Statistically speaking, we're not. The human mind is exquisitely evolved to see patterns in randomness to the point that we see them when they legitimately aren't there. “The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
― Banksy So here's the thing - for every ad you've ever seen, there was an artist (or artists) with an idea. That idea may have started out with how to sell that thing, or it may have started out with a pretty vision. Lots of people in advertising have lots of pretty visions, and they often try out their pretty visions on any product that it might work for. This is one way ad agencies build brand: TBWA/Chiat-Day stuff doesn't look much like Ogilvy & Mather stuff. It may seem "random" to you, but the truth is they're simply using different parameters than you are. The problem with your position is that scientific theories aren't even complimentary, let alone hierarchical and societies and cultures rarely act with homogeneity. "Randomness" isn't a theory, for example - if I were to list "prominent" scientific theories today, I'd go with "anthropocentric global warming" "evolution" and "special relativity." The first two are kind of diametrically opposed and the third is irrelevant to either... and "culture" doesn't much give a damn the third while the arguments of the first two are not based in science, but in ideology. Actually, "science" states that an equation cannot be solved without selecting a reference frame. But we'll come back to that in a minute. As far as "entropy - total chaos" the end point of an open-ended universe is not chaos, but uniformity. Chaos is actually the opposite of entropy. Well, the first problem here is that your reference frame requires your system to be closed. The next problem is that if you're going to pick rules to defy, "thermodynamics" is a tough row to hoe. "A state of balanced flux" is actually a violation of the 2nd law of thermodynamics - the one that prohibits perpetual motion machines. And while you can believe what you want, the preponderance of evidence supports the applicability of this law to physics as we know it. Euclidean geometry started falling apart in the late 1500s. The shape of the universe is something debated by cosmologists, and generally not applicable to daily life. I know enough to know that the people who argue about the shape of the universe know more math than I do, and would readily admit that my day-to-day life is unaffected by their determinations. Could you elaborate on this? Because it's not so much an assumption as a verifiable axiom. See, what I"m seeing here is that you aren't really defining your system. And I think you're misreading a lot of science to come up with conclusions that aren't really supported by the facts on the ground. It's almost like you're saying "wishing will make it so" while denying things that are easily demonstrated. Absent a better hypothesis, regardless of "truth" or not, the working hypothesis wins, no?Why are we so fascinated with randomness?
If you disagree, let's look at advertisements. Advertisers look at current trends to see how they can market a product, spending a lot of money on research. If we look to most commercials nowadays they are the most arbitrary things ever (e.g. Old Spice, Keystone, etc.) Why is this?
I posit that whatever scientific theory of the time is most prominent, a society/culture will act accordingly.
Currently, science states that we live in a disconnected, random, and reductionist Universe headed toward entropy - total chaos.
But what if we shifted toward believing everything is interconnected, interdependent, and headed toward "centropy" (a state of balanced flux)?
Euclidean geometry provides answers for 2D events. Great, but the Universe isn't flat. Everything has a 3rd dimension.
Similarly, current scientific models of reality are based upon the assumption that closed and finite systems exist.
I'm beginning to get into the concept of Unified Physics, and only know so much (for now). I wouldn't say that I have enough knowledge (currently) to formulate a strong response.
However, that's merely from an objective perspective. The conclusion that we exist in a connected and interdependent Universe is something I know subjectively, experientialy. I believe that as we move forward in our evolution, we'll realize the value of subjective experience as much as objective. Can I defend my position with dates and links to when specific events happened? No. But I can go for a walk and see how everything works in complete harmony and know we function the same way because we are not separate from Nature. Also, this.
I think that you're letting your frustration with modernity color your logic. There's no reason to think that the world can only be understood as connected and interdependent as a subjective notion. The atoms I exhale today will become part of the plant that you consume tomorrow, and so on. This is as sound a fact as we can possibly know, and it also shows that all are one. It may not sound spiritual to some people, but I suppose that's where science ends and philosophy begins. The two, science and philosophy that is, should be informed by one another, but they aren't the same thing, as some naive science types would have you believe (science as religion, as befalls some people). There is plenty of room for beliefs even in a world that is driven by fact.The conclusion that we exist in a connected and interdependent Universe is something I know subjectively, experientialy. I believe that as we move forward in our evolution, we'll realize the value of subjective experience as much as objective.
Just so we're clear - you are arguing against current scientific maxims because you believe them to be lacking in some way - some way that you describe in personal terms. I have no problems with faith, and I have no problems with personal philosophy... but - as stated by you - you're convinced that we're missing something important through our dogged adherence to scientific method and we should therefore cast off our current understanding of the universe. Faith has its place, as does science - but did you mean to argue that scientific method is wrong because it feels wrong to you, even though (by your own admission) your understanding of the science you reject is rudimentary?The conclusion that we exist in a connected and interdependent Universe is something I know subjectively, experientialy. I believe that as we move forward in our evolution, we'll realize the value of subjective experience as much as objective.
Conflating the science and philosophy is an all too common mistake. I wish I knew where the failure lay. I think we can all agree that no one gets a good science education in school. This, I believe, has to do with politics, education policy, and the fact that very few people who know a lot about science become high school teachers. And this is to say nothing about the non-existent philosophy education that we all receive. Obviously "I don't like science" is a completely untenable stance--science is here to stay, whereas the individual is not. People who say that really should be asking themselves why they don't like what they think scientists say about the universe and how they can reconcile the current body of knowledge with their own worldview. READ MORE, kids!...you're convinced that we're missing something important through our dogged adherence to scientific method and we should therefore cast off our current understanding of the universe.
My suspicion is that we teach two important philosophies: 1) Scientific method is based on doubt 2) Self-confidence is a muscle to be exercised and developed with not enough emphasis on the fact that not all doubts are created equal. Scientific advancement is presented as a chain of identical links, from "fire" to "Large Hadron Collider" with the emphasis on exploration of the unknown as the cause of progress. However, nobody points out that a much larger body of expertise is necessary to snipe at String Theory in 2014 than was required to disprove the four humors in the Enlightenment. That, after all, might damage the fragile young egos into thinking that everything worth discovering has been discovered. It's become harder and harder to say "you're wrong" in a classroom, but sometimes ideas are wrong.Conflating the science and philosophy is an all too common mistake. I wish I knew where the failure lay.