Friday, November 04, 2005
Myth Versus Science
Karen Armstrong, author of 'The Battle for God', and perhaps our most popular modern day theologian, puts forward an interesting argument concerning myth and logic. Myth, Ms. Armstrong states, governs the realm of yesterday and all of history, while logic governs the realm of tomorrow and the future.
Auguste Comte, the social scientist who first coined the term 'sociology', had a theory that was not so distant from Armstrong's. He argued that knowledge passes through three stages: the theological phase, whereby experience is explained by animism and 'gods', next the metaphysical stage, when knowledge is understood on abstract philosophical grounds, and lastly the scientific view, which positively defines knowledge through experimentation and the complete scientific method of observation.
Contrasting Armstrong's theory that the future is the domain of logic, with Comte's last stage of knowledge being scientific, one may view the times ahead as embodying a sterile, cold world of experiences with no hope for divine intervention. And certainly there is plenty of science fiction that depicts such a world.
But oh, what a glorious past!
The past is what we always have the most of as there is always more consciously behind us then there is consciously ahead of us! I interject here that Kierkegaard wisely stated that we live forward, but learn backward.
And since we have so much of the past, my mind turns to myth and what role it plays. I used to hear people talk about the Bible as being full of myths, and would become quite offended by their ideas. But now I understand that the Bible is mythical in the sense it is not scientifically valid in many cases. And certainly when one reads of miracles and the suspension of all physical laws that seemingly govern the Biblical universe, like it or not, the mind has shifted into the realm of myth.
Quickly here I might add that what I did yesterday is also in the realm of myth, as it is not thought of in scientifc terms. It would be absurd to attempt to explain my morning with the family and my day at the store in terms of 'length', 'mass', 'charge', and 'time'. 'Honey, I exerted fourteen newtons of force while I was at work yesterday'. The languages do not match up. It becomes absurd to speak of the realm of myth in scientific language.
But both languages are true, in the sense they describe the same experience, but in different ways.
I think of my son. I think of my wife. I think of even my pet beagle dog. Not in terms of how much mass they carry, or in how much atmospheric pressure they displace, but in terms of how much I love and care for them. The love and care is is what takes precedence over the pure existential facts.
In other words, I have shifted my thinking from the cold existential facts to the warm significance of my family circle.
And this is what it boiled down to for William James, who noted that science can explain the existential facts, but it cannot provide significance for the experiencer.
Measure man. Measure Earth. Measure moon. Measure the solar planets. Determine the sun's vanishing point. It's true, the numbers simply will not go away.
But explain the wonder of looking into a night sky and pondering the essential unlimitedness of the universe. Explain to me the beauty of the spiraling sunflower and the spiraling galaxy.
This Mythical Truth, this Mythical Beauty, this Mythical Significance cannot be explained adequately in scientific terms, so there always will need to be those religious, those poetic, those dreamers among us to step in where the scientist simply cannot.
Twenty thousand years from now, on planets who knows where, Myth will not have died, nor it's personages with it.
On my part, very thankfully so!
Karen Armstrong, author of 'The Battle for God', and perhaps our most popular modern day theologian, puts forward an interesting argument concerning myth and logic. Myth, Ms. Armstrong states, governs the realm of yesterday and all of history, while logic governs the realm of tomorrow and the future.
Auguste Comte, the social scientist who first coined the term 'sociology', had a theory that was not so distant from Armstrong's. He argued that knowledge passes through three stages: the theological phase, whereby experience is explained by animism and 'gods', next the metaphysical stage, when knowledge is understood on abstract philosophical grounds, and lastly the scientific view, which positively defines knowledge through experimentation and the complete scientific method of observation.
Contrasting Armstrong's theory that the future is the domain of logic, with Comte's last stage of knowledge being scientific, one may view the times ahead as embodying a sterile, cold world of experiences with no hope for divine intervention. And certainly there is plenty of science fiction that depicts such a world.
But oh, what a glorious past!
The past is what we always have the most of as there is always more consciously behind us then there is consciously ahead of us! I interject here that Kierkegaard wisely stated that we live forward, but learn backward.
And since we have so much of the past, my mind turns to myth and what role it plays. I used to hear people talk about the Bible as being full of myths, and would become quite offended by their ideas. But now I understand that the Bible is mythical in the sense it is not scientifically valid in many cases. And certainly when one reads of miracles and the suspension of all physical laws that seemingly govern the Biblical universe, like it or not, the mind has shifted into the realm of myth.
Quickly here I might add that what I did yesterday is also in the realm of myth, as it is not thought of in scientifc terms. It would be absurd to attempt to explain my morning with the family and my day at the store in terms of 'length', 'mass', 'charge', and 'time'. 'Honey, I exerted fourteen newtons of force while I was at work yesterday'. The languages do not match up. It becomes absurd to speak of the realm of myth in scientific language.
But both languages are true, in the sense they describe the same experience, but in different ways.
I think of my son. I think of my wife. I think of even my pet beagle dog. Not in terms of how much mass they carry, or in how much atmospheric pressure they displace, but in terms of how much I love and care for them. The love and care is is what takes precedence over the pure existential facts.
In other words, I have shifted my thinking from the cold existential facts to the warm significance of my family circle.
And this is what it boiled down to for William James, who noted that science can explain the existential facts, but it cannot provide significance for the experiencer.
Measure man. Measure Earth. Measure moon. Measure the solar planets. Determine the sun's vanishing point. It's true, the numbers simply will not go away.
But explain the wonder of looking into a night sky and pondering the essential unlimitedness of the universe. Explain to me the beauty of the spiraling sunflower and the spiraling galaxy.
This Mythical Truth, this Mythical Beauty, this Mythical Significance cannot be explained adequately in scientific terms, so there always will need to be those religious, those poetic, those dreamers among us to step in where the scientist simply cannot.
Twenty thousand years from now, on planets who knows where, Myth will not have died, nor it's personages with it.
On my part, very thankfully so!
