Originally posted by wolfgang59
Lets make that assumption.
[b]Thought experiment.
All science is wrong.
The whole lot.
Not even close ...
Science cannot explain even the simplest phenomenon.
Don't know where the universe came from, nor the sun, nor the earth.
Don't know how animals got here.
No idea what those big fossilised skeletons are all about ....
How does any of ...[text shortened]... nd ...
......... as if it somehow 'proves' their religion.
I really don't get it!!!!!!!!!!![/b]
You could take it further: as a thought experiment, suppose that all our explanations (philosophical/metaphysical and religious, for example, as well as science) are ultimately wrong. Suppose that the syntactical structure of our consciousness is ultimately inadequate to accurately decipher the grammar of the cosmos.
Now you’re getting close to Zen. Not that Zen makes such an assertion, but that Zen consciously allows for it.
“How do you explain that cypress tree in the clearing?”
“That’s not a cypress tree.”
“How do you explain
that, then?”
“Look! A cedar tree in the clearing!”
“And how do you explain the cedar tree in the clearing?”
“Is it not enough?”
[That is a
koan. Pretty bare bones, but does anyone think it is about botany?]
___________________________________________
Here is the universe, such as it is, including us—in and
of that suchness (
tathata). Our wondering and seeking and inquiring—that too. No one has a view from “nowhere”, from which to objectively and definitively know “the whole truth”. The integrity of science is that it knows that: a thousand observations cannot unquestionably verify a theory; one observation can falsify it (the black swan effect)—and apparently how we make our observations may not be without effect.
And so there is a temptation, in the delusive desire for absolute certainty, to create a system that is not subject to falsification—which means, is not subject to testing at all. If such a system is internally consistent (logically non-contradictory), then it can be even more seductively attractive. Such systems provide psychological advantage to “the faithful”: (1) They proffer definite answers, (2) they are internally consistent, and (3) they are not testable/falsifiable—and so invite dogmatic belief. They seduce certainty.
Zen looks at the world as it is—and as science is able to tell us it likely is—and asks: “Is it not enough?” And if the world turns out to be different than we thought it was, Zen will look at
that and ask: “Is it not enough?” Is reality not enough? Silly question. Suppose all of the appearances of reality that we hold are wrong—but we never know it: is the appearance not then reality for us? How can all that there is, however it is, be less than enough? And that “however it is” includes our perception and consciousness, just as it is, however limited it is—and has for as long as we’ve been here. It is that
existential recursiveness that is so often forgotten in our claims to objective knowledge. And that is a point of focus of Zen.
I am old enough to have suffered some in this world (more than some, not as much as many more). Here I sit, this day, now—it is what it is, however it is. Is it not enough? If not, and this
is what
is—what then? Should I make something up?
I look at the clock. It is midnight.
“So, you have sat up till midnight nipping the vodka and writing about Zen! How do you account for your behavior?”
What, is it not enough?
Science knows nothing
22 Nov '13 02:42
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