.
He goes to say that physics, as well as linguistic, mathematics and psychology, had been stuck in a hall of mirror since Schrodinger demonstrated that quantum events are not "objective" in the Newtonian sense.
He writes:
"For fifty years since then, physicists have been struggling to build a system that will get them out of this Strange Loop. The results have been as funny as a Zen koan.
For instance, Niels Bohr proposed the Copenhagen Interpretation, which merely says, in the manner of Godel, that our equations do not describe the universe really. They describe the mental processes we have to put ourselves through to describe the universe.
After noting that most physicists want to find a way out of the aforementioned Strange Loop, Wilson states that it is quite impossible to do so, explaining that:
Dr. John von Neumann proved that there was no way out. This is technically known as Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress, and it merely shows that any device that will get us out of the first Strange Loop (the Copenhagen collapse of objectivity) will just lead us into a second Strange Loop; and any way out of that will lead to an inexorable third Strange Loop; and so on, forever.
Everybody is still trying to refute von Neumann; but nobody has been successful."
As far as I am aware, there have not been any major breakthroughs in physics since Robert Anton Wilson wrote Prometheus Rising. Correct me if I’m wrong.
We’re still stuck in the hall of mirrors, because science just hasn’t figured out what mystics, shamans, yogis, and arhats have always known - the universe is conscious, and we are in an energetic relationship with it, and it responds to our thoughts, words, and actions in a way that we will never be able to fully understand.
The reason for this is simple. The eye cannot see itself, the sword cannot cut itself, and the mind cannot know itself.
What you're describing only applies to a subset of the scientific endeavour, specifically western corporate and government financed science, not the entire enterprise.
ergo:
https://practicalpie.com/fallacy-of-composition/
A fallacy of composition is the flawed reasoning that concludes what is true for individual parts must also be true for the entire group or system they belong to.
Furthermore, This is not a new phenomenon as Thomas Kuhn made explicit in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions." First year reading.
As for not knowing what a particular thing (such as electricity) "IS" that ground was covered by Kant 200 years ago. A basic feature of all descriptions of the world is that we only know what our senses (extended to include instruments) reveal about an object, not its 'true nature' (if such a thing even exists). In practical terms this means I don't need to know what an electron "is" in order to build a device using Maxwell's equations with confidence that it will work as intended.
The basic problem with science today is that it lacks a solid foundation in Epistemology, and more specifically, General Semantics (see A. Korzybski). If these were more widely taught the fallacy of trying to describe what a thing IS would be much clearer. First realization would be that we can only describe things by analogy to other things using words as our foundation. Try and describe anything without using words, then try to define the words you must use to convey information. Notice how they're defined using other words? No escaping the trap.
What this means is that we have only our senses and extensions of our senses to describe what things DO, not what they ARE. Again, in practical terms, this means that we can build any number of sophisticated devices without the need to know more than their predictable attributes, such as like charges repel, unlike charges attract. We don't need to know what "charge" IS, only what it does. This may seem frustrating to an outside observer, but anyone properly trained in the scientific method knows this. We measure the world in terms of what things DO, not what they ARE. The error arises when we try to equate the two.
Very good points, thank you. I wasn't really focused on epistemology when I wrote the piece. I was focused more on the "social mechanics" of the issue. My main concern is that the distinction between, to put it banally, understanding and describing, was being ignored by scientists (not all as you point out) for the specific purpose of enhancing their power and status. I'm concerned that pretending to understand things when they can, at best, describe them, is retarding the advancement of science more and more. So, in order to be the oracles of our age and wield the power that comes with it, they systematically pretend to understand what they don´t. Admitting ignorance is not a trait of an oracle, and if you understand all these things, there's no reason for paradigm-shifting research or theories. In fact, any radical theory becomes a threat because it exposes their ignorance and erodes their power. The logical response on their part is therefore to enforce the "mainstream view" through scientific consensus. Scientific consensus is therefore a control system, defending mainstream science and their status and power. Their acceptance of mainstream science as "truth" is the foundation of their power and mystique and cannot be threatened. This has long been the case (remember Galileo and Bruno) but my argument is that this consensus-control-prestige mechanism has been co-opted by certain forces in society and is used actively against the populations - primarily in the West. How and why did this happen to begin with? That would be a good subject matter for another article.
Institutional corruption is widespread these days, and scientific institutions are no exception, so your point is well taken. I wouldn't describe the entire scientific enterprise as corrupt though, just the part that's influenced by government contracts, private wealth and self-appointed elites. IOW the collective West.
The good news is that science is still respected in many parts of the world, for example Russia, which recently abandoned the Bologna Process and returned to the old Soviet model, with its emphasis on STEM.
Fun fact: According to a 2016 OECD estimate, 54% of Russia's adults (25- to 64-year-olds) have attained tertiary education, giving Russia the second-highest attainment of tertiary education among 35 OECD member countries.
An important point is that you don't have to bury yourself in debt to earn a degree, which leaves you far more options including the ability to walk away if you don't like an employer's policies or politics. Try that with $1/4 M debt hanging over you.
Another country where science (and education in general) is highly respected is Iran. If you can pass the entrance exams you're in, and like Russia, the cost is very low.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339540417_Higher_Education_in_Iran
<<I wouldn't describe the entire scientific enterprise as corrupt though, just the part that's influenced by government contracts, private wealth and self-appointed elites. IOW the collective West.>>
Preach; lol. I followed the link to your 'Stack and have subscribed (alas, the povvo free option). The more I discover contemporary Russian music the more I like it. Only scratching the surface and I forget many of the names but mostly ambient/electronic music, some Theodor Bastard, etc. In the West we are doing ourselves a disservice by shutting our ears to these sounds and that's another way in which philistinism is becoming entrenched in the West.
Welcome and thank you! There's no subscription, the site will always be free. (I may have to change my welcome page though - forgot about that). There's over 20 hours of music across multiple genres, so I'm sure you'll find something you like. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas! (we can still say that, right?)
You are clearly a very intelligent person. I'd be curious if you can find any errors in my logic here: https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/why-science-is-bullshit-and-why-teenagers
(It's about quantum physics, Bell's Theorem, Neumann's Catastrophe of Infinite Regress, etc...)
"You are clearly a very intelligent person."
I'm not so sure about that...lol. Most of what I thought I knew turned out to be far less substantial than it appeared at first glance. A lot of things in life are like that. Eventually you reach a point where you're wary (weary?) of anything that involves a lot of effort. To do justice to what you've put together (I peeked) would take more time than I have at the moment, being Baby Jesus Week and all, but I will read (not skim) what you've written and weigh in at some not too distant moment if you feel that would help. We're on the same page with RAW, so that's a point of reference. Are you "tuned in" to McLuhan? How about Douglas Hofstadter or Alfred Korzybski? Those are the three names I drop to see what's already been covered and/or can form a basis for further exploration. This medium is very suitable for collaborative research, as long as we realize its limitations, one of which is time. I have unfinished projects stacked up all around me, some going back years. Here's one example, still on the drawing board: https://cafe22.substack.com/ The by-line is an aphorism from Soviet times that's highly applicable in the West now.
This is a wonderful piece and an important one, too.
My only caveat is that the emptiness that comes from destroying mystery and the spirit of enquiry, aka curiosity, is primarily a western illness.
Just my ten cents but what you're describing is the inevitable outcome of a toxic, malign narcissism & hubris that has infected the West, emanating from the United States.
I have noticed that at school, kids aren't taught how to think anymore. They're increasingly taught what to think. It's a subtle shift but a real one, with disastrous outcomes that you have described so well.
There's a terrible emptiness that is created when you rob human beings, in particular young ones, of the awe and power of mystery, of knowing that there is so much we just don't know.
I always say to my kids that almost all of the things they use in their ordinary lives today were not just considered impossible in the past, but weren't even conceived of. I encourage them to see their lives as part of a great human adventure, an odyssey to discover (in their own way) what they thought was impossible and perhaps what is unknown. A journey that they can contribute to.
However that means you have to have the humility to accept not just that what seems impossible is in fact possible, but that we have yet to discover many impossibilities.
That's to say, humans live happier lives when they understand and accept that there are realities beyond what they can see or even think about. It drives them forward.
For example and on an even more philosophical level, just because we experience a 24 hour day, in reality there is no 'beginning' or 'end'. The universe never 'started' and it will never 'end'. There is no 'time' save for that we have invented as humans.
On a deeper level, the universe itself has no end. Our galaxy is one of billions, trillions, more. Like the 'experts' in the middle ages, who believed the world was flat, many like to think that there must be an 'end' to the universe, because they can't accept that there is no end and that as humans, we haven't yet been able to understand and prove such an impossibility.
Once you start understanding the jaw dropping mystery of these revelations, you start to become humble and curious. Humans start asking questions and searching for the truth.
Every single 'impossibility' that has become real in our world has emerged from societies that value a sense of mystery, societies that have the humility to accept that as humans we not only can't know everything about reality, but in fact know very little. From that acceptance comes curiosity, a spirit of enquiry, a 'spark' if you will, that drives a society forward.
Revealing previously unknown truths and 'impossibilities' isn't easy. It takes hard work, using agreed methods developed over millenia, to discern new realities. Often only a very few of us have the mental heft to make genuine breakthroughs (eg Einstein), although even geniuses like him admitted that what they discovered required the hard work of many others before them.
Once a society loses that spark, which comes from a sense of mystery, it starts to decline. Evidence of decline can be found using various
measures, but a good indicator is when junk philosophies become rife, and lies replace truth. A form of intellectual totalitarianism emerges, where a small elite convince themselves that they in essence know everything, and then dictate to the rest what reality is.
In turn, 'the rest' become deprived of purpose and meaning. They are programmed not to question or to think, but simply to accept what they're told as truth. Over time, they develop an inner sense of hopelessness and futility, of spiritual emptiness, that many can't understand or explain. Life is reduced to 'going through the motions', to 24/7 conformism.
It's not hard to see how societies that submit to this sickness start to lose the will to resist lies, and eventually come to believe and promote them. Evil frauds and liars become their leaders and prophets. Truth tellers and those who resist , become societies enemies.
This illness has sadly infected many Western societies. Just my view but it started with French postmodernist philosophy, a fraudulent movement that proposed that there is no such thing as objective reality (there is), and all truth is subjective (it isn't). Lost on the arrogant frauds and hypocrites (Foucault, etc) who started this movement was the contradiction that they themselves were proposing an objective reality, but being the scum they were, they dismissed all opposing voices and moved on to take a stranglehold on western academia.
Sadly their junk philosophy has spawned many others and ihas become pathological in modern America, in particular among the elites who run academia and government. Like a virus, this fundamentally inhumane and toxic philosophy has in turn spread like a virus through western societies, most of them heavily influenced by the United States.
It must be rejected by all humans who value progress and humanity, and by those who want their children to rediscover the mystery that enriches our fleeting existence.
Please forgive my long reply and thank you again for such a thought provoking and important piece.
I think your condemnation of those that call themselves Foucauldians is valid, but of Foucault himself, not so much.
A thought that occurred to me while reading your comment Scipio was the interesting coincidence between the rise of AI, and the ways in which everyday life is being algorithmized. I doubnt that is a real word, but the self-service checkout is a decent example. By comparing the weights of the two sides of the till the device can detect any blatant attempts to move an item from the basket side to the bag-you-take-home side. This is sensitive to the extent that if you pick up your bag to adjust the arrangement of items and fit more in the machine may wail for assistance from an authorised human. Hence I train myself to only adjust the contents at the end. Just as I train myself to pick up and scan one item at a time , even if there are several incidences of the same item. So I am being trained, algorithmized, to do things the way the machine wants me to.
Ten years into the future human who take initiatives and don't do what they are told to do will be forever banging their heads against these inconveniences. I might be dust, or might still be here refusing to do what I'm told. In the latter case watching this all unfold is fascinating but also horrific.
The loss of the spark will ultimately doom us all to servile obedience.
Very insightful comment and thank you.
Yes I agree. The commoditisation of human beings and programming of humanity in the West that you so well describe, is going to lead to very negative outcomes. We already see it in the younger generations, now engulfed in unprecedented levels of depression and anxiety, or worse.
I used to be interested in Foucault until I discovered to my horror that he was a sexual predator of the worst kind - a pedophile who secretly preyed on little Tunisian boys,.often assaulting them in Islamic cemeteries in Tunisia. He was a bad, evil man, a monster, and this immediately infected and undermined him and his work, at least in my view.
Thank you, and point taken re MF's perversion, the biography by Miller touches upon this (I forget the full details and my copy is packed away prior to a house move). I must reread.
Connecting dots and hard truth.
Once upon a time, our ancient ancestors lived exclusively within a natural environment in which severe hazards and existential threats were routine features of everyday life and evolutionary selection was a harsh mistress. In other words, the feedback loop for lack of fitness was ofttimes death and the elimination of your genes from the reproduction pool. Over time, this made our species (and all others) generally stronger, smarter, better, and more robust.
And then civilization happened and gradually hardship and existential threat become largely extinct. This resulted in the demise of the natural evolutionary selection process and the emergence of prolonged DNA pollution. For example, being stupid no longer got you dead at an early age and kept your DNA out of the gene pool. Those chickens are coming home to roost and today's post describes the end result of the dysfunctional artificial evolutionary process that has replaced a system that worked quite well for about a billion years.
All of the problems arising in the sciences as described by our host are attributable to the lack of an effective feedback loop to rid us of the malpractice that infests these institutions and its composite membership of poseurs, imposters, idiots, and deliberate deceivers. Whining about it won't solve this problem. Only a return of accountability (accompanied by severe consequences) can right this ship.
That is our obligation as responsible citizens.
It seems that feedback loops are being systematically removed everywhere, not just in science.
I suspect you'll be picking up a lot of very good feedback now that this piece has been republished by Larry Johnson. Good to see.
Ave Gaius,
A minuscule nit. 5% of 70% is 3.5%
Gratias vobi ago
This piece feels rather Fortean, if rather more readable than quite a lot of Charles Fort's writings. He was known to throw away his manuscripts and the research that had gone into them.
Among his many aphorisms:
“[Wise men] have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.”
The (brilliant) first chapter of M Foucault's The Order Of Things, consciously or otherwise, borrows from this truism of Fort's. He is rather obtuse in his style of writing too.
Needless to say Fort was widely despised during his lifetime and mostly lived in poverty, as so often befalls those of us who won't bloody well believe what we're told by our betters. On which subject, and in response to criticisms that he frequently contradicted himself, Fort drily commented that he never believed any of it in the first place. Worth remembering when he explains his 'belief' in an extra-terrestrial super-sargasso sea, the source of frog rainfalls and the like.
It is admittedly a bit Fortean. :) I've been considering writing a piece that would be far more Fortean than this one. Not sure I should do it though. :/
You know you want to ;-)
I agree. Amazing insights here. I cross-posted it. Not only does the Emperor have no clothes. He has hired or blackmailed everyone in authoritative status to prove that to everyone.
Amazing writing! One of the best pieces on the topic of "science" I have read as of lately. Look at neuroscience, for example. The whole animal models thing: mice, tats, fruit fly, zebra fish, etc... It's all bur a huge waste of time and resources. If we understand neuroscience to be the study of the human brain, then such methods have little to no place in it. Of course one may try to leverage some body of knowledge that has been yielded by the so-called animal models but those belong to the domain of zoology ans should never be regarded as the ultimate goal or the end-all be-all of neuroscience. Computational models of the brain have recently (last few decades) become very popular but those have many obvious limitations as well.
There's a lot of inappropriate modelling being done, no question about that. I would however like to point out that I'm not condemning all models. What I'm referring to are models which are selective and adjustable at will to serve some nefarious goals. The issue with climate models is that they select a tiny proportion of all variables active in the real world. Then each variable in the model is assigned value based on whatever. Both processes are controlled by the scientists and they can and will get the results they want - even if they didn't intend it. I think it was Enrico Fermi who said that if a model (statistical or otherwise) contains three or more variables, you can get any result you want. Models are easier to abuse the more complicated they are and I've seen a lot of abuse. I've even myself been involved in work where models were abused like that - large scale and with negative consequences for society. It was something I got trapped in and couldn't get out of because of obligations I had made. If you sense bitterness in this article, that is partly the reason.
'Climate Science'...huh. What. A. Crock.
They can't tell me with any accuracy next week's weather, but they want to tell me how we're all gonna die in X years because CLMATE!™. Give me a freaking break.
Sadly, knowledge is increasing exponentially, but wisdom is fading. Just look at the Harvard debacle...
Well said. Thank you.
I find the "animal model" philosophy upsettting on many fronts. Vulnerable humans always end up being experimented upon whatever "model" is used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciCQ35O1NOU
The Message Of The Divine Iliad By Walter Russell (Unabridged Audiobook With Discussion)
Walter Russell provided the Real Knowledge during the 20th Century:
The Secret Of Light By Walter Russell (Unabridged Illustrated Audiobook)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPKO1cxAz3o
May of 1921, Walter Russell at the age of 49 years old experiences a 39 day and night period of illumination, writing down some 40,000 words given to him from the Light of Cosmic Consciousness – later published as "The Message of the Divine Iliad."
I believe there are mysteries and adventures but they are beyond my poor reach.
I've used the electricity example before, as well as that I cannot comprehend that grass grows.
And if you don't know in which of the two groups you are (crushed vs. enlightened)? :)
"This means that most or all mainstream scientific models and theories are logically wrong and the only way of having a chance of being right is to be in disagreement with mainstream science."
Yeah that's the key to finding the magic feeling again of discovery. Just noticing everything done wrong or not at all by the generation Baby Boomers presided over is enough to make one marvel. Regarding electricity and how important it is to basic human physiology I only recently learned that bones are piezoelectric and that the electricity that your bones generate is vital in directing growth and whatnot. So, for osteoporosis, instead of shitty meds that tack bone spurs onto the outside of the bone they really should have been looking into that electrically driven strengthening. Exercise is the most basic one, but increasing the charge that flows through via other means has been a minor obsession of China and Russia. It might even be a cure for short men.......! Imagine that.
I'm afraid you are conflating science with "political science"
Scientists work with models because we KNOW that we don't know... hence we use models which are a method to try to make some sense of what we see around us. We make the point of using the word "model" because we make no claim. Models attempt to make working assumptions about why things are how they are... and hopefully make predictions that lead to more discoveries.
So, even though we don't know what makes electricity, for example, we can still create semiconductors and computer and the like. We don't know what creates gravity but we sure can do trajectory and architectural calculations for satellites and bridges.
Political scientists, and to a degree engineers, think science knows... they are wrong. Political Scientists are the ones you should target. They are the ones that have co-opted many "scientists" into "bad science". Offer money in exchange for BS.
There is NO consensus in science. Run away from anyone that claims so.
But don't run away from models, that's just a tool for research. Western Science works very well when it is freed from politics.
Yes, Climate Change is a lie.... oh, yeah, I'm a physicist.
Portions of your article taken up in "Refusing the defeat of the spirit"
https://en.reseauinternational.net/refuser-la-defaite-de-lesprit/
With the comments in French https://reseauinternational.net/refuser-la-defaite-de-lesprit/
Thank you very much for this text.
There may even be level 11 of weirdness: people that recognize that mystery and magic is exactly the true knowledge and understanding of the world, which is a never ending discovering process based on the scientific method.
Actually I don't think science has the goal to "know" things. You are right, we don't know what light "is". Maybe we will never know, and if so, who cares? Maybe some indian guru after years of lonely meditation will know what light "is"... so what? What will be the use for humanity?
But science get closer and closer to what light "is", in an infinite limiting process, by discovering what light "is for us".
The truth of science is not and will never be complete. The truth of science is a process, an infinite never ending process.
Maybe for the human mind it must be like that, because the human mind works by finite discrete steps, 1, 2, 3, 4, ..., but nature is continuous, like Pi=3.14.......
We can write as many digits of Pi as we want, provided we can wait enough, but we will never write it all.
That said, many scientists themselves seem not to know what is the scope of their knowledge.
Thanks so much for writing this! So refreshing to see someone talking sense!
You might enjoy something I wrote called WHY SCIENCE IS BULLSHIT. Here's an excerpt:
If you ask me, here’s a reason why physics has been at an impasse for the past hundred years. It’s because the materialist conception of reality is simply false. The data has been in on that one for quite some time. Look into Bell’s Theorem or Neumann’s Catastrophe of Infinite Regress if you don’t believe me.
Incidentally, Robert Anton Wilson was also the most insightful writer on the subject of quantum physics that I have ever read. He came to believe that the psychedelic experience and quantum physics were saying the same thing.
RAW uses a parable by a mathematician named J.W. Dunno to describe the problem.
A painter, who had escaped from the asylum to which he was (justly or unjustly) confined, decided to paint the field in which he found himself. Finished, he looked at the result and realized that something was missing: namely, himself and his canvas, which were part of the field. So he started over and painted himself and his canvas in the field. But, examining the results with philosophical analysis, he realized that something was still missing: namely, himself and his canvas on which he was painting himself and his canvas in the field. So he started a third time.. .and a fourth....ad infinitum.
He goes to say that physics, as well as linguistic, mathematics and psychology, had been stuck in a hall of mirror since Schrodinger demonstrated that quantum events are not "objective" in the Newtonian sense.
He writes:
"For fifty years since then, physicists have been struggling to build a system that will get them out of this Strange Loop. The results have been as funny as a Zen koan.
For instance, Niels Bohr proposed the Copenhagen Interpretation, which merely says, in the manner of Godel, that our equations do not describe the universe really. They describe the mental processes we have to put ourselves through to describe the universe.
After noting that most physicists want to find a way out of the aforementioned Strange Loop, Wilson states that it is quite impossible to do so, explaining that:
Dr. John von Neumann proved that there was no way out. This is technically known as Von Neumann's Catastrophe of the Infinite Regress, and it merely shows that any device that will get us out of the first Strange Loop (the Copenhagen collapse of objectivity) will just lead us into a second Strange Loop; and any way out of that will lead to an inexorable third Strange Loop; and so on, forever.
Everybody is still trying to refute von Neumann; but nobody has been successful."
As far as I am aware, there have not been any major breakthroughs in physics since Robert Anton Wilson wrote Prometheus Rising. Correct me if I’m wrong.
We’re still stuck in the hall of mirrors, because science just hasn’t figured out what mystics, shamans, yogis, and arhats have always known - the universe is conscious, and we are in an energetic relationship with it, and it responds to our thoughts, words, and actions in a way that we will never be able to fully understand.
The reason for this is simple. The eye cannot see itself, the sword cannot cut itself, and the mind cannot know itself.
Full piece here: https://nevermoremedia.substack.com/p/why-science-is-bullshit-and-why-teenagers