An Attack on Science

 

Science is based on an unscientific judgment of value. Science and its followers claim that knowledge and truth about the world are only possible through the scrutiny of the scientific method. Therefore, all other sources of knowledge are doubtful, if not, downright mistaken. It eradicated subjectivity from its grand representation of the universe and claims to speak as matter-of-fact and objective as possible.  However, the scientific enterprise has still to prove why we should deal with the cosmos as a problem to be solved; it has yet to answer why knowing is much more important than any other human activity. The great technological benefits we enjoy today are not at all essential; we clearly see the animal world enduring without vehicles or television, or notions such as gravity and entropy, such ‘animals’ even have very complex societies or innate flying abilities. Therefore science cannot claim to be the ultimate route to a better and wiser life, it is a historical phenomenon existing only for the past few centuries and not necessary to life on this planet. In this sense science is morally unscientific; it cannot provide evidence for why a scientific attitude is more preferable than, for example, an aesthetic or nihilistic one. This is simply because science has not been able to predict human emotions or chart our future decisions, it has nothing to say about what we should do; it merely states what is not what should be. 

Scientific-minded people believe themselves to be the most rational minds today. They have associated rationality with one method of inquiry (i.e. scientific method) and have abolished all other sources of data and knowledge. This seems to me more like a limitation than an advantage, precisely because science cannot deal with the whole spectrum of our experience. It works simply on the observable external phenomena and has yet to contribute to an understanding of human consciousness. It pretended for many centuries to get rid of this uncomfortable fact but the shadow of consciousness has crept into modern physics and it is now clear that even basic physical concepts such as mass, distance, velocity, time, are dependent on an observer. In a broader sense, rationality should encompass more than just science and its mother logic, considering that science is narrowly limited by its inability to connect with our whole experience of life. In other words, we are aware of things that the analytic mind cannot formulate. The rational discourse of science is incomplete; it cannot be the entire picture since it lacks insight into our inner life which is as real and undeniable as the external world. For this reason we can learn about life equally as much from a scientific treatise as from a novel, a poem, a kiss or a beautiful landscape. 

—

(This is not an attempt to invalidate science but simply a reminder that the powerful mystery of life cannot be grasped from one perspective. Those that are dedicated to the exploration of existence must remember: there are no official paradigms; we alone bestow authority to whatever we choose to believe. We cannot limit the cosmos to certain aspects of itself, it is beyond our attempts to reduce it to one knowable thing.)

Mirando atrás

 

 

Se trataba de una recurrente tristeza

            al nunca poder pertenecer

a la bella ignorancia de vivir

                 sin razones ni justificaciones

 

En las noches cansadas

       sentía la posibilidad

de inagotables realidades 

 

Un terreno vasto sin constitución

                un juego de la imaginación 

 

Seducido por el curso de las estrellas

      terminaba exiliado del sendero común

              regreso imposible a la cueva de los dormidos 

 

Recorriendo los peligros desconocidos

               entre cordilleras del pensamiento

pisando lodos vírgenes

                    captando horizontes inefables

 

Miraba atrás – que lejano estaba todo.

Títere del deseo


Miraba sobre mi cabeza

      no habían cuerdas ni hilos

alcancé por grandes muros alrededor

      no habían ni cercas ni calabozos

supuse que debajo existían espinas y precipicios

    soy preso de los caprichos de este momento

desconozco el por qué de las cosas

    soy libre esclavo de la decisión

respondo a lo que simplemente se manifiesta

             es un juego

esta estrepitosa sinfonía llega a su fin algún día

Mira

Rojo

 Es el pincel
cada pelo negro con su punta
pinta las corrientes de mi sangre
es un fluido similar a electricidad roja
un movimiento en grandes ochos
como altas pirámides de fuego 
que atraviesan mil años de historias dibujadas
y la tinta de toda moral se evapora sobre,
enteramente sobre el papel del agua
el agua que contiene en su profundidad
una esfera pedregosa que todo ser consciente
vislumbra desde las alturas de la soledad:
el origen de los grandes misterios del pensamiento

 
En el recorrido envolvente de la sangre
está la biografía de cada religión
existen las bases de nuevas ciencias
reina suprema la omnisciente duda
origina la paz del asombro inagotable

De la atmósfera de ríos rojos
proviene la sed del deseo
los sueños se ahogan en silencio
se escucha la música de la muerte
la noche recupera su voz…

 

 

 

Cenizas de cada metamorfosis

Vivimos en las cenizas de cada metamorfosis
cada transformación, cada destrucción, cada muerte
nada sobrevive el cambio y la avalancha del tiempo
construye sobre las ruinas de todo lo que una vez existió
Espejismos… quimeras… ensueños…
de cada forma que nace nos cautivamos
olvidamos que se avecina su tumba
el placer consiste en olvidar lo perecedero

Amantes de la mortalidad
bestias cosechando el cambio
hedonistas explotando la frágil llama
que vacila entre ráfagas letales
el ímpetu irracional de nuestra civilización
embriagadas locomotoras sobre el precipicio
de un abismo insustancial

Los brazos de Shiva
meciendo pueriles criaturas
mientras su bostezo
aniquilalos restos de esta mundial fantasía

Laberintos de piel

Hay un laberinto de piel
envolviendo la pureza del vacío
Hay volúmenes de células
que visten la transparencia total
La conciencia es una bestia insaciable
es un espejo sin contenido
Es la búsqueda por rellenar
              barriles y cofres
con el velo de un humo espiral
Son las noches con soles lejanos
son franjas de tiempo y dolor:
es un baile ciego en la oscuridad.

Fatalism

If we must submit to the irrationality of following all logic to its end, conclusions may turn shockingly paradoxical. I once heard that we have chosen our life from the very start and that our experience on this planet is simply the revelation of our original choice. If this were true then the absurdity of our suffering would be justified since we have chosen beforehand to experience it. The question that remains would be: why have we forgotten our original choice? Why does life present itself as an unknown unfolding instead of being the realization of one’s desire? By some obscure mechanism our original choice has been obliterated, life remains a permanent surprise. At first this seems like another form of fatalism except for the fact that we have chosen that predetermination. On the other hand, most people believe that the universe is a spontaneous happening and we must choose our way through the hazards of spontaneity. Our life is the result of all our choices, but how do we ever get to choose anything? I sat down the other day to think this one over and I discovered that my choices are really just reactions to whatever is presented to my mind. From the pettiest choices to the most important decisions I simply obey a feeling, logic or a whim. In all of these cases I am subject to what simply happens inside me. Should I buy a black or blue pen? I wait for a moment, experience a certain sensation of pleasure in black and I buy the black pen. Should I live in Costa Rica or in India, I wait for a moment, a logical-emotional labyrinth emerges in my mind and by the end of this involuntary frenzy, I make my decision. Naively speaking, thoughts are like emotions, they arise involuntarily and by a law of their own. Most people are identified with their thoughts, but if you ask them how they fabricate a thought they must inevitably answer: it simply happens. So, if my decisions are nothing but reactions to what is presented to my mind, what is allowing these perceptions? If we submit to modern scientific thinking, to explain a perception in the human mind we must pursue a long path through Psychology, Sociology, Biology, Evolution, Neurology, Chemistry, Physics, and we will end up with an ultimate theory for the universe as seen by man. In very simple terms, what we experience is the result of the whole arrangement of the cosmos, and if we knew every bit of information about this arrangement, we could predict ourselves. Again, we fall into an unremitting fatalism.

 

 

But what’s the use of all this reasoning and the contemporary compulsive adoration to logic and reason?

 

 I choose not to know.

 

“Puppet on a string” by Steve Whitney

La voz del vacío

 

 

Nacimos – morimos

en medio de una ilusión

que nos envuelve con sus formas engañosas

                 objetos efímeros

Nosotros, hijos de fábulas mitológicas

podemos morir engañados

como hombres que vivieron

                        en el centro del universo

sin saber de galaxias y vacíos

      o aquellos que tenían muchos dioses

                          falsos

¿Pero nosotros tenemos al fin el verdadero?

     

           ¿Creemos en la ciencia?

Conquistamos el desorden

          el caos aterrador

abolimos el imperio de la naturaleza

               ¿y somos más felices?

 

 

En medio de una vertiginosa ilusión

             nos aferramos a un hilo de agua

– miedo de perder lo conocido –

              por más desdicha que traiga,

no podemos soltar el mundo.

 

 

La nada gobierna el mundo

      ese espejo que todo refleja

               pero nada conserva;

el mundo desaparece de todas formas

todas formas desaparecen en el mundo:

            solo queda un vacío

un silencio eterno penetra todo,

                   lo que muere

     lo que está por nacer.

Machines

 

 

And to know and see and reassert that we ARE machines, we are machines made out of flesh, proteins, water, enzymes and coded molecules; that we understand the word “machine” but cannot grasp the consequences of this mysterious arrangement:

             Living, breathing, suffering machines…