The tendency to reject new ideas is due to how platonism is still embedded in western thinking
- Our compulsive tendency to reject new ideas
- may rest on the degree to which Platonism still dominates Western thought unconsciously. I think what we are asking ourselves in each case is whether Absolute Laws are being violated or not; if a story doesn’t directly contradict such Absolute Laws, then we tend to think, however bizarre or unusual it may be, it might be possible, but if it does contradict Absolute Laws, then we “know” (or think we “know”) that it is impossible.
- What are Absolute Laws supposed to be? They are supposed to be spaceless, timeless, eternal and unchanging—just like Plato’s forms. How can we know these ectoplasmic entities? Not by rigorous science, for that kind of science—the kind we see in the real world—only produces models which are good for a time and place, and it discards these models as soon as better models are created. Absolute Laws in the Platonic sense cannot be known scientifically—as Plato himself realized. They can only be “known” (or imagined) by intuition or by some Act of Faith.
- Empirically and existentially, nobody knows today, right now, if we have any Absolute Laws in our intellectual common market. All that we know is that we have some models that work a lot better, practically, than some of the older models we have discarded. If the so-called “laws” contained in our models are only generalizations based on our experience until this date—if they are not spaceless, timeless, eternal and given by some divinity or other—then things that do not fit our current models should not be rejected a priori. They should be studied carefully, as clues that might lead us to better models tomorrow.
- Our understanding of “matter” changes continually, particularly in this century; and the majority of physicists seem to think “matter” itself belongs in the dubious quotes with which I decorate it habitually, since “matter” currently appears only as a kind of temporary knottiness in energy. We do not know “all” about “matter,” and we know that we do not. A philosophy of materialism per se need not dogmatically reject any data a priori, since any data might, if verified, teach us more about “matter.” The only philosophy that can dogmatically reject a priori any data is the Platonic philosophy of spaceless, timeless, eternal Ideas, or Absolute Laws. The New Fundamentalists are not as far separated from the Old Fundamentalists as they like to think they are.
References
- Wilson, A., Robert (1986). The New Inquisition Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science Chapter 2 Skepticism and Blind Faith (p. 71). Grand Junction, Colorado: Hilaritas Press.
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