The Mythology of Science

 

Thousands of years ago people looked at the world and said, ‘hmm, this doesn’t make any sense’ and so they tried to understand what it all meant. They attributed the seasons to the whims of gods created in their own image- grumpy, distrustful, passionate, loving and, well, human, all too human. However, one question which caused much consternation was, how did life begin? How was the planet made? Why do the stars twinkle? Thusly, they created creation myths. Each culture has one, some more graphic than others, but mostly everything stems from one thing. Destruction, be it the petulant wills of the gods or something else.

 

A few thousand years later, some people were still trying to answer the same questions. They looked at the world and they asked, how was the planet made? What are the wanders in the sky (πλανήτης (planētēs), meaning ‘wanderer’)?  and how did life come to be? Theories were formulated, more complex than before as mythology gave way to philosophy, which spawned rudimentary science, and the conclusion was reached, everything stemmed from a form of destruction, be it the petulant wills of the gods or something else.

 

In the modern world (21^st Century for those of you who will read this in a hundred years time and laugh at my use of the world ‘modern’) we have answered the great questions. We know how things are ‘made’ with chemicals, physics etc. Theology and philosophy are mocked more than they are respected and incorporated into daily life. We are living in the scientific age. The industrial revolution was a thing of beauty, looked at as one may look at an elderly person, ‘cute’, without any understanding of the life of the person whom they look at. Mythology is no longer needed as we have science. Everything is answered and science alone brings us truth. Right? Um…no.

 

In an essay that Einstein wrote, which can be found in his book ‘Out Of My Later Years’, Einstein wrote ‘science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind’. Although we won’t go into it now in depth, Einstein essentially says in his essay that you cannot have one without the other and that each great theologian was also a great scientist and vice versa, referencing the likes of Spinoza and Newton. I would happily argue that all philosophy, science etc. is the search for a higher Truth, that is answers to the question ‘do we exist and, if so, why?’, and that all is theology- the attempt to create a framework in which one can study (a)’God’, however, let’s go back to the original story and how the ancients, thousands of years apart, had to create fairy tales to explain how everything was created. We no longer have the need for such things, living in the modern age, as we know, all too well, that once upon a time there was some stuff, no one knows what or where it came from, in some place, no one knows what or where it came from, and suddenly for some reason, no one knows what or where it came from (the reason) it all went BANG! and the stuff which had appeared from somewhere, or nowhere, was chucked out into something, or nothing, and then it cooled down and some monkeys went ‘hey, iPads, they seem cool’.

 

It is easy to dismiss those that came before as being silly children creating fireside stories to explain things beyond their comprehension and, possibly, ability to ever know, yet if we look closely at ourselves we will see, as there is not much real difference between the thought of the earliest humans and the Ancient Greeks, nor is there much difference in the thought of the earliest people and us.

 

Hmm…

 

‘till next time

First Impressions

 

When I was a child my mama always said to me ‘make sure you iron your hair, brush your clothes and comb your teeth’ for, as she said, ‘the first impression is the most important and it can only be made once’.

 

Recently someone asked me of my impressions of some people. I laughed and replied that I was still formulation my opinion, months after I had first met them. The reason why was as time went on I learnt more about who they were as people as opposed to the ironed teethed first impressions which grinned inanely at me to gain favour. As we spend time with people we start to understand what it is that makes them tick, what their thoughts are and, essentially, who they are, not who they really are but rather what is the correct impression of them. Often I have written off a person only to be dumbfounded by my own ignorance and vice-versa. The reason for this may not be solely on the part of the other person. When we formulate an opinion of a person it is mostly selfish as we are looking in them for something which we like/desire as opposed to trying to understand who they are devoid of our own selves.

 

One of the wonderful things (there are too many to list) about Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is that the narrator, M, shows how his mind moves through impressions. One such example is a painting that he sees of a seascape in which a wave is breaking over the wall about to douse a gentleman in a coat. The first impression is that that this is real life but then M starts to think about it. Although the moment is an eternal snapshot of life is has ceased to be life itself. As M says, the wave will no longer be able to make the man wet, nor can the coat fulfil its destiny to keep the man dry, even if it fails in its valiant attempt. The first impression is that this is life, the second impression, after time, and thought, has passed is that this is no longer life as it is devoid of all meaning and potential. It is simultaneously both immortal and dead. Proust also writes about M meeting a group of girls and how he goes from the journey of seeing them and formulating assumptions to getting to know them for who they are to him, who they are to others and who they are, mostly, to themselves. The same person is unrecognisable in a different context much like the Assistants of the Land Surveyor in Kafka’s The Castle. When he first meets them he complains that they look the same to which they reply that is because they are together. Later he sees one but does not recognise him as he looks completely different by himself. When people are together it is hard to see an individual and, indeed, in different contexts that individual which is behind the impression is seldom, if ever, seen as Proust wrote:

 

‘To be quite accurate I ought to give a different name to each of the ‘me’s’ who were to think about Albertine in time to come; I ought still more to give a different name to each of the Albertines who appeared before me, never the same, like—called by me simply and for the sake of convenience ‘the sea’—those seas that succeeded one another on the beach, in front of which, a nymph likewise, she stood apart.’

Or to expand upon Proust’s point, what we see of a person is akin to looking at the reflection of something in water. As the water ripples, we see a different aspect of it yet never look upon the actual thing which is being reflected, thusly all of our impressions are merely the same first impression of a different view of the same thing which we never can see.

 

We humans long for order (I maybe more than most) which gives rise to snap judgements, which often can be erroneous. We can look out of the window and see a flash of blue. Run outside only to be engulfed by the deluge of rain, realising that the blue was merely the reflection of our shirt. First impressions are a short cut to formulating a judgement but, if as the ancient Greeks suggested, knowing thy own self is the hardest thing to do then surely, the possibility of belief of being able to determine a person body, mind and soul from a snapshot seems somewhat absurd, no?

 

‘till next time

Once Upon a Time

 

Once upon a time

A girl with moonlight in her eyes

Put her hand in mine

And said she loved me so

But that was once upon a time

Very long ago

 

One of my favourite literary devices is the ‘once upon a time’ opening. The scene is set, this is the past and something will happen. For a while it will be hard but then it will be good again!

 

However, is the past really as great as it seems in memory? Memory is unreliable as it is purely subjective caught up in emotion however, it is often said that one must go through a dark time to emerge into the light (no, that light at the end of the tunnel is not an oncoming train…).

 

Not only does once upon a time set the context but it also is a wonderful introduction to the story. You know that it is in the past and you know that you are safe. It also gives licence to subvert reality for it can create its own context which, for example, with Star Wars, can create aspirations and mean that people accept what they see (something George Lucas said he exploited with Star Wars which included a mixture of cultural influences and eras but as it happened ‘a long time ago in a galaxy far far away’ the audience accepted it.)

 

One person who often subverts linguistic expectations is Bob Dylan. Two examples of this are the infamous Like A Rolling Stone:

 

Once upon a time you dressed so fine

You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?

 

In which he ‘attacks’ a nameless person for living past their ideal once upon a time and it having led to misfortune and the conceit they had in their storybook life coming back to bite them and Shelter From The Storm:

 

 

’Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood

When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”

 

Although this starts positively, the song takes a turn as one realises that this was in the past and now the narrator is remembering something which came before and has been lost

 

Now there’s a wall between us, somethin’ there’s been lost

I took too much for granted, got my signals crossed

Just to think that it all began on a long-forgotten morn

“Come in,” she said, “I’ll give you shelter from the storm”

 

Indeed, it is hard to remember that it even started once upon a time.

 

We have an idealised notion of the past, something even the great Marcel Proust sometimes falls foul of, and we look for some ideal storybook ending to our lives, some great form of closure, but more often than not this is not the case. There is no perfect closure and we are faced with idealised, almost tragic forms of memory of some once upon a time yet, as the Lee Adams song ends,

 

Once upon a time

The world was sweeter than we knew

Everything was ours

How happy we were then

But somehow once upon a time

Never comes again

 

‘till next once upon a time

Context, Meaning and Truth

 

Two thoughts which have existed within my head for a while have finally met each other. In hindsight it was obvious that they would meet but the meeting only happened recently. The two thoughts were:

 

• All meaning derives from context.

 

• It is not possible for an individual to know the ‘truth’ of something objectively as all thought is subjective as we cannot separate our perception from ourselves.

 

We often hear that there are ‘two sides to every story’, I have long maintained that this is erroneous and there are an almost infinite number of sides to each story for each person, depending on the person’s context within that moment. What do I mean by that? Well, if someone recounts an experience in a moment of anger then it will be perceived and told differently if it has just happened and the wound is fresh than it will be if the moment of anger and recounting happens years later, once reflection has happened or, if not that, at least some time has passed and the wound is less raw, even if retelling the story opens up the wound again.

 

We, humans, live in the delusion that we alone know the truth and that this truth comes from context. However, as I finally pieced the two together (I didn’t even realise they were related, more fool me) I realised that context itself is wholly subjective, so instead of saying that all truth comes from context, one must say that one’s own truth of the situation comes from one’s own context, thus rendering the truth that all meaning derives from context false as the truth cannot be known and thusly meaning, which is not inherent in truth, cannot be found or be accurate.

 

This is not a shocking or stunning revelation. Martin Heidegger writes in The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic that things must disclose themselves to be in a genuine state of being and, ‘the Greeks saw this character of truth…but covered it over with theories’.

 

In this we can draw a direct parallel with Plato’s notion of the world of ideas, in which the perfect forms reside, and what we see are only shadows of the forms on a cave wall. However, the problem still remains. Even if something was to fully reveal itself, that is to say, to be in a genuine state of being, we would still be perceiving it subjectively, so no matter how open it is, how much it resembles its own truth, we would still be only viewing shadows on a cave wall or viewing, as is written in the Judeo-Christian bible,  ‘(seeing) through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ (1 Corinthians 13:12) and as the quote goes on to say, it is only when something is viewed away from the inherent biases of perception can we see its truth, even if then its context and meaning lie far beyond our ability to perceive, let alone know, comprehend and understand.

 

‘till next time     

Young and Old

 

In his Critique of Pure Reason, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant stipulates that it is axiomatic that one cannot be both young and old at the same time. Whilst Kant presents this as an absolute truth, the validity of his claim must be questioned for, can one be both old and young at the same time and what is meant by young and old?

 

The most obvious explanation is that we live within a construct called time which moves, determined by a notion called causality be it predestined or just happenstance, chronologically. In this, as Heraclitus the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher said, one cannot step into the same stream twice as time is constantly moving onwards until the inevitability of our death, as Plato stated.  However, for this to be true we must a) accept that there is such a thing as chronological time (let alone time, itself) and b) state that time must be physical and, thusly, cannot be metaphysical.

Whilst we can see many things which fit within a chronological construct of time such as driving a car or gravity making an apple (allegedly) fall on Newton’s head, we also can see that there are things which cannot be confined to notions such as time.

One of these such notions is thought. If, like me, you have ever tried to find a chronological notion in the mist of thought which passes through your head then one can see that within the mist there is no time. The thoughts arise and fall and fall and arise not within time but within something else, something beyond conceptualisation. Here we have evidence that not all we know can fit within chronological time, rather, all we can know is but what we cannot know is not. As the mind develops differently, away from the obvious notions, to the body it is possible to say that one has been born 84 years ago by measuring using a synchronised external device such as a calendar, however, this person might be viewed as being childish in thought, eternally young (after all fairy tales can come true if you are young at heart), one might say. Yet one who is in one’s pre-teens may be seen as having a gravity which belies their age. Thusly, we cannot say that the person’s development matches their chronological age. Even more bizarre is that one can be both 8 and 80 at the same time in different areas and aspects of thought. If we take Plato’s notion that we only remember what we once knew before we were born, i.e. we never learn, then this would tie in with the differing notions of physical and metaphysical ages.

 

It is important to evaluate what I have been doing. I have been espousing my own notions and then referring back to great thinkers of the past to support or counter my own thought. The question must be then, why? Why do I think that by quoting Plato I have more credence in my dismissal of Kant’s theory? Well, the answer would be that Plato is considered the father of modern philosophy therefore his words carry more weight than mine, the weight of the Ages. Yet, Plato met Socrates and announced he would follow him and become a philosopher on his 27^th birthday. It is possible that Plato was younger than I am now when he said what I have eluded to, also it is possible that Plato was older than Kant was when Kant wrote his Critique of Pure Reason. Although Kant was merely a child when he wrote COPR, 57, his thought is given extra weight as it was written a couple of hundred years ago, likewise Plato, who was also a child when he became a philosopher, has even more weight to his thought given the 2000+ years since he became part of the established cultural literature. Here we have examples of two men who were mere children when they wrote their thoughts being given the weight of antiquity due, wholly, to their chronological location. Thusly, we can argue that Plato and Kant are both young and old simultaneously. There is a temptation to say that what comes before or after is better or worse than what came before or after, (Bob Dylan quips on his radio show that Aristotle never knew what he was talking about more than when he was quoting Plato). However, a thought should be taken as thought and notions, such as time, should not be a factor for, after all, these ancient tomes were written by young men and women, maybe younger than you and me.

 

Happy New Year (tee hee)

 

‘till next time