Saturday, May 25, 2013

Fear of the Inexplicable

Have you noticed how in the last decade or two, people seem to need to cling closer and closer to the so-called hard sciences, and dismiss everything else as not only unreliable, but probably *wrong* just because it's not (at this point) observable? And I don't mean just mystical stuff but even social sciences. If something can't be observed and quantified, it's assumed it's nonsense. It makes me uncomfortable - I think we should allow for the possibility of there being things that are, for now or forever, inaccessible to our human logic and senses, or just not quantifiable. The possibility of it. But even that is considered ignorant nowadays.

I mean we know so little about the human brain and yet we insist all of the answers to questions as yet unanswered (such as near-death experiences, for example) or already answered but through insufficiently "hard" means (such as gender-based differences in behaviour) must be found in the brain. Why? Because we'd have certainty if we can see it with our own eyes on a PET scan? Honestly, it seems narrow-minded to me. We're human. Our way of experiencing the world is inevitably subjective. We must allow for the possibility of there being things inaccessible to us through conventional means. Not claim there are - just not vehemently claim there aren't and call everyone who disagrees an ignorant idiot.