(Follow-up to The Infancy of Science.)

Some people chase extraordinary meaning in the world around them, just to end up lost and come back disappointed. Meanwhile, those who consider themselves down-to-earth sit contently and preach about the lack of inherent value in the world. We simply need to acknowledge this lack, to stop looking and be happy with what is, and all will be better.

So what is? Who can tell us; what instance has the authority to set the standards for what we can allow ourselves to believe in? Well, if we have been let down by spirituality and religion, is seems only fit to turn to science as the supreme authority of answer-providing. I don’t know about you, but I have a problem with this solution. A big problem.

When running from a liar, is it more fitting to move in with a psychopath?

It took me many years to finally learn that scientism – believing that science has or will have all the necessary answers – is a fundamentalist attitude. Before that, I thought it to be true. Rather, I thought I had no choice in the matter, because science, after all, was running the world whether I liked it or not. That was before I realized that scientism denies the validity of our emotions, of anything that is different from true and false.

We may think that we ourselves are not misguided by the illusion of false worth, but indeed, we can never escape our own subjective attitudes to everything around us. We can never experience that fundamental part of the world that is without coloring, that is only true or false. And even if we could, we would no longer be human.

Because there is more to the world than the science that is common for us all. Our emotions are thoroughly real, and they make up the entire content of our lives. Whatever we do, whatever we say and however long we live; nothing of this has any meaning whatsoever without the emotion that gives it meaning. But to follow the ideal of “only what is”, you cannot have this meaning, because “meaning” has no place in science.

There is one limitation on our emotions: just as science works only in facts, emotions work only in other ways. That we have an emotion can be called a fact, but this is second-hand, and it is useless unless the one reading the fact knows the emotion. So if something has meaning, it can never be proven as fact, but that does not mean it is incorrect. It is neither, simply because it is an emotion. Being an emotion, it is as real as anything else.

We don’t build walls to keep them blank. Everything is what you make out of it, and it’s the whole point that you do. It might not be visible to everyone else, but as long as it’s there for you, it really is there.

In this entry and the next, I look at the relationship between science, magic… and what we think they are. First, I reveal the ignorance of science as it does not care about first-hand knowledge and emotional experience, but only theory and description. Are not our very emotions a result of these processes which we treat with such logical indifference?

Different humans can have very different perspectives on things. In many conflicts, it’s never enough to just point out the facts and agree upon them. That’s not what those conflicts are about, and yet some people just won’t understand that. Why?

Well… fact, or information, is power. This has — naturally — given much power to information. And what is information all about? I’ll tell you. It’s about 0 and 1. Black and white. North and south. Jedi and Sith. All information is either valid or invalid. Information, the great power of our time, doesn’t care about anything else.

But we humans are different. No matter what science, the INFORMATIVE study of everything, says, no matter if we consist of particles and waves chock full of information itself, we do care. When we think something is sad, we do not mean that it is valid or invalid. No, it’s sad, and that’s that! And this is proof enough for me that the world really consists of far more than just information.

So perhaps the focus on information is a bad thing for us. Perhaps we should boo on all the governments and the institutions and the companies who made it and sustain it that way.

Or perhaps, to actually make a difference, we ought to realize that this imperfect system of ours isn’t anybody’s fault, but the result of thousands of years of battle — a battle between good and bad and ignorant intentions. And that the most important thing isn’t that society molds us into brainless dolls that do the right things without really getting it. It is that we understand it ourselves and do what is right IN SPITE OF any flaws in society.

Onwards to the point. We’re living in a modern world where science dictates the development of our lives. But as I have said, science is blind in its lack of emotion. This is a potential whoop-ass problem that’s only getting worse. We’re forgetting ourselves, ignoring the parts of us that science does not approve of.

So it’s clear that science isn’t enough here. But science is about the whole everything, and we are just a little part of that whole everything. So if science isn’t enough to define us, then it sure can’t be enough to define the whole world! It even makes me wonder: if the world can produce life, with all its quirks and emotions, can it produce equally magnificent things also elsewhere? And here’s the source of my ponderings, the reason for my subject: imagine all the things that neither we nor science can see.

I’m a physics student, and throughout my studies, I have gotten to know many strange things. Natural laws that we could never have guessed, connections we could never have foreseen… and these things are the tiny building blocks of insanely complex happenings out there. As complex as us humans? Perhaps.

In the middle of our complexity, we have a consciousness. We have feelings, and we appreciate art. And science just doesn’t get it. But it’s there alright. So I can’t help but wonder: how many other things like this are there, out in the vast cosmos, that science and information can never understand, never touch?

We have a lot of new discoveries ahead of us.