That’s the statement I came across in an interview with a “new realist” philosopher the other day. I’m not going to get into what on earth is “new realist” here just now but when he was asked if science (or more precisely Physics) had proven that the universe had no purpose, that it made no sense?
Well that’s a claim we often hear from people who claim the only reality is physical, the universe is random, and evolution isn’t “going anywhere”. This isn’t a world view I’m attracted to.
My understanding is that human beings exist, and that we all have consciousness and subjective experience. Values are important to us. For example, you can look at that photo above and describe it according to its botanical classification. I look at it and see a beautiful image. It’s the beauty of the image which strikes me.
This philosopher said that science is the study of objects, whereas for human beings it was often something not at all like an object which brought meaning to life. The example he gave was democracy. He said what colour was democracy? What were its dimensions? Science has no answer to these questions. Because democracy is not an object, it’s something which gives lives meaning.
I don’t know about you but that certainly gets me thinking. What about the “sciences” which don’t deal with objects? Like economics, or psychology, or “social sciences”?
Then I got to thinking about health and how, as a doctor, I needed to understand the body in a scientific way. I needed to know what to measure when, and what to do with the results. But I also needed to understand the lived experience of a person. When they talked to me about pain, about an itch, about nausea or dizziness, they were not talking about objects which could be measured. And what about the narrative…..how a person experienced and made sense of their illness?
So, there is something helpful in this idea of science being the study of objects. It helps us see the relevance of science and the absurdity of scientism (which claims ultimate and absolute authority for the “truth” as revealed by science.
Objects are an important part of reality, but they sure aren’t everything that exists!
Leave a Reply