The Wild Mind – Part XV
Scientology 1.0.0 – chapter 22
“The diversity of the phenomena of nature is so great, and the treasures hidden in the heavens so rich, precisely in order that the human mind shall never be lacking in fresh nourishment.” — Johannes Kepler
Awe led to curiosity, curiosity led to exploration, and exploration led to everything else. Science is the last rung on the “ladder” described in The Wild Mind, Part I.
Technology and systems
Helping man’s survival has usually been the result of the ever-increasing number of technologies devised over the past millennia.
To build these technologies, a lot of discoveries were made, among them the nature and mechanics of energy, namely radiant energy, or electromagnetic radiation.
Shortly, I will prove I don’t know a heck of a lot about energy (or any actual science for that matter), but I will hopefully make the point that without man’s knowing something about it—radiant energy, that is—you might not get any kind of workable and often effective technologies of the mind and, weirdly enough, spirit.
It’s not just art, religion, etc., plus tools and technology that’ve been required all these millennia to build an advanced and enduring civilisation; what’s also been needed are effective methods that resolve man’s troubled mind and spirit. Strong and binding spiritual technologies, such as religion, and technologies of mind, such as philosophy, have kept man alive despite their continuing misuse, as well as the misuse of other stuff. But our material technologies have possibly advanced beyond our sagacity and are being weaponised almost too easily to make us all slaves of the few. What’s vital now is an additional and truly workable advanced technology of mind and spirit to get mankind wise enough to properly use them.
I’ll also be arguing that until we put into use a workable and effective technology of mind and spirit, the levels of consciousness necessary to evolve science much beyond the materiality of “natural science,” so-called “hard science,” won’t come into view. I’m referring to subjects such as psychology and sociology (the loosely termed “soft sciences”), which, beyond certain of their measurements and descriptions of phenomena, useful as they may be, are dubious at best. Right now, anyway.
The systems we have used, such as binding rituals, laws, currencies and markets, to build our civilisations, discovered and implemented by our best minds, have really worked well despite the fact that so many of us are totally nuts, but now we are in the process of dismantling them without understanding how and why they worked the way they have. Safeguarding these systems that have allowed us to advance so far despite all our perpetual craziness and the armies of bad actors we are so willing to enable, such as with our ridiculous “elections,” is the whole point of the soft sciences as well as Scientology 1.0.0.
I will also argue that a full apprehension of a workable technology of mind and spirit will not just make it easier to maintain good systems, upon which we are so very dependent despite our fallibility, but will be vital in raising consciousness to the levels necessary to discover and develop technologies beyond our wildest hopes and dreams.
There’s going to be a lot of obvious stuff here, things that most people already know, but I ask for patience again as I lay things out in my usual way in order to support one or two ideas that may not be as plain.
Discovery and invention
The dance between discovery and invention continues apace, as it always has.
One of the greatest tools yet developed in this game is the scientific method.
Science is defined as the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural worlds through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained. I’d add to the definition the point of science: …resulting in improved survival by means of advanced technologies. From Old French, from Latin scientia “knowledge,” from scīre “to know.”
The scientific method is a method of procedure that has characterised natural science since the 17th century, consisting of systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, as well as the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.
Sumerian scientists, Enki and Ninhursag, in their laboratory
Of course, science, rather than the method, has been around since the beginning; basically, it’s as old as art, religion, and all the rest of it because of man’s innate curiosity and inherent urge to understand life. I’d guess this is because of “pattern recognition.”
Patterns
Pattern recognition is basically a cognitive process that matches information from a stimulus (a thing that arouses activity or energy in someone or something) with information retrieved from memory. Example: every time you put heat to water long enough it boils. Science! This is observation and experimentation. The only bit that might be missing here is theorising.
I’d guess we were all scientists from the day we were born. That’s what tiny babies are probably doing when they move. Certainly, maybe in the beginning they’re just, well, moving, but sooner than later they’ll start noticing patterns, possibly long before many of us realise, maybe while still in the womb; certainly, the prenatal human being is capable of recording complex stimuli, probably from conception, as is postulated in Dianetics, but at some point there is a part of this nascent consciousness that begins to “watch” these patterns. I don’t know when this might start; nobody does, not scientifically anyway (hence the debate about foetal “brain activity” vis-à-vis abortion).
I’ve read that when a little kid comes to you with a drawing (this is when they first start drawing), don’t say, “Gosh, that’s beautiful, sweetheart!” or “Is that a horse, honey?” Describe back to them what they drew: “Wow, that is a lot of purple!” or “Hello, what’s this? It looks like a blue scribble and a yellow thing!” What they are looking for is pattern confirmation, as in, “Do you see what I see?” That’s mostly what’s happening for the first couple of years or so. Are the patterns they’re experiencing verifiable? When the baby drops a bowl, does the mother respond the same way and at the same time? They’re establishing baselines, the starting point for all experiments.
So, to begin to do any science, you need to see the patterns built into natural law. Same all through art, magic, religion, everything that I’ve been talking about. The patterns are there, although they shift and change, so what’s making them and how and why they shift the way they do is the purpose of scientific exploration and discovery.
The Greeks started the process of observing these patterns scientifically, and eventually they developed a practise of thought that would eventually begin to pull many of the pieces together, known as Western philosophy.
The “West”
Western culture is what happens when you take into account the root of the word “civilisation” which is “citizen,” as began to happen in Greece. (Citizen, by the way, means an inhabitant of a particular town or city; this is the root of the idea behind the 17th-century social theory favouring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.) How and why this happened in Greece is one of the mysteries of human history, as well as one of the its miracles because it didn’t happen anywhere else. But it wouldn’t really stick until much later.
In Greece, certain individuals (citizens) started to theorise that there were immutable characteristics that made up reality (unchanging patterns and therefore predictable patterns) and so started paying more attention to the “objective” world.
Once more, the objective world is that aspect of reality that appears to exist whether you do or don’t—exist, I mean—and that many other people generally report on in a consistent manner. As previously described, this process of continuous observation, theorising, experimentation, reporting, discussion, and review is “science” or, more specifically, the “scientific method,” which I’ll describe shortly.
The West is, modernly, Europe and, by extension, North America and the Antipodes. But originally it was Europe, especially after the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the so-called Dark Ages, beginning in the 14th century.
The rapid development of various technologies in this region of the world has been a topic of extensive discussion. Two of the most stupid (and cataclysmic) were the race theory (German National Socialism) and the economic power theories of the Russian socialists (communists). Another couple of distasteful propositions are social Darwinism, which is the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals, and environmental determinism, which is the theory that a person’s environment is the sole force that shapes who they are. These last two ideas are distasteful because they rob humans of their agency.
Environmental determinism, which is the theory that a person’s environment shapes who they are, is part of the “nature versus nurture” debate. The “nature” argument is based on the tabula rasa (blank slate) model of man, which is so popular among collectivists and socialists. Conservatives favour the “nurture” argument, a less dimwitted view that still falls tragically short. The fact is, it’s a bit of both, as well as a lot more.
The actual answer is going to be a more complex mixture of things (read Dianetics), as well as Europe’s large number of different cultures, many of which were created by stubborn individualists who made up the multitude of the so-called “barbarian” tribes.” Also, its unique geographic and meteorological qualities play a role.
Europe is small and its people diverse, so the sheer density of so many competing, extraordinarily virulent, and differing cultures eventually created a highly competitive network after the fall of colossal Rome. Christianity spread and flourished through these cultures, complementing and civilising their individualistic natures. It is theorised that this vast number of vigorous and stridently competing cultures living cheek by jowl in such a small area helped prevent the giant, overly conservative, oppressive, and slow-progressing monolithic cultures that existed in such places as, say, China.
Physically, everything in Europe is perfect for human flourishing, especially after Meltwater Pulse 1B. That’s the name used for a period of either rapid or accelerated post-glacial sea level rise that some geologists hypothesise to have occurred around 11,600 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene and after the end of the Younger Dryas period, which is also possibly the flood reported in the Bible, as well as in hundreds of myths from almost every part of the planet).
With its more or less temperate climate and collection of useful plants like high-carbohydrate vegetation that endures storage, Europe, a relatively small continent, became a melting pot for all the vital cultural influences from the Fertile Crescent, the Levant, North Africa, and Asia. The climate often afforded longer growing seasons than some other parts of the world but was also dry enough to facilitate grain storage, which helped to alleviate hunger and make it possible for its people to focus more attention on other matters.
The concept of a melting pot, a place where diverse peoples, styles, theories, and other elements blend together, was identified by Enlightenment thinkers as a crucial element for progress, and some few of the U.S. founding fathers managed to integrate it into the American experiment. It eventually proved that ending discrimination results in rapidly increasing wealth in all aspects of life, in that the more people contributing to building and evolving civilisation, the better for all. This is a completely different concept from “multiculturalism,” a term that actually implies favouring certain cultures over others; in other words, discrimination, which divides people and sets them at each other’s throats. We live in slippery, tricky times. (Nowadays, one has to watch the use of language like a hawk.)
Back to environmental forces. For instance, it is possibly no coincidence that with the end of the Little Ice Age (talk about “climate change”), lasting from around 1300 A.D. to 1850, there was a boom in technological innovation with the Second Industrial Revolution twenty years later, ca. 1870. Warmer weather means more food and more activity. The Second Industrial Revolution, though, is the one that gets us harnessing electricity in extremely practical ways, such as its use in a workable technology of mind and spirit, which I will get to eventually (stay with me!).
But the key, I believe, was and is always culture; it was Greek philosophy, then the wild freedom of the barbarians, and then Christianity that really cracked the civilisation code possibly once and for all.
The influence of Greek philosophy is obvious, as is the variety of competing peoples that prevented the reemergence of one single and cumbersome monolithic empire, such as Rome was before it toppled over (or, actually, crumbled).
Christianity’s influence, though, is perhaps not so obvious to many people who are not Christians; I go into this in The Wild Mind, Parts IV–VI. But if anyone can make an argument that proves the West could have developed technology so spectacularly without the individualistic yet cooperative tenets of Christianity, I’d like to hear it. Besides, without Christianity, we would still be worshipping the gods of force, as the ancient Romans fiercely did (and too many of us still do), and with that amount of conquest and violence taking up so much attention, who’s got time for science? Along with Greek philosophy, Christianity is one of the true miracles of human development.
So. As the pressures of immediate survival ease, people can consider more and more other possible and alternative ways of getting things done by means of extensive experimentation, something they do not usually bother with when basic survival is all-consuming. Europe being so temperate, teeming with game and easily domesticated flora and fauna, riddled with rivers (which facilitated commerce), and almost all of its coastlines accessible from the sea (which facilitated even more commerce) made considering other ways of doing things, both in terms of social organisation and technology, possibly somewhat easier than elsewhere. This is a big debate, of course, but culture and environment configurations have got to be factors in how things develop, not idiocies such as positing that melanin has anything to do with mentation.
And, the whole Operation Europe would get a second wind with the discovery of the New World in the late 15th century and the creation of the United States in the 18th. Lather, rinse, and repeat, as they say.
Some believe the West is in decline at present and that the monolithic governments of Russia and China are waiting in the wings. I say, phooey. The West is massively creative and funny (usually) despite their governments, so even if it’s in trouble right now, there’s no reason for it not to bounce back even better.
Basically, beginning around 2,700 years ago, certain individuals began to pay attention to objective reality in a different way than they had previously. Then came Christianity, which would begin to connect the individual citizen to the infinite in a uniform way, helping a vast number of competing peoples, who prized independence and individualism, to be more cooperative and less violent (a historical fact despite the 20th century’s bloodbaths). Along with favourable topography and climate, all this helped pave the way for the Enlightenment.
The Method
With the Enlightenment, you get an emphasis on reality and reason that never existed before. This weight and attention to logic gave us the scientific method, which eventually spread all over the world. I suppose this is why everyone dresses like Americans now (possibly the most practical yet boring couture ever devised), but what’re you going to do?
Wikipedia, although sadly having fallen prey to ideology and political correctness, lays it out pretty well: “The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries). It involves careful observation and applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive structures can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based statistical testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings.”
How the scientific method was discovered and the whole history of science itself are fascinating subjects. For instance, most of the early scientists weren’t Einsteins at the chalkboard but were mostly tinkerers covered in soot and grease who collaborated heavily with the vast array of craftsmen and artisans at hand when they weren’t such themselves. Basically, though, as I have been banging on and on about, you can’t arrive at the method at all without all the previous steps I’ve been describing (awe, art, early religion, magic, myth, mysticism, psychology, religion, philosophy, alchemy, and occultism), even though science is being taught today as if it came about despite these other subjects rather than because of them.
Faith anyway
Faith is thought by many to be the belief in something that doesn’t exist, such as the naïve suspension of disbelief in a Marvel comics-like being up in the sky, or something like that. But what if faith is something entirely different? Some very “scientific-minded” souls will object to this, but here goes:
There have to be metaphysical presumptions for there to be any science in the first place.
First, one has to assume that there is, in fact, an objective reality. It seems that this paradigm is and always has been a given, but it wasn’t; this was in fact a huge leap from its first tentative apprehension to its affirmation 2,237 years or so later (Thales of Miletus in 600 B.C. to 1637, when René Descartes’ Discourse on the Method is published; these dates and events are debatable, of course, but they don’t change the concept).
Second, there must be a belief in objective reality as having a comprehensible logic: patterns and their repetition not just locally but elsewhere under similar circumstances (water boils at exactly the same speeds at different altitudes no matter where in the world). Again, our modern take may argue that this is something easily worked out by using logic, but these patterns would never have been investigated in the way they are today without first believing that there was this way of thinking about them (theory).
Third, discerning the more or less fixed principles therein is a moral good, as they are workable for purposes of improved survival.
Fourth, a firm assumption that there is truth to be discovered in the logic of the objective that not only assists in the survival of the thing being investigated but that the survival of human beings is the priority. This assumption should lead full circle back to an increasingly successful and edifying existence, and it has.
After one has made these assumptions, there is the process, the method: the observation of patterns, the formulation of a hypothesis about these patterns and what they mean, and then experimentation.
Today, the scientific method is taught as if it were a given, as if it always made sense to see and do things this way. This doesn’t alter the underlying metaphysics, however.
As for faith, faith is the same thing as courage, really, and is a vital ingredient in life; it means “trust,” and trust means “confidence,” and confidence helps support the courage necessary to move forward undaunted. Scientists make claims about the veracity of their theories, but far more frequently than is commonly believed, they are wrong. It’s experimentation that proves it: for every strand of spaghetti (theory) flung at the wall (experiment), only a tiny fraction sticks. The chalkboard and the model are only the beginning of the method.
Experimentation is exhausting, hard work that more often than not results in failure and requires great faith to persist in it. The payoffs, however, are priceless.
Creative thought and morality
Science and technology are amoral, but what drives science isn’t. What drives science is creativity, and creativity is moral because, despite some truly evil inventions such as “gain of function” viruses, it equals better survival most of the time.
Artists, entrepreneurs, and inventors all have one quality in common: they’re evolutionary radicals. Everything good in history has developed from the “fringe.” Get rid of art, religion, and every radical idea we’ve ever had, and poof! No history at all. They bring the creative change on which all survival depends. It’s a dynamic universe that is in constant flux, and to remain static is to become extinct, pure and simple.
Here’s a rough analogy: Biologists know that at the genetic level, most organisms replicate themselves with astonishing uniformity. However, there’s this fact: peripheral parts of the base-line genetic code can mutate, and either it kills off the organism or, more usually, the organism kills it, or… or it ensures its survival by being better suited to the constantly changing conditions of living. This phenomenon might be all too often thought of as a glitch.
An aside here: much of the body and its operations are unknown, so killing everything that goes “wrong” with it might actually be killing what might be trying to go right. Possibly, many of these anomalies are features and are better treated with correct management rather than always requiring a “cure” (read, “kill”—those who worship the gods of force love to kill every problem). Perhaps this is especially the case for viruses. Just a thought.
Anyway, the creative individual accomplishes the same function for societies as a whole, namely, they accomplish the survival of the group, or society, by introducing pro-survival novelty into the system.
It’s true that, often, this individual expression in the group doesn’t make much of a difference, or if it does, the group may suppress it. But when the individual isn’t trying to kill off the group and if the individual is creative enough and manages to express himself despite the group’s resistance, the ultimate payoff will be the improved survival of the group, society, and possibly even the whole planet.
Most of the time, no one sets out to invent something with the sole purpose of ending survival, even when they are working for tyrannical governments or other stupid entities; inventors, like artists, are creative, usually anyway, and creation is fundamentally moral because Creation is, well, fundamental.
Morality isn’t only about being good as opposed to being evil; it’s about survival.
Survival is achieved through workable systems and behaviours. The more workable the systems and behaviours, the more survival is achieved.
What is “moral”? Survival, by golly.
Arthur Ronald Conway Hubbard 