Is There Any Point or Purpose?

 

According to Eric Dietrich, philosophy is a dying discipline.  He says,      

 

“Except for a patina of twenty-first century modernity, in the form of logic and language, philosophy is exactly the same now as it ever was; it has made no progress whatsoever [in the past few centuries]. . . . Even more outrageous than this claim, though, is the blatant denial of its obvious truth by many practicing philosophers. . . . a mental condition where the affected person denies there is any problem. . . . philosophy 's inability to solve any philosophical problem, ever.”

 

Dietrich’s glum assessment would have some merit, except for some recent advances in science, advances that are leading to a reexamination of the philosophy that underlies science itself.  It must be emphasized that the God paradigm does not dispute science, but rather, it challenges the philosophy called natural materialism, which is the basis upon which the scientific establishment operates these days.

 

That philosophy also goes by other names, or at least associations with, ideas such as physicalism, monism, objectivism.  The common thread they all seem to have, is that everything in physical nature can be explained by other things in physical nature, with no need to resort to matters of spirit, no need for purpose or plan or meaning.  All of that, is deemed to be an unscientific hodge-podge of meaningless, subjective drivel, and a waste of time, a diversion from the more worthy goals of scientific inquiry.  The greatest minds of physical science say so, and we ordinary mortals (no sarcasm intended, really) cannot help but be intimidated when they do.  I am.

 

However, as Shakespeare would say, the truth will out. 

 

For centuries, theologians and others struggled against the growing evidence for a purely physical explanation of everything in nature.  By extension, nature itself was its own, and only, explanation, according to those who did the hard work of scientific research.  Their work became incorporated into technology, and today we luxuriate in the many blessings of that technology.  Our lives are longer and more pleasant than at any previous time in history.

 

Yet, all along, there was a gorilla in the room, indeed three of them.  They are still with us, silently bearing witness to the inadequacy, the futility, indeed the absurdity of a purely physical explanation to physical reality.  Those three witnesses are life, consciousness, and free will, a unified trinity of objective observations which, well, “will out.”

 

For centuries, it was argued that even those three features of humanity will eventually prove to be purely physical in nature.  Of course, many of us recognize that argument as being one from faith, not science.  It is utterly unscientific to state as a fact something that has not been demonstrated.

 

It so happens that, slowly, gradually, the evidence is mounting that life, consciousness and free will are intertwined in such a way that instead of being peripheral products of nature, they are at its essence, at its core and foundation.

 

This evidence comes from many sources, but perhaps the most impressive evidence comes to us from the science of quantum physics (or quantum mechanics, as it is also known).  The book, The God Paradigm, goes into this in more detail, but for the purposes of this brief commentary, experiments in quantum physics have had stunning and controversial results.  These results hint that the human mind is not a mere observer of reality, but in a fundamental way, shapes it.

 

There is more.  No one element of science has been conclusive in this regard, but the weight of many discoveries is increasing.

 

Another stunning discovery was something called the Fine Tuning of the universe.  What this means is that, if the physical properties of the universe were to be any different than what they in fact are, the universe would either collapse into a fireball, or explode into a mist, but in neither case, could it support life, civilization and the technology of science.

 

We can go on and on with this, and The God Paradigm does, but the main point of this commentary is actually to dispute the notion that philosophy is a dying endeavor of humanity.  It is not.

 

Indeed, the progress, which the philosophy of a new paradigm will produce, will not only revolutionize science, it will magnify the benefits of technology—and this is crucial, when one considers that the very technology which cures disease can also produce germ warfare, and with it, incurable diseases.

 

As Bob Dylan might say, the old guard is rapidly fading.