I had a thought and decided to write it down. Welcome to the rantings of someone who decided to write down his thoughts on mysticism, politics, anthropology, science, and art.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

You're Both Wrong

Earlier this evening I was part of a discussion with a group called Putty Club. As the night was drawing to an end we discussed a sort of thought experiment that goes more less like this: if all human knowledge was lost, and the human race had to start over, everything we know in science will eventually be rediscovered (theory of evolution, chemistry, atomic energy, round earth, et cetera), but no religion will be rediscovered. (Who said this, I don't know, nor can I seem to find out).

This is actually a sort of fallacious argument some atheist came up with to say that religion is pointless, and scientific knowledge is eternal fact. But we treated it as a thought experiment and tried to predict the sequence of events that would follow. So the following are our conclusions.

A few things the above statement ignores is things like instinct and the fact that humans are pattern-making beings. We would inevitably create language again, and thus yielding to writing. The human vocal cords can only make a certain number of sounds. Infants can really only make a certain number of vocalizations, most of which are easy to do, such as "da da" and "ta ta." "Ma ma" and "pa pa" are a bit more complex, but nonetheless, these are simple vocalizations, along with clicking and grunting. When writing would develop there would only be three essential and logical ways to visually communicate spoken word: by letter (Phoenician, Greek, Latin), by syllable (Cherokee, Korean), and by word (Mayan, Egyptian).

But humans are pattern makers. We put things together in ways that make sense to us. For instance, once we learn to count and do rudimentary math, we would do what other early literary civilizations did, namely associate written symbols with numbers, like the Babylonians, Egyptians, Hebrews, and Greeks did. We would naturally observe and find patterns that correspond to seasons and the heavens, such as these sets of stars are visible when it's cold, and these sets of stars are visible when everything is in bloom, and the sun is higher when it is hottest, and so forth. We would eventually notice certain stars move around in relation to other stars, which we will notice there are five, and probably call them "wanderers" (planet literally means "wanderer"). Certain observations will be made that children who have seasonal diets between spring and winter during gestation will have different personalities than a child with seasonal diets between autumn and summer. We won't associate these things with food, but will attribute them to the patterns we can actually mark, namely sets of stars (i.e. the constallations). The heavens will initially be perceived to rotate around the earth, though eventually we'll figure out the earth actually spins because of the complexity of how planets move.

We would see everything in our image, as the human body is the easiest way for us to relate to things we don't understand (anthropomorphization). Naturally we would notice that the liver of this man who was mauled by a bear is similar to this flower (i.e. the liverwort), and associate herbal medication between the liverwort and afflictions of the liver (known as sympathetic magic, according to Frazer). We would pull up a mandrake and notice that its roots look like a little human, and associate some sympathetic cure for it, whether correct or not. The same might be done for fertility and orchids (orchid roots look like testicles, as orchid literally means "testicle").

We only need to look at similarities between isolated cultures to see what would almost instantly reemerge. Rites of manhood, the Hunt, alcohol or hallucinogenic plants, astrology, gold as precious, ghosts, constellations (the same constellations), deities, mystery cults, fertility, herb cultures, et cetera; all cultures have some variation of these, and some have striking resemblances to other cultures.

But can mathematics and science be recreated exactly as we have it today? Doubtful. Just like Christianity will never be recreated, there will be a religion similar to it, with a messiah, a dying god, miracles, et cetera. Mathematics will be recreated, but not exactly as it is today. For instance, Base 10 systems might not be used, but instead use Base 8 (instead of counting fingers, we count the spaces between fingers, and there is a culture, whose name escapes me, that does this). Pi might not be based on the radius of a circle, but could be based on creating three tagential circles of the same radius whose centers lie on the circumference of another circle with the same radius (this essentially creates a triangle, in which pi might actually be described as 3, and anything using the radius would be different system that isn't popular to use). Consider it as the difference between using degrees and radians. Degrees are based on the number of days in a year (simplifying it to 360 to simplify a Base 10 system that works with a Base 12 system), in which we can measure the distance a star moves by day. Why use radians then? which are based off of taking the radius of a circle and making that the length of an arc on that circle. Who knows, we might not even use anything remotely similar to Arabic numbers, but use something like Mayan, or worse, Roman. We might not even grow beyond simply using numeric ticks.

The theory of evolution might be discussed quite differently than the way we talk about it. Or even how particle physics work. We attached some abstract and arbitrary ideas to explain certain behaviors of particle, such as "charges." We explain an electron as having a negative charge, a proton with a positive charge, and a neutron with no charge. What is a charge anyway? We have some notion of it, but its an abstract and arbitrary notion attached to certain properties. What if forces were not rediscovered as "charges" or "energy," but as a sort of invisible push. We might explain particle physics as electrons have a backwards push, protons with a forward push, and neutrons with no push. What is that supposed to mean anyway? Tell me charges are not arbitrary and I'll call you a moron. Sure it's the same idea, but our understanding of these things would be quite different, just like the gods would have different names with the same ideas behind them.

Needless to say, atheists are quite naive when they think science and math would be rediscovered as-is, and religion would not be the "eternal truths" (whatever that means) held by today's religious zealots. Math and science would be understand very differently than what we have today, but with similar ideas represented by some very different concepts and metaphors. Likewise, religion would be created with a lot of the same elements, just with different names. It is naive and foolish for anyone to think science and math, which seem so factual and concrete, can be recreated as-is in a vacuum, and myths to suffer a horrible fate of being lost forever.

Quite frankly, string theory would probably end up being ridiculously foreign, something like dancing finger theory.


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