To find answers: ask the right questions to the right domain
We live in a complex, multidimensional world… and we want to understand it in order to be able to navigate it.
But there is a tremendous confusion of ideas, theories, and concepts... the debate and discussion seem to have no solution.
In this article, I propose an approach to separate the different domains of attitudes or beliefs that we, as human beings, have about the world.
We can find answers to the questions our mind poses to the world we experience.
4 questions we pose to the world
It is in the nature of the human mind to ask questions:
To the world around us, we demand to know why.
What do I observe? What can I know about the world around me?
How do the seasons happen? Why do trees bear fruit in summer?
The answers to these questions refer back to scientific knowledge.
We want to influence our environment and ask ourselves:
How can I control it? What can I do to know more and better?
What techniques can I develop to transform the world around me and satisfy my needs?
The solutions found led to the development of technology.
We also need to justify our actions:
What should I do? How do I justify my actions?
And we also demand justification for the actions of others:
What did you do and why? Are you justified in doing this? Is it right or is it wrong?
This reasoning leads to the field of Ethics.
And we have the need to find meaning in our existence.
What can I hope for? What gives meaning to my existence? What is the meaning of life, of all this around me?…
The search for answers to these questions has led since the beginning of humanity to the emergence of religion.
4 Domains of belief / attitude about the world
At the beginning of our history, it was the function of myths to explain the world around us.
The mythology created by the group, family, and tribe, offered answers to questions about the unknown.
They explained the forces of nature, why certain things happen the way they did, they offered a sense of order and comfort in an unknown world where we were at the mercy of the forces of nature.
They also served to reinforce a culture's values and beliefs and offered guidance on how one should live.
With the emergence of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, during the Neolithic Revolution, we began to discover efficient ways to control food production.
Technology began to separate itself from myth. The methodology of technology is efficiency, regardless of the stories told. If any technique works, it is accepted for the simple reason that it works and obtains results that satisfy our needs. If it does not work, it is not repeated.
Technology has separated itself from the myth.
Technology uses the information that comes from science and develops techniques to achieve concrete goals. But as it changes the world and the conditions in which we live, ethics must be taken into account.
During the first millennium BC, in several civilisations, the separation of ethics from ritualistic religions began to take place.
We begin to decide that we can pose moral questions where the gods are irrelevant, and that we can decide what is right and what is wrong independently of the myths and precepts imposed by the gods.
The role of ethics is to identify values, to show the possible consequences of violating these values, and to bring us responsibility for our actions.
Rather than obeying what the deities or oracles say, we are invited to take responsibility for our actions.
The notion also arises that we can use a sober method and rational investigation of the world around us, but the drastic separation of science in Western civilisation occurs after Galileo, with the scientific revolution.
Science has become an autonomous discipline, with its own methodology and utilitarian goals.
But in the eighteenth century, science became much more than a set of topics to be studied. For Enlightenment thinkers, the empirical method could be applied to all aspects of human inquiry, including questions of morality and religion.
Origin of misunderstandings
The problem we often face arises when any domain or discipline tries to go beyond its ability to answer questions, and the usefulness of its methodology, and makes claims beyond its competence.
With the example of science, if it claims that the complete view of the world is obtained through science and there is only one truth: the scientific truth, we realize that it is not true, science does not answer questions that legitimately belong to other domains.
Most of the conflicts we face are meaningless conflicts, they stem from misunderstandings, when we use the criteria from one domain to another.
This mechanism is part of the normal cellular control of gene expression.
All of our cells have the same information but the moment they have differentiated and specialized in a function, certain genes are marked as: “do not read”.
This allows us to have completely different cells carrying out very specific functions, but having exactly the same genetic information.
The need to separate
In any domain, when it goes beyond its competence, when it claims to go beyond its disciplinary commitment and tries to become a global discipline, it generates mental confusion and backlash.
Each domain answers different questions, uses different methodologies, and makes different claims.
Science can answer the question How does Life work?
How can I live longer and better? Technology probably has tools to help you.
Ethics must always accompany us, helping us to ask questions such as: What can or should I do? In doing so, am I harming or improving the lives of others around me?
But don't ask the question What is the meaning of Life? to science or technology or even to ethics. If the term Religion is not comfortable for you, consider Philosophy, talk to the masters of thought who have left us lifetimes of reflection in the texts they have published.
The wisdom of integration
In order to understand and navigate our world, and the complexity of our experience, we must be able to resort to the various domains to answer our questions, but without them invading each other.
Personally, I aspire to have the same capacity as Carl Sagan when he stated “Science is not only compatible with Spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality”
It takes sensitivity and wisdom to know how to separate and place the right question in the right domain, but at the same time integrate the different domains in our consciousness.
Be gentle with yourself,
see you soon.
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