The Pendulum of Knowledge
When the influence of Descarte split the mind from the body, the subjective from objective, it allowed science to focus strictly on the physical, but left the mechanims of mind fallow. This was convenient for allowing our understanding of physical nature to blossom, and with all the rapid advances of practical technologies, science began to question the utility of having a "mind" at all. Early behavioral psychologists, like B.F. Skinner, thought that fabricating a mind wasn't necessary to explain human behavior. Simple conditioned responses to stimuli would suffice. The mind in early science was just a source of subjective errors in observation of data that had to be culled from empirical research or it would invalidate the findings.
But things change. Our understanding changes. As science drilled down into the very fabric of matter in quantum physics, looking for the ultimate building blocks of nature, it ran head-on into some very disconcerting findings. Consciousness seemed to be entangled in matter in ways that couldn't be explained as merely subjective. Things were connected in ways that were impossible in the existing physical models. This connection wasn't just material, but involved our minds, once again.
But the momentum of the newtonian model, where everything is physical clockwork, hasn't caught up with us yet; our "common sense" about how things work is slower to adapt to new world views than what our current discoveries reveal. Columbus came back with stories of the new world, but everyone was still operating on the assumption that it's flat, because that's what they appear to directly experience.
Where metal hits the road is in our whole approach to human behavior and the reductionist/flat-world model that our "conditions" are *caused* by chemical imbalances, genetic tendencies, etc. which they attempt to address by introducing new chemicals to treat the symptoms. The utility of the "mind" is marginalized, as it was in early science, to a mere stick puppet that may be useful, although mostly unreliable, in reporting the symptoms of these physical processes. But not much more.
But it is more. Much more. We are discovering our thoughts and beliefs can affect things right down to the molecular levels of our bodies. They can create inbalances and they can affect cures. Placebos that change the very chemisty of our physiology. Intention that affects the material fabric of our realities. These aren't coming from New Age fringes, they are coming from the edges of quantum physics, complexity theory and medical research. People don't have to be victims of their neurology or "conditions" unless they have abdicated all responsibility of their own minds in the equation.
But, perhaps it is too early. We know more about operating our cars and household appliances than we do about operating our minds. Most people still assume that their thoughts and moods are just things that "happen" to them. And our technologies for working with the mind itself are still primitive and undeveloped. But I think it's happening, and it will be as radical a renaissance as science was itself. There will be a mass exodus to the new lands, once the fear of falling off the edge of the world has been removed. And there will still be people who decide to stay in France.
But things change. Our understanding changes. As science drilled down into the very fabric of matter in quantum physics, looking for the ultimate building blocks of nature, it ran head-on into some very disconcerting findings. Consciousness seemed to be entangled in matter in ways that couldn't be explained as merely subjective. Things were connected in ways that were impossible in the existing physical models. This connection wasn't just material, but involved our minds, once again.
But the momentum of the newtonian model, where everything is physical clockwork, hasn't caught up with us yet; our "common sense" about how things work is slower to adapt to new world views than what our current discoveries reveal. Columbus came back with stories of the new world, but everyone was still operating on the assumption that it's flat, because that's what they appear to directly experience.
Where metal hits the road is in our whole approach to human behavior and the reductionist/flat-world model that our "conditions" are *caused* by chemical imbalances, genetic tendencies, etc. which they attempt to address by introducing new chemicals to treat the symptoms. The utility of the "mind" is marginalized, as it was in early science, to a mere stick puppet that may be useful, although mostly unreliable, in reporting the symptoms of these physical processes. But not much more.
But it is more. Much more. We are discovering our thoughts and beliefs can affect things right down to the molecular levels of our bodies. They can create inbalances and they can affect cures. Placebos that change the very chemisty of our physiology. Intention that affects the material fabric of our realities. These aren't coming from New Age fringes, they are coming from the edges of quantum physics, complexity theory and medical research. People don't have to be victims of their neurology or "conditions" unless they have abdicated all responsibility of their own minds in the equation.
But, perhaps it is too early. We know more about operating our cars and household appliances than we do about operating our minds. Most people still assume that their thoughts and moods are just things that "happen" to them. And our technologies for working with the mind itself are still primitive and undeveloped. But I think it's happening, and it will be as radical a renaissance as science was itself. There will be a mass exodus to the new lands, once the fear of falling off the edge of the world has been removed. And there will still be people who decide to stay in France.
For years there has been a return to the holistic approach in psychology and in medicine. Incorporating physical factors, with psychological and environmental. There seems to be a common starting point, "the fruit seen on the tree"..for example..behaviour, and they dig for what causes that. Yet they too often neglect to comprehend the impact of the spiritual man on what kind of fruit the outer man produces, roots of the spiritual man reaching into his relationship with God.
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