Leo's Beef With Science

[julienw]

Leo,

I've been wondering about this for a while. I've watched tens of hours of your content, and I know your stance on science and what it purports to know/show about the world. My issue with it is the same as that which you raise about the majority of humanity: ignorance. Do you actually know any scientists? Do you regularly interact with people in academia and other researchers? Do you actually read scientific papers regularly? You talk about science and scientists like they are this one thing--trying to define all of reality based on the one little corner of it that they study. The thing is, having been academia-adjacent for 4+ years now, I know and have met plenty of scientists and researchers and have not interacted with a single one who has made this claim. They are self-aware enough that what they study is just one small component of everything else, and they don't pretend that it explains the whole universe. Yes, just like most humans, many are driven by the pull towards success and reputation, publishing as many high-impact papers as possible, etc. So some of the studies are sort of "hacked" or structured in such a way so as to output the desired result. I'm not arguing that people who practice science are superior to or above all of the pitfalls of ego. My main issue is who exactly are you talking about when you make these claims that scientists claim to know how reality works? Every one that I know is just like everyone else. They're driven to succeed in their field but they also have lives outside of science--hobbies, family, etc. For many it's just a job. Just do the work and go home for the day and enjoy their lives. And when you talk to them, they don't say "well, my study on the epigenetics of stress and local water quality explains the entire universe;" or "my study of a model of the development of the early human brain means that all of reality is material." I've never seen it. Many are implicitly materialists, rationalists, and atheists. Certainly. But I've also spoken to researchers who study the effects of DMT in an academic setting, and I can assure you that they have differing worldviews than other scientists. Even high-level mathematicians and physicists, while some may claim to know the fundamental nature of reality, many are just really into math and studying very specific things like as you know, quarks and electron spin and quantum phenomena and all this other stuff. So if you ask them: what is reality made of, they will just say "dude, I have no idea. And neither does the entire field of physics or math. Yes, we have this model and it's very cool and it ATTEMPTS to try to explain what's going on, but it's just not complete." So they're mostly just a bunch of nerds who get a kick out of what they study, and sometimes they make cool findings. Why do you have so much beef about that?  And I will concede, much of science is just a self-propelling money-making scheme. Just look at Big Pharma. So yeah, I think as a whole it's just as corrupt as government or religion or anything else that humans make an institution out of. I just don't think you actually care to listen to what the majority of scientists actually have to say, or know well anyone who is "on-the-ground," so I don't see where you get the authority or credibility to speak on the matter. And ultimately I think at the bottom of it, my issue lies with the fact that you fail to point out the other side of the coin: what science does well. What it does for the world, for humanity. Discoveries are real. New inventions are real. I know you know this. I know you're into this. Why don't you ever say like "Yes, vaccines are so cool! We figured it out" or like electric cars, or fucking e-cigarettes, or computers, or a literal shoe. All these things came from human ingenuity, and they make life better. What will change the average person's everyday life are these things, not the 0.000001% chance that they experience God-consciousness for 3 minutes.

 

Or how about for instance, simply acknowledging that science and things like quantum physics are fundamentally based around uncertainty and unknowing. Schrodinger's cat, wave-particle duality, these basic things that you learn in college physics where the claim is actually "We don't know," not "it is this." Or how most scientists, before they say anything, will preface it with: "This is just a model, not the real thing." I don't know man, I just feel like you're leaving a lot to be said, and cherry-picking ideas to criticize based on broad generalizations. So much like you say (and I agree), "scientists don't have the authority to speak on the topic of the fundamental nature of reality," I don't feel that you have the authority to speak on science as a whole. In fact I just heard a well-reputed mathematician/computer scientists/physicist state: "Yes, all of our instruments are merely extensions of the human sensory experience." Implying that it is as limited as the senses. Scientists do not argue that the limits of human sensation are the limits of the universe. Idiots argue that, but not scientists.

Edited October 29, 2021 by julienw
added context.

[OneHandClap]

Leo's beef with science is more philosophical than pragmatic. It's pretty clear, from both his videos and his statements on the forum, that he does respect and even admire scientific progress, as it's an inevitable part of an evolving universe. That being said, I share your feelings that the anti-science/knowledge vibes can come off a bit dogmatically. 

Sam Harris has interviewed a few nonduality people (Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, etc), and it's the same basic dilemma... one simply cannot prove that there is, or is not, a material universe that is inaccessible to consciousness. One camp says there is a universe beyond awareness, and the other says it's too big of an assumption and therefore worth discarding.

Personally, I'm completely ambiguous on the question. Agnostic, you might say. Does it really matter if there is or isn't a universe that persists beyond personal experience? Probably not. I am more materialist in thinking than many people on these forums, no matter how many oneness, Godhead, nondual, reality-dissolving experiences I've had via psychedelics and meditation. We simply do not have the ability to make universal "truth" statements. 

It's like asking a software program to describe the room its hardware is located in. We have zero access to it either way, so no need to go on polemics for or against it. All I do know is that materialism, as a scientific approach, has yielded the most consistent results. Mysticism has either demonstrated none, or done extremely poorly in replication. If there are auras, let's see them. If there is such a thing as consciousness "leaving the body," let's have some studies where NDE patients accurately report data they couldn't have experienced from their body. 

So, in short... is consciousness creating everything, or is consciousness merely reflective/aware of external phenomena and representing them through hallucinations we term "experience?"

That debate will never end.

[julienw]

@OneHandClap Well said, finally someone I can have an actual conversation with on here.

[OneHandClap]

Just now, julienw said:

@OneHandClap Well said, finally someone I can have an actual conversation with on here.

Anytime, my dude. I'll admit that I have been disheartened by the extreme solipsism vibes that some posters give off here. We can only retreat into DMT tunnels and infinite bliss voids for a certain amount of time before we come back to the basic ideas of Zen...

All ideas are dualistic and wrong. If we think we have the full truth, we are just making up stories that sound true. 

Materialism does not have the "whole picture," but neither does Leo's model, nor does Buddhism, or Christianity, or any other philosophy in history. The thing I do like about this forum is that there are many who make an earnest attempt to understand reality using the tools we have. 

Anyway, to cut my ranting short, happy to talk about this stuff anytime—PM me if you get a little worn down by the absolutist talk and want to wax philosophy/existence Cheers. 

[julienw]

@OneHandClap Sweet man, thank you. I appreciate it. It was nice not to be totally shut down by some extreme solipsism or whatever they will self-identify it as. And will do.

[Nahm]

@julienw

I think the point or intention of debunking science is really the freeing of minds, so to speak. Truth. It’s not really about the science or scientists. Though, scientists can free their minds as well and carry right on with the science, choppin the wood, enhancing theirs & all of our lives.  Yes, in knowing some scientists more intimately the attitude or tone might be different (idk)… but I’m not convinced that difference would be for the better in regard to the Real Message. Might be infringed, even skewed or tainted perhaps. In a way, a very big favor is being done which is really kinda just, beautiful. 
Edit: sorry, I stand corrected.

[Dingo]

I study social sciences in the progressive Scandinavia in a university, which itself is progressive in its culture and structure relative to other unis around. In SD terms, my uni's SS department is thoroughly green with clear signs of yellow.

The weakness of Leo's critique of science is in that he seems to not be aware that scientific disciplines can vary dramatically, even in terms of philosophy of science. Whenever he says "science" I interpret it as "western mainstream (likely not cutting edge) natural sciences with philosophical positions of positivist epistemology and objectivist ontology". If I dont, some of his points literally dont apply to the kind of science we are doing at this uni.

Though, many of his points of critique are in fact still useful for understanding science and its current limits at a deep level. In my quite unique case, they just often require recontextualization.

Tldr: his critique lacks clear definition of "science" and hence he paints with a too broad of a brush. Nuances are lost in this process.

[Carl-Richard]

You have to factor in the context of Leo speaking to mostly laymen who have an idealized idea of scientists as arbiters of absolute truth. Most of his critique is about undoing that view. You could probably find a decent number of construct aware scientists and philosophers (after all, those are the people who Leo are citing, people like Kuhn, Feyerabend, Capra), but it's not something that is a given. You're generally not incentivized to perform deep metatheoretical investigations as a scientist. The laymen pop-science view is just an exaggerated version of this fact.

[Leo Gura]

Of course scientists feign humility when cornered. That's all part of the devilry of science. The humility is just a facade for a profound intellectual arrogance.

Scientists precisely claim that things cannot be known which can in fact be absolutely known.

For example, I claim complete omniscience is possible. Scientists would never allow such a thing. This seems like humility but is actually arrogance.

Just look at my interview with Curt Jaimungal. He epitemizes the way a sicentific mind gets lost in itself.

All of science is a hallucination. Good luck getting any scientist to admit or understand that.

Science is not self-aware.

Agnosticism is no virtue. It is ignorance. Just because you are proud of being ignorant does not means you understand anything.

Become omniscient. It is possible. After all, you are God, for fuck's sake

[RMQualtrough]

On 29/10/2021 at 5:15 PM, OneHandClap said:

Leo's beef with science is more philosophical than pragmatic. It's pretty clear, from both his videos and his statements on the forum, that he does respect and even admire scientific progress, as it's an inevitable part of an evolving universe. That being said, I share your feelings that the anti-science/knowledge vibes can come off a bit dogmatically. 

Sam Harris has interviewed a few nonduality people (Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, etc), and it's the same basic dilemma... one simply cannot prove that there is, or is not, a material universe that is inaccessible to consciousness. One camp says there is a universe beyond awareness, and the other says it's too big of an assumption and therefore worth discarding.

Personally, I'm completely ambiguous on the question. Agnostic, you might say. Does it really matter if there is or isn't a universe that persists beyond personal experience? Probably not. I am more materialist in thinking than many people on these forums, no matter how many oneness, Godhead, nondual, reality-dissolving experiences I've had via psychedelics and meditation. We simply do not have the ability to make universal "truth" statements. 

It's like asking a software program to describe the room its hardware is located in. We have zero access to it either way, so no need to go on polemics for or against it. All I do know is that materialism, as a scientific approach, has yielded the most consistent results. Mysticism has either demonstrated none, or done extremely poorly in replication. If there are auras, let's see them. If there is such a thing as consciousness "leaving the body," let's have some studies where NDE patients accurately report data they couldn't have experienced from their body. 

So, in short... is consciousness creating everything, or is consciousness merely reflective/aware of external phenomena and representing them through hallucinations we term "experience?"

That debate will never end.

I think it can be known. You can easily see and explain how and why there aren't "things" out there as things. It's quite blatant actually, since any attempt at describing a thing will always invoke either perception or abstraction (abstraction would mean like a mathematical formula).

Things as literal things = infinite regress. Impossible to say what the thing IS in and of itself. Nothingness = no regress, no questions.

Edited November 1, 2021 by RMQualtrough