My reply turned out to be a bit long. Perhaps you can jsut skim it for the aspects you care about?
I think wrapping science in spirituality can work, but for people in this community, it’s probably tempting to think in objective, well-defined tokens rather than thinking in the concepts and subjective tokens which align with how the brain works and with ones own values. But the rules of the mind and the rules of mathematics are entirely different, and ones “objective” quality of life matters much less for well-being than their subjective worldview does, which is partly why we’re not really getting any happier.
If you try walking, and thinking consciously about every movement you make, you will probably find that walking becomes much harder. Your mind also has its own symbolic language which is much more efficient than mathematics for many things, and science is sufficently inhuman that it’s destructive not just to human errors, but to human nature in general.
My suggestion here was that we adjust what science is so that it no longer creates the problems you are pointing at
You could partly do that by correctly stating that everything is relative, and thus that an absolutist worldview might not be ideal. But moving further than that is difficult as people have an almost religious view of science. They think that the subjective doesn’t matter much, that things are only worth something if you can prove them, that science can discriminate between good and evil or morality and immorality.
People also seem to either reject reality, or desperately attempt to construct a morally correct hypothesis which explains the pattern they see in reality, and then make up excuses as the hypothesis repeatedly fails to predict the future. The idea that people seek the truth is a lie, they can only be objective about things that they don’t care about too much, which is why controversies repeatedly form around things connected to politics and morality. People who don’t realize this don’t even have a basic understanding of themselves (or other people, or humanity in general) which is the actual cause of our problems.
science can be quite spiritual and can generate well-being when it’s driven by genuine wonder, curiosity and intention to make life more wonderful
It can when you put the latter first, so that science becomes second. That feeling of wonder literally requires a lack of complete understanding. The people who enjoy science the most are those who know it the least, and they will become disillusioned until they once again meet something that they don’t understand, which causes an explosion in possibilities bigger than what you can wrap your mind around. “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you”, the latter part is only true because we don’t understand quantum science. It’s our good luck that we didn’t manage to “solve” science.
And again, we have to watch out for Goodhart’s law. If you “improve” peoples lives in a way which makes them miserable, then it’s not an improvement, even if the metrics state otherwise. Another reason I dislike scientific views is that I think it results in Moloch. the only winning move is not to play, and the only way to avoid playing is if the optimal solution remains unknown. Psychologically speaking, having full information about something seems really undesirable. Possibly because you do the mental equivalence of when the state reduces human lives to numbers on a spreadsheet.
I’m autistic so thinking objectively has always been easy for me, I appear “better” at scientific thought than most, which is why I’m so conscious of all the pitfalls one can run into. Anyway, I think the many psychological issues appearing in society are directly connected to the domination of scientific thought and the death of religion, and thus that you’re trying to solve the problem with the tools which caused it, and that you only consider this a good idea because you feel something wonderful in science… Which actually exists in yourself (or in your relation to science). The whole “beauty in mathematics” is, I think, the brains reaction to symmetry and harmonious patterns, making it beautiful in the same way that music is beautiful. Of course, a lot of things can be made possible through science, so it’s not incorrect to perceive a lot of hidden value waiting to be discovered. It just has to be for the sake of humanity instead of at the cost of humanity.
But everywhere in society I see a hatred of humanity and attempts of destroying it. Usually in order to make humanity “better” or “more moral”, which translates into destroying aspects of human nature or replacing them with less human ones. An easy example which is not too controversial is destroying “laziness” and making people into efficient workers. Which also hints at the fact that the optimization of “productivity” and the optimization of “humanity” go in two different directions, meaning that we’ll start our own darwinistic process of destroying human aspects (as the genetic “fitness” values inhuman/objective things). Which is ironic as the purpose of technology is improving human life, rather than to, say, replace it.
My reply turned out to be a bit long. Perhaps you can jsut skim it for the aspects you care about?
I think wrapping science in spirituality can work, but for people in this community, it’s probably tempting to think in objective, well-defined tokens rather than thinking in the concepts and subjective tokens which align with how the brain works and with ones own values.
But the rules of the mind and the rules of mathematics are entirely different, and ones “objective” quality of life matters much less for well-being than their subjective worldview does, which is partly why we’re not really getting any happier.
If you try walking, and thinking consciously about every movement you make, you will probably find that walking becomes much harder. Your mind also has its own symbolic language which is much more efficient than mathematics for many things, and science is sufficently inhuman that it’s destructive not just to human errors, but to human nature in general.
You could partly do that by correctly stating that everything is relative, and thus that an absolutist worldview might not be ideal. But moving further than that is difficult as people have an almost religious view of science. They think that the subjective doesn’t matter much, that things are only worth something if you can prove them, that science can discriminate between good and evil or morality and immorality.
People also seem to either reject reality, or desperately attempt to construct a morally correct hypothesis which explains the pattern they see in reality, and then make up excuses as the hypothesis repeatedly fails to predict the future. The idea that people seek the truth is a lie, they can only be objective about things that they don’t care about too much, which is why controversies repeatedly form around things connected to politics and morality. People who don’t realize this don’t even have a basic understanding of themselves (or other people, or humanity in general) which is the actual cause of our problems.
It can when you put the latter first, so that science becomes second. That feeling of wonder literally requires a lack of complete understanding. The people who enjoy science the most are those who know it the least, and they will become disillusioned until they once again meet something that they don’t understand, which causes an explosion in possibilities bigger than what you can wrap your mind around. “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you”, the latter part is only true because we don’t understand quantum science. It’s our good luck that we didn’t manage to “solve” science.
And again, we have to watch out for Goodhart’s law. If you “improve” peoples lives in a way which makes them miserable, then it’s not an improvement, even if the metrics state otherwise. Another reason I dislike scientific views is that I think it results in Moloch. the only winning move is not to play, and the only way to avoid playing is if the optimal solution remains unknown. Psychologically speaking, having full information about something seems really undesirable. Possibly because you do the mental equivalence of when the state reduces human lives to numbers on a spreadsheet.
I’m autistic so thinking objectively has always been easy for me, I appear “better” at scientific thought than most, which is why I’m so conscious of all the pitfalls one can run into. Anyway, I think the many psychological issues appearing in society are directly connected to the domination of scientific thought and the death of religion, and thus that you’re trying to solve the problem with the tools which caused it, and that you only consider this a good idea because you feel something wonderful in science… Which actually exists in yourself (or in your relation to science). The whole “beauty in mathematics” is, I think, the brains reaction to symmetry and harmonious patterns, making it beautiful in the same way that music is beautiful. Of course, a lot of things can be made possible through science, so it’s not incorrect to perceive a lot of hidden value waiting to be discovered. It just has to be for the sake of humanity instead of at the cost of humanity.
But everywhere in society I see a hatred of humanity and attempts of destroying it. Usually in order to make humanity “better” or “more moral”, which translates into destroying aspects of human nature or replacing them with less human ones. An easy example which is not too controversial is destroying “laziness” and making people into efficient workers. Which also hints at the fact that the optimization of “productivity” and the optimization of “humanity” go in two different directions, meaning that we’ll start our own darwinistic process of destroying human aspects (as the genetic “fitness” values inhuman/objective things). Which is ironic as the purpose of technology is improving human life, rather than to, say, replace it.