One of humanity's obsessive but under-noticed pursuits is the search for a stable and unchanging framework on which to hang everything we discover and experience. These efforts range from the creation of mythologies, adages, creeds, axioms and religions, to the scientific pursuit of a Theory of Everything. It also plays out in what I've called founderism, which contains within it the desire for something foundational to not only be forever fixed, but that it has been accurately discovered. This need to discover and revere a reliable and enduring primary "truth" that can't be challenged is, like any obsession, an unintended cause of dreadful behavior. Rivals in this quest can treat each other like vermin. Foes congeal into antagonizing groups that can sometimes reach the point of full-scale war.
If it exists, our descendants may one day come across an undeniably perfect description of the universe and how it works that can be used as the basis to discover a verifiable answer to any question imagined. If it happens, what conclusion it ends up producing about the path we took to get there will put a stain on the victory.
If it exists, our descendants may one day come across an undeniably perfect description of the universe and how it works that can be used as the basis to discover a verifiable answer to any question imagined. If it happens, what conclusion it ends up producing about the path we took to get there will put a stain on the victory.
No comments:
Post a Comment