Must Western Science Be Materialistic?

[electroBeam]

Western Science as it is run today is predicated on materialism. These are a bunch of 'rules' which control how metaphysical phenomena is interpreted. Which in turn controls what this phenomena can and cannot do.

As for a basic example, if we assume newton's laws(which his laws are predicated upon an external reality in 3D space made of atoms and molecules), then a pen cannot go through a table, because the force will repel. And if we do an experiment to see if this is true its confirmed. Here is an example of how materialism controls metaphysical phenomena. The reason why a pen cannot go through a table isn't because its a universal law, its because that's how we interpret this phenomena. If we were to look at reality from a different perspective, we could make the pen go through a wall(also called the art of the occult). 

But is the essence of western science really materialism? Why must the scientific method adhere to materialism? Is there any reason why we couldn't apply the scientific method to a different paradigm like phenomenology, instead of interpreting the phenomena of empirical tests as materialistic, we interpret it with a phenomenological perspective? Science evolves over time, but is this not because science and the 'ism' that it belongs to is separate? If science was tangled up with a particular 'ism' then science couldn't evolve?

Maybe western science at its essence isn't tangled up with a particular 'ism'? Maybe at its essence its a process of quantity. The creation of 'cosm'. Nothing to do with a particular viewpoint(like idealism, materialism, etc). Maybe the process of western science can be applied to multiple 'isms'. Pluto thought mathematics was idealist rather than realist? Maybe the fact that this is possible is a sign that science has nothing to do with 'isms'. 

Maybe science is really the art of making 'qualia' out of 'quanta'(qualities from quantities). Isn't this really a much better description of the essence of science? We can make different colours(qualia) out of different quantities of red, green, blue. We can make different drugs out of different quantities of chemicals. If a shape has 4 sides its a square, 6 its a hexagon. Maybe from a phenomenological perspective, science is about mastering the art of controlling different quantities to produce different qualities or phenomena in our life. 

 

Imagine what science would be like if we used it in a way where it was 'ism' independent, we change the ism depending on how we would like to view a particular phenomena? Imagine if we stripped science of all the isms, used it purely as a process of making qualia out of quanta. What this could mean for boosting the effectiveness of our meditation, yoga, occult. Being able to use western science to control the qualia in our mind using quanta so that we have more 'no mind', induce 'trance' for boosting our meditation or so we could access different states of consciousness. Etc.

This is how we could build visual stimulants, neuro feedback machines, etc that actually work. 

Maybe this is what it looks like when western science is used for spirituality and mysticism. Maybe with this mindset we could use science to produce technology that would enhance our spiritual development. Maybe with this mindset we can integrate western science with meditation, yoga, chakras, the occult, psychedelics, to better organise all that karma and beliefs we have about this subject so that we can more effectively use spiritual concepts for spiritual development. 

Maybe this is how we can use western science to 'time travel', truly enable humans to be 'breatharians', etc. 

Of course western science is by nature separatist/reductionist rather than holistic. Which would limit it even if we could apply different isms to it. But this is where the idea of integrating it with other holistic sciences gets interesting. Not using western science alone, but using it with eastern sciences like ayurveda, chinese traditional medicine, hinduism, etc could open new opportunities to combine the strengths of both and produce a revolution in techniques, technologies and concepts for reaching the divine. 

EDIT: I may be talking about mathematics more than science looking in retrospect. I'm making a meta point about the power of mathematical based sciences. Osho believe that pythagoras created the 'cosm' which is what science is at a very essential level.

Edited December 1, 2019 by electroBeam

[lmfao]

The problem with materialism is brought to mind to me with the "problem of consciousness", consciousness being beyond the "linear sum" ("principle of superposition" in physics but more generalised) of its parts. I think something being beyond the sum of its parts is impossible within the framework of physicalism, and also impossible in the framework of how we use logic. The rational mind is incapable of going beyond sum of the parts thinking. 

Physicalism is the view that reality is purely physical (whether its matter or energy). We assume that there is duality, that we can describe reality as being the sum of distinct objects (when I say we assume duality, I just mean that we can take the existence of boundaries to be something we can construct. Boundaries exist in order to ascertain the existence of more than 1 object.). Those objects can interlock, be chaotic, and interact with each other in whatever way you fancy but at the end of the day there's the assumption reality is nothing more than the "sum" of those objects.

For an analogy. If "reality" was a triangle, you can cut the triangle into as many pieces as you want but the triangle is still nothing more the plain sum of those pieces.

I think if you get a deep enough insight or look at the way our mind uses logic, you'll see that our rational brain can't really transcend this "sum of the parts" of thinking. Its deep rooted essence is incapable of transcending this thinking. So when it comes to the traditional sciences (biology/chemistry/physics) I don't see this lack of wholistic thinking being improved within those frameworks, as the rationalisations of the mind can't transcend sum of the parts thinking.

Any sort of discipline (science or no science) can't create some map/model/theory which transcends sum of the parts thinking. They can point to non-dual truths but the pointing would be within the realm of duality and concepts. 

Edited December 1, 2019 by lmfao

[electroBeam]

8 minutes ago, lmfao said:

The problem with materialism is brought to mind to me with the "problem of consciousness", consciousness being beyond the "linear sum" ("principle of superposition" in physics but more generalised) of its parts. I think something being beyond the sum of its parts is impossible within the framework of physicalism, and also impossible in the framework of how we use logic. The rational mind is incapable of going beyond sum of the parts thinking. 

Physicalism is the view that reality is purely physical (whether its matter or energy). We assume that there is duality, that we can describe reality as being the sum of distinct objects (when I say we assume duality, I just mean that we can take the existence of boundaries to be something we can construct. Boundaries exist in order to ascertain the existence of more than 1 object.). Those objects can interlock, be chaotic, and interact with each other in whatever way you fancy but at the end of the day there's the assumption reality is nothing more than the "sum" of those objects.

For an analogy. If "reality" was a triangle, you can cut the triangle into as many pieces as you want but the triangle is still nothing more the plain sum of those pieces.

I think if you get a deep enough insight or look at the way our mind uses logic, you'll see that our rational brain can't really transcend this "sum of the parts" of thinking. Its deep rooted essence is incapable of transcending this thinking. So when it comes to the traditional sciences (biology/chemistry/physics) I don't see this lack of wholistic thinking being improved within those frameworks, as the rationalisations of the mind can't transcend sum of the parts thinking. 

yes its reductionist rather than holistic, making it incapable of connecting 'emergent properties'.

Holism is not superior to the reduction of science. Our mind is capable of intuitively interpreting multiple phenomena to produce a cohesive solution to a problem, or a cohesive 'knowing' to some set of complex phenomena. For example knowing if you should meditate for 1 hour or 30 minutes takes a large amount of phenomena to process to know the answer. Its about combining it all to come up with a cohesive knowing of what to do. 

But our ability to holistically interpret this phenomena is limited by how reliable this phenomena is, and how well its structured. Where reduction becomes valuable is increasing the reliability and structure of this phenomena so that holistically interpreting the results becomes easier or more reliable. 

A lot of ancient techniques, methods and knowledge in the past was a lower quality than it could be because the information they had was not in its best shape. Ancient ayahuasca brews cause vomiting while newly developed, chemically extracted ones(using western science) reduce that vomiting. The ones that created ayahuasca brews did not have the ability to design the brew to decrease vomiting because the information they had was not good enough. Science for all of its flaws can produce very high quality information for holistic interpretation. Science is the mastery of using different quantity to produce different qualities, and if the ancient ayahuasca brew inventors had western science, they could of designed a much more effective brew. This is one example(albeit primitive) of how western science can be combined with ancient spirituality to produce techniques for the divine. 

I can't wait to see how the power of using quantity to produce quality can be used to develop more effective meditation and yogic techniques.

[TheExplorer]

9 minutes ago, electroBeam said:

A lot of ancient techniques, methods and knowledge in the past was a lower quality than it could be because the information they had was not in its best shape. Ancient ayahuasca brews cause vomiting while newly developed, chemically extracted ones(using western science) reduce that vomiting. The ones that created ayahuasca brews did not have the ability to design the brew to decrease vomiting because the information they had was not good enough. Science for all of its flaws can produce very high quality information for holistic interpretation. Science is the mastery of using different quantity to produce different qualities, and if the ancient ayahuasca brew inventors had western science, they could of designed a much more effective brew. This is one example(albeit primitive) of how western science can be combined with ancient spirituality to produce techniques for the divine. 

 

I think its highly debatable if a chemically extracted version of Ayahuasca, i think people call it Pharmahuasca, is actually superior. For sure it reduces nausea and vomiting,  but it also removes a lot of the alkaloids present in those full-spectrum brews using whole plants.

 

For instance, I find drinking Caapi Tea way more healing than just eating harmala extract. It has quite a different feel and after effects to it as well.

Edited December 1, 2019 by TheExplorer