In an earlier post, I offered up my uncertainty about certainty itself. I love ideas, learning, unlearning, relearning, and asking questions. It’s a big part of what makes me tick these days.
Growing up in a Christian home, there were a number of dogmatic principles that I essentially swallowed hook, line and sinker, no questions asked. How could I? I wasn’t raised to even be aware of the possibility of having a choice in the matter. I had to discover that for myself many years later than I might have ideally liked.
Anyways, in my own way, I essentially took a 180 degree turn in my personal beliefs in my early 20’s. If science couldn’t back a claim up, it no longer held water for me. If two claims competed in terms of their scientific validity, it was my observation that the one not in favour of spirituality was the more sound of the two. Further more, if science gave any kind of ammunition with which one so thoroughly disillusioned and pissed off with traditional Christianity as I had become could use against claims disseminated within the modern church, I would aim to use such rather militantly.
I described myself as predominantly atheist at most, agnostic at least, and there was no lack of “science” with which to draw from in order to substantiate that position.
These days, I identify far more closely with agnosticism and vague, skeptical-but-open-minded spirituality. The reason is that failure of science to disprove negatives amuses me. Straight up. As far as I’m concerned, if you can’t conclusively prove that leprechauns don’t exist, then, as immeasurably improbable though it may be, I hold the view that it’s possible that they just might, in fact, exist.
I don’t throw much weight behind views of that nature, but I can’t get rid of them. To do so, in my view, would be to become utterly close minded to all of the unknown possibilities which may, in fact, be true, however unlikely though it may seem.
The other thing is that my faith in science is likewise never safe from questioning and scrutiny either. By definition, I accept that science is supposed be a grand quest for truth using our best, verifiable and agreed upon methods, but that science is also, by definition, constantly at the mercy of its own evolutionary processes. As new findings emerge, old models used for explaining the world as best as we can are replaced in favour of ones that better succeed at doing so.
In case it isn’t clear, the logical extreme of that premiss must include the possibility that, any given day now, we could wake up to the knowledge of new findings in the field of one such branch of scientific inquiry or other which can, conceivably, completely undo EVERYTHING we thought we ever knew about anything provided it ultimately led to a more thorough, accurate and truthful explanation and interpretation of the world in which we actually live.
2 + 2 = 5, apart from semantic and metacognitive issues, is one such possible change. Again, it’s almost inconceivably improbable that science would ever be responsible for something as seemingly absurd as that, but never impossible.
More likely, we’ll simply discover that we were wrong about the way certain fundamental forces actually work, perhaps having confused certain effects with their causes, as a classic example.
For a lengthier but far better explanation of what I’m driving at, check out the following video. The speaker’s name is Rupert Sheldrake. He was invited to speak at a TEDx convention not too long ago. Shortly thereafter, his video was removed from the site’s archives. Just watch, and you’ll soon understand why:
Elyen Alive 