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OPEN-MINDEDNESS AND SCEPTICISM may appear somewhat contradictory. After all, sceptics are the ones that dole out the greatest “bashings” to alternative perspectives and claimed experiences. So if you are skeptical by nature, then it is assumed that you are not the type to be open to new ideas. This assumption is understandable because most sceptics are applying their skepticism mindlessly, merely as apologists for an underlying faith in scientific realism.
These scientific realists, believing that science has uncovered (and continues to uncover) reality’s true nature, reject any belief or claimed experience that does not appear on their scientific reality-map. After all, one can only be rationally skeptical towards something if one has something “real” to measure against. In other words, a “real” framework or template is needed to assess the reality of a belief or claimed experience. Hence these sceptics must confuse their scientific reality-map with reality in order to elevate themselves to arbiters of what is real and what is not real.(Skepticism that tries to assert itself without such a framework is basically nihilism, and nihilism goes nowhere — by definition.)
So most skepticism is just a blind belief or faith in the standard scientific reality-map drummed into most of us at school. That said, most of those who blindly hold this scientific reality-map do not feel the need to attack anyone and everything that does not agree with that position. Those that do — the scientific fundamentalists — are driven by their own naivety and insecurity: confusing maps with reality and believing that belief systems need vigorous defending for them to persist. And this leads to the pogroms against alternative assertions and beliefs.
However, if sceptics were more epistemologically educated, they would understand that scientific realism at its deepest level, cannot actually be proved. This places scientific fundamentalism in the same basket as religious fundamentalism. A more sophisticated scientific reality-map is scientific positivism — where the science is merely the process of building accurate models of reality whatever that is. Positivism recognizes a map as a map and only makes statements about what is the best map or model of reality.
Because it acknowledges that reality itself is elusive and can only be mathematically mapped, scientific positivism does not provide the firm ground needed to be virulently sceptical. For that, as we have seen, you need a direct assertion of what reality actually is to determine what is and is not real. A position of scientific positivism, therefore, cannot be used to definitively reject alternative perspectives, beliefs and assertions. (If you admit that you don’t know directly what reality actually is and that you only build models of certain measurable aspects of reality, then there is enough “wriggle room” for alternative perspectives to assert their maps — although this says nothing about their accuracy.)
However, if your average sceptic was more insightful and open to questioning his or her own beliefs, then he or she would realise that all that can actually be concluded is that what is being claimed does not show up on the sceptic’s reality-map, and that reality-maps cannot be used to reject experience and beliefs per se, and so alternative claims ultimately can only be subjectively rejected.
Of course, those proposing alternative reality-maps are usually equally epistemologically naive, confusing their maps with reality as well. And so, we get the battles of the reality-maps: those childish name-calling exchanges of “my reality” is real and “your’s” is not. But as scientific realism has had some of the best minds refining it for years and ironing out its internal inconsistencies, it certainly has the upper hand in terms of logical consistency, and if your reality-map is not refined, then it is going to appear less valid. This is why sceptics often “seem” to come off better in these reality-map comparisons. But if society had greater epistemological sophistication, such exchanges would be less one-sided, with each side respecting the others’ position allowing for more constructive debate.
Now to the question of open-minded skepticism: how do we measure the validity of an assertion or belief open-mindedly, without the common knee-jerk rejection associated with religious/scientific fundamentalism? Can we find enough epistemological awareness and emotional maturity to make reasonable assessments?
First, as has been stated, it is important to realize that our choice of reality-map is ALWAYS ultimately subjective, even the choice to adopt scientific realism or scientific positivism. We decide which reality-map to use depending on our circumstances and the usefulness of the map (both practically AND psychologically — and perhaps even spiritually, whatever that means). And many of us will hold more than one reality-map, using whichever is most useful to us in the moment. For example, some hardcore scientists hold a religious reality-map in addition to their scientific one.
That said, we tend to have a primary reality-map which we fall back on… that which we label as reality. So in the example above of a scientists holding both religious and scientific reality-maps, if a religious experience were to happen, it would likely still be dismissed as “unreal” from the scientific point of view and relegated to mind (fantasy). This is, of course, the old mind-body dualism.
The second point to bear in mind is that the reality-map itself is also subjective — it is inferred from from experience. So, for example, a hard core empiricist finds consistent sets of mathematical equations that successfully model certain “physical” aspects of reality, and from these equations a mathematical reality-map is devised. To make it less abstract and more “human friendly”, the map is then colored in with spatial, temporal and material concepts extrapolated from those mathematical equations. This process is very different from the one that formulated the mathematical equations in the first place and is more akin to creative storytelling and is completely different to the exactness of the Scientific Method. More than one coloring or fleshing scheme can usually be used for the same set of equations.
Remember, the equations on their own mean nothing: it is the interpretation of those equations that give them the context to allow scientists to determine when and how to use them, and how much faith to have in this process.
Mapping
So our choice of map is always subjective, and so is the nature of the map that we choose. This is why it is so asinine to assume that we can objectively assign levels of “truth” or “reality” to our reality-maps. Yes, they may seem to us to be very accurate, but accuracy does NOT imply that the map is somehow morphing into the territory. A map is always a map no matter how well-drawn it is; an accurate map is no closer to reality than an inaccurate one. But it is certainly a lot more useful.
It is important to note that different maps of reality are useful from different perspectives. Generally, the more accurate a reality-map is from one perspective, the less accurate it is from another because reality is always far greater and more multidimensional than any map of it can be. So the mapping process, by definition, is selective and distorting. For example, different projections of surface of the Earth onto a flat map involve different distortions; any 2-d representation of a 3-d surface is going to have distortion, and this holds true for all mapping processes. Maps, therefore, can never be universal or distortion free. This is why the presence of inaccuracies, omissions and/or distortions in a reality-map do not falsify it.
So, for example, if I use a tube map above ground instead of a road map, then the mismatch of my experience to what the map indicates I should experience does not falsify the tube map. It just means I am not using this map for its intended purpose. That said, if my tube map does not reflect my experience in the tube system, the map can certainly be labelled inaccurate or even useless. But we cannot label it as “false” or, if accurate, label it as “true” as these adjectives imply a reality to maps that they cannot actually have.
So the whole focus on falsification, which is central to the scientific process as it is currently undertaken, is misplaced and epistemologically naïve. Instead, the focus should be on determining the accuracy and usefulness of reality-maps rather than their “truthfulness”. While this might seem pedantic considering that the iterative process of drawing up accurate reality-maps is independent of whether we assess them on grounds of truthfulness or on grounds of accuracy, this epistemological sophistication is actually important because it reduces the bigotry the drives fundamentalism. And fundamentalism in any of its forms — religious, scientific, medical, political etc. — is the scourge of humankind; the primary human cause of suffering and mass murder throughout history.
It is all too easy to shake your finger at the obvious craziness of religious fundamentalism whilst remaining unconscious of your adherence to scientific fundamentalism. At the end of the day, it is fundamentalism itself, not its particular flavor, that causes so much strife in society.
One of the most useful reality-maps is the scientific one because it allows us to model the behavior of the “material” aspects of our experience, and this facilitates the construction of material systems — technology — which can make huge positive net contribution to our lives.
There are three primary scientific reality-maps: the “common sense” Newtonian space-time scientific reality-map; the “challenging” relativistic scientific reality-map; and the downright “bizarre” quantum scientific reality-map. (These are the widely accepted ones; there are others which are considered more fringe.) These three maps do somewhat dovetail in to each other mathematically although they do remain philosophically separate. Each is generally used for different scales of experience: the Newtonian for our everyday human experience; the Relativistic for fast moving objects and cosmic scales; and the Quantum for molecular, atomic and sub-atomic scales. Although for the sake of this essay we will refer to just a single, generic scientific reality-map, we need to remain aware that the there is actually more than one scientific reality-map because science is not (yet?) unified.
But even though the scientific reality-map is considered the most objective we have — the one most accurate and useful for modelling the material world, we must still bear in mind that the map is never the territory and so the scientific reality-map itself is NOT reality. In other words, just because a map appears to be very accurate in one area of our experience does not bring it any closer to becoming reality than an inaccurate map. A model always remains a model.
Of course, the “territory of our experience” is made up of a lot more than just material considerations. If we make the mistake of confusing our scientific reality-map with reality, then we are going to conjure up a fantasy reality that is likely to behave very differently for those aspects of reality that this map was not primarily created for. Consciousness is a prime example.
The scientific reality-maps have been drawn to exclude consciousness in every way to maintain the illusion of absolute objectivity. But despite every effort, consciousness has refused to die in quantum perspectives — although some scientists are still trying hard to reformulate quantum theory to expel consciousness again and return science to the safe illusion of objectivity.
So given the mapping process that has deliberately excluded consciousness, why do so many look to science to understand what consciousness is just because it can accurately map aspects of the material world? Because consciousness has been avoided by generations of scientists, low and behold science puts forward its view that it is merely an epiphenomenon of complex network systems — secondary to matter. And we naively take this perspective as gospel because we are ignorant of the mapping process.
Most sceptics around these days in Western societies are scientific fundamentalists; more specifically, those who have foolishly confused the Newtonian reality-map with reality, and therefore use this map as a template for what is real throughout human experience. It might be tempting to chuckle at this stupidity, until we remember that most humans confuse their reality-maps as reality… most humans do not have the sophistication to realise that the map is never the territory. And even those who pay lip service to this understanding believe, on some level, that their own primary reality-map is somehow imbued with more truth or more reality than other reality-maps. This is called the reality bias and it affects most of us, not just religious fundamentalists where such bias is more obvious.
So practically all skepticism is the rejection of another’s experiences, beliefs or reality-maps based on subjectively assigning greater truth and reality to one’s own particular reality-map — in this case the scientific reality-map — and then using this exalted “super-map” as a truth template by which all else can be measured.
But we must remember, before using the scientific reality-map, that it only accurately models consistently-experienced aspects of reality that we label as material or physical. Therefore, if a claimed experience cannot be found on this map, all that can actually be inferred is that what we are attempting to model is:
- A rare or unusual phenomenon that therefore has not been provisioned on the map we are using;
- A phenomenon that appears logically inconsistent, sporadic or irrational to us;
- A phenomenon that implies a “reality” of consciousness greater than the epiphenomenal reality assumed by the scientific reality-map;
- Related to the above, a phenomenon that is hidden from those adopting a sceptical state of mind.
Phenomena that exhibit one or more of the above traits are generally dismissed as unreal by those who confuse the scientific reality-map with reality itself. Therefore these phenomena are NOT modelled and do NOT appear on scientific reality-maps.
The biggest problem here is probably the third and fourth: our whole experience of reality — even the logically consistent aspects of reality we call “physical” — are mediated through consciousness, no matter how much those fixated on objectivity try to wriggle and squirm out of the fact. As soon as consciousness is part of the equation, then logic and consistency take a step backwards as consciousness is the first layer of our experience. But the primacy of consciousness threatens the sanctity of objectivity, and so consciousness is never allowed to be any more than an illusion associated with complex neural or silicon nets. This is a prerequisite for scientific realism — the elephant in the room that so many are jumping through hoops to avoid addressing.
The rise of the Quantum reality-map, as was mentioned earlier, does lets consciousness out of the bag because one of its philosophical interpretations is that consciousness itself collapses the wave function.
Up until the birth of quantum theory, waves and particles were considered to be two separate and logically inconsistent aspects of physical reality. Particles acted like particles, and waves like waves. They are nothing like each other; they are chalk and cheese. But then new research, at the turn of the 20th Century, showed that energy, which was believed up until then to be wave-like and continuous, could only be accurately modelled if it were assumed to have particular properties as well — the energy coming in tiny discrete lumps called quanta. So suddenly, two entirely different and logically diverse perspectives were brought together into a single model — the wave-particle model. And because energy and matter are so intimately connected, this model applied to matter as well. The result was the quantum revolution.
What is important to realize here is that, just because the best mathematical model of matter and energy involve a logically consistent set of equations that seem to describe both wave-like and particle-like properties concurrently, does not make these two properties any less of a duality than they were before wave-particle models were developed. Waves and particles are still chalk and cheese despite both perspectives seeming to be concurrent interpretations of the same mathematical equations.
When we view a wave-particle system, we can only see it exclusively in the moment as either a wave or a particle because our minds can only think in terms of space and time. We are indoctrinated with a Newtonian worldview. Of course, it is popular to put forward the suggestion that consciousness is somehow collapsing the wave function so that a particle appears in one specific spot, but that is actually a space-time interpretation. Something has to give and many prefer the perspective of consciousness acting on matter than space-time itself being brought into question. In the former perspective consciousness remains just one component of reality; in the latter, consciousness is all there is.
Most working scientists avoid the philosophical ramifications of quantum theory and just use it as a mathematical model to predict the behaviour of matter and light at small scales. (In addition to this, there is a movement amongst conventional physicists to reformulate quantum theory in order to get rid of these “woo woo” implications.)
Unfortunately for hardened materialists, the New Age and New Consciousness movements have run with quantum theory as a means to justify their theories that have consciousness directly influencing reality. The Schroedinger cat has been philosophically let out of the bag and now any mind-over-matter theory can be presented scientifically. But adherents to the New Age and New Consciousness movements are still a tiny (but growing) minority, so most of society still holds a material worldview (a Newtonian perspective) where consciousness is just an illusory expression of a complex system. So despite philosophical interpretations of quantum theory that challenge the pervading material perspective, materialism still has not been deposed. And this is expected: we all live at scales of reality far larger than the atomic realm, and so quantum considerations are considered negligible. (Newtonian physics was accurate enough even for the Apollo moon landings.)
Logical inconsistencies, such as the wave-particle duality, are very discomforting to scientific realists who believe logical consistency is a fundamental property of reality itself, and therefore inconsistencies in scientific theory indicate that the theory is incomplete or just plain wrong. But quantum theory, despite the wave-particle paradox, is an incredibly accurate reality-map for aspects of reality at tiny scales and so these paradoxes have been very reluctantly accepted — at least for now.
This strangeness of the quantum reality-map has inadvertently epistemologically educated many working scientists, who have learnt to use it merely as an accurate mathematically model without concern for its philosophical ramifications. Those ramifications are instead picked up by the New Age community as justification for consciousness creating reality. But this is actually just an extension of scientific positivism: confusing a model of reality with reality itself. In other words, the New Ager is falling into the same trap. (This is not to say that we do not create our reality, or that consciousness does not have a central role in reality — it certainly seems to — only that we do not necessarily need to try to purloin science’s credibility to justify putting consciousness back into the center of an unquestioned space-time reality.)
Experiences are usually multifaceted and can be tracked on more than one map — they do not neatly limit themselves to one particular reality-map. If we go back to the previous example of the tube and road maps of a city, we see that these are mapping different facets of experience in that city. The two maps will have things in common because they are mapping different aspects of the same city. But they will also have many differences. So using different (and sometimes seemingly contradictory) reality-maps can give a more complete feel of reality, especially if the mind is flexible enough to look past contradiction towards synthesis.
An example might be when researchers try to validate psychic phenomena using the scientific reality-map, when that map is not ideal because the phenomena generally do not confirm to the criteria for scientific mapping outlined above and tend to only have an objective “shadow”. But nonetheless, some physical attributes can and have been measured, but because these phenomena are unpredictable and not usually repeatable does not in any way make them less real than more “objective” phenomena (unless “objectivity” is foolishly defined as what is real).
So psychic phenomena can be mapped with the scientific reality-map, but the most one can ever see from this perspective is a trace or shadow of these phenomena as the scientific reality-map can only map one dimension of these types of experience. Of course, a trace should in theory be enough to validate those mappable aspects of these phenomena even for scientific positivists, but in practice the implications of those aspects end up being so challenging to scientific positivism itself that these phenomena are almost invariably rejected regardless of evidence.
Mapping our experience requires discernment. We must use an appropriate map rather than foolishly insisting on a one-map-fits-all perspective because we are hung up on pet definitions and perspectives of reality. This is not only a question of open-mindedness but also of wisdom. We have to decide not only what we are trying to map, but why we are trying to map it in the first place. Mapping to gain some level of predictability is a valid use of the reality mapping process. But mapping to determine what is real or not is a misuse of reality-maps and a farcical venture.
So open-mindedness is not the purview of the ignorant, but the natural state of those who are epistemologically aware. Of course, most of both the open-minded and closed-minded have absolutely no understanding of any of this. But those who are aware of the reality-mapping process at the heart of our “interaction” with reality are not so quick to reject an assertion or proposition per se, but will look at it carefully in relation to other factors which we will look at later.
Our ability to intelligently open our minds is more dependent on our personality and experiences than our level of education. That said, many of the most epistemologically ignorant are the best educated. In fact, there is much truth in the assertion that education as it stands today indoctrinates epistemological ignorance. The system is set up this way because the older generations of academics do not like to have their pet theories and truths questioned. However, reduce the truth to a mere map, and students will start questioning their teachers and the curricula.
This process goes on, generation after generation, so that most academics turn a blind eye to practical epistemology. This is particularly the case in science.
The scientific reality-map has remarkable internal logical consistency because generations of the most logically brilliant minds have refined it and ironed out most of the inconsistencies. This remarkable degree of self-consistency means that the scientific reality-map is mapping the logically consistent aspects of physical reality, and is also the main reason why it is confused with reality itself. This is why we so often hear phrases such as “God is a mathematician” — an opinion that betrays epistemological ignorance. All we can correctly say about mathematics is that it is the foundation of the logically-consistent maps used to model certain aspects of reality. We cannot say that mathematics is the foundation of reality.
It is not just the scientific reality-map that has had such an extraordinary iterative process of refinement that many confuse it with reality. Other reality-maps have equal or even greater levels of refinement. Such maps might include Vedanta, Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. These reality-maps have been refined over countless generations — orders of magnitude more generations than those who refined the scientific reality-maps. In this case, the iterative refinement is focused on most accurately mapping the mind and consciousness in an experiential and logical way. And in a similar way to the quantum reality-map, paradoxes are accepted if they result in the most accurate maps. But what is important to realize is that these maps are no more reality than the scientific reality-maps are. These maps of the mind are every bit as valid and invalid as the scientific reality-map. To dismiss them as “religious dogma” is to display profound ignorance. (The writer, by the way, is NOT specifically a Hindu or Buddhist, and so is not blindly trying to validate these belief systems because of some religious motivation.)
The iterative refinement of mature reality-maps like these makes them difficult to be sceptical of within their remit or area of authority. And this is key: each refined map, provided it has been accurately drawn, speaks with authority within the area of experience that it was created for. To apply that authority to a different aspect of experience is a basic cartographical error, as is also to use that authority to deny the reality of an aspect of experience the map was never drawn up for. But it also does not mean that these mature maps are truth, or that they will never be ditched for better maps. During “paradigm shifts”, new maps replace old maps no matter how accurate the old maps were, as happened in physics at the start of the 20th Century. (The outdated Newtonian reality-map was accurate enough to get us to the moon, but still got superseded by the Einsteinian reality-map which was even more accurate.)
That said, religions tend not to have clear-cut overall paradigm shifts as science has because unification is more difficult around more subjective matters. So instead, when a religion goes through a paradigm shift, it tends to splinter. This is why there are so many different branches of any particular religion, some of which die off over time because they lose popularity.
The solution is NOT more ideology but more understanding of what ideology actually is. Otherwise we remain lost in the detail, unable to see the wood for the trees. If you want to know where you stand in all of this — whether you are part of the problem or part of the solution — observe yourself when you hear a contrary opinion to your own. If you react in anger and dismissal, chances are that you are confusing your beliefs with reality. And if you are doing that, then you are one of the ones destroying society with your unconsciousness. So get off your ideological high horse and start start championing more inclusive principles such as democracy and free speech. That may seem -ioned and boring to the young generations, but this is the bedrock of a stable modern society.
Open-minded skepticism, as opposed to the knee-jerk closed-minded variety plaguing humanity, is therefore not a luxury or a philosophical curiosity. It is an important part of finding the tolerance to accept our differences. We need to stop tearing ourselves apart and focus on our shared humanity.
https://realitymaps.com/2018/04-open-minded-scepticism.html