Creation Icon.
By: Jay
I have written on scientism lately, and in the archives several more critiques of scientism and naïve empiricism (its presupposition) are available. The question then arises as to how are we to replace this bad, contradictory narrative of man’s “progress” with something better. Is there an answer elsewhere? Can claims of religious belief and theology be rational? Are they not merely leaps of faith, with no reason behind them? In short, there are answers and religious claims are just as warranted as a “scientific” claim, and sometimes more so. When we consider “warranted” beliefs, as they are often termed in philosophy, we can see alternate explanations that are far superior to the reductionist materialism of our day.
It is my thesis that there is an alternate metaphysics that is suppressed by the centralized western establishment that has allowed a covert advancement in highly complex technologies, while the ignorant public have been given a mass consumption physics and worldview that is ultimately a dead-end (materialism). One of the chief arguments I fall back on is the fact that highly advanced technologies are based on a rigorous, formal logic that is ordered and perfectly systematic. Since logic itself, which forms the basis and presupposition of those systems, is not, and cannot be “matter,” the central narrative explanation of reality given by modern academia for man’s origins, “Enlightenment,” and so-called scientific advance is completely wrong.
This alternate metaphysics is closer to what is found in aspects of Platonism and Eastern Orthodox theology, and this is likely what informed Tesla to be so successful with his inventions, despite his latter days of theosophy. I do not intend to advocate all of Platonism or Pythagoreanism or later developments in Plato’s students, but rather when considering foundational
philosophical presuppositional commitments and assumptions, the ideas of thinkers closer to this tradition are more correct than those of an atomistic, materialist bent. Modern quantum thinkers generally tend to be open about “Platonic” theories of metaphysics matching up to their discoveries, while materialistic science is utterly bankrupt at providing any coherent account of reality.
One of the founding fathers of quantum physics, Werner Heisenberg, stated:
“In the philosophy of Democritus the atoms are eternal and indestructible units of matter, they can never be transformed into each other. With regard to this question modern physics takes a definite stand against the materialism of Democritus and for Plato and the Pythagoreans. The elementary particles are certainly not eternal and indestructible units of matter, they can actually be transformed into each other. As a matter of fact, if two such particles, moving through space with a very high kinetic energy, collide, then many new elementary particles may be created from the available energy and the old particles may have disappeared in the collision. Such events have been frequently observed and offer the best proof that all particles are made of the same substance: energy. But the resemblance of the modern views to those of Plato and the Pythagoreans can be carried somewhat further. The elementary particles in Plato’s Timaeus are finally not substance but mathematical forms.
“All things are numbers” is a sentence attributed to Pythagoras. The only mathematical forms available at that time were such geometric forms as the regular solids or the triangles which form their surface. In modern quantum theory there can be no doubt that the elementary particles will finally also be mathematical forms but of a much more complicated nature. The Greek philosophers thought of static forms and found them in the regular solids. Modern science, however, has from its beginning in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries started from the dynamic problem. The constant element in physics since Newton is not a configuration or a geometrical form, but a dynamic law. The equation of motion holds at all times, it is in this sense eternal, whereas the geometrical forms, like the orbits, are changing. Therefore, the mathematical forms that represent the elementary particles will be solutions of some eternal law of motion for matter. This is a problem which has not yet been solved.” (Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (1958) Lectures delivered at University of St. Andrews, Scotland, Winter 1955-56)
The principle at work here is explained in notable philosophy of science writer, Michael Polanyi, who wrote:
“To say that the discovery of objective truth in science consists in the apprehension of a rationality which commands our respect and arouses our contemplative admiration, that such discovery, while using the experience of our senses as clues, transcends this experience by embracing the vision of a reality beyond the impression of our senses, a vision which speaks for itself in guiding us to an even deeper understanding of reality-such an account of scientific procedure would be generally shrugged aside as out-dated Platonism: a piece of mystery-mongering unworthy of an enlightened age. Yet it is precisely on this conception of objectivity that I wish to insist in.” (Personal Knowledge, p. 5-6)
Ours is a day of cowardice, ignorance and lack of real knowledge and wisdom, despite the avalanche of information available at everyone’s fingertips. Without a framework to place information, the never-ending data stream is useless and destructive. If anyone has the desire to find truth, he must not be afraid to go against the grain and consider options outside the so-called mainstream, not because going against the grain is somehow inherently laudatory, but because it is a time of tremendous deception. In a land of supposed free inquiry and free thought, the only thing considered untenable and anathema is creation by a single Personal God. In fact, Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins even say we can posit alien origins, yet belief in God is somehow irrational. On the contrary – those on our side have a far superior explanation of reality that is actually coherent. A biblical worldview may not answer every single question posed, but no worldview can provide that, much less one that is fundamentally contradictory like materialism or unobserved aeonian Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Atomic orbit. “The smallest units of matter are not physical objects in the ordinary sense; they are forms, ideas which can be expressed unambiguously only in mathematical language.” -Werner Heisenberg
In response, I would like to suggest the metaphysics and philosophy of science posited by one of my favorite thinkers, the Orthodox theologian and traditionalist, Dr. Philip Sherrard. Dr. Sherrard is not well-known to Western academics. His concise, yet brilliant approach to this question solidifies a new way to look at science based on the Eastern and biblical tradition, which provides a unique metaphysic, and particularly the metaphysic found in thinkers like St. Maximos Confessor. I believe these ideas form a part of the hidden metaphysics mentioned earlier. Sherrard’s brief, but brilliant article “A Single Unified Science” is below and includes my comments and analysis.
Read the rest of this article at - http://jaysanalysis.com/2014/06/23/creation-metaphysics-and-a-single-unified-science/#more-5365
