Whither Goest Thou, O Science!

[Augustus]

However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

If you could point me in the direction of any of these texts I'd very much appreciate it

Does he view these as permanent Golden Ages, or cyclical?

 

[Twilight Hue]

Science is a tool, whether there is "progress" or "regress" is not within its remit; so science is not "taking" us anywhere. There is no fate to it. We can develop antibiotics AND we can develop weapons of war.

Well it does help make a path we can tread foreword with.

 

[halbhh]

So far as I've been told, we mostly owe the Victorians for the notion that society, in alliance with the sciences, is fated to evolve or progress towards a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it is sometimes said that the Victorians were merely borrowing their notion of progress from Christianity. Specifically, the Christian idea that the world is evolving or progressing towards a post-Apocalyptic Golden Age of humanity. However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

Indeed, I am of the opinion that the concept of progress is deeply rooted in us -- encoded somehow in our DNA. Perhaps my main reason for thinking progress is an inherent concept is because it is a key and essential component of narratives, and narratives are ubiquitous to humans. That is, we are a story-telling animal. Everywhere on earth, regardless of the local culture and customs, we are a story-telling animal. How best to explain that fact than to at least suspect story-telling is rooted in our genes?

Yet, if story-telling or narrative is rooted in our genes, then so is -- in one form or another -- the concept of progress, for without some kind of progression, there is no such thing as a story. All you would have are a string of facts or events.

Hence, when we speak of 'the Victorian Concept of Progress', we must be careful to understand that the Victorians did not actually invent the notion of progress, nor did the Christians before them, but rather, they cast or shaped the concept in a more or less uniquely Victorian way by (1) conceiving of science as force driving progress and (2) by conceiving of the outcome of progress as a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it does not take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to know what's 'iffy' about the Victorian notion. Namely science -- and those things associated with science (e.g. rationality) -- do not necessitate, do not guarantee a future of rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. Indeed, they seem capable of leading to quite the opposite! Just imagine science yoked to an Orwellian state and making possible unimaginably effective technologies of oppression! Such is actually within the realm of possibility.

But here's the tricky part: Some people appear to have simply flipped the coin. Instead of saying science guarantees a rosy future, they say science guarantees a nightmare future.

So, is there any more merit to the later view than there is to the former? Or, more to the point: Whither is science taking us? And is it somehow fated to take us there?

Science, engineering, tools -- they are force multipliers, giving individuals a lot more power. To do good or ill.

So, of course, since some individuals will do ill, they will be able to do ill with great force multiplication -- on a much more massive scale than in history.
(It won't just be someone with several AR-15s and bump stocks killing 58 in a matter of just a minute or 3 as in Nevada. So much bigger multiplication will be around. But that's not even what I'm saying -- I'm talking instead about national leaders.)

While we are used to just thinking of climate change worst cases for instance, where we might manage to make the climate so bad that famines/mass starvation and a general collapse of civilization could happen, or at least a lot of war and death. A lot, as having a really serious agricultural shortfall for instance, if enough went wrong. You can plausibly (not chicken little) see that things could get pretty bad.

The more serious long term threat to individual quality of life is losing your freedoms as we can see a possible future in how China is evolving.

A police state so much more sophisticated and unbreakable.

Waiting just for the more brutal leader to come along to take the reins, which a structure of such concentrated power as China is building naturally tends to attract.

It'd be just a matter of time. You get a new version of the normal old tendency of nationalism or racist purity or whatever, even a new ideology, but this time with a more concentrated power available to the brutal leader. Imagine Stalin or Pol Pot, but with a lot more force multiplication.

So, you see, believing in good isn't an optional superstitious weakness, but more like an immune system that very much will someday save one's life.

It's more a Life or Death kind of thing, than a 'weakness' or such. This is one of the objections I had a long while back to those that want to wrongly paint 'superstition' or 'irrational belief' onto people believing in Good for its own sake, in and of itself.

 

[Secret Chief]

Well it does help make a path we can tread foreword with.

I agree it helps make a path.

 

[Ponder This]

So far as I've been told, we mostly owe the Victorians for the notion that society, in alliance with the sciences, is fated to evolve or progress towards a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it is sometimes said that the Victorians were merely borrowing their notion of progress from Christianity. Specifically, the Christian idea that the world is evolving or progressing towards a post-Apocalyptic Golden Age of humanity. However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

Indeed, I am of the opinion that the concept of progress is deeply rooted in us -- encoded somehow in our DNA. Perhaps my main reason for thinking progress is an inherent concept is because it is a key and essential component of narratives, and narratives are ubiquitous to humans. That is, we are a story-telling animal. Everywhere on earth, regardless of the local culture and customs, we are a story-telling animal. How best to explain that fact than to at least suspect story-telling is rooted in our genes?

Yet, if story-telling or narrative is rooted in our genes, then so is -- in one form or another -- the concept of progress, for without some kind of progression, there is no such thing as a story. All you would have are a string of facts or events.

Hence, when we speak of 'the Victorian Concept of Progress', we must be careful to understand that the Victorians did not actually invent the notion of progress, nor did the Christians before them, but rather, they cast or shaped the concept in a more or less uniquely Victorian way by (1) conceiving of science as force driving progress and (2) by conceiving of the outcome of progress as a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it does not take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to know what's 'iffy' about the Victorian notion. Namely science -- and those things associated with science (e.g. rationality) -- do not necessitate, do not guarantee a future of rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. Indeed, they seem capable of leading to quite the opposite! Just imagine science yoked to an Orwellian state and making possible unimaginably effective technologies of oppression! Such is actually within the realm of possibility.

But here's the tricky part: Some people appear to have simply flipped the coin. Instead of saying science guarantees a rosy future, they say science guarantees a nightmare future.

So, is there any more merit to the later view than there is to the former? Or, more to the point: Whither is science taking us? And is it somehow fated to take us there?

Science is not capable of taking us to either utopia or dystopia as it is people and their everyday actions that will determine the ultimate fate of humanity.
A hammer can aid in building homes or it can aid in bashing someone's skull in. A hammer, itself, leads neither to one outcome or the other. It offers merely the magnification of one's intentions.

 

[savagewind]

So far as I've been told, we mostly owe the Victorians for the notion that society, in alliance with the sciences, is fated to evolve or progress towards a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it is sometimes said that the Victorians were merely borrowing their notion of progress from Christianity. Specifically, the Christian idea that the world is evolving or progressing towards a post-Apocalyptic Golden Age of humanity. However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

Indeed, I am of the opinion that the concept of progress is deeply rooted in us -- encoded somehow in our DNA. Perhaps my main reason for thinking progress is an inherent concept is because it is a key and essential component of narratives, and narratives are ubiquitous to humans. That is, we are a story-telling animal. Everywhere on earth, regardless of the local culture and customs, we are a story-telling animal. How best to explain that fact than to at least suspect story-telling is rooted in our genes?

Yet, if story-telling or narrative is rooted in our genes, then so is -- in one form or another -- the concept of progress, for without some kind of progression, there is no such thing as a story. All you would have are a string of facts or events.

Hence, when we speak of 'the Victorian Concept of Progress', we must be careful to understand that the Victorians did not actually invent the notion of progress, nor did the Christians before them, but rather, they cast or shaped the concept in a more or less uniquely Victorian way by (1) conceiving of science as force driving progress and (2) by conceiving of the outcome of progress as a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it does not take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to know what's 'iffy' about the Victorian notion. Namely science -- and those things associated with science (e.g. rationality) -- do not necessitate, do not guarantee a future of rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. Indeed, they seem capable of leading to quite the opposite! Just imagine science yoked to an Orwellian state and making possible unimaginably effective technologies of oppression! Such is actually within the realm of possibility.

But here's the tricky part: Some people appear to have simply flipped the coin. Instead of saying science guarantees a rosy future, they say science guarantees a nightmare future.

So, is there any more merit to the later view than there is to the former? Or, more to the point: Whither is science taking us? And is it somehow fated to take us there?

A thread worth reading, but I do not know that I will.

 

[MikeF]

So far as I've been told, we mostly owe the Victorians for the notion that society, in alliance with the sciences, is fated to evolve or progress towards a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it is sometimes said that the Victorians were merely borrowing their notion of progress from Christianity. Specifically, the Christian idea that the world is evolving or progressing towards a post-Apocalyptic Golden Age of humanity. However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

Indeed, I am of the opinion that the concept of progress is deeply rooted in us -- encoded somehow in our DNA. Perhaps my main reason for thinking progress is an inherent concept is because it is a key and essential component of narratives, and narratives are ubiquitous to humans. That is, we are a story-telling animal. Everywhere on earth, regardless of the local culture and customs, we are a story-telling animal. How best to explain that fact than to at least suspect story-telling is rooted in our genes?

Yet, if story-telling or narrative is rooted in our genes, then so is -- in one form or another -- the concept of progress, for without some kind of progression, there is no such thing as a story. All you would have are a string of facts or events.

Hence, when we speak of 'the Victorian Concept of Progress', we must be careful to understand that the Victorians did not actually invent the notion of progress, nor did the Christians before them, but rather, they cast or shaped the concept in a more or less uniquely Victorian way by (1) conceiving of science as force driving progress and (2) by conceiving of the outcome of progress as a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it does not take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to know what's 'iffy' about the Victorian notion. Namely science -- and those things associated with science (e.g. rationality) -- do not necessitate, do not guarantee a future of rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. Indeed, they seem capable of leading to quite the opposite! Just imagine science yoked to an Orwellian state and making possible unimaginably effective technologies of oppression! Such is actually within the realm of possibility.

But here's the tricky part: Some people appear to have simply flipped the coin. Instead of saying science guarantees a rosy future, they say science guarantees a nightmare future.

So, is there any more merit to the later view than there is to the former? Or, more to the point: Whither is science taking us? And is it somehow fated to take us there?

The problem that I have with your premise is the assumption that every human being is equally rational. Does every human being have the capacity to be equally rational? Aren't, each of us, unique as snowflakes? There are physical limitations (not all brains wired the same), impacts of socialization and indoctrination as we are raised. These and many other psycho-social factors impact how we think and feel. This is one of the problems with philosophy. Not all the variables are considered in these broad philosophical questions.

Scientific methods are simply the tools we use to verify the conclusions we make about those things with right or wrong answers. Science isn't the problem as these problems of how we live together have been with us since the beginning and will be with us whether we utilize scientific methods or not.

Human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing will only come when we figure out how to reconcile or accept the wide differences inherent in the human condition. As uniform rationality is not possible, we should look elsewhere for the solution.

 

[blü 2]

So far as I've been told, we mostly owe the Victorians for the notion that society, in alliance with the sciences, is fated to evolve or progress towards a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it is sometimes said that the Victorians were merely borrowing their notion of progress from Christianity. Specifically, the Christian idea that the world is evolving or progressing towards a post-Apocalyptic Golden Age of humanity. However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

Indeed, I am of the opinion that the concept of progress is deeply rooted in us -- encoded somehow in our DNA. Perhaps my main reason for thinking progress is an inherent concept is because it is a key and essential component of narratives, and narratives are ubiquitous to humans. That is, we are a story-telling animal. Everywhere on earth, regardless of the local culture and customs, we are a story-telling animal. How best to explain that fact than to at least suspect story-telling is rooted in our genes?

Yet, if story-telling or narrative is rooted in our genes, then so is -- in one form or another -- the concept of progress, for without some kind of progression, there is no such thing as a story. All you would have are a string of facts or events.

Hence, when we speak of 'the Victorian Concept of Progress', we must be careful to understand that the Victorians did not actually invent the notion of progress, nor did the Christians before them, but rather, they cast or shaped the concept in a more or less uniquely Victorian way by (1) conceiving of science as force driving progress and (2) by conceiving of the outcome of progress as a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it does not take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to know what's 'iffy' about the Victorian notion. Namely science -- and those things associated with science (e.g. rationality) -- do not necessitate, do not guarantee a future of rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. Indeed, they seem capable of leading to quite the opposite! Just imagine science yoked to an Orwellian state and making possible unimaginably effective technologies of oppression! Such is actually within the realm of possibility.

But here's the tricky part: Some people appear to have simply flipped the coin. Instead of saying science guarantees a rosy future, they say science guarantees a nightmare future.

So, is there any more merit to the later view than there is to the former? Or, more to the point: Whither is science taking us? And is it somehow fated to take us there?

Science, like maths, like reason itself, is a tool.

Science, maths, reason, have no morality of their own. They work on better death-rays at the same time as they work on better telescopes, they work on better war-plagues as well as better Covid vaccines.

If we want them to behave better, then we need to be better when we ask them to do something for us. If there's blame, it's ours, not theirs. And if there's moral credit, it's ours too.

 

[Sunstone]

While the term has come to connote a development from one state to some better state, that is certainly not a requirement.

I agree. When thinking of 'progress' in the context of a narrative, I tend to think of it as 'progression', which does not entail moving from a worse to a better state.

 

[Sunstone]

First, I think you are wrong about a progressive Christian (or religious for that matter) narrative. Their story is about decay, the golden age is followed by the silver age, not the other way around. Everything moves towards an apocalypse and only after that humans get their new paradise handed by a godhead.

Interesting point. Not sure how you would support it, though.

 

[Heyo]

Interesting point. Not sure how you would support it, though.

I haven't read the Bible but from what I've heard it begins with a near perfect state (Eden) which is ruined by humans (sin) and it ends with a prediction that it is all going to be much worse (Apocalypse) and only then will some godhead give a new nearly perfect state (new Jerusalem) to the people who survived without them having to do anything. Are my infos far off?

 

[Mock Turtle]

The more serious long term threat to individual quality of life is losing your freedoms as we can see a possible future in how China is evolving.

A police state so much more sophisticated and unbreakable.

Waiting just for the more brutal leader to come along to take the reins, which a structure of such concentrated power as China is building naturally tends to attract.

I'm not sure this is an accurate prediction for the future, even if the China of today does seem to be overly dictatorial. One might contrast the attitudes, often inherent in some Western societies (the USA being a prime example), of individual freedoms but where the responsibilities are often lacking, as against that which China seems to display - the individual as subservient to the overall aims of society. And I doubt the Chinese people are immune to the effects of the internet (even if such is censored), and where they do see what others have and might want some of the same - whether by slow change or revolution.

 

[Sunstone]

I haven't read the Bible but from what I've heard it begins with a near perfect state (Eden) which is ruined by humans (sin) and it ends with a prediction that it is all going to be much worse (Apocalypse) and only then will some godhead give a new nearly perfect state (new Jerusalem) to the people who survived without them having to do anything. Are my infos far off?

Have you had a chance yet to read Micea Eliade on the subject of golden ages in mythology?

 

[Clara Tea]

It does seem as though hem lines have been rising since the day of Queen Victoria.

It should be noted that the mothers of the out-of-wedlock babies that her cousins (House of Mecklenburg--Germans) had were shunned by the Mecklenburgs, yet Queen Victoria, with all of her prudishness, came to their rescue with disapproving yet kind help.

Even Queen Victoria's dad, King George III of Great Britain (originally king of England and Ireland before the merger of the two), was scientifically progressive. For example King George III had insisted on getting live culture immunizations for small pox for his family, and two of his kids contracted it as a result and died....resulting in King George's insanity. Prince Octavius (one of the immunization's victims) was such a cute and smart little kid....it is understandable that the guilt that he felt was enormous.

By the way, King George III's wife was of the House of Mecklenburg (one of the oldest kingdoms/duchies in existence, and it survived the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire by ceding land).

 

[Heyo]

Have you had a chance yet to read Micea Eliade on the subject of golden ages in mythology?

No. I just looked at his Wiki page and it seems we may agree. "Everything was better in the past" is the kind of nostalgia that leads to the conclusion that everything is getting worse and worse.

 

[halbhh]

I'm not sure this is an accurate prediction for the future, even if the China of today does seem to be overly dictatorial. One might contrast the attitudes, often inherent in some Western societies (the USA being a prime example), of individual freedoms but where the responsibilities are often lacking, as against that which China seems to display - the individual as subservient to the overall aims of society. And I doubt the Chinese people are immune to the effects of the internet (even if such is censored), and where they do see what others have and might want some of the same - whether by slow change or revolution.

I rated your post useful because I entirely agree for one thing, and it's good to bring up.

I like that looking at the positive side of Chinese society there. Yes, I agree that's a strength they have.

They also have a powerful, extensive police state with thought control -- by quite a variety of techniques which they are actively doing.

Not just imprisonment for expressing and "re-education" and brutal labor camps.

This is only a visible bit: Xinjiang re-education camps - Wikipedia

They do quite a bit more than stuff most have heard about.


So, both the good and dark, brutal sides. Yah got both parts, of that general picture, to be accurate.

 

[viole]

So far as I've been told, we mostly owe the Victorians for the notion that society, in alliance with the sciences, is fated to evolve or progress towards a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it is sometimes said that the Victorians were merely borrowing their notion of progress from Christianity. Specifically, the Christian idea that the world is evolving or progressing towards a post-Apocalyptic Golden Age of humanity. However, mythologist such as Mircea Eliade and others have long pointed out that the notion humanity is progressing towards a Golden Age is quite widespread, usually has nothing to do with Christianity, and apparently dates back to time immemorial.

Indeed, I am of the opinion that the concept of progress is deeply rooted in us -- encoded somehow in our DNA. Perhaps my main reason for thinking progress is an inherent concept is because it is a key and essential component of narratives, and narratives are ubiquitous to humans. That is, we are a story-telling animal. Everywhere on earth, regardless of the local culture and customs, we are a story-telling animal. How best to explain that fact than to at least suspect story-telling is rooted in our genes?

Yet, if story-telling or narrative is rooted in our genes, then so is -- in one form or another -- the concept of progress, for without some kind of progression, there is no such thing as a story. All you would have are a string of facts or events.

Hence, when we speak of 'the Victorian Concept of Progress', we must be careful to understand that the Victorians did not actually invent the notion of progress, nor did the Christians before them, but rather, they cast or shaped the concept in a more or less uniquely Victorian way by (1) conceiving of science as force driving progress and (2) by conceiving of the outcome of progress as a future characterized by (among other things) rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing.

Now, it does not take a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to know what's 'iffy' about the Victorian notion. Namely science -- and those things associated with science (e.g. rationality) -- do not necessitate, do not guarantee a future of rationality, human well-being, happiness, and human flourishing. Indeed, they seem capable of leading to quite the opposite! Just imagine science yoked to an Orwellian state and making possible unimaginably effective technologies of oppression! Such is actually within the realm of possibility.

But here's the tricky part: Some people appear to have simply flipped the coin. Instead of saying science guarantees a rosy future, they say science guarantees a nightmare future.

So, is there any more merit to the later view than there is to the former? Or, more to the point: Whither is science taking us? And is it somehow fated to take us there?

Science is not in the business of comfort, or promising rosy futures,

the second principle again should suffice to see that there is no rosy future. Actually, there is no future at all.

ciao

- viole

 

[Sunstone]

Science is not in the business of comfort, or promising rosy futures,

the second principle again should suffice to see that there is no rosy future. Actually, there is no future at all.

ciao

- viole

Yes, we all know that. And now that we've got that out of the way, do have anything that addresses the OP, which by the way, has nothing to do with your point.

Just curious, but is English your native language?

 

[halbhh]

Yes, we all know that. And now that we've got that out of the way, do have anything that addresses the OP, which by the way, has nothing to do with your point.

Just curious, but is English your native language?

heh heh. Is English really our native language for any of us tho? (sorry, I like thinking from left field a lot)

 

[savagewind]

Yes, we all know that. And now that we've got that out of the way, do have anything that addresses the OP, which by the way, has nothing to do with your point.

Just curious, but is English your native language?

Sunstone *****y? Never!