Seeing the world as mystery
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
I was listening to Osho the other day, and he was talking about how science is an effort to reduce the world to building blocks and mathematical models, that it is basically a deconstruction. That in its effort to explain the world, science removes mystery and poetry, and that in a way the attempt to decondition the mind is an attempt to bring back mystery.
In a way deconditioning from science is about recognising the limits of understanding. It’s about recognising the limits of the usefulness of models, of mathematical understanding, of logic. It’s reach is only very tiny, most real insight into the world comes in intuitive leaps. And that is a kind of magical insight which takes in multiple factors at the same time.
So perhaps admitting that we live in a world surrounded by mystery, that we do not know as much as we think we do, is a good thing.
Comments
True, but it also depends on the person. Some people don't want to know what they don't know. They may even fight against it.
I'd say there are differing emotional states by which people grasp onto science. Embracing mystery and scientific understanding aren't mutually exclusive.
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/poetic-naturalism/
This reminds me of a quote I once read...
"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend"
~French philosopher Henri Bergson or it could have been Canadian Robertson Davies~
I think Osho would have benefitted from some Carl Sagan.
Hmm 🧐 perhaps, Osho was notoriously bad at science
One could say ...Scientists see the world as a mystery ...to be solved/demystified ...
No. I have heard that the more they solve, the more they marvel at the mystery.
Of course the world is mystery. Life is mystery, That is what makes it so wondrous.
We always seek, We always discover. The more we discover, the more we find we have only begun. Life is a wondrous beautiful chain of seeking and discovery.
Come, let's see what is around the bend.
Peace to all
Every question answered creates new questions.
My experience of scientists is that they live in a cloud of faith that everything can ultimately be solved to fit scientific models, and therefore they don’t have a lot of mystery.
Except that they're in one.
Ignorance leads to certainty. The more we know the more we realize we don't know.
Do you suppose that every young person educated in the scientific tradition ends up building a theory of everything inside their heads?
Not necessarily, but they question more, and have a higher level of scepticsim.
That said, I'm by absolutely no means in any way shape or form, scientifically-minded, but I do tend to do a modicum of amateur research if I read something questionable, particularly on Farcebook.
I read an absolutely indisputable fact, "honest John, it really happened" comment, and immediately, I'm...
Mother Earth has given birth to many children of Father Time's...all shapes and sizes, too numerous to count or get to know...
Perhaps the world will stay a mystery to the senses because the psycho-physical phenomenon we call the self is part of the puzzle which makes up the whole/world...
I'm happy being part of the mystery ....a piece of the unsolvable puzzle...
I don't know... I think if I decided to get into the sciences it would be because of mystery, not its lack.
"Everything we do, every thought we've ever had, is produced by the human brain. But exactly how it operates remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries, and it seems the more we probe its secrets, the more surprises we find."
Neil deGrasse Tyson
What I like about the sciences is that they let you see more deeply into the workings of things. What I dislike is that they give you the impression that the scientific paradigm knows everything.
The limits of what is known aren’t often advertised.
It's quite possible that I've cultivated over the years scientifically minded people that embrace the mystery and value the "don't know mind" in their pursuit of knowledge such that I don't really have an accurate idea of how science people as a broad group think.
I do come across commenters online though who do try to use science as if it has all the answers. So I guess I'd ask if the issue is science itself or a section of people who come in with hardened views.
The scientific method is a means of finding out how or if things work and it is more noteworthy to disprove something than to back it up. There is always the potential for missing information and any new found information can collaborate, put a new twist on, otherwise alter or disprove any scientific theory.
Proving something 100% means there is no potential for any missing information and the limit for what is known depends on the branch of study. I think we can safely say there is more that we don't understand than there is that we do.
Science, if followed, is a great way of understanding the world. Scientists are just people though and people can be biased. That is where peer review comes in.
I love the mystery of this world and no science has ever made this moment less wonderful.