How we now know

The paradigm is shifting (in philosophy and theology). What we now know (ontology) changes the thinking on how we know (epistemology).

We can now look through the lenses of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology and realize (a) the origins, structure and function, and evolution of the mind/brain through time and (b) the relatively minor role that rational and empirical consciousness plays in figuring out the ‘truth’ about what happens in your community and the cosmos.

Empiricism, rationality and reason have been dethroned. The new royalty of cerebration is a quirky brand of hard wired intuition which is built into the enormously complex physical and neuro-chemical architecture of the unconscious mind/brain. In terms of the nature/nurture debate, the modern pendulum swings more to the side of nature with its genes and hard wiring.

Rationalism = reliance on reason rather than intuition to justify one's beliefs or actions. Includes the doctrines that (a) knowledge about reality can be obtained by reason alone without recourse to experience and (b) human knowledge can all be encompassed within a single, usually deductive, system. In Theology, rationalism is the doctrine that human reason, unaided by divine revelation, is an adequate or the sole guide to all attainable religious truth.

Empiricism = a theory that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. It emphasizes the role of experience and evidence in the formation of ideas, over the notion of innate ideas or traditions. Empiricism in the philosophy of science emphasizes evidence. The scientific method insists that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation.

Intuition = a direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process or perception; pure, untaught, non-inferential knowledge; instinctive knowledge or belief; a hunch or unjustified belief.

But there is still confusion regarding the illusory nature of I, me, mine, self, and ego – and by extrapolation me/us (the in-group) and us/them (the out-groups). We are social animals that have evolved to behave differently in in-groups and out-groups.

Much of the evolution since the beginnings of settled agriculture has been cultural and meme driven rather than biological and gene driven. Brute consciousness has evolved into self-consciousness which has also nurtured the evolution of many altered states of consciousness including the cosmic one. This has been in association with the evolution of language.

The last 10,000 years have witnessed the exponential growth of modernity and the human population. But there are limits to growth. Hopefully the memes of modernity will evolve to ensure that humanity develops environmentally sustainable ways of being on the planet.

But what the scientists now know is far from common knowledge and belief. What is to be done?