Changing Knowledge/Changing Reality Insights

• Many great scientific discoveries are compared to light

  • the condition of mankind has changed in some way following these discoveries

• The world was ruled by nature before science

• 15th century- print=no more memory and knowledge was widespread

• we can turn every aspect of nature into numbers and use those numbers to predict what will happen next

• Electronics makes knwledge even more accessible

• people in the past were as certain about their facts as we are of ours

  • the burning of witches was seen as an act of mercy— to save her soul

  • eople make things fit what they think it should be

    • there can only be one hypothesis that firts

• science is supposed to be objective, but the truth is what the structure says it is

• what you think the universeis and how it works controlled what kinds of questions you can ask

• science cant rock any boats

  • whole areas of study may be off limits if it will upset the accepted view

• experimentation depends on what’s official and what’s not

• when poeple expect to find some thing that proves a theory, it’s easy to fake that evidence

• you design the kind of instruments to find the kind of data you plan to find

• when a detail doesn’t fit, it can bring down the whole system

• the only structure in the shifting nature is the one we impose on it

  • new structures/truths appear only because of a detail the ol;d one couldn’t accomodate

• sceince is a prodict of what society at the time thinks is important

• greeks created rationalism which is the structure we have used ever since to find patterns in the chaos of the world

• in some ways Buddhism is like science

  • explains the world (through symbols)

  • gives comfotr when things don’t make sense and a sense of purpose in life

  • part of everyday life

• everything in life is relative

  • it changes as you observe it because you change as you observe it

• “permanent values” are not permanent

  • they change everytime the universe changes— everyime we make a “discovery”

• If you didn’t fit the mold, you were rejected

Paragraph(s)

    Before any scientific discoveries, the world was ruled by nature. The invention of printing made knowledge more widespread. The invention of electronics had the same effect. The knowledge gained by science should be objective, but the world has a structure. And the truth is whatever the structure says it is. We as people impose this structure on nature. We find what we expect to find because that is what we are looking for. This structure dictates what questions you can ask and therefore what you think about the universe. Since Galileo’s time, science has not been permitted to rock any boats, so to speak. Those who tried to disprove the established structure were imprisoned. In fact, whole areas of study were banned because there was a chance that they could upset the accepted view of the world. That view changes over time, but people in the past were just as sure of their facts as we are of ours. Everything from the idea that Earth is the center of the universe to the thought that burning supposed witches was an act of mercy to save their souls were as true to the people of that time as the notion that Earth orbits the sun is to us now. When a detail doesn’t fit, it can bring down the whole system. That is how new systems of understanding are created. They only exist because we must impose a new structure on the world when a new discovery comes to light that the old structure could not accommodate. All that is to say that everything is relative, and science is only a product of what society thinks is important at any given time.