Knowing from the Inside - part 1

There is a basic core belief that lies behind our modern scientific worldview, which is that through analytic and rational thought we can objectively know something. The success of science and technology points to the apparently self-evident truth of this statement. We live our lives by it. We live in a world of “facts” produced by science. This would not be such a terribly bad thing were it not for a generally unspoken further assumption that has seeped into our modern worldview: the scientific approach is the only one that can lead to objective truth. Other ways of knowing are labeled as “subjective,” which has become just another word for delusion.

Thus we find ourselves in an odd place. All of us live within our subjective experience – it’s really all we know. When we see a color, say red, there’s no way to know whether someone else’s experience of it is the same as ours. Our experience is internal – it’s the only kind of experience there is. And yet, this subjective world we live in is not really real according to science. Truth lies in the material, hard, objective reality it reveals. Brain scans, which measure the external reality of our minds in terms of the brain’s electrical impulses and blood flow, are the truth about our thinking, feeling and perceiving selves. There really aren’t any invisible insides to people and things, just outsides visible to our instruments and senses.

To me this feels a lot like crawling out on a tree branch and then turning around and sawing it off. The only kind of experience we can have is subjective, and yet we say that’s not real or true. So what’s left to trust? It makes me wonder whether this scientific worldview is really true. Well, what if it isn’t? What if it’s completely mistaken? I guess the first question that would arise for me would be, “what are the alternatives?”

One way to explore that would be to take all of the characteristics of the rational scientific way of knowing the world – it’s assumptions and characteristics – and simply choose their opposites. We could create an imaginary world that works completely differently (apparently) than the one we live in. What would that world be like? I’d like to take that journey down the rabbit hole in my next blog entry…..