The Limits to Empiricism
Empiricism – the epistemology of western science – is based on the 5 senses and implicitly suggests that there is nothing else to be observed outside of that. Can anyone really believe that? If so, then they must acknowledge the limitations of the human senses. A cat can see the entire electromagnetic spectrum, while we can only see the tiny sliver so appropriately called “visible light”. Now of course we have devices that compensate for our weak vision and allow us to observe the whole spectrum, but that is only recently.
Through the five senses, Copernicus derived that the universe spun around the earth, others thought the earth was flat, and Newton though the atom was indivisible. In every era it is not until further advancements that we discover the limitations of our senses, and by extension our technology. And most of the greatest discoveries and innovations have not come through empiricism but by intuition and philosophical inquiry. People get crazy ideas out of nowhere, or by simply being immersed within the marvels of nature – like the story, myth or not, of Newton being hit on the head with an apple. People then use empiricism to test their intuition, but even then can’t say anything is true with any certainty. A leap of faith is still required.
If we were to silence religion, to stifle humanity’s natural inquisitiveness into and awe over the mysteries of the universe, choosing instead to believe and examine only those things that can be validated by our meager five senses, we in effect cut off so many possibilities for discovery. Pythagoras – father of Trigonometry – was a total mystic, and leader of a gnostic cult. Today we would not likely find him at the head of a college classroom or advising a team of senior researchers, due to the cynicism with which western science approaches all other epistemologies. Yet, were it not for Pythagoras’s wild musings about the nature of reality, some of the cornerstones of western science itself may not have ever existed. So while empiricism is useful – indeed practical – it flounders until someone makes a dramatic leap – often with no scientific basis at all.
Question: How can one have a true reflection of reality?
The answer is that no one can, if ‘true’ also infers objective. Phenomena are not merely observed subjectively but do not exist at all except for where they are perceived by or otherwise interacted with by others. In other words, the only way we know something exists at all is its relationship to something else. Therefore empiricism is only valid to human observers. There are bits from the hard sciences that support this – such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the theories of relativity.
The observer of any phenomena automatically has an effect on the thing being observed and therefore any objective truth about that thing has been altered. This all means that there will never be a science that can explain every phenomena in the universe in a way that is true for everyone and in every situation, i.e. universally and objectively true.
Empiricism works in the practical sense, as far as how we function in the world on a day to day basis, and improving our lives through advances in medicine, technology, and the like. It is said that science purports to explain all the ‘hows’ of the universe. To what degree it succeeds in that endeavor is up for debate in every circumstance. Meanwhile, religion attempts to explain the ‘whys’ – something that science will never be able to determine. Science will never be able to determine the origin of life or the origin of the universe beyond theory. In fact, it determines hardly anything beyond theory. But just like science doesn’t answer the hows with complete certainty, religion doesn’t answer the whys with any certainty – and perhaps not at all. What religion does – what philosophy does as well – is use the human capacity for imagination to extend one’s frame of reference beyond the five senses, to bring forth the ideas that the scientists then study empirically.
Human intelligence and human artifice are merely extensions of their phenotype. They have no intrinsically superior qualities to them. Intelligence allows human beings to function in a world that human intelligence itself has created. For all our intelligence we have more conflicts and division amongst our species than any other in the animal kingdom – contrivances such as race and nationality intended only to make qualitative distinctions between a self and an other. For all of our artifice – our great marvels of technology – the planet is the sickest its ever been, more people are suffering, there are more diseases than ever before, higher murder rates, more rape, genocide, and countless other examples of how far humanity has fallen.
Have you ever heard the idea of ‘descent into matter’? If not, it is the religious/philosophical idea that our physical bodies are an illusion that corresponds to the lowest level of understanding. Science is materialistic, obsessed with the physical world as if that is all there is. Or that “all there is” can be explained through a physicalist interpretation. At the same time, there is an increasing movement in culture towards materialism and superficiality – again an obsession with the surface of things, rather than what may be their true nature. There appears to be a parallel between man’s ‘descent into matter’ and the whole of the human world becoming more and more materialistic – here meaning an overall focus on matter, which includes cultural materialism.
If we rely exclusively upon science (empiricism) for our answers, and in the process reject all other epistemologies, then there is a chance that we are evading truth. For that reason I refuse to herald empiricism over rationalism or any other epistemology. And so, I think that a syncretic examination of the universe will provide the best answers.