Wednesday, July 13, 2022
7:40 a.m. Starting to feel better. So, guys, how about a session, a public session I mean.
As a way of avoiding work?
I don’t think so. I think, actually, that I’ll stay in better health, talking with you on a regular basis, than letting it go. Looking back, we haven’t had a full session since Friday, and here we are at Wednesday. Our work on the novel is satisfying, but even those sessions weren’t more than a few pages at a time.
And here, you see, is how superstitions begin, and science. Let’s talk about causality.
Interesting. I could feel your sudden quickening of interest, like watching a cat or a dog suddenly perk up, their attention caught by something. I wouldn’t have expected that. I usually assume enthusiasm or quickening of interest comes from our end of the phone line.
If you ever do write your precis of our communication tips, you’ll be surprised at how your understanding of the process matured with experience and contemplation. A lot of mistaken preconceptions arise from the idea that it is us and you, rather than us and us, or you and you, however you prefer to think of it. Why should “we” be different from “you,” except insofar as that we are functioning on different turf, and so see and experience different mixtures of things than you do?
You said that at least as long ago as 2000 or so, when I was doing my final work on Muddy Tracks.
And you are still absorbing nuances of the statement. This is not meant to chastise you, BTW, but merely to point out again that one penetrates more and more deeply into any concept or experience, if one continues to look at it as one changes over time. It presents different facets, as you revolve it.
So, causality.
We should better say, superstition and science, for both are founded in the assumption that this leads to that. The difference between superstition and science is actually vanishingly small. One could almost say that the idea of science is itself a superstition, or, equally, that superstition is rooted in scientific principles.
Now that you have alienated all but the Liberal Arts majors –
We’re smiling too. Since you bring it up, indirectly, we might as well say that belief in – What shall we call it? Anti-science? Non-causality? – whatever we call it, belief that either superstition or science is the wrong road is in itself also an error. But – as so often – we need to go about this a little slower, a little more carefully.
So I need to set my switches, etc. Okay.
Does X lead to Y? If so, why? If not, why is Y so often seen following in the wake of X? That’s the crux of the discussion.
Science relies a lot upon mathematics to buttress and codify its observations. Superstition can’t do that, or anyway if it can (I don’t know how), it doesn’t.
Yes, but that is not the crucial difference – and connection – between superstition and science.
I hear that: It is assumptions about what matters (what’s real) and what doesn’t matter, or is not real.
And if you look carefully, you sill see that just as in your novel the wearers of the white hats and of black hats do not come neatly sorted out, but interpenetrate, so you will find scientifically-minded shamans, and scientists acting out of prejudice rather than data.
“Shamans” wasn’t the right word, but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow.
Yes, and good that you let us finish. The reason you couldn’t find – nor could we supply – the right noun is that it hardly exists. Neither magician nor shaman nor sorcerer nor any such word adequately represents someone using his or her powers of observation to draw conclusions, yet that is what we need to show.
Do I need to refocus, or is it the inherent difficulty of phrasing this thought that is the problem.
Bullets, then:
- Science gathers data, infers relationships, poses falsification experiments, and adjusts its tentative conclusions accordingly. Ideally, an endless process.
- Superstition makes no attempt to measure or weigh or test; it intuits, you might say – or, less charitably, it guesses – then sticks to whatever guess seems to prove out.
- But scientists as individuals are limited invisibly by their assumptions about reality. (As is “science” as received by the scientific mainstream.) A materialist science cannot, will not, take into account things it can’t even tentatively find reason to take seriously. Hence, scientists, and science as a whole, are apt to become superstitious about certain things.
- Similarly, the superstitious, not having systematic ways to falsify their conclusions, are apt to get stuck with someone’s past conclusions even if reality has changed.
You are saying, it seems to me, that one difference between science and superstition is in what each takes seriously.
Scientists don’t believe that black cats bring bad luck, nor that walking under ladders, however imprudent, will bring bad luck. But they equally may believe that reality ends at the boundary of the 3D, that the present moment is the only moment that exists; that “this life is all we have,” etc. Regardless of whether these beliefs are true or false, the way they are believed will determine whether the holder of those beliefs is doing so in a scientific or a superstitious manner.
Similarly, some things that are believed superstitiously are so, even if not understood. Again, the distinction is not in whether a given belief is true or false, but in how it is believed.
How did what I said originally lead us to this?
You were tentatively – actually, unconsciously – beginning to assume that your health may depend upon regular communication with us.
Clearly, an inverse relationship!
Very funny. But, you see, our point is, regardless of the truth or falsity of the specific conclusion, the way you come to it (almost behind your own back) sheds light on both the scientific mind-set and the superstitious mind-set. And this is why it is so – as we have often said – that a new era’s thinking will retain some things that had been thought of as superstition, now seeing the truth in them.
Like the guy (Tip O’Neill?) who said that in politics there are no final victories, we’d have to say that in the search for truth there are no final certainties.
That does not mean that reality is whatever you want it to be, but it does mean, truth has so many facets, you can only see X number at a time, and the more firmly you hold to one, the more firmly you shut out others, equally valid. This is one reason among many why civilizations don’t last forever. Just as with individuals, death is the opportunity to change windows.
Thanks for all this. Till next time, then.