Much of the ‘explanations’ and theoretical reveries in science are the modern-day equivalents of those olde-world maps with fantastic, mythical monsters. The scientist is the modern-day priest speaking technical gibberish, enshrouded in cinematic smoke and mirrors, baffling you with bullshit and throwing dust in your eyes so that you don’t see the emperor wears no clothes.
They perform this or that technical miracle, leading people to mistakenly believe that this somehow indicates a more privileged understanding of the bigger picture, even though scientists, as specialists, all have jurisdictional knowledge quite exclusive to a particular domain. They know more and more about less and less.
Even the macro-fields like astronomy have jaw-dropping blind spots as advent horizons, micro-fields like quantum physics have shocking discoveries brushed under the rug, there isn’t a uniform agreement on what the results mean one way or the other, the entirety of this is nothing but models and the map is not the territory, the abstractions are so far-removed and require all things being equal – quite the caveat – moreover it’s all watered down for the layman to the point of being a caricature.
The greater portion of what we project upon the cosmos is fictional, bearing in mind that fiction and story can communicate truth and can pierce into reality via visionary insight; but in this respect writers, musicians. and artists have just the same ability. The ordinary farmer has the same facility in his or her own right.
As for all our technical ability, it does indeed say something, but nothing signifying true insight or knowledge. It is all a labyrinthine complexity beyond the pale of what anyone can comprehensively synthesize or fathom. Even the smartest grasp only a sliver. We push buttons and things happen, even the most educated barely go beyond this. The only thing our technology speaks volumes about is our inability to natively comprehend the bigger picture without the dependance on exceedingly sophisticated external appliances, which of course debilitates our own innate understanding.
Our genuine capacity to know wilts in proportion to the complexity of and slavish adherence to our gadgetry; our gadgets are crutches, and with respect to knowledge we are cripples.
Image:
The Ancient of Days, William Blake. It is Urizen, the God of Reason in Blake’s mythology.
Imagicination 