Worldviews Based on Science and Technology

Metaphysical Similarities with Traditional Doctrines and their Implications

The act of Becoming. Possibility and Actuality. Polarity and Complementarity. The same metaphysical concepts can be seen at different levels and scales all over our reality. Science is no stranger to them. Picture: “The Double Helix XX-XY”. Franco Castelluccio Fine Art.

Table of Contents

The Scientific Outlook

We could not finish our brief overview of the current most prevalent worldviews without speaking about modern science and Transhumanism.

The former has had an immense influence in shaping not only the physical world around us but also in the way we conceive our world and reality to be.

The latter is bound to have an important influence in the technocratic world to come, and also makes some metaphysical claims about how reality works and to what extent we can manipulate it to our advantage.

Science is important because, nowadays, many people have delegated on it the responsibility of deciding what is true or false regarding the ultimate nature of reality. The rapid technological innovations and increased quality of life obtained especially through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have given science and engineering an aura of prestige and proven reliability.

In addition, its ubiquitous presence in mainstream media and the educational system cannot be matched by any other worldview. Thanks to that, science has become the dominant discourse of secular countries, the gold standard and criteria with which to judge any other worldview which makes truth claims. However, science is not a worldview. It is a method: the scientific method.

As a method, it has worked wonders in improving tremendously human life conditions (e.g., antibiotics, heating and electricity, fertilizers, transport systems). As a method, it has also invented great terrors that have made life worse for many (e.g., nuclear bombs, industrial farming for billions of animals¹, the excessive presence of chemicals in our diets). As a method, as it cannot be otherwise, science is neutral. It is only as harmful or beneficial as the people who use it, their intentions and limitations.

The claims of science to be a complete and independent worldview, nevertheless, are quite modern. Historically, important figures in the history of science saw no conflict in being religious or holding mystical and even esoteric views while trusting in the scientific method. Newton, for example, was an heterodox Christian and an alchemist, while Einstein and Schrodinger held some metaphysical and religious views ranging from some form of Pantheism to Eastern mystical conceptions of the One.

“There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads.”

― Erwin Schrödinger (1944). What is life? Epilogue: On Determinism and Free Will

Kuhn´s Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Giving to science the responsibility of being the arbiter of truth in metaphysical matters is a contradiction in terms and a disservice to it. As an immanent method based on empirical observation, by definition, science can neither gain knowledge about any transcendent reality nor evaluate its claims.

If it exists, this transcendet reality and the world we currently live in would be part of different ontological planes of existence. It is obvious that God´s realm, if He exists (whatever our concept of God may be), cannot be directly known by someone in our world. The inferior reality cannot directly know the superior one by relying only on its own means, not even in principle.

The most that science can study and disprove is the plausibility of the claims of polytheistic and completely immanent definitions of the divinity. For example, the existence of Greek personal deities believed to be a part of our world could be judged as highly improbable by current scientific observations. At most, it could be said that ancient Greeks personified the forces of nature. However, the existence of a transcendent God cannot be evaluated by science. Anything outside the possibility of physical observation and measurability cannot be the legitimate concern of science, since it lacks the tools necessary to tackle these issues.

Given the above, assigning to science the status of a worldview that can address metaphysical matters is a conceptual error, while using it as a method to obtain knowledge about how our physical reality operates has demonstrated time and again its enormous potential. This conceptual error, as mentioned before, takes the form of Scientism.

Scientism: The Modern Transformation of Science from a Method to an All-Encompassing Worldview

The scientific method is a methodology used in a rigorous and systematic way in order to build and organize knowledge derived from measurable experiments. It derives its knowledge from sensory experience (Empiricism) and mathematical deductions, developing testable explanations and predictions about how the world works.

Scientism, on the other hand, is the worldview and faith that affirms that science is the best or only objective way through which we can (and should) obtain knowledge about how our reality operates, our values and beliefs.

A. “[…] Scientism is a revival of the nineteenth-century positivist faith that a reified “science” has discovered (or is about to discover) all the important truths about human life. Precise measurement and rigorous calculation, in this view, are the basis for finally settling enduring metaphysical and moral controversies—explaining consciousness and choice, replacing ambiguity with certainty.“

― T.J. Jackson Lears (2013). “Get Happy!!”. The Nation

B. “Why should other worlds have become the subject of scientific discourse, when they were neither among the phenomena demanding explanation?

[…] it derived from the cosmogonic assumption of ancient atomism: the belief that the constituent bodies of the cosmos are formed by the chance coalescence of moving atoms, the same type of indivisible particles of which matter on Earth was composed.

[…] Given the occurrence of these natural processes, and the obvious example of potential stability revealed in our own finite world, it was not unreasonable to suppose the existence of other stable conglomerations.

The atomists further employed the principle that when causes were present, effects must occur. Atoms were the agents of causality and their number was infinite. The effect was innumerable worlds in formation, in collision, and in decay.“

― Steven J. Dick (1984). Plurality of Words: The Extraterrestrial Life Debate from Democritus to Kant. Cambridge University Press, pp. 6–10

C. “The earliest hints of the multiverse are found in two ancient Greek schools of thought, the Atomists and the Stoics.

The Atomists, whose philosophy dates to the fifth century B.C., argued that that the order and beauty of our world was the accidental product of atoms colliding in an infinite void. The atomic collisions also give rise to an endless number of other, parallel worlds less perfect than our own.“

― Matthew Sedacca (2017). The Multiverse Is an Ancient Idea. Nautilus

The term Scientism, in addition, has frequently been used as a critique to overly dogmatic and reductionistic tendencies that propose science as the measure and judge of all metaphysical beliefs.²³⁴⁵^A. It has the pejorative connotation of an exaggerated confidence in the efficacy of the methods of Natural Science when applied to any other areas of life.

No worldview that attempts to explain how all of reality works, however, can avoid making some metaphysical assumptions and assertions, even if they are based on science. Therefore, one can accept and value science while rejecting Scientism as its improper, philosophically unsound use in matters that are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry or where there is insufficient empirical evidence available.

Common Metaphysical Beliefs Behind Some Mainstream Scientific Theories

Science does not provide a dogmatically and universally accepted creed on metaphysical notions. It also does not prescribe a normative path to follow to lead a meaningful life, with the exception of the implicit recommendation of living rationally and critically. As a method and as a repository of collective knowledge, that is not its role. However, some generalities can be said regarding the prevailing scientific outlook.

Although not always the case, especially since the advent of Quantum Mechanics, the very nature of physical sciences has traditionally favoured mechanistic, deterministic and reductionist interpretations of reality.

Also, most scientific theories tend to reject the idea that reality, natural processes or laws of physics have any ultimate end or purpose (Telos). Any hint of purpose, direction or finality underlying the laws of nature is seen with suspicion, since only impersonal forces and laws are pre-supposed and accepted as the ultimate layer of reality.

Consequently, the overall classical scientific view of the Universe tends to be that of a more or less deterministic, purposeless, closed system where energy is constantly being exchanged and transformed (but not destroyed) and tending into more and more disorderly states (due to the laws of Thermodynamics).

Some of these assumptions, however, such as the closedness of the system, would be near impossible to prove. Therefore, as with any other system of thought based on human rationality (and not, for example, on the acceptance of some revelation), the starting axioms are selected because the community believes them to be either self-evident or plausible enough.

Sometimes it is asserted that “all truth is empirical”, but this statement is in itself self-contradictory because it is a non-empirical statement. It is an epistemological, metaphysical claim.

Cosmological Views

The Big Bang and the Big Crunch(es)

Some of the models of the currently accepted theory regarding the birth of our Universe, the Big Bang theory, predict the existence of an initial singularity in which all the energy released later in the birth and expansion of our Universe was contained. This singularity, similar to the ancient concept of the Absolute, All-Possibility or the One in which all is contained, is conceived as not being subject to the laws of physics as we know them (it “transcends” them).⁶

In some models (e.g., Loop Quantum Gravity model), the expansion of the Universe following the Big Bang is predicted to reverse (Big Crunch) until a new singularity (the One) is reached. Some of these theories also predict a cyclical Universe of recurring Big Bangs and Big Crunches, including the Big Bounce model that forecasts that each new Universe would have a new set of different physical constants, therefore relativizing the laws of physics. Current experiments have, however, led scientists to believe that the expansion of the Universe is not actually slowing down but accelerating, invalidating (for now) these cyclical hypothesis.

Figure 1. The Big Bang Theory.Timeline of the Universe. A representation of the evolution of the Universe over 13.77 billion years as predicted by the theory. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can probe. Here, a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the cosmos. For the next several billion years, it is thought that the expansion of the Universe gradually slowed down as the matter in it pulled on itself via gravity. As per more recent observations, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the Universe. Picture: NASA/WMAP Science Team - Original version: NASA; modified by Cherkash.

The Multiverse

Opposing the idea that our Universe is the only one that exists, the Multiverse theory states that our Universe is just one of many born out of random quantum fluctuations.⁷

This theory has famous supporters (e.g., Max Tegmark⁶, Michio Kaku⁸, Neil deGrasse Tyson⁹ and Stephen Hawking¹⁰) as well as detractors (e.g., Roger Penrose¹¹, George Ellis¹², Paul Davies¹³).

These parallel universes may or may not share the same laws of physics and fundamental physical constants. The fact that they don´t have to share them has been used to explain why our Universe is apparently fine-tuned to allow the existence of conscious life. This is because in a Multiverse containing many universes (maybe even an infinite number of them) with different fundamental physical constants, it is only natural that a small number of them happen to be capable of producing intelligent life. This is called the Anthropic Principle, of which there are many different versions.

Critics say that the fact that an infinite or almost infinite number of unobservable universes are proposed just to explain the apparent fine-tuning of ours and thus discard the possibility of a theistic hand in the matter is extreme and unscientific, as far as it is not testable. They also affirm that the Principle of Parsimony usually used to decide between competing scientific hypotheses (Occam’s razor: “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”)¹⁴¹⁵is violated.

“For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.”

— Paul Davies (2003). A Brief History of the Multiverse. The New York Times

The Quantum Mechanics Version of the Multiverse: The Many-Worlds Interpretation

The mathematical equations used to formulate Quantum Mechanics, and thus, how our reality works at the fundamental level, can be interpreted in many different ways.

The Many-Worlds Interpretation (MWI) is one of the most popular ones. It follows the philosophical belief that all possible outcomes of quantum observations or measurements exist in one Universe or another.¹⁶ This implies that new universes are being constantly created.¹⁷ In fact, it implies the existence of probably an indefinite number of universes and, therefore, of a Multiverse.¹⁸ Contrary to some other interpretations, the MWI theory is deterministic.¹⁹

Example of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Figure 2. The Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. The MWI is a philosophical stance about how the mathematics used to describe quantum mechanics relates to our actual physical reality. In this interpretation, every quantum event is a branch point, where different realities separate. In the example, this branching out leads to the same person existing in different realities, in each of them leading a radically different life. All of them are equally real parts of the Multiverse, but do not interact with each other.

Simulation Theory and the Holographic Universe

The Simulation Hypothesis, in turn, is the scientific version of the recurrent idea that we live in a simulated reality, usually inside a computer simulation. This notion pre-supposes that cognition is just a form of computation. This theory has both fervent supporters (e.g., Neil Degrasse Tyson, Elon Musk²⁰) and detractors.²¹²²

Some methods have actually been proposed to test this theory.²³²⁴ However, critics have explained that this hypothesis is both unprovable and unfalsifiable because, even if true, we could never rule out the possibility of being part of a nested simulation.

A nested type of simulation would mean that if evidence of a real world outside our simulated one was found, that other world and the beings running our simulated reality could also just be simulations themselves, thus incurring in an unsolvable problem of infinite regress.²⁵²⁶

Another theory that thinks that our reality may not be as real as we think is the Holographic Principle hypothesis (which is a property of string theories, such as M-theory and its eleven dimensions). Leonard Susskind, one of its developers, clarified the implications of this hypothesis when he stated in no uncertain terms:

“The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience––the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people––is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface.”²⁷

Some Parallels with Traditional Worldviews

The idea of the existence of a plurality of worlds is not as new as we may think. Its original formulation can be traced back to ancient Greece, more specifically to the Atomist school (its most famous exponent being Democtritus) and the Stoics.^B,C,²⁸

If we try to compare these theories to traditional worldviews, we find that the existence of an unfathomable number of universes, as well as the cyclical cosmology of some of the models we have briefly mentioned, are compatible and in some cases even similar to traditional Indian cosmologies.

For example, Buddhist cosmology speaks of many worlds appearing from Emptiness (Indra´s Net), while some modern scientific cosmological theories, as we have seen, posit many universes coming into existence from a random Vacuum State Fluctuation or any quantum observation.

In addition, Indian cosmologies (e.g., Hindu and Buddhist) speak of the cosmos operating in cycles, with universes collapsing and being born periodically, as in the scientific models that predict a continuous cycle of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.

Lastly, Simulation Theory and the Holographic Universe hypothesis have been likened to the Indian concept of Maya or Illusion, as well as to the “Butterfly Dream” of the Daoist Zhuangzi²⁹ and Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, among many similar traditional expositions of the same concepts.

Figure 3. Whole Brain Emulation or the Forging of Secular "Souls". Can our consciousness and identity be replicated in other non carbon-based substrates? Is all reality just data (Dataism), as theories like the Simulation Hypothesis and the Holographic Universe seem to imply? Many transhumanists think so. This worldview, however, does not mention that the notion of an impersonal ground of being of which we all are particular configurations and instances is an ancient one. It was previously called Chaos, the Void, the One, the Absolute, All-Possibility. Transhumanists may call it the Omega Point, Quantum Field, Computronium or just "data". They all denote, nevertheless, an impersonal "Sea of Being" which many of them believe we will eventually be able to reach in order to reconfigure ourselves into other possibilities of being, attaining pseudo-immortality. Instead of through meditation, throught technology. Instead of now, at some unspecified time in the future. In both cases, however, the ultimate aim is to become identified with the Source, which implies gaining control over reality itself. The ancient metaphysical metaphor of the waves (each one of us, particularized data) being at the same time the ocean (data itself, source of all possible configurations of data) still applies. This view, needless to say, makes many metaphysical assumptions and is closer to any panentheistic view than to the worldviews usually believed to be associated with science.

Notes

As can be clearly seen in multiple undercover investigations and the documentaries “Earthlings“[video] and “Food, Inc.“[video], among others.

The belief, sometimes found in some religious people, that persons interested in spiritual matters should not care about animals and creation, is a dialectical (Either/Or) way of thinking that considers Spirit intrinsically incompatible with Matter and non-rational beings.
Dharmic religions are notorious for caring about all forms of life, in part because of their doctrines of Reincarnation and Karma. However, this should also be the case for believers of Trinitarian Christianity (and especially Orthodox Christianity) due to its concern to avoid any false dialectical dilemmas, its Both/And logic, its unique solution to the problem of the One and the Many, and to honor God´s willed creation.
The, so often encountered, ideological associations between “left wing politics / vegetarian or vegan / atheist or spiritual but not religious” and “right wing politics / eats lots of meat and thinks animals are irrelevant / traditionally religious” are dialectical charicatures that do not derive from the correctly understood metaphysics of, for example, Non-Dualism or Trinitarian Christianity. In fact, they are incompatible with them.
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Putnam, Hilary (1992). Renewing Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. x.
Wieseltier, Leon (2013). Crimes Against Humanities. The New Republic.
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Wall, Mike (2011). The Big Bang: What Really Happened at Our Universe’s Birth?. The History & Future of the Cosmos (Space.com).
Atkinson, Nancy (2008). Thinking About Time Before the Big Bang. Universe Today.
Tegmark, Max (2003). Parallel Universes. Scientific American. 288 (5): 40–51.
Guth, Alan. Inflationary Cosmology: Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse?. Slice of MIT.
Freeman, David (2014). Why Revive ‘Cosmos?’ Neil DeGrasse Tyson Says Just About Everything We Know Has Changed (Huffingtonpost.com).
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Ellis, George F.R. (2011). Does the Multiverse Really Exist?. Scientific American, 305 (2): 38–43.
Davies, Paul (2003). A Brief History of the Multiverse. The New York Times.
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Schaffer, Jonathan (2015). What Not to Multiply Without Necessity. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 93 (4): 644–664.
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Hossenfelder, Sabine (February 13, 2021). “The Simulation Hypothesis is Pseudoscience”. BackReAction.
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The Metaphysical CompassFinding your Way in a complex world full of conflicting worldviews

The Metaphysical CompassFinding your Way in a complex world full of conflicting worldviews

The Scientific Outlook

Scientism: The Modern Transformation of Science from a Method to an All-Encompassing Worldview

Common Metaphysical Beliefs Behind Some Mainstream Scientific Theories

Cosmological Views

The Big Bang and the Big Crunch(es)

The Multiverse

The Quantum Mechanics Version of the Multiverse: The Many-Worlds Interpretation

Simulation Theory and the Holographic Universe

Some Parallels with Traditional Worldviews

Recommended Reading

Notes

FURTHER READING: Current Major Science-Based Worldviews

Subscribe & Support

The Metaphysical CompassFinding your Way in a complex world full of conflicting worldviews

The Metaphysical CompassFinding your Way in a complex world full of conflicting worldviews

The Scientific Outlook

Scientism: The Modern Transformation of Science from a Method to an All-Encompassing Worldview

Common Metaphysical Beliefs Behind Some Mainstream Scientific Theories

Cosmological Views

The Big Bang and the Big Crunch(es)

The Multiverse

The Quantum Mechanics Version of the Multiverse: The Many-Worlds Interpretation

Simulation Theory and the Holographic Universe

Some Parallels with Traditional Worldviews

Recommended Reading

Notes

FURTHER READING: Current Major Science-Based Worldviews

Subscribe & Support

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