I listened to Professor Caroline Crawford, a reputable astronomer, being interviewed on the radio this morning. What a load of bollocks she talked, painting such a rosy picture of science. It was one huge lie from beginning to end. It is the same lie as is perpetrated be virtually every scientist that makes it onto the radio or television or into print in the popular market.
She made science sound like Disneyland whereas it is more Gormenghast. Science is more the gladiatorial arena than some benign form of Olympic Games, or a ‘fun-run’. In my view, science is a moribund world of dead ritual, but a cruel and vicious one where you will be torn limb from limb if you dare to stick your head above the parapet. The ‘feel’ of the world of science is the feel of the ‘Capulets and Montagues’ as portrayed by Prokofiev in the ballet of Romeo and Juliet, or the feel of Katchaturian’s incidental music to the film Masquerade.
Last night I watched the old (70’s?) film, Educating Rita. It is about a young, uneducated, working class woman taking a university course. Oh what a wonderful portrait it paints of life at university — all those friendly students eagerly drinking in all those new ideas and having endless wonderful, intellectual conversations sitting on lawns or round coffee tables ---- again, complete bollocks. The people at university are just the same as everywhere else in the world, and so university is just as nasty, competitive and boring as anywhere else.
I take a similarly ‘black’ view of almost everything in this world (the natural world excepted).
Most people find my views unpalatable and opine that I must be very depressed, a sad person. I am urged to adopt a more up-beat attitude to life . I am told I would do better to take a more ‘positive’ view of things, and many people go so far as to make quite a virtue out of seeing the positive side of everything — a very fashionable stance in the modern world. Even the most popular, and, one is told, the most successful, of modern therapeutic techniques used in the treatment of anxiety and depression, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, works by getting patients to alter their thinking, to replace negative thoughts with positive alternatives.
The issue then is this: is it better to deliberately chose to think well of the world, or to face the truth, whatever that truth may be? One has to remember that, unless the world is a wonderful place (and if it really was then I doubt there would be any need for ‘positive thinking’), then to deliberately chose to think well of the world is to chose to lie. You are choosing to live with lies and deceit.
The theory is that to choose to think well of things, to choose to be positive, is to create a better frame of mind. It is assumed, witness CBT, to be HEALTHIER and to lead to greater happiness and a better ability to cope with life and the world.
What can I say? ………in a word: bollocks. Truth will never hurt you. Lies will kill you.
At the simplest level, all those lies about university and science and everything else are setting young people up for disappointment. Their lives are just going to be one long stream of disappointments as they join these ‘wonderful’ communities or take up these ‘wonderful’ careers and discover the truth. The worst of it is that some of them will go on believing the lies and think that the problem is theirs. They will then lose confidence, and may become depressed, even suicidal.
But looking a little deeper: if you seek to know the truth about the world, whatever that may be, then you will maintain your interest in the world because your mind is always seeking to grow and develop your understanding. Understanding cannot be built on lies. If, therefore, you choose to take a positive view of the world, whatever the truth may be, then your mind will switch off, will die because, essentially, you have chosen to eschew understanding.
The world is a fascinating place, and every new experience is a feast to be reflected upon and mulled over, and which feeds the growth and development of the mind, both in understanding and in abilities.
If one thinks of the world as some massive, ancient structure, then to choose to take a positive view of it is to ‘paper over the cracks’. In order to make it look better you are covering up all that is really interesting and are left with being able to see nothing beyond the wall-paper.
If you chose to seek the truth then you take an interest in the building as it is, cracks, dirt and all. And that means that the building becomes interesting. You can examine its construction and design, see what keeps it up, possibly discover that it is going to collapse, or that it can be shored up and kept going. But whatever, you are living in a much more interesting world than that of people who only have the wall-paper to gaze at and think about.
It is the person who has the strange old building to examine and muse over that is happy, not the person who has condemned themselves to a life of gazing at wall-paper. The truth is interesting, and provides endless entertainment. Lies are boring.
Then there is the idea that to see people and the world as nasty and vicious must necessarily lead to depression. Not so. I would quote here the catch phrase of an old comedian, Dick Emery: “oh, you are awful — but I like you.”
In other words, it is not necessary that things should live up to one’s own standards — of morals, or beauty, or anything else ---- for one to like them. In fact, one’s world is enriched when one accepts ‘aliens’, even ill-intentioned aliens, for themselves and finds ways of liking them. This is a process that is like developing a taste for foreign foods ie it is not an intellectual process; if you have the right, tolerant, interested frame of mind, then it will just happen. You cannot force it.
So: science is awful, but I like it. The internet is awful, but I like it. Fine Art is awful, but I like it………etc, etc.
I would just add that a sense of humour is invaluable, and that, too, is something that develops naturally, along with one’s understanding and abilities. If you see science through the eyes of Kafka, rather than, say, Alduous Huxley, or George Orwell, then you will find it VERY FUNNY. The things people get up to with their games and silliness! Think Life of Brian. Or, when you look at the sprawl of science that scientists have created, you could quote another catch phrase from the world of comedy: that’s another fine mess you’ve got me into (Laurel and Hardy).
So, to summarise: to seek the truth leads to happiness, to an endless, ever-expanding interest in the world, and to a mind that never stops growing and developing. To choose to live with lies leads to unhappiness and boredom and to a mind that stops growing. (N.B. CBT is notably good with anxiety, but, in common with other therapies, is notably helpless in face of depression.)
I said above that you cannot force the development of one’s liking for things; it is a natural process of growth. The same can be said of understanding: you cannot force it.
This is important. It wrong-foots science. You always and only understand the world to the level of your current ability. In order to understand better you have to wait till your mind has developed to a higher level. And while you wait you have to go on gaining experience of the world. As your mind grows and develops in response to new experiences so too does your understanding.
Scientists think that they can gain an understanding of the world by relentlessly gathering data and poking and prodding and theorising and testing theories. That will not work. They are just creating confusion because they are confounding the natural processes by which understanding grows. Scientific curiosity is undirected and leads one round in circles. NATURAL curiosity is directed and leads one to precisely the experiences one needs in order to develop one’s understanding.
Another problem with science it this: it prides itself as never KNOWING the truth; as always being open to revision. Science does not deal with certainty, only with theory. But, again, that is not the way things work. That is based on a failure to appreciate how the mind works.
In order for the mind to grow and develop it needs firm ground to stand on. It does not matter WHAT you believe. What matters is THAT you believe. If you allow your mind to work, if you go about in the world and gain experience and if you are interested in the truth, then your understanding will develop and your ideas will develop.
One can put it this way: when you are a child, you will have a very fanciful, unrealistic notion of the world. As you grow and develop and experience the world, that notion keeps pace and becomes more realistic ---- but only if you keep a firm grasp on YOUR OWN beliefs. This is an entirely NATURAL process. Doubts and uncertainties will only sabotage the process.
So, once again, science is wrong-footed. Interestingly, though, religion is not. Religions are actually a better starting point for gaining an understanding of the world than is science, and a religious attitude is, for the most part, a healthier one when one wishes to understand things.
I have said before that I believe modern technology is less a wonder and more a crutch: we have lost the ingenuity that built the pyramids, or erected Stone Henge and the Easter Island statues, or built substantial structures using just the uncut stones lying around on the ground. Ingenuity has been replaced by muscle. And the satisfaction of being able to devise ingenious ways of doing things has been lost, and with it all the abilities that so enrich life.
Science and technology are awful ……. but I like them. What I can’t be doing with is LIES and DOUBTS.