Science,
Values and Meaning – Why Many Vital Insights Will Be Repressed or Taboo
C.W.
Rietdijk, D. Sc.
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Reason and intelligence are faculties of consciousness – which means,
of nature – to recognize coherence; that is, parts of the model of the
universe. |
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Introduction
This
page frames the outline of a coherent model of science and, more generally, of
our experience, including values, hope and meaning.
This
author is of the opinion that Richard Feynman was right in saying that “Truth
can be recognized by its
simplicity and its beauty”, but that at the
same time current philosophy, social science and general “communis opinio” unconsciously do their utmost to make things obscure, needlessly
complicated and incoherent, causing such thinking to be rather powerless.
Further, it makes them instruments of vested interests rather than progress and
relief, as will be elucidated below (see also other pages of this website). Note that, in
the greatest part of history, things were not much different, particularly
because intellectual elites were neither free to speak nor used to be innerly
independent of the establishment. Many of their members belonged to the clergy
or other groups kind to the status quo and prevailing ideas.
From
the Enlightenment on, say, up to the “organization and bureaucratization wave”
that seriously began after World War II, the intelligentsia witnessed its
freest era, after which it gradually “socialized and institutionalized”. Marx,
Darwin, Freud, Einstein, Veblen,… did not compete for funds, were rather
(innerly) independent of peers and the media and of the circulation of their
books. Massive networking was unknown.
It
is a major thesis of this website that, since about half a century, intellectuals
will simply mirror dominant ideas that, in turn, reflect prevailing interests
which are certainly not kind to setting cats among the pigeons, to exposing
theories and to making the individual innerly independent via a coherent frame
of rationally based knowledge and ideas. Accordingly, we see philosophy come to
incoherence – not even striving after rational models of man, his values and
the universe – in the shape of Heidegger, Foucault, Lyotard etcetera, whereas
sociology became a kind of round game and details-mongering. (As to social
science, I.L. Horowitz, S. Andreski and A. Zijderveld pointed earlier to this
situation.)
Because
of the above it is very rewarding to break ranks with orthodoxy and mainstream
intelligentsia, which virtually have nothing to say anymore; inter alia, they paraphrase the all-dominating RU paradigm and the “religion of
Man as he is” (see below).
We
investigate what interests, prejudices and fallacies feed current repressions
and taboos as to thinking, also finding that it is precisely the most
important discoveries that are prevented from being made by such
interest-produced repressions and taboos.
(Rather similar to what occurred, say, in the Middle Ages.) Within this scope,
a coherent frame or model of what philosophy refers to, and of vital dynamics
in social evolution, becomes only possible after our making conscious the
repressions and our violating the taboos. Of course, this awakens us to the
insight that such repressions and taboos play an essential part in keeping the
public in ignorance, precisely as happened throughout history, though in modern
times it proceeds more subtly and unconsciously, the “conspirators” being led
by instinct and intuition.
In
what follows we fill in the above more concretely, in an endeavour to escape
from massive conformism and its main current representative: Riesman’s other-directedness. Also, we will find why an easy way of integrating values, purpose and
hope into rational thinking (science) has been repressed hitherto, again because
irrational orthodoxies do not like that people derive their moral basis and
hope from reason rather than prevailing ideology.
Twelve major points, most of which are taboo or repressed
(1) Modern secularised God or religion: Man
Old-time irrational religion, that projected various
inner drives of the individual and forces in society into heaven and the
sacred, has largely been secularised by “retracting the projection” and making
man and society themselves to become God.
Within this scope we see man become virtually inviolable and “good by nature”,
as formerly was God. For example, eugenics is taboo: an insult to man as he is;
euthanasia is so too in most countries (also among atheists); “privacy”, also
of criminals, is rather sacred; nobody is genetically inferior: “all people are
of an equal value” (egalitarianism and political correctness). Also, society is rather inviolable [just as in the past, when it (or major forces in
it) was projected into heaven in the shape of God]: it is not far from “not
done” to attribute even unconscious bad intentions to sectors of the
establishment, convention and, say, sexual or other taboos. Everything society
and its culture strive after is believed to be well-meant.
Anti-intellectualistic educational reforms are far from unconsciously aiming at
keeping the public ignorant, nor are complicated juridical laws, rules and
procedures attuned to benefiting lawyers and other interest groups.
Egalitarianism and related relativism fit with the idea that “all people are valuable”,
independently of their concrete deeds and qualities.
In
sum, in our humanistic era “the others” and (the elites of) society highly
succeeded God in being inviolable, object of solidarity and virtually above
criticism. Obviously, this is related to man’s need of
something to worship and for a compass.
Among
major profiteers of “deifying” man (and society) are various helping
bureaucracies and professions (“nurture prevails on nature”, egalitarianism),
while, as part of the RU paradigm discussed in (2), it benefits various other powerful interests. More fundamentally:
making man essentially inviolable, one inherently becomes more lenient to evil,
by which many benefit (though others suffer).
(2) Current core paradigm of Western
thinking: the Relativism-Uncertainty idea
Partly within the scope of egalitarian and
relativistic “religion of Man”, but more generally all-important with respect
to modern thinking, is the R(elativism)U(ncertainty) paradigm. It calls the tune in
alpha, beta and gamma science, ideology and our value system. Some concrete
main thesis in its spirit are
1. The “Copenhagen” and related neo-positivistic ways of thinking in
quantum-mechanics: microphysical situations are not precisely defined; no understandable
models of them can be constructed, the “fuzziness” also being fundamental
rather than merely technical.
2. Such fuzziness is also reflected in the circumstance that the outcome of
micro measurements is partly dependent on how the observer manages the
measurement process. He partly “chooses reality”.
3. Human free will is one among various instances causing man to be (partly)
“above science”. Another is man’s creativity and values he may legitimately
choose freely (to some extent?). All of this, too, contributes to fundamental
indeterminism.
4. In philosophy, social science and the arts the RU paradigm manifests itself
by (more or less radically) maintaining: “The human psyche is inherently
irrational to a considerable degree, the universe is highly incoherent, values
are relative, destiny is “chaotic” and progress (therefore) is an illusion or
even indefinable”. Any “meaning of life” can only be introduced subjectively.
5. Relativism holds as to both values and human quality; it is among the sources
of egalitarianism: if what discriminates the average Harvard student from the
average hooligan is not objectively desirable (positive), the two are basically
of an equal value. On the other hand, if you deem both of them equivalent
morally and as to the quality of their psyche, you deem the (lack of) qualities
by which they differ less than substantial…
As I extensively explained in pages 1.1 – 1.4 of my website The Scientifization of Culture,
the RU paradigm, just as other “orthodoxies”, plays an important part in
ideologically serving dominating interests of the establishment. For example, it
introduces troubled waters on a very
fundamental level of thinking, reducing the realm of
reason, coherence, and what discriminates good from the law of the jungle. It
creates a perfect climate for manipulation, ideology, and conformism (good and
evil are what the others deem so).
In
such pages, one can also find a rational refutation of the paradigm. In short,
its function and source are similar to those of the indistinctness endemic
in politics: leaving latitude for manipulation.
(3) A coherent basis of a scientific
and enlightened outlook on life
Einstein said: “The aim of science is explaining an optimum
number of phenomena by means of a minimum number of hypotheses or axioms”. We
can add that modern science – “the knowledge network of Galileo, Newton and
Einstein”, or GNE network – indeed aspires to doing so.
Especially
in view of the RU paradigm it is important to realize that all those who are
integer and of good will have an interest
in truth, good and evil being clear, objective, accessible to intelligence and
observation, coherent and important (impressive). The paradigm essentially
holds the opposite: it leaves much latitude for power, circumstances, ideology,
convention, cultural preferences (those of “the others”), ambiguity and the
arbitrary.
The
refutation of the paradigm, in addition to the rigorous establishment of the
GNE network as a basis of both objective knowledge and objective values [in
both my website The
Scientifization of Culture and a book of the same title (Van
Gorcum, Assen 1994)] amounts to a comprehensive philosophical starting point
and foundation of the enlightened approach of the world.
In
itself it arouses suspicion when adherents of the paradigm (also in spite of
its refutation) still express doubt whether it is legitimate to consider some
explanation as (preliminarily) correct if it fits most simply and coherently in
the GNE network. Further, we question the sense of endless philosophical
discussion about values in the light of nobody being in a position of even
vaguely indicating any rational argument to the effect that certain moral
prescriptions or prohibitions (say, against homosexuality or the violation of
some taboo) should prevail over optimising total happiness.
(4) Specimens of the RU and “religion
of Man” mentality in social reality
1. Riesman’s other-directed personality dominates: taking “the others” as one’s compass, in the
absence of anything else as an authority and moral basis. That is, conformism
prevails. Most scientists too prefer being put
in the right (esteem, career,…) to being
right; not even the utter chutzpahs (no eugenics, no euthanasia as to
handicapped newborns, defendants have the right of non-cooperation,..) cause
them to break ranks.
2. Massive feelings of meaninglessness, emptiness and “nothingness”.
3. Hypes and fashion abound, also in the domain of thoughts and feelings.
4. Superficiality is the order of the day. (Think of the average TV program,
and of the preoccupation with sports, by which strivings and emotions are massively
diverted to the utterly irrelevant.)
5. Little interest in ideas and deep coherence in nature, the more of it in
people: stars, cult figures etcetera. “Image” is everywhere. The here and now
dominates. Scientific research into a possible life after death is not even an
issue among the intelligentsia.
6. Subjectivism and incoherence dominate philosophy; nobody tries and
constructs a (preliminary) understandable model of reality, man or social
evolution as a whole. (Existentialism, Foucault-“structuralism”,
postmodernism,…) Actually, truth, good and evil are abandoned in principle by
relativism. Crooks are no longer true crooks.
7. Modern “abstract” art cultivates incoherence, the ambiguous and
meaninglessness, if not the trivial, while hardly anyone protests.
8. “Progressive” reforms level down education without anyone sees and explains
this as unconsciously intended to keep people ignorant and make them more
“socially oriented”, as a modern successor of historical and more crude methods
of doing so. (We see anti-intellectualism and social solidarity as successors
of censorship and religious or national solidarity.) Deeming them as such
successor would violate the inviolability of society as a whole we earlier
spoke of in (1), and would also be a “conspiracy
theory”. The orthodoxy leaves no room for explanations implying (unconscious,
instinctive) bad faith at the basis of establishment-supported socio-cultural
tendencies. [Note that before and after Machiavelli power elites did little
else than ideologically (unconsciously) manipulating and misleading the
public.]
9. The twin-ideology of egalitarianism and relativism devalues human genetic
and moral quality (cf. the foregoing). Anti-eugenics is one of the
consequences. Realize that relativism and egalitarianism actually imply each
other. They are also related to “nurture rather than nature”, in which the
“disadvantaged industry” has a major interest.
10. The spirit of the 1960s, which is highly a reaction to bourgeois values
that, in turn, are associated with the Enlightenment and the French revolution.
The group and the here-and-now, inter alia,
substituted individual responsibility, long-term planning and the independent
intellectual, who was “socialized” too. Concomitant “devaluation of values” had
repercussions in the helping professions, crime-fighting and (degradation of)
education. Not merely man in general and the community as a whole, but almost
every kind of group (social interests, ethnic groups, religions, non-Western
cultures, the “disadvantaged”,…) became inviolable, partly within the scope of
egalitarianism. While one vaguely rejected “the system”, this still implied the
dead of social criticism: hardly any group or mentality could be in bad faith.
11. The RU and religion of Man mentality – (incoherence, relativism,…) –
also culminates in: “Values, purposes, human choices, the meaning of life and a
possible hereafter cannot be explained or researched by scientific methods”.
Note that such standpoint shields vital problems from rational discussion, just
as censorship does, and for similar reasons.
12. We see further examples of the “inviolability of
Us” attitude in some sad events around World War II: a) No major
socio-political instance ever asked pope Pius XII to explain his silence about
the Holocaust; b) Something similar happened as to the UK and the US’s not
admitting many more fleeing Jews during the 1930s and later; c) Also compare
their not bombing gas chambers in Auschwitz and the like, and d) What about the
Allies’ massive air raids on German civilians?
(5) Explaining many phenomena from a
few obvious hypotheses: many current anti-enlightened ideas are more subtle and
disguised variants of those by which clergy and nobility defended their
interests a few centuries ago, such as devaluing reason, ignoring rational
values, and ideologically pushed solidarities
It is a major feature of my general socio-cultural
theory – see this website
– that it explains the RU paradigm and the secularised religion of Man,
anti-intellectualistic education, modern incoherent art, the preponderance of
anti-rationalistic philosophy, egalitarian social policy, sexual taboos,
anti-Semitism and various other striking things jointly from one clear
phenomenon. That is, roughly from interests
of sectors of the establishment similar to those – such as nobility and clergy
– that also during the Enlightenment turned against reason and independent thinking
on behalf of various kinds of solidarity, dogma and convention. (Remark: anti-Semitism fits in
the above series because, in particular since mid-19th century, Jews
have been clearly “over-represented” in the modernistic revolution of reason
and non-convention.)
Note
here that no competing socio-cultural theories that give simpler or more
coherent explanations have been put forward. For example, even as regards a
radical phenomenon as the largely demised sexual taboos nobody seems to be
interested in why something so irrational and happiness-unfriendly could ever
be part of morality. An obvious explanation of such “repression” is that an
actual unearthing of the (manipulation-related) motives behind the taboos would
undermine the moral authority of our elites.
In
sum, my core social theory is that most of socio-cultural dynamics and
evolution can be explained as a struggle – by economic, ideological, political,
bureaucratic and other means – of enlightened, progress-oriented, interests and
mentalities versus openly or ideologically disguisedly anti-enlightened forces.
(6) A fundamental choice in our lives, viz. “What is my basis
as to truth and value: my socio-cultural environment or my innate intelligence
and compassion?”
In essence, our motto derived from Revel already gives
an answer to this question. (3) above refers to
a more extensive argumentation.
For
me personally, the choice never has been a problem, because even in my own
comparatively enlightened Western culture and society I saw so much community-
and “orthodoxy”-endorsed chutzpah and cruelty that I never felt tempted to feel
solidary with them or even to believe in the good faith of our establishment
and in-crowds. A few concrete specimens:
1. The cruelty, mainly towards relevant parents, of refusing euthanasia for
seriously handicapped newborns if those parents prefer it. (Think of the
religion of Man.)
2. The cruelty towards future (potential) victims as implied by massive
softness on crime as appearing from a) multi-offenders are eventually released
time and again, b) defendants have the right of non-cooperation rather than
being found guilty in case of silence, c) many restrictions as to finding the
truth often frustrate such finding. (Think of “privacy” and the interests in
complication of lawyers and other “experts”.)
3. Not even chronic problem cases are prevented from procreation, and eugenics
is generally condemned. (Religion of Man.)
4. Massive immigration from low-IQ regions is tolerated. (Egalitarianism.)
5. Conformism is so pervasive that practically none among the speechmakers
publicly opposes as to 1. – 4. More generally, leading intellectuals seldom
dissent so as to cause intense and protracted controversy. The “controversial”
will more generally be avoided.
6. One example is that hardly any intellectual publicly ridicules “abstract”
incoherent art or contorted verbiage from leading modern philosophers. (I gave
many specimens in my work, but nobody reacted.)
7. Hardly anybody except I.L. Horowitz, S. Andreski, A. Zijderveld and myself
criticised sociology degenerating into a social round game in which details and
methodology call the tune rather than new, radical and sometimes exposing
explanations and theory.
It is utterly rewarding as to being fruitful in socio-philosophical domains if
one indeed breaks ranks with “all well-meaning people” and one’s peers; but it
is not good for one’s career. That’s the main problem in most intellectual
domains… In actual fact, most discoveries that can be made without violating a
taboo or unearthing a repressed truth or moral argument have already been
made. That is, the only way to transcend the round game is
such violating or awakening to things many feel to be unpleasant. Within this
scope, and also in view of the less-than-positive mentality of the elites
appearing from points 1. – 7. above, we should look for hidden (group-)egoistic
motives at the background of everything that is irrational (such as “modern”
art and most current philosophy), taboo (such as eugenics) or systematically
neglected [such as research into the paranormal; compare (8) and (11) below].
(7) The single most important power instrument of the
establishment: “solidarity”, “unity”, around the centre, which is precisely
such establishment
It has been observed: “Nationalism is an instrument to
make many exert themselves for the benefit of a few”. This can easily be
extended to solidarities around religion, tradition, social class, “the honour”
of our King, tribe or family, and to taking “the others” as a compass more
generally (Riesman’s other-directed personality). Such variants of the craving
for belonging partly reflect anxiety, and make
man optimally conformable and controllable. The only way to make it positive is
giving it a rational basis: helping each other to optimise total well-being as
far as it is within our capacity. That is, solidarity should refer to rational
values and purposes and be guided by our common interest in that science and
rational values more and more prevail on chance, ignorance, arbitrariness and
(hidden) ill-will. This means solidarity around progress.
(8) A vital extension of Schelsky’s
idea about why ideologists will not like technology
Schelsky (Die Arbeit tun die Anderen, 1975) introduced the idea that ideologists will distrust technology
because the more people can solve their problems by the latter, the less they
will need and revert to the products the ideologists supply, such as Utopias,
orthodoxies and irrational solidarity (“one’s country”, class, tradition,…).
Now
it strikes the eye that in the modern West hardly anybody is interested in
basing hope for mankind, including an objective moral basis and some
perspective of any life after death, on science and possible coherent models of
man, consciousness and the psychical dimension of nature and the universe. For
example, over the world hardly twenty fulltime researchers work in
parapsychology. While about half of Western population believes in a hereafter,
scientific research into near-death and out-of-the-body experiences,
reincarnation and medium phenomena is marginal… Almost everybody echoes: “This
kind of problems is beyond the realm of science”.
Now
it is in the spirit of Schelsky’s explanation that, for similar reasons why
ideologists don’t like technology, the idea mongers who – unconsciously led by
interests – “produce” dominating beliefs, preferences or even paradigms, will
feel less than enthusiastic of an objective scientific base and model as
regards the ultimate problems of life, values, destiny, death, and the meaning
of human existence. Like in earlier historical periods, the establishment,
culture creators and religion prefer to frame the ultimate things about culture
and destiny themselves rather than people having a dependable rational basis as
to these. Therefore, many fundamental questions like a possible hereafter, are
purported to be on “another level” than science.
Of
course, there is a connection with (6)
too: the more we experience a rational basis of our values, our destiny and the
meaning of our existence, the less will we be impressed by and conform to our
moral and social environment and its (irrational) variants of ideals and hope.
For example, I myself could far more easily lose respect of our establishment
and its value system by the very fact that I do not feel dependent on such
environment as to values or ideas about destiny and meaning.
Conclusion: It is very clear why our
establishment prefers subjectivism and verbiage in philosophy,
pseudo-“innovative” and pseudo-“shocking” modern art, details-mongering and
relativistic social science, and an approach of the fundamental problems of
existence via old books, popes and “other levels” rather than coherent reason
and spending tenfold on the research of fundamental physics (space and time,
basic “fuzziness”, nonlocal phenomena,…), consciousness and paranormal
phenomena. Neither did 18th-century clergy and
nobility prefer reason (the Enlightenment) to prevail as an instrument to
approach the problems of the time, or did all those who co-founded their
position on censorship, taboo or conformity.
Generally,
man can only be manipulated by socio-cultural establishments, religions and
ideologists in general as long as he is ignorant and confused about the
fundamental problems of existence (and society). Hence, the former discourage
looking for relevant scientific knowledge. Modern intellectuals do so
predominantly by saying in advance: “Both the paranormal and long-term
coherence in our experiences of life are illusions or elusive: it is all
coincidence”. Note that they will also take the seven chutzpahs of (6) at face value: they are also “coincidences”.
There
is a striking inconsistency in that most social scientists, following
Machiavelli and more recent thinkers about ideology, affirm that power elites
and vested interests will disguise self-interest as the morally good or the
public interest, whereas at the same time they denounce as “conspiracy
theories” my above idea that many dominating values, preferences and taboos
figure as camouflage of powerful interests. It is equally striking that
mainstream academics fail in indicating concrete specimens of Machiavellian or
ideological disguises of interests according to their own insights, without overlapping my examples such as in (6).
(9) Major specimens of socio-economic
macro mismanagement that stem from the power of vested interests and short-term
thinking
1. Though Robert Solow received the Nobel Prize for
economics for his demonstration that technological progress is the core driving
force of economic growth, dominant countries spend only about 2 percent of
their national product on research and development (R&D), 0.3 percent of
which refers to fundamental research. These numbers could be radically
increased by
a)
An incomes policy to the effect that “the best and the brightest” no longer
seek employment in the financial and juridical sectors.
b) Simplifying laws and regulations radically in order to drastically reduce
employment in such sectors.
c) Changing taxes and laws about advertising (that should only embody
matter-of-fact information) so as to reduce luxury consumption, and spend the
relevant money on (primarily government-sponsored, think of the Manhattan and
Genome projects, nuclear fusion and NASA) R&D, especially in fundamental
domains.
2. In the same vein, economic growth is often much
frustrated by Central banks time and again increasing interest rates in order
to reduce inflation, rather than pursuing such reduction by means of an incomes
policy: wage control (which is more easily feasible in practice than price
control), in addition to fostering competition (inter alia, via facilitating cheap imports).
3. An incomes policy is also necessary because of the mere fact that in about
35 years 70 percent of the American people saw no increase of its real income,
the benefits of growth all going to the richest 30 percent. Such policy is the
more justified because as to, say, managers we are far from a meritocratic free
market: many failing managers get huge sums and myriad good businesses do
without option incentive plans and the like. Among the best-paid people are
those active in the take-over business, while at the same time most take-overs
are far from a success.
4. Moral relativism, degradation of education (too many unemployables) and the
power of the “disadvantaged” bureaucracies caused the continuation of a massive
underclass of people who should be forced to no longer sponge on society and/or
be obligatorily sterilised.
(10) Twelve vital truths reflecting
an enlightened position
1. Our motto quoted from Jean-François Revel.
2. Evil is equally objective as the suffering it causes.
3. Happiness is a question of information and genes.
4. Culture is efficiency in increasing well-being.
5. There is nothing but facts and relations between facts (Hippolyte Taine).
6. Unhappiness comes from wrong calculations (Galileo with Brecht).
7. The quote from Albert Einstein at the start of (3).
8.
Intelligence is an inborn faculty of consciousness to recognize coherence in
the universe.
9. Relativism is an ideological instrument to devalue
truth, good and quality; it is an historical successor of censorship.
10. Optimising total happiness is the objectively correct moral good because
there is no other purpose of which it can be rationally argued that it is desirable.
11. Values do not influence facts. Quite to the contrary, values are features
of, in the first instance, the phenomenon or model of man and consciousness
and, in the last resort, of the design and coherence of the universe. In addition,
moral ones are objective because of 10.
12. Though Einstein probably exaggerated in stating that a good scientist is so
rather by character than intelligence, we can still see from this mere website
that finding new explanations and theories even more depends on violating
taboos, abandoning habits of thought and not acquiescing in chutzpah than on
whatever else.
(11) An outline of my theories on consciousness, the
paranormal, the meaning of existence and a possible life after death
Finding a comprehensive enlightened “frame of
existence” for present-day educated man should extend to the domain of “the
ultimate questions of life”, such as the nature of man, his consciousness and
possible laws governing his destiny. This author did actual research into these
subjects, which is part and parcel of his general work in physics. (See for the
latter the page Four-dimensional
reality and its coherence on this website.) In recent years he extended his
physical research to the subjects consciousness and the paranormal. Forthcoming
publications as to this are in Physics Essays,
Volumes 19, No 2 and 20, No 2. Their titles are:
Consciousness and the coherence of natural law,
and
Four-dimensional
physics, nonlocal coherence, and paranormal phenomena,
respectively.
A third paper – Exit “uncertainty” and chaos, enter coherence; on the
psychical dimension of natural processes – will appear in a
so-called P.I.R.T.-related book edited by M.C. Duffy.
We
give a short outline of their content:
1. Reference to four earlier papers demonstrating that the universe is
realistically four-dimensional, length, width, height and time being its
dimensions.
2. Reference to four other proofs that influences backwards in time (retroactive ones) in some experiments actually appear and can define physical
variables within their Heisenberg uncertainty margins of quantum-mechanics.
Note that, in a “static” four-dimensional context, the term “influence” has a
meaning different from the traditional three-dimensional one, which is how we
humans experience it in our “moving in the time direction”. Four-dimensionally,
an “influence” looks like how the foundation of a building causes it not to
collapse.
3. We hypothesize that such retroactive influences do not act randomly but obey
laws, just as causal influences do. That is, as they – in their capacity of
being Einstein’s famous (nonlocal) hidden variable – fill in concrete values as to the relevant physical variables (values
within the uncertainty margins), they do not do so randomly but guided
coherently by physical laws, among which is, inter alia, conservation of energy etc.
4. We further hypothesize that the laws coordinating many fillings-in operate
particularly subtly in living or even conscious organisms, just as, in such organisms, many causal
laws and processes cooperate more subtly than, say, in a stone. Such mutually
cooperating causal and retroactive laws, for example, apparently manage forces,
fillings-in of physical variables etc. so as to lift an arm or, in some cases,
to write a book like Newton’s Principia.
5. We start from the idea that the natural phenomenon of recognition (or Aha-Erlebnis), that apparently
appears in conscious organisms, is “nothing else but” a cumulative and more
subtle manifestation of the aspect of natural law or processes that more
generally makes entities (components) contributing to an interaction basically
recognise each other so that they can indeed interact in the correct,
non-paradoxical, way.
6. It is precisely living or conscious organisms that integrate (component)
processes and natural laws in such particular way that their elements of
consciousness (of Aha-Erlebnis) are integrated
too.
7. Hence, the essence of consciousness which the Aha-Erlebnis is, neither emanates from electric or chemical little currents in our
brain, nor is it a non-physical entity, but it is the feature of natural laws
or processes that is so much “intelligently aware” that it recognises other
laws or processes sufficiently coherently for interacting with them
paradox-free according to comprehensive physical law. Organisms integrate this
as regards many processes, just as more generally mass, momentum etc. of components
can be integrated into the corresponding variables of a relevant compound.
8. In all, our theory relocates concepts like (the results of) free will,
creativity, and moral and aesthetical experiences into the subtle coherence of
natural law and processes rather than sweeping them under the carpet of the
“spontaneous” and the non-scientific.
9. Continuing the above course of argument we explain the paranormal as
nonlocal phenomena in which psychical aspects appear, which phenomena cannot be
accounted for by mere causality and that, therefore, need coordinated
retroaction as part of their explanation.
In the three papers referred to at the beginning of this Section (11) we show in detail how such nonlocality in the paranormal is in line
with (or: is a subtler variant of) nonlocal
phenomena in micro-physics, such as in the famous
paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, and in wave-particle “duality” and the
“collapse of a wave packet” in quantum-mechanics.
10. Within this scope, we construct a model of a super-individual psychical
entity that may be called collective unconscious or even collective mind, of
which separate individuals are components and that to some extent shows its own
preferences and coherent actions. It appears to function as an organism in
essential respects.
11. Finally, we introduce something having the essential features of life after
death. In our model of the collective mind (C), my afterlife is the connection,
in C, of my past existence and later stages of C as an organism. Mind that C,
my past life and such connections are all realistically four-dimensional (just
as the universe at all): they exist as my present now. I realistically continue
to exist after death because both my past life and related later events (for
example, results of my actions) realistically continue to exist and can be
“remembered” by organism C that in its capacity of organism has some “memory”.
12. It is essential in our theory of consciousness that
a) We reject the sorcery hypothesis to the effect that, rather than by subtly
cooperating natural influences and laws, Newton’s hand in writing the Principia was guided by “free will” or spontaneously.
b) We hypothesize that retroactively as well as causally operative laws are
involved in guiding Newton’s hand in his writing, the former laws amounting to
coordinatedly filling in the values of (many) physical variables within their
uncertainty margins. Processes so subtle as directing Newton’s hand
appropriately need something so subtle as such coordinated fillings-in; mere
causality is “too unrefined”. (In this respect those
not attributing “free will” to pure causality are right!)
c) We hypothesize that, as to the essence of consciousness which the Aha-Erlebnis and recognition are, there is a continuous line from a proton
recognizing an electron in their correctly generating a hydrogen atom, via the
mutual recognition of influences and processes in plants, lower and higher
animals, up to and including conscious processes in Newton’s brain, concomitant
to his writing. That is, we assume such electron and proton to witness some
primitive sub-sub-conscious Aha experience.
d) Such line corresponds to more and more subtle organic integration stages as
to the kind of processes that culminate in guiding Newton’s hand, both as regards their capacities of recognition and those of cooperating
otherwise for effecting his hand to move correctly.
Or, if natural laws and processes in Newton’s organism cooperate in
directing his hand, why, then, their elements of Aha-Erlebnis (consciousness)
would not logically do so as to produce his concomitant conscious insights and
other experiences?
It should be positively admitted that if scientific
research such as indicated above would eventually lead to nothing – no
afterlife, no coherent laws as to human destiny, no gradual evolution towards
good prevailing on evil and frustration,… –, life and the world would indeed be
meaningless. So much so that it would be hardly worthwhile to philosophize
about them…
(12) The basic change of philosophy
(11) implies: less coincidence, more coherence or even meaning
A realistically four-dimensional universe, in
coherence with my theory on consciousness, also contains the vital feature that
in them a feedback appears of causal and retroactive influences which cooperate
in such way that results play a part too,
not merely causes. This is closely connected with the circumstance that in a
four-dimensional world natural laws actually refer to events or processes,
rather than objects, their results being part and parcel of the processes, to which the laws refer too! Note
that, roughly speaking, feedbacks between causes and effects makes the latter
less a coincidence, also because effects may retroactively coordinate causes
just as causes somehow “coordinate” effects.
The
above, and the organic and nonlocal features of the world indicated in (11), jointly amount to much more coherence, rather than the chance and
“chaos in destiny” that correspond to the RU way of thinking
Complementary and some other remarks
1. An essential psychological source of people not
liking determinism and the CT paradigm is that they leave less room for one’s
somehow feeling to be the centre of the world that makes its decisions
independently by free will.
2. You get an idea of the level of most non-Western value systems by realizing
that the UN condemned Israel more than Iran, Syria, Libya and Sudan…
3. By far the most fruitful way to make new discoveries in the social sciences
is violating taboos.
4. How can I feel solidary with people who are more interested in sporting
results than in moral questions and progress?
5. RU-adherents betray themselves by not liking an idea like “organisation of
happiness”, or “Happiness is a question of information and genes”. They want
uncertainty, ambiguity, the subjective, and latitude for chance and evil.
Therefore, they don’t like the idea of science getting control over them; they
somehow thrive on them. This actually
defines the basic antithesis in our civilization. We should also distrust some
bases of our culture because of its seeming to be more tolerant of aggression
than of sex for ages. Voluptuousness is among the seven deadly sins, cruelty is
not.
Still,
I admit that life being too easy for them does not stimulate many towards inner
evolution. But that’s not the point for the RU people…
6. I feel absurdism as a slap in my face, that is, as the message: “We don’t
want to come to the point and to rational argument”.
7. It contributed to the undermining of our value system that DJ’s, footballers
and TV presenters will often earn more than $ 100,000, and that failing
managers frequently receive large golden handshakes.
8. Many agree with Richard Feynman: “Truth can be recognized by its simplicity
and its beauty”. Only a few awake to the consequence: distrust complicated
and/or unaesthetic explanations and algorithms, never accept paradoxes and
things of which you cannot construct understandable models, keep on and on
thinking about fundamental enigmas and don’t waste much time on side issues;
neither accept any theory that implies incoherence, fundamental chance and that
evil may have the last word. Further realize that all societies and cultures
tolerate(d) much suffering, injustice and chutzpah; start from the idea that
nothing less than “at least unconscious bad faith” can be at the background of
these (rather than their coming from coincidence), such as that of
Machiavelli’s self-seeking rulers. Therefore, let your explanations reflect
that evil is very prominent in history and loathe it in your own society too. Within this scope, realize that new insights will fail in emerging
because of interest-fed habits of thought, taboos and the mental climate rather
than by lack of intelligence.
9. Since about Horkheimer and Adorno’s The
Dialectics of the Enlightenment (German original
1949) the Left became roughly reactionary. Particularly, it sided with much
that fails or is rearguard, morally or genetically: unenlightened cultures, the
lowly educated, problem youths, unruly students, many “disadvantaged” whose
problems stem from their rejecting “bourgeois values”, anti-socials who
purportedly need “help” rather than discipline, and criminals who are allowed
ever more “rights”. The very idea of progress became ambiguous with the “Left”.
Its “modernism” largely reduced to some association with the spirit of the
1960s.
10. Probably the two single most important sources of opposition to my work
are:
a) My rationalism and emphasis on coherence leave little room for the RU
implication of troubled waters: verbiage in philosophy, the “politically
correct” disguise of bad faith or inferiority, subjectivism and the
“poly-interpretable”; also, the power elites prefer defining themselves rather than reason what is true, good or evil.
b)
I evidently am a spoilsport in the solidarity game in which accepting other
participants (social actors) as they are is essential, irrespective of whether
we consider the “game” of religion, tradition, political correctness,
nationalism or other-directedness.
11. Moral relativism apparently does not consider it to be objective evil if an
innocent is tortured to death. For the record!
12. A revealing light is thrown on the degree of awakening of theWestern public
by the circumstance that houses in the Netherlands cost about twice as much as
comparable ones in Germany without a massive outcry and special meetings of
Dutch parliament resulted. Problems continue to be cloaked by bureaucratic
complication and ideology (“the environment”).
13. Some reject the idea of massive (“conspiratorial”) unconscious hidden
motives playing a part in modern society. They are proved to be wrong by the
mere fact that many who do not like progress go to extremes as to wishful
thinking: in misleading themselves and others by denying that Western man
became happier in the past ages. This in spite of results by Ruut Veenhoven (Conditions
of happiness, doctoral thesis, Rotterdam, 1984) and others that people in
developing countries will be much less happy than those in the modern world.
14. We see two separately coherent complexes that constitute an antithesis. On
the one side there is the evolutionary stage of the law of the jungle and on
the other that of rational cooperation, optimising total happiness and the
Sermon on the Mount.
a) The second complex contains happiness (including lust), beauty, the
elevated, coherence, transparency and (therefore) reason and progress.
(Particularly note that beauty is a kind of bridge between lust and the
elevated.)
b) In the first complex figure aggression, the “Machiavellian aspects of
society” (manipulation, ideology,…), “the dark sides of our psyche”, and
individuals basically experiencing each other as a danger.
Hardly
anything except nazism still openly opts for the jungle mode. Therefore, the
latter’s only opportunity is in disguise, obscurity, troubled waters and
inconsistent association. Some specimens: the RU paradigm, associating sex with
“the dark side” rather than beauty, and relating happiness to chance or the
irrational (“romanticism”). In particular, ideology and manipulation need incoherence,
uncertainty or fuzziness, partly because they need anxiety.
15. Joining with 14., we should substitute our striving after power over others
by striving after power over nature, evil, and chance. By emphasizing
incoherence, we also frustrate our intelligence; by not standing tall for
objective values, we betray the dear and precious.
16. It is revealing as to its true value system that our establishment did not
distance itself from the mentality of hazing freshmen, floods of beer,
aggressive behaviour, career-helping friends and conformism that so much
characterized or characterizes most student unions. In later life, the
aggressive career- and money-directed basic attitude is very often hidden
behind the all-affirming satisfied broad smile of Norman Vincent Peale (The
Power of Positive Thinking; reissue 1996) and
Riesman’s other-directed personality.
17. The mother of all appeasement; from a letter (about
1965) of K.L. Poll, the then “cultural pope” of the Netherlands, in a kindly
negative letter in which he refused an article by this author:
“You would rather like to force the lying politicians to speak the
truth”.
Far
more generally, Western society became a society of appeasers.
18. There can hardly be found a more revealing specimen of the moral state of
our establishment than the frequent refusal by authorities to deport
trouble-causing immigrants, not even to safe homelands of which they have a passport.
Pressure groups such as the “disadvantaged bureaucracy” have more influence
than the well-being of potential victims.
19. It illustrates the influence of current core ideologies (RU, religion of
Man) that most anti-establishment-minded groups are even worse than the powers
that be: either radically egalitarian or rightist (think of anti-globalists,
squatters, “non-enlightened cultures are of an equal value”, fundamentalists,
anti-Americanists, about all “activists”,…).
20. Besides radically reducing poverty, one more major gift of technology to
mankind is its lessening personal dependence of one individual on the other.
Also for this reason ideologists (“solidarists”, conformists) will not like it.
21. Current (hyper-competitive) sports ambiance is little more than a senseless
glorification of one’s ego, team or country.
22. The core message from society to anti-socials, addicted, problem youths and
the unskilled should be: “The only way you can demonstrate not to be
genetically and/or morally inferior is cooperating with social help instances
in order to radically cure your current behaviour”.
23. There is a psychological and (therefore) also an ideological affinity of:
a) the striking habit of politicians, mainstream social thinkers and most philosophers
to evade (or to screen by taboo) the very cores of many vital problems (two
specimens: the scarcity of sexually attractive people and genetic causes of
crime); b) the massive cult of the here and now, the incidental and
superficiality; c) the aversion (in intellectual circles) from putting cats
among the pigeons, “abdominal sentiments” and the “sentimental” more generally.
24. John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice (1971), posited that in
the best of all societies policy should give priority to benefiting the
socially weakest category of people. He did not philosophically make plausible
this, but nevertheless devoted an entire book to such simple thesis. At the
same time, his idea co-defined the socio-philosophical agenda for decades… You
need a demonstration of the state of social science?
25. How could you stimulate lavish consumption better than by saying that life
has no meaning? And how can the world have meaning without coherence, objective
moral values and progress? Also from this point of view one may ask: “Is
current `RU climate’ purely a coincidence?”
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