To understand the occult conception of science, one must first establish a working definition for traditional science. The word “science” is derived from the Latin word scientia, which means “knowing” or “knowledge.” Thus, there is an epistemological dimension to science. After all, epistemology is etymologically derived from the Greek word episteme, which also means “knowing” or “knowledge.” In recent years, science has been couched in the epistemology of radical empiricism, the theory that all knowledge is derived from the senses. Within such epistemologically rigid parameters, the gaze of contemporary science has been firmly fixed upon the ontological confines of the physical universe. Whether the modern scientist realizes it or cares to admit it, radical empiricism is the epistemological nucleus of the occult conception of science.
Phillip D. Collins (The Faustian Face of Modern Science: Understanding the Epistemological Foundations of Scientific Totalitarianism, June 11th, 2009)
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One of the consequences of the empirical tradition inaugurated by the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century is a rejection of anything associated with the so-called 'supernatural'. While the possibility of the existence of disembodied entities is ridiculed in Western academia and considered contrary to science and empiricism, belief in such entities throughout history has been nearly universal.
They have gone under many names and interpretations throughout the centuries, including ghosts, goblins, demons, leprechauns, elves, fairies, and in Islam they are known as 'Jinn', popularized in the English language as 'genies'. Most recently, they have also been referred to as extra-terrestrials.
David Livingstone (Orbo Ab Chao: The Dying-God, Chapter 1: Babylon: The Dying God, pg. 2, 2021)
Each of Us is A Unique Tradition Continually in The Process of Creation
“If the mind is flat then our mental lives must exist purely at the ‘mental surface.’ Our brain is an improviser, and it bases it’s current improvisations on previous improvisations: It creates new momentary thoughts and experiences by drawing not on a hidden inner world of knowledge, beliefs and motives but on memory traces of previous momentary thoughts and experiences.
The analogy with fiction is helpful here too. Tolstoy invents Anna’s words and actions as he writes the novel. But he strives to make Anna’s words and actions as coherent as possible – she should ‘stay in character’ or her character should ‘develop’ as the novel unfolds. and when we interpret the behavior of other people, and of ourselves, the same aim applies: a good interpretation is one that does not just make sense of the present moment, but links it with our past actions, words, and indeed interpretations. Our brain is an engine that creates momentary conscious interpretations not by drawing on hidden inner depths, but by linking the present with the past, just as writing a novel involves linking its sentences together coherently, rather than creating an entire world.
…
On closer analysis, the stories we tell about our stable personalities, beliefs and motives can’t possibly be right. By contrast, the quirks, variability and capriciousness of human nature make sense when we realize that our brain is an incomparable improviser: an engine for spontaneously finding meaning and choosing actions that make the best sense in the moment. Thus our thoughts and actions are based on a rich tradition of past thoughts and actions, which our brain harnesses and reworks to address the challenges of the moment. Moreover, just as today’s thoughts follow yesterday’s precedents, so they also set precedents for tomorrow – giving our actions, words and our life a coherent shape. So what makes each of us special is, to a large extent, the uniqueness of our individual history of prior thoughts and experiences. In other words, each of us is a unique tradition continually in the process of creation.”
The above passages come not from a Confucian or Buddhist scholar nor from a process theologian or philosopher, but from the prologue of behavioral scientist Nick Chater’s book, The Mind is Flat, in which he lays out his ideas about the “improvisational brain” and discusses his “flat mind theory.”
I’ve written about Chater a bit before after reading some articles he wrote, some videos he made, and an interview he did. I already have a few problems with the way he’s defining “consciousness” and take issue with how he seems to conflate “mind” with “brain”… but that said I’m really liking all the other stuff he’s saying so far (i.e. I dig the story he’s telling!); I am picking up on some heavy pragmatist influence on Chater (ala William James), and the bit about interpretation and the importance of coherence really sounds like stuff Whitehead would talk about, for instance like when Whiteheads talks about philosophy: “Philosophy is the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience–everything of which we are aware, which we enjoy, perceive, will or think–can be interpreted.”
I’m excited to continue reading the book as I anticipate that I will indeed find more resonances with a Whiteheadian and Confucian understanding of “the self” and panexperientialist understandings of consciousness to which I am partial. I’m sure I’ll be posting more reflections on it as I go.
Each of Us is A Unique Tradition Continually in The Process of Creation was originally published on TURRI
Historians have long debated over the main catalysts contributing to Europe’s shift to modernity in the 18th century. Some scholars assert that ideas were the main force for the progress achieved in the Enlightenment efforts, while others view certain social and economic forces as being the primary reasons for transformation of Europe’s Old Regime into a more modern world (Smith, Week 4).
How is it possible to know something is certainly true? It is realistically impossible to find certain truth. Inasmuch, it may be possible to find truth using logical statements to arrive at a definite conclusion -these statements can arrive at certain truth- yet the natural world is rarely linear from premises to conclusions and provide definite identifiable premises. There are too many [almost infinitesimal] interacting variables in the natural world to use logical truths. The most reliable path to truth is to use experiential knowledge - things that were experienced first-hand- in conjunction with what is presented, using known experiential knowledge as supporting evidence. Even then, truth is not certain, but is most valuable as the truth. All else is synthetic truth.
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One that has well digested his knowledge both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions. He feels too sensibly, how much all the rest of mankind fall short of the notions which he has entertained.
David Hume, "Of the Delicacy of Taste and Passion" from his book Essays, Moral and Political (1741-42, 1777)
Notes: Introduction to Schopenhauer - The World as Will | academyofideas
The world is as it appears: The view that "the physical world in the manner they [people] perceive and experience it has an independent existence" is problematic.
"[...] have can I know the world as it is? I can have knowledge of the world as it seems, since that is merely knowledge of my present perceptions, memories, thoughts and feelings. But can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of how it seems? To put the question in slightly more general form: can I have knowledge of the world that is not just knowledge of my own point of view?" (Roger Scruton, 'Kant: A brief insidght)
Rationalism (GW Leibnitz): "Though using one's reason it was possible to obtain objective knowledge of the world.
Empericism (David Hume): Hume "disagreed with Leibnitz. Rather he proposed that all knowledge of the world was obtained through experience and therefore is always subjective and contaminated so to speak by the perspective or point of view of the Knower. Objective knowledge, according to Hume, was not possible for human beings."
Transcendental Idealism (Kant): Kant "was not satisfied with either the rationalism of Leibnitz or the empericism of Hume. [...] Kant is notoriously difficult to understand and there is still no general consensus as to the meaning of many important aspects of his philosophy. An integral distinction Kant made which is essential to understand transcendental Idealism is between the world as we experience, which is called 'the world of appearances' or 'phenomenal world', and the world as it exists independent of our experience, which is composed of what Kant called 'things in themselves'. According to Kant we cannot obtain knowledge of 'things in themselves' "
"What things my be in themselves I know not, and need not know because a thing is never presented to me otherwise than as a phenomena" (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason)
"It is only the world of appearances that we can know. And according to Kant this world is structured or organised by fundamental principles, most notably space and time, which Kant described as 'forms of intuition', and causality, which Kant called a 'category of the understanding'. Space and time, along with the twelve categories of which causality is but one, structure and make possible our experience of the world. Furthermore, according to Kant space and time are not features of 'things in themselves'."
"Kant thought that the 'world of appearances' must occupy space and time. It is obviously hard to imagine there not being space or time, but Kant went further and argued that without them there could not be a knowable world at all. A similar point applies to cause and effect, and to the principle that things can endure unchanged through time. The rules of the empirical world are that it must contain enduring things, arranged in space and tie, and having systematic effects upon one another. Nothing else, Kant argued, could ever count as an empirical world that we could know. However, his most startling claim is that all these rules are not present in the world as it is in itself. They are all rules simply about how the world must be if we are to be able to experience it. (Christopher Janaway, Schopenhauer: A very short introduction)
Schopenhauer "The World as Will"
"Upon reading Kant, Schopenhauer underwent what he called and intellectual rebirth and proceeded to use Kant's core ideas as the foundation upon which he built his own philosophical edifice. Schopenhauer interpretation of Kant was that space, time and causality do not exist in the world but are instead features of the mind which uses it to construct our experience. It should be noted that there is still disagreement to whether Kant actually mean that these principles were feature of the mind. [....]
Now if space, time and causality are feature of the mind, then it follows, according to Schopenhauer, that the objects of the word depend on the mind for their existence, and that the world as we know it is a representation created by our mind." [An idealist position]
"While Schopenhauer agreed with the fundamental tenets of Kant's ideas, he also believed that there was a major inconsistency which lay at the heart of his philosophy.
Although Kant claimed we can never come to know the nature of reality in itself, he thought there must be something which exists independently of us that is the cause of our representations or the world that appears to us. If such a postulate is not made, Kant reasoned, then one would have to arrive at the absurd conclusion that there our representations of the world arise out of nothing. Kant proposed the existence of mind independent or what he called 'transcendental objects', which are the cause of our representations but which we can never obtain the nature of. Yet this made no sense to Schopenhauer, as according to his interpretation of Kant's transcendental idealism, space, time and causality are features of the mind. This means that it makes no sense to speak of 'things in themselves' causing our experiences as causation requires a knowing subject. In a similar manner, since objects can only exist within space and time and because space and time also require a knowing subject, it also makes no sense to speak of objects [with space, time and/or matter] which exist in an independent manner."
"Schopenhauer, however, did not disagree with Kant that there must be some substratum underlying our experience of the 'phenomenal world'. Yet he did not think we could arrive at knowledge of such a substratum by gazing outwards at the objects of our experience."
"Schopenhauer thought that the philosophical task of laying bare the true nature of the world would be impossible for the fact that there is one object in the world which we experience from within, that being our own body."
Consequently, a way from within stands open to us to that real inner nature of things to which we cannot penetrate from without. It is, so to speak, a subterranean passage, a secret alliance, which, as if by treachery, places us all at once in the fortress that cannot be taken by attack from without." (Schopenhauer)
"When we direct our awareness inward, Schopenhauer claimed, we will discover at the core of our being an unconscious instinct or force characterized by a restless striving. This force at the core of our being Schopenhauer called Will. In fact, Schopenhauer thought that our body was a manifestation of Will, so that our body and Will are really one and the same thing presented to us in two different ways. Our body is presented to us in the form of representations and our will is presented by a direct inner experience. Since he proposed that we can most clearly intuit the raw desire that is the Will within us during the sexual act and when our survival instincts are activated he also called it the 'will to live'.
Although our body is the only object in the world that we have inner access to, Schopenhauer thought that because it is apparent that all life strives fundamentally toward survival, nourishment and propagation, it was justified to assert that all life forms are similar to us and that they are also manifestation of the 'will to live' or Will."
Schopenhauer didn't think it was appropriate to claim that only organic life was the manifestation of the Will but not inorganic nature. Doing so would introduce into the world an unnecessary divide between the organic and the inorganic. Instead, Schopenhauer claimed that not only is will the true inner nature of all life forms but of everything that exists. It is, as he wrote, "the kernel of reality itself"
Will: "the kernel of reality itself"
"Since everything in this world, inorganic and organic alike, is a manifestation of Will, at its core everything is one with everything else. The separateness of all things is nothing but an illusion. This conclusion of Schopenhauer is in many ways parallels that found in the Upanishads, the text which founds the basis of Hinduism. "This thou art. The perceiver and the perceived are one." While Schopenhauer is know to have studied eastern philosophy, he arrived at this position independently prior to being acquainted with the Upanishads."
"Schopenhauer thought the world is a manifestation of Sill, which is a blind impulse or force which is not divine or benevolent but demonic. As manifestations of will all life blindly strives towards nourishment and propagation, however since organisms must feed on the organisms to nurse themselves and all organisms are manifestation of Will, Schopenhauer concluded that 'the Will must live on itself, for there exists nothing beside it, and it is a hungry will.'~Schopenhauer.
