Before we move on to the second part of our three part series about the science of consciousness, I want to write a little bit about what science offers humanity as an overarching worldview. With "science" having replaced "replaced" religion in the popular imagination, the biggest advocates of science advocate that it is not just a means to knowledge but a satisfying answer to fundamental existential questions. I want to argue that this is mostly a chimera, with science itself having little to say about questions of meaning, purpose and worth. If a scientist claims that science DOES provide such answers, I suggest that they are sneaking background beliefs about the world into the arguments, though they themselves may not realize that they are doing it.
One the first principles of science is to exclude from consideration the possibility that the world is "purposeful" or "intentional." Formally, this view was codified by the rejection of the Aristotelian/Scholastic apparatus which had dominated Western thought from the Greeks onward, bolstered as it certainly was by the Catholic Church's dominance over culture through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. As the enlightenment dawned, the formal and final causes of the world were either denied outright or strategically ignored in order to generate a model of the world that behaved entirely in accordance with efficient causes. The past state of the world determined the present, but not because the world was directed toward the now (or future nows) as a final cause, but only because it was pushed from "behind" by the efficient causes, bound ultimately by abstract "LAWS." The world just tumbles forward from the past, like dominoes knocking each other over; the future is merely an inevitable result from antecedent events with the causes never having any teleologic "goals" of their own. (Perhaps one can read entropy as its goal?)
The dream of modern science for the secular establishment is to demonstrate how this sequence of falling dominoes was inevitable from the start, and, strictly speaking, purposeless. (If something HAS to happen, it can't have purpose, as purpose implies the selection of states of affairs over another for a reason of some kind.) Demonstrate that and you've pretty much explained it all.
The laws just ARE. The world just IS. And the world follows the LAWS. End of Story.
I don't think anything like this view is right, or even plausible, but, for the moment let's grant that the Lawrence Krauss' of the world are right and the universe does necessarily, though unintentionally, generate itself from the vacuum nothingness of space because of abstract quantum laws which control reality and which exist, (apparently) contingently but nonetheless absolutely. (If they weren't "contingent" but "necessary" their not holding would have to generate a conceptual contradiction, not an empirical one. This is why one can always return to the "Why is there something rather than nothing?" question. A law may explain behavior, but it almost never explains itself.)
We are left with the question then of how we are to relate to the world. What should be our attitude toward our own existence when it seems that reality is nothing more than a random quantum fluctuation? To truly let this view become your sense of self, can only lead to a despair. And if one believes themselves to be truly determined by forces outside their own illusory volition, the only rational attitude to accept is pure horror. Perhaps suicide.
I don't believe that scientists actually feel that way (perhaps some do), but, the point is rather that THEY should feel that way when they really tease out the implications of their own position. There is a gap between what believers in scientism operationally believe and what their critics claim they are obliged to believe to be consistent. Instead, they get their cake and eat it to. They argue for determinism but continue to act as if they had free choice. They believe in Truth (capital T) but loathe anyone who believes in God. Above all, they think that empirical science will 1) Answer all questions 2) Never involve existentially important ramifications of the sort that suggests a "spiritual" dimension within the world.
This blog is an exploration of the dynamics which create these dichotomies of belief. To truly believe in science, one should never make it sacrosanct or totalize its methodology of understanding. The limitations of science are inherent to what science is, and how understanding works. Much of this blog will be a refutation of scientism as a worldview. This is not because I dislike science, rather it's because I understand its awesome power. Within its scope is all of objective reality. But, there is more to life than that which is objective. In fact, were the world totally objective, it would be empty. The other half of the equation rests in the thing itself, in the mind and experience. Understanding this dimension shall push science to its limits. In fact, it will end science as we know it.
