March 25, 2004

Preposterous Vanity

While I am fan of science there are some things about the scientific outlook that I find rather absurd or arrogant. I call this the following the arguement from humility. It is not my own. I first read about it in more than one aphorism of Friedrich Nietzsche.


(I) Science generally upholds a principle of non-contradition.


(II) Science demonstrates to us that humans are *uttterly* insignificant when compared to the universe. Science demonstrates we are in our size, our similarity to other things numerous, the time we have existed, and the fortuitousness of our existance, *utterly* insignificant.


Spatially, science tells us that we are extremely small. If the solar system were scaled down to the size of a house, then the earth would be much smaller than a grain of sand. But, we are told the solar system is itself a spec within the galaxy and the galaxy but a spec within the universe.


Temporally, we are also, apparently tiny in terms of the length of human history to date. If the life of the world were compressed to 24 hours then the arrivale of humans would occur three seconds before midnight. Compared to the age of the world the life of any individual human is of course fleeting in the extreme.  It is no surprise then that the world view of youngers (the basic tenets of science are taught at schools) and the world view of the ancient Greeks, are not so different from the world view held by scientists.


In terms of our uniqueness, we share 97% of the same genetic material with an earthworm, more than 99% with other mammals and about 50% with a banana.


In terms of our fortuitousness, we are, science tells us, the product of chance.


We are of a level of utter insignificance that, science shows us, boggles the mind. We are, science tells us, a virus that lives fleetingly upon cosmic dust. For all intents and purposes, we are dust.


(III) However, Science claims that this dust, that we are, knows a lot about the universe. That for instance we know the limits of the universe (the fastest speed "c", the smallest mass). Or that we dust that we are can conject about the origins and end of the universe.


Oh, let us laugh loud and strong! Such, preposterous vanity!

How could anything as small as the human pretent to understand something so vast as the universe? How could anything so short lived as the human pretent to understand the universe? Even though we don't believe that earthworms, cats, or even monkeys understand the universe, we are prepared to believe that we know the limits of the universe. While it is difficult to see how chance could have evolved something as complex as the eye, Dawkin explains how this could have been acheived in this recent book "Climbing Mount Improbable." However Dawkin is convincing with his explanation of the evolution of the eye, can he be so convincing with regard to the theory of evolution, or the theory of relativity. How could chance have created a mechanism that would understand creation?


It is true that sciences has acheived a lot. We have learnt to fly, make nice electronic gadgets, life enhancing medical equipment and some awesome bombs. However these achievements are only such as to allow us to double or triple our life expectancy, move around our speck of dust quite quickly or destroy ourselves still more quickly.


But that we have framed the universe in our equations, that we have understood it substance, its beginnings, is limits, it mechanisms, this "achievement" is reaching far beyond our time and place.


In my own field, that of psychology, we are shown the extent to which humans are inclined to overestimate themselves. It is called "self-enhancement," and it is so pronounced that only the those that are clinically depressed are inclined to understand themselves correctly.


Rather than assume that some cosmic bacteria has understood the whole of everything, it seems much more plausible to me to assume that this is a vain misapprehension.


This is not to say that science teaches us nothing. But that we should interpret the limits that it teaches us as being limits upon our world, the world that we can understand, the world that we observer, the world that we experience, the world that we mistake for the real thing.

Posted by timtak at March 25, 2004 08:42 PM
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