Consistency

For some reason it's important to me that I not come off as sounding like an uneducated, Philistinic (?) goon when I talk about science and my objections to it.

I do presume to push the envelope on this topic, as I think challenging fundamental assumptions requires a little extra "umph" to budge the complacent mind. And unfortunately the scientific group-mind is more complacent than it is billed as being.

I'd like to reference the last few chapters from my old mentor, Robert Anton Wilson's magnificent book, "Quantum Psychology." Wilson was a huge influence on me back in the day, even before I cared that his initials were RAW (see here for an explanation).

Wilson was a hard-core skeptical rationalist, though he was as perturbed about scientific fundamentalism as he was about any other sort of fundamentalism. His play, "Wilhelm Reich in Hell," was his creative take on the subject. The references is to the burning of Reich's library after his incarceration by the US government in the 1950's. Reich's scientific studies were considered too controversial, and so it was deemed that no record should be left of them. Reich's work would be resurrected by dedicated students not a generation later and then bolstered by the entire modern yogic movement in America as well as by the entire field of mind-body medicine, somatics, and tantra. Hooray.

As far as expending our own views of science, the subject litters much of Wilson's oeuvre, but towards the end of "Quantum Psychology," he makes, I believe, his densest contribution. To summarize, he contends that for modern science, there is no "one" model for explaining the universe. There are only many. And, as one explores, it turns out that the "correct" model for structuring the universe turns out to be whichever one is most appropriate for the particular question you're asking of the universe. This means that the person asking the questions is as much a part of the answer as the answer itself is.

I like this. I like this a lot. It underlines my argument for Geocentrism in Astrology as the one accurate means of locating oneself in the cosmos- that is, in oneself. It gives due value to the subjective, personal experience and puts the systemic perspective in his or her individual service rather than he or she in its (the far more common version). In other words, we get to choose what questions we ask and therefore what models we use to answer those questions. This is as close to scientific "fact" as we're likely to arrive at.*

It also undermines one of our most insidious of biases in the modern west- that for something to be "true" it has to be consistent. The assumption that the universe is consistent is really an appalling projection of our own mortal insecurities onto the world around us. Consistency is something desired by humans for the purpose of predicting and therefore controlling outcomes. It is a fear-based impulse to order, based around what our limited minds can comprehend. And it is utter nonsense.

Thus the search for "one consistent model" will always elude us. Such a unified theory would be the externalized, crystalized projection of all of our fears into a system which would have the authority to dictate to us what we can and cannot do, what we must and must not do. And it would carry the full weight of that authority in punishing any deviants (which, in theory, there should be none of if the system is perfectly consistent). This is, in our hearts, what we are looking for in science. A grand master of truth whom we can slavishly follow, trusting in its eternal, objective accuracy- its consistency.**

But why would the world agree to be consistent? If you were the universe, what joy would you find in being utterly predictable, the same in every way? You wouldn't, because then you would be static and unchanging, and therefore devoid of purpose. After all, if you were consistent, once you "got it," the rules, the order, etc., there would be no reason to continue existing, no purpose. You will have been completed.

Creativity, inconsistency, leads to motion, to the endless question of "what's next" that keeps the storyline of life suspenseful and intriguing. Inconsistency is Scheherezade's 2nd night which leads all the way to her ten thousand and first. It is the tipper of the scales that keeps the game of life unfolding.

The presumption, then, of consistency is founded in the human ego-based drive for security against unpredictable threats. Fair enough. But we shouldn't imagine that the whole world is as fearful as we are- or at least that if they are, they would respond to that fear in the same way. The Lion in the jungle, after all, is just as desirous of eliminating threats to survival as we are. He simply goes about it differently.

I use this example, of course, deliberately, as the Leonine principle is opposed to the Consistency principle in astrology. Why should we, then, as astrologers look at the universe only from the perspective of 1/12 of the zodiac? Because we are humans and not beasts (supposedly)? Maybe that is the cause of the bias, though I suspect it is simply the first churnings of the Aquarian Age, regulating and fixing our minds. May I say, Oy.

My point here is that when we look to "explain" events, we ought to fight off the urge to disprove our explanations if they diverge from other "facts" and therefore seem "inconsistent." There are varied sorts of truths, and the adoption of any one of them is the native's choice, based perhaps on their archetypal disposition.

But the ignorant pygmy in the forest who sees the lightning strike as a message from a deity of sorts rather than the result of alternating currents generated by the cycles of precipitation should not be dismissed as "wrong" simply because the two views appear to be inconsistent. Each is consistent within themselves, because the experiencer is asking a certain set of questions.

The scientist declares that the pygmy is "merely" finding superstitious means of controlling his fears of the unknown. But is science doing anything different? Why do we chase after our formulae, after all, if not for exactly this reason of eliminating fear of the unknown?

Whether we have more success in controlling the outcomes than the pygmy making sacrifices to his god can not be objectively measured, because success can not be objectively measured. The pygmy may make his sacrifice and live out his days content that he will never be struck by lightning. The modern my spend several generations, untold quantities of money, and enormous amounts of anxiety in the mere hope that at some point deep in the future, someone may learn how to control the weather.

Who is better off? It depends who you ask. The modern does not believe in that animist rubbish, and so he would be just as anxious after the sacrifice as before. The pygmy might say, why would I want to live in a constant state of suspense for 400 years until somewhere there's a breakthrough to control what I've just controlled through killing my little bunny? (A modern person might add that there was no guarantee that the pygmy would be able to afford the benefits of the scientific breakthrough technology anyway or that local politics wouldn't interfere with his access to same.) One's definition of success is as much a product of one's environment or culture as anything else- that is, the answer to what is success depends on the questioner.

So this brings us back to subjectivity. Who is asking the question? What does each one want? And therefore what models will be most appropriate to fit which desires? These desires will, mercifully, be as inconsistent as the days.





*When I was researching this stuff myself, I realized that the top 10 best minds in science would offer at least 10 differing theories of how the cosmos works (forget about why it works). If this were the case, then how were we, the laity, to make up any sort of informed decision for ourselves? It seemed fruitless to me and confirmed my suspicions that nobody knew what they were talking about. Therefore alternative strategies of living would be required apart from trusting some expert to tell me what was truth. It is us who whose which experts to listen to, after all, and this confirms the model described above in which the subjective experiencer is as much a part of the equation as that hich is being experienced.

**What I'm describing here should sound awfully familiar to anyone who has lived in the West over the past 2000 years or so. It is the monotheistic worldview disguised as science. I have written elsewhere about this link and the search for the one "true" (i.e. consistent) truth which has plagued the world since Abraham. The scientific revolution was meant to correct many of the problems of Christianity, but, in keeping with the old maxim that 'what we fight, we become,' the modern scientific culture has all the trappings of monotheistic dictatorialism, only with much more sophisticated gizmos.