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Everything is magic, or nothing. novalis
According to Darwin, Man is derived from the reign of nature. We share this point of view.
But we then Man evolved; passed from the natural to the cultural world; in this passage, humanity has collected a number of metaphysical questions:
Why is there something rather than nothing?
What is driving the world? What is after death? Etc.
This questioning is fundamental; without it, our species could never evolve to its current level.
Existential issues
Existential questions are the engine of increased human activity; they generate many anxieties, which generate some suffering.
Pains, pleasure, happiness, are guides of evolution. Men as all living forms flee the anguish and research happiness. To reduce anxieties, humans should seek answers to their questioning.
Metaphysics, philosophy, science, are the fruit of this extraordinary mechanism.
Sentenced to Truth
Human psyche is so composed. No dam prevents the rise of existential questions, and no inconsistent response can satisfy it... This process guides the human in a specific sense. Not only we cannot conceal our questioning, but we must respond as intelligently as possible.
Humanity is therefore condemned to find the answers providing a definitive peace. In other words, humanity is sentenced to truth.
Science without religion is lame ; religion without science is blind. Albert Einstein
The human kind is an exemplary student; facing existential problems, it still manages to provide the best answers of the time.
Its representation of the world succeeds to evolve over time. Superstitious atmosphere, magic, mythic, symbolic, religious, philosophical or scientific phases had followed over history.
First gods then God; universe, the world and then after world; finite state and infinity, time, space and matter had gradually been discovered by the human mind. These broad concepts are fundamental to solve our puzzles. They continually refined over time.
About Magic
The first explanations amounted to magic, poetry, the image, as those for example of animist cosmogonies.
In the old Egypt at the origin of the creation, there was the Noun, sort of vital fluid. For the Mesopotamian, the meeting between salt water and fresh water gave birth to the gods.
For the Greeks and Romans, all is coming from chaos. According to the aborigines of Australia, the dream time has originated the world.
The extraordinary African cosmogony combines the powers of goodness, animals, wind, Earth, etc. Death opens to the world of spirits and ancestors. This world is in contact with nature, the human appearance is the result of a creative act from clay: the unique God makes a woman's body, lying in the sky. An anthill is her sex, a termite hill her clitoris (Dogon cosmogony)
In their way, major religions have thorough these responses. In some form, Genesis is an attempt to streamline the steps of the creation. By comparing large religious metaphors to current scientific data, one is able to measure its relevance.
For a long time the religions have managed to adapt their holy book to the great discoveries of science. The violence was frequent and digestion was difficult. But spiritualities always eventually assimilated innovations and adapted their dogmas.
Since the 19th century, however, religion had to give way. The speed of the discoveries has created a huge disparity. Mankind then rejected the religious from power to offer their full dimension to science.
Science cannot prove that God does not exist, because there is something that escapes him by nature. Kant
Depuis plus d'un siècle, en Occident, la vision scientifique monopolise les explications du monde.
For more than a century, in the West, scientific vision dominates the explanations of the world. Scientists being convinced to hold the truth, they have spread it on the whole planet. However, their point of view seems relatively hemiplegic and it is probably time to leave this monolithic vision.
Truth within the Pyrenees, falsity beyond, wrote Montaigne… One may actually agree to give to the scientific world, some form of truth beyond the transcendental, knowing that "the beyond" has branches in the phenomenal world (i.e. spaces on which open the Quark).
It's the same when scientists or philosophers reject the spiritual convictions; when they deny, the existence of God or of the afterlife. They simply express their opinion.
The scientific dogma, are fundamental. One must believe in the reality of the fractioning of time, of matter, of measurement or mathematics. Most of our world is based on these scientific data. These dogmas are fundamental to human evolution.
From a logical point of view, the spiritual belief seems more sensible. A simple example: For millennia, human invests a huge energy trying to unravel the riddles of creation; yet, this creative principle always manages to conceal its secrets to human intelligence. This reality, is in my view, tipping the balance in favour the existence of a higher power.
The universe is full of magic and patiently waits for our intelligence to be refined. Eden Phillpotts
Of course, we left the world of nature for the world of culture. But we have kept from our origins, much of our behaviour. The battle between dominant and suitor is one example.
When the religion was in omnipotent, it imposed its dogmas and prohibited their challenge.
Scientists were then summoned to match their research with those of the sacred books.
When science took power, it fell into the same autocratic tricks. Times had changed as well as ways of living. Physical violence was no longer accepted. But the crash of the religious by scientists was still a reality. It arose simply from the years of oppression suffered by science.
It would appear that we are leaving these archaic mechanisms. For some time struggles become smoother. The scientific community, whose flexibility is greater than that of the religious, is establishing meeting points. It opens more and more to other disciplines of thinking (philosophy, religion, and even the esotericism).
New scientists, more tolerant and cosmopolitan, are interested in the "old metaphysical questions.
Nous ne sommes savants que de la science présente. MontaigneTruth does not open to violent men who claim to rapt it, but to those who are waiting for it with respect and abandon. Emerson
Magic, religion, science, each in turn have provided explanations to metaphysical questions. Science is the last; its rigour has amazingly accelerated the development of human knowledge.
Between the primitive cosmogonies and quantum physics, the world has evolved. Between Democritus’ idea on atom and the current quarks, our awareness of material has changed.
The history of responses to our great existential questions, form an upward curve. It evolves from intuition to the reason; from inspiration to pragmatism. It is a step forward from magic to science.
This evolution from magic to science, gives a sense to go always more up to the truth. This belief is the ideological basis of some thinkers, such as Auguste Comte, for whom science is at the top of the knowledge.
Gradually, rational explanations of the world are getting towards the truth; however, this is a theoretical truth of the world, a paper truth.
This exterior angle, for necessary and constructive that it might be, is not the truth itself. It is the image of the truth.
The analysis of suffering, for example, is not perceived suffering. Similarly, the study of the divine will never be the lived divine (Ecstasy)..
Even if human discovered the mathematical formula of God, he will never replace the feeling of God; praying God will never be an ecstatic feeling in contact with its intimate nature. In other words, the theory of the divine, will never replace the feeling of lived ecstasy
In the same way, only intimate contact with the creative principle, allows reaching the absolute truth. Any other truth is relative.
On the other hand, each "relative truth" has a major importance for human evolution. Every scientific discovery, works for sensitive and absolute truth; it allows gradually reducing the overall level of concern in humanity.
Instead, the reduction of concerns amplifies, quietness, one of the major values to access beatitude. In other words, the gradual resolution of our questions, promotes direct contact with the ultimate truth.
science
Croyez-vous
que les sciences auraient pu jamais se développer et grandir, si elles n'avaient eu pour avant-garde les magiciens, les alchimistes, les astrologues et les sorciers dont les promesses et les mirages devaient d'abord susciter la soif, la faim, l'agréable avant-goût des puissances cachées et interdites ? Ne voyez-vous pas qu'il a fallu que fut promis infiniment plus qu'il ne pouvait jamais être accompli, pour que seulement quelque chose put s'accomplir
dans le domaine de la connaissance ?
Nietzsche, le gai savoir 1882
Ce n'est pas une utopie. C'est une trajectoire déjà visible, inscrite dans l'histoire depuis le premier primate. Lentement. Imparfaitement. Mais dans une direction.
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