Defining a New Magazine: "Radically Empirical"

Letter from the EditorMay 2012
Olav Bryant Smith

Originally published in the May 2012 issue.

Welcome to the magazine Empirical. I’d like to open with a few words about the name Empirical and our mission.

PHOTO: Olav Bryant Smith

Our mission statement reads: “A literary and current affairs magazine with the openness and pioneering spirit of the Pacific Northwest, Empirical aspires for truth by boldly introducing thought-provoking points of view and new paradigms. A forum for discourse on contemporary issues, the magazine is ‘radically empirical’ in considering the broad range of human experience.”

To begin with, we’ve already encountered more than one person who thought that Empirical was a reference in some way to empire. The word would have been “imperial” if that were the case, and I want to assure everyone that it’s the last thing we would have intended. We live in an age where visions of empire have helped to take us to the edge of the abyss.

Another misunderstanding of our intention has come from those with philosophical training. The standard definitions for empiricism have to do with making judgments on the basis of experience, and most people get that. Empirical supports this. The problem comes in with people who are aware of the debates that have surrounded what counts for “experience” in the world of science and philosophy.

The Philosophical Background

William James

The English philosophers Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke established what’s thought of as the “empirical” tradition in philosophy and science. Thinking that people were misled by religious and other traditions into believing claims that lacked evidential support, they urged us to base our beliefs on experience. Again, Empirical stands in this tradition. But—standing against rational dogmatism of all kinds—Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke tended to count as experience only those things that can be verified through sensual observation. Experience, according to such empirical philosophers, came to be identified exclusively with such observation through the five physical senses. This is often commonly summed up by the expression “Seeing is believing.”

For most things in science, this works just fine—though science itself has had to modify its expectations in this arena. No one has ever seen, for example, a quark. It’s a theoretical construct based on evidence that has been seen. So attempts to insist on a theory of verification through such observation failed, and Karl Popper’s theory of falsification has taken its place.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume had seen this coming a couple of hundred years earlier, arguing that we can’t even verify the concept of causation through sight or the other physical sensations alone. We never see causation with our eyes. And without the principle of causation, we could not have science.

David Hume went further. He insisted that all we have in experience, according to this type of empiricism, are multiple sensory perceptions—often bundled together by association. We cannot, he argued, verify the existence of the world, any physical object, or even something we might call “the self,” much less God. We are ourselves, he concluded, nothing but a bundle of perceptions.

It was against this backdrop that takes away so much of meaning and value in human existence that William James protested with his call to radical empiricism. James was an American philosopher and psychologist who died in the early part of the 20th century. To James (and Alfred North Whitehead, who later defended and built upon this position), we have a great deal of experience that is not limited to the five physical sense organs. James and Whitehead both pointed to memory as a prime example of such experience. Whitehead spoke often of our experience of our own bodies as well, calling it the withness of the body. James coined the term radical empiricism in the context of addressing our experience of interconnectedness with the world.

Many of you may be familiar with James, who was a prominent scientist as well as a medical doctor and psychologist himself, as the author of Varieties of Religious Experience. He wrote this from an open-minded, radically empirical point of view. He and Whitehead encouraged us to not get trapped in a too-narrow view of the world imposed on us by what usually passes as “empirical” science.

What This Means To Us

We live in a time of turmoil. No one is quite certain how to move forward. The tidy categories that we had grown used to in the past (in politics, economics, religion, and many other fields) often fail to satisfy us or solve our problems today. We need to think outside-the-box as we move forward into the future.

Empirical wants to encourage sound reasoning and penetrating reflection that appeal to all of the facts of our experience without the limitations of preconceived categories of thought. Toward that end, we will feature essays in politics, economics, philosophy, and social science that break new ground and look at things in new and often exciting ways. The editors at Empirical may not always agree with the points of view that we feature, but we will always offer them with open minds and great interest. We will cover paradigm shifts and new technologies in a wide variety of fields.

Whitehead, a logician and mathematical physicist in addition to being a philosopher, said that the process of discovery is like the flight of an airplane. You begin on the ground with observation. Then you “soar into the thin air of imaginative generalization.” This is where you try to make sense of what you have observed. Then you land again for further observation, noting what does not fit your current theory and adjusting the theory as you go. The key in this last step is to be keenly observant of those parts of experience that do not fit into the current paradigm, and to adjust our paradigm accordingly.

James and Whitehead, as radically empirical philosophers, were committed to science and applying a sharply rational and logical intellect to the data of experience, but were both concerned that empiricism not be limited in its scope. Both sought to widen the range of investigation to include all aspects of life. James and Whitehead sought, for example, to include science and religion under the same umbrella of reasonable discourse.

In this spirit of courageous and inclusive exploration of the facts of our experience, Empirical magazine seeks to encourage bold speculation through reasoned discourse, and new ideas that seek to explain the facts of the entirety of our experience—not only those that fit what we already believe. Empirical will encourage the consideration of new paradigms, new ways of life, and new technologies as presented in art, non-fiction, and fiction. And the range of Empirical subjects will embrace the wide range of human experience in ways that are informative, and often uplifting and encouraging.

We also begin with a Jamesian leap of faith. In his Will to Believe, James—concerned as he was with purpose in life—wrote that there come moments in life (such as standing on the edge of an abyss while mountain-climbing) where it does not pay to only believe in what you have verified in the past. Sometimes, we must take a leap of faith based on our perception of ideal possibilities that have never before been realized. This is the basis of real progress. It is our hope that you will join us in making that leap together.

From the Empirical Archives: On the Importance of Being Radical by John Cobb

On the Importance of Being Radical

John Cobb

PHOTO: Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, Netherlands

Originally Published in the July 2012 issue of Empirical

Is it bad to be “radical?” Often one hears the statement that so-and-so is a “radical” as a reason not to pay attention to what he or she says. To label people as “radicals” may be a way of warning others that they are dangerous. It has much the same effect as calling them “communists” or “terrorists.” This fear of radicals is not without reason. They do propose new ideas that undercut some of those to which most people are attached. They question the need for institutions and practices that others consider essential and beneficial. From the point of view of those who are benefited by the status quo and those who think that things are going well, radicals are dangerous.

When the modern period began in Europe, Christian institutions and beliefs were very well established. A few brave modern people raised radical questions that undercut the authority of Christian institutions and the credibility of supernaturalist Christian teachings. Some of these radicals paid dearly for their efforts. Christian institutions and beliefs did not disappear, but they changed drastically. The change in their role in Western societies has been even greater. The work of radicals has led to the replacement of Christian societies by secular ones. Modern scientists were often in the lead in advancing radicalism of this sort.

What is less noticed is that radicals are just as threatening in other aspects of society. Political organizations, governments, professions, academic disciplines, and educational institutions resist and oppose their work just as religious communities often did. Sadly, this is true also of modern sciences that profess to be fully open to evidence. In all these contexts, radicals engage in just the questioning that is not wanted. While modern culture celebrates the work of the radicals of earlier times, it is no more hospitable to contemporary radicals than were the established leaders of those earlier periods.

Many of us, at one time or another, have been irritated by people raising questions of a theoretical nature in a group whose job it is to deal practically with a problem. The zeal of radicals to go deeper simply slows us down in getting our work done. Not all radicals have good judgment about when and where to raise their questions, and for many people the answer to the question of when and where radicals should seek attention is: never and nowhere. It is easy to understand and even sympathize with those who abhor radicals.

But modern society has needed radicals as much as earlier. A century ago a few voices were pointing out that American society was rooted in racism and sexism. The vast majority of Americans dismissed such talk as “radical” and therefore irrelevant. They were right that it was radical. But these radical voices finally forced themselves into the public consciousness. More and more people recognized that the call for radical change had truth and righteousness on its side. There is still a lot of racism and sexism in American society, but they are no longer supported by law and official thinking. The work of radicals has changed society radically. Even many who were once irritated and even angered by them are now grateful for their work. Today the most glaring problems in American society are economic. Accordingly, this is the area most in need of radical investigation.

We need radicals to go to the roots of these problems. This could lead us in a variety of directions. The financial sector now dominates the economy; so we could focus on how this has gained so much power. The increase in inequality in the distribution of income and wealth has grown very rapidly. Radicals ask for the deepest reasons for this development.

Einstein was a radical in science. He is standing in this photograph with Lorentz in 1921.
PHOTO: Museum Boerhaave, Leiden, Netherlands

Some of the reasons that radicals will find are grounded in political power and personal acquisitiveness. But there are strictly theoretical contributions to these evils. There is a good deal of synchronicity between economic teaching and governmental and global practice. Accordingly, one place to apply radical analysis is the dominant economic theory.

Let’s take a simple example. The discipline of economics is founded on the assumption that bigger is better. It is supposed that the more economic activity takes place, the better off people are. Economists take their role to be showing how to make the economy grow. From time to time radicals have asked whether growth is the right goal for the economy, but within the academic departments of philosophy, the question has not been seriously discussed. Those who have tried to do so have not been well treated.

Asking that question is threatening to the discipline of economics as it has long been constituted. On the other hand, failing to ask it out of respect for the current authorities has the same kind of effect as failing to ask about racism or sexism out of respect for the existing authorities of an earlier day. The global growth of economic activity on a finite planet is responsible for such serious problems as global warming. If the economics guild continues to silence those of its members who raise this question because it is “radical,” the danger to human life is increased.

The crucial question is simple, but radical. Is growth a final good in itself ? Or is it good only insofar as it improves the human condition? If the latter, should we not investigate how the increase of economic activity, guided by the principles of standard economics, is actually affecting the human condition? That is a “radical” thing to do. It is also empirical.

To be empirical is to pay close attention to the facts. That is, itself, a “radical” thing to do. In some cases, the facts will not support the patterns of thought of many people, perhaps not those of any of us. Science at its best calls on us to accept the facts even when we wish they were otherwise. For example, many people prefer to think we are fundamentally disconnected from all other living things and, for a long time, science supported that idea. But the evidence for evolution became overwhelming. However unsettling the truth may be, it remains the truth, and many of us hold to the radical idea that we should affirm the truth and adjust our way of thinking to it.

I have spoken of “science at its best.” Sadly, science is not always at its best. Modern scientists like to point to one particularly dramatic example of failure at this point: the case of Galileo. It is often presented as an instance of science vs. religion, but it was in fact a matter of a new development in science that opposed the scientific consensus of its day. The church supported this consensus.

The best science of the medieval period was based on Aristotle. The church shared the scientists’ respect for Aristotle. Aristotle thought that heavenly bodies were fundamentally different from the Earth. The scientists who followed him were persuaded by his arguments. Galileo used a new technology to introduce evidence that did not fit into this understanding of the universe. The scientists who represented the scientific consensus of that day refused even to look through the telescope. They wanted to silence Galileo’s radical challenge to established science. Modern scientists have liked to condemn the resistance of late medieval Aristotelian scientists to the evidence provided by Galileo. They often imply that this was a failing of medieval scientists that modern science overcame. Sad to say, modern scientists engage in the same kind of practice even today. They strongly resist attending to evidence that does not fit into their worldview. To point this out is to be a “radical.”

Charles Darwin
PHOTO: Ed Uthman
ART: Joseph Boehm (1885)

For example, most modern scientists are committed to a worldview in which events in the physical world can be affected only by other events in the physical world. There is an enormous amount of evidence that physical events are in fact affected by what happens in human subjective experience. That my hands type one set of words rather than another certainly seems to be affected by my thinking. That mental activity plays a role in bodily behavior is not only common sense but also has an immense amount of evidence in its favor. But the metaphysics with which modern science is closely associated says that it is impossible. Accordingly, such affirmations are rejected by most scientific guilds as impossible. Most scientists refuse to look at the evidence. This exclusion of a great amount of evidence is not science at its best.

Asking science to open itself to evidence that does not fit into its worldview is a radical act. It is as difficult for modern scientists to do this as for Aristotelian scientists to accept the evidence provided by Galileo. One reason for this difficulty is the commitment of scientists to what they call “empiricism.” This empiricism was shaped by philosophers and scientists in the early modern period. It affirmed the view that the only access to the world external to the individual thinker is through the sense organs. For practical purposes, scientists and philosophers limited themselves to what could be seen or touched. We can call the resulting idea about how we know anything about the world “sensory empiricism.” Scientists found that it was possible to agree on a great many things when they limited themselves in this way. They celebrated the “objectivity” of science. They often identify “science” as such with the body of theory that developed out of sensory empiricism.

This magazine is certainly committed to “empiricism,” in the broad meaning of this term. We must begin all our reflections in experience. In order to explain our experience, we may have to posit some things we do not experience. Indeed science does this in spades. These days scientists tell us that most matter and most energy can never be experienced at all. They call them “dark.” But these theories, and all our theories, should be tested again and again in experience.

There is no question of the crucial importance of experience. However, we need to ask more radically about it. When we do so, we find that it includes much more than the deliverances of the sense organs. In fact scientists have to assume a great deal that they cannot derive from sense experience.

I limit myself to one example. Much of science is engaged in explaining how things come to be through time. Causality is usually understood as the impact of the past upon the present. But vision and touch give us only the present. Of course, we assume that we see things following one upon another. But that assumption requires something other than the immediate delivery of visual or tactile experience. We have to remember the previous visual experience in order to see that there is a change or motion.

"Galapagos Islands"
PHOTO: Michael R. Perry

If this point is not immediately clear, take a little time to think about it. Focus on what you are seeing in a single moment. It will be a complex pattern of colors. Now you are very likely to think that you see changes taking place. But if you limit yourself entirely to what is given you through your eyes this is not quite true. In the new moment you are seeing a slightly different pattern of color, but you are no longer seeing the previous one. Without memory, you cannot compare them. You do not see the change. We do not see or touch memory.

Puzzles of this kind have long been formulated by philosophers but they have rarely been taken seriously by scientists. If one does take them seriously, one is pushed to a more “radical” empiricism, one that examines experience as a whole with greater care and sees the interrelationships of its ingredients. William James contributed this term: “radical empiricism.” Our actual experience is one of constant change. It is not wrong for science to talk about changes in the world based on experience. What is wrong is to claim to limit itself to the objective world as known only through sight and touch. Science does not do this. It cannot do this. Unfortunately, it does not attend to the contribution of other aspects of experience, and it gives support to a very truncated view of reality.

Those who build their understanding of reality on what contemporary science offers tend to devalue value. The reality of our experience is that it is profoundly value-laden. We have hope and fear, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, enjoyment and misery, and so much more. We are constantly involved in questions of better and worse. Scientists may acknowledge that such feelings occur, but modern scientific orthodoxy insists that they have no effect upon the world. The world is value free, and science is supposed to be value free. Now research universities are supposed to be value free as well – which means that their only value is money.

Radical empiricism is another matter. For it, feelings, beliefs, sensory experiences, memories, anticipations, bodily experience, and intellectual activity are all equally real and very much bound up together. We can, of course, abstract certain sensory experiences from this whole and concentrate upon them. Much can be learned in this way. But when this limited aspect of knowledge is given special privilege and all the rest is disparaged, we are in serious trouble.

The real world, the world of the radical empiricist, is much richer. It calls forth concern and commitment as the purely “objective” world does not. It opens us to fresh approaches in economics and in physics, and in everything else as well.

In 1955, it was "radical for Rosa Parks (1913-2005), because of her skin color, to insist on sitting in the front of a Montgomery, Alabama bus.
PHOTO: USIA

Earlier I mentioned the overwhelming evidence that evolution has taken place and that the human species emerged through evolutionary processes. But radical empiricism opens us to an understanding of evolution quite different from the one to which sensory empiricism, with its purely objective world, has led us. One example is the explanation of the emergence of new species. Standard academic teaching that fits the narrowly scientific worldview is that all the variations in plants and animals among which natural selection operates are caused by random mutation of genes. Lynn Margulis disagreed, saying that at least some of them occurred by symbiogenesis, that is, by diverse organisms combining. She gave as her most important example the emergence of the nucleated cell. She said this did not come about by random mutation of genes but by one bacterium swallowing another and not digesting it. Her idea was long rejected, even ridiculed, because it did not fit the standard model. But the evidence finally forced its acceptance. Sadly, despite this important realization, and even though Margulis provided evidence of the role of symbiogenesis elsewhere as well, the standard account of evolution has not been modified to make a place for it. Radical empiricists, in contrast, are completely open to the evidence.

More broadly there is a great deal of evidence that purposive actions on the part of animals, especially human beings, play a large role in evolution. But mainstream evolutionary theory ignores the effects of the action of animals on evolution because this would give an opening to acknowledging a role for some sort of purpose in evolution.

The exclusion of purpose from evolutionary theory is one of its sacred principles. We find evolutionary biologists vigorously denying that purpose plays any role in the world for the purpose of maintaining ideas that do not have empirical support. Radical empiricists do not see why we should ignore the evidence for the role of the purposes of the evolving animals, especially human beings.

PHOTO: Harley Pebley

Late Medieval science allied itself with Aristotelian philosophy and gave much too large a role to purpose. Modern philosophy allied itself with materialism and denied purpose altogether. Wouldn’t it be better for science to pay attention to the evidence, all the evidence, instead of being enthralled by its companion philosophy? Let’s join radical empiricists and this magazine in the truly open-ended quest for truth.

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The November Issue

Have you seen the November 2012 issue yet? 

Here is the Letter from the Editors to acquaint you to our mission and purpose of the magazine. 

For those of you who are new to Empirical magazine, we want to emphasize, as we have in previous issues, that we believe a new sense of the term "empirical" is required as we move forward in the twenty-first century. Unlike the purely physical, sense-based empiricism that was the darling of the old twentieth century positivism, we embrace the type of "radical empiricism" that was promoted by William James and Alfred North Whitehead. (It was James who actually coined the term.) 

The death knell to the old positivistic approach was actually sounded as early as the seventeenth century by the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume, who knew that on this basis, neither practical life nor science as most people think of it-i.e., an inquiry into the truth-were possible. On the basis of sense impressions alone, we cannot know there is such a thing as causation, a foundational principle to science and practical life. Nor can we know that there are bodies, minds (other than our own), or even a world outside of our thoughts. George Santayana pointed out that the problem was really worse than Hume had imagined, saying that on Hume's view, we're caught in a "solipsism of the present moment," where all we know is what we're sensing right now in any given moment. We cannot know that we even have continuity of our own minds from one second to the other. But even bad ideas sometimes have their value and have to play themselves out before they're roundly rejected. 

Science went on about its business as if Hume had never come to his skeptical conclusions. Especially within the realm of Newtonian physics, this materialistic approach had real value. Then, with the advent of electromagnetic, relativity, and quantum theories, everything changed. 

Nineteenth-century idealists had offered another model for thinking of our relationship to the world by suggesting that we are ourselves individual minds that are an extension of an original and universal mind. But using this theory, philosophers paid little attention to science. 

James and Whitehead, however, scientists themselves, sought another path. They offered a radical form of empiricism that embraces science and its central principle that our beliefs should stand up to tests in the world of experience. But the idea of experience should not be limited to mere sense impressions (narrowly defined as the data that comes to us through the five physical sense organs). Memory, for example, is an inheritance of experience from one moment to the next that does not come to us through the five physical senses. Feelings of the "withness of the body," as Whitehead termed this feeling of the experiences of our own bodies, are other examples of experience beyond that given by the five physical senses. Experience, it turns out upon deeper reflection, has a much broader basis than earlier empiricists had thought. 

As is often the case, there were ulterior motives that drove many materialists to insist, despite the evidence available to them, that we should restrict ourselves to the five physical senses. One reason was that they wanted to distinguish themselves as better truth-finders than those who worked in the much greyer areas of the humanities, including religion. This approach worked well within the realm of Newtonian mechanics, but has not worked so well when applied to the more complex relationships of quantum mechanics, biology, and human psychology. 

One of the positive ramifications of a radically empirical approach to understanding our world, therefore, is that the humanities, including religion and spirituality, is brought back to the table of discussion with the sciences. Empiricalmagazine honors this radically empirical tradition, in part, by bringing together the voices of artists, scientists, philosophers, theologians, Buddhist writers, psychologists, social workers, architects, short-story writers, poets, photographers, and many others. The truth is too complex for any one, finite approach to have the one and only answer. All of life is a call to be open to the many voices of experience. We learn from those voices. We develop a better-rounded worldview through being open and sincerely listening to those voices. 

In the November 2012 issue of Empirical, you will again find a wide range of voices reflecting the experiences of our age. We are honored to include in our pages, for the first time, the voice of award-winning economist and author Herman Daly. He has written something that should have appeal to both ends of the political spectrum-an idea for ending the Federal Reserve Bank and the International Monetary Fund in one fell swoop. His idea involves "Nationalizing Money" as the title tells us, thereby taking the power of printing money away from the Fed and putting this power into the hands of elected officials who should be held accountable by the electorate. 

Investigative journalist Emanuel Stoakes brings us a reflective update on the war in Syria, and he includes some background on how the problems arose in the first place. 

Randall Auxier builds off of a Machiavellian theme as he discusses "Three Kinds of Soldiers." In particular, he relates this discussion to the highly debated death of an officer in the US Army, Colonel Ted West­husing. Auxier does not so much present a case for or against the official story that Westhusing's death in Iraq was a suicide, as he uses the occasion of this honorable man's death to discuss the relationship of ethics to soldiering, and more particularly, the relationship of ethics to aspects of the Iraq War. 

Historian Mustafah Dhada looks at the rise of neoconservativism in the US, and asks "America: Have We Crossed the Rubicon?" Dhada, who himself contributed to the constitution of his native Mozambique, challenges us through a suggestive inquiry into whether the US Constitution has been circumvented in a range of areas including elections, the censorship and control of media, and corporate influence over our elected officials. 

In the realm of religious thought for this issue, philosopher and theologian John B. Cobb Jr., co-founder of the Center for Process Studies in Claremont, California, (along with David Ray Griffin), has written "Good Idols and Bad." While noting that some people may have moved beyond idols entirely, as they claim, idols still serve an important role in religious people's lives around the world. Some of these idols, he suggests, are better for us than others. Drawing from his role in Christian-Buddhist dialogue, Cobb points to ways that the Christ idol is sometimes misrespresented and put to harmful uses, but argues that this need not be the case. In an age dominated by the idol of money, Cobb urges us to reconsider the liberating power of discovering the Christ within, comparing this to the Buddhist idea of discovering the Buddha Nature within. 

Scott Bontz, who works at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, has contributed an article on the Land Institute's work with the development of perennial crops. His article helps us to understand the connections between annual crops and soil erosion, and helps us to appreciate the fragile nature of the good top soil we need for farming. 

Ian Dees reports on a new religion called Kopimi. Dees helps us understand that the Kopimists, emerging in this high tech era, have strongly held ethical views that at first may seem counterintuitive. They argue for the free distribution of information around the globe, and against copyright protections. Dees helps us see the ways in which copyright protection law sometimes does not serve the public interest, and is often unreasonable. 

Rounding out this issue, we have an article in the arts by Richard Jones on the Canadian actress and director Tara Browne, whose Diversity Face Films puts a spotlight on diversity issues. As Jones tells us, "with seven ethnic streams jockeying for position in her DNA-Austrian, British, Scottish, Hawaiian, Philippine, Spanish, Chinese-she could hardly avoid the mantle of diversity." We also have an "NBA Preview" by our own Empirical Senior Editor, Dan O'Brien, and recipes from Sandra Stoakes and our Editor-in-Chief, Tara Grover Smith. 

As usual, we bring you the best in fiction and poetry, too. This month, Finn Kraemer has provided us with a compelling short story about a father and son on a hunting trip called "In My Father's Silence." We have poems on "Cycling" by Travis Laurence Naught, and "What I'd Ban," and "Molar" by Carol V. Davis. Last but not least, you will find the beautiful photography you've come to expect and enjoy from photographers around the globe. 

Have you subscribed yet to ensure you haven't missed a single issue? One of our fans says:

I've been looking for a magazine with this kind of range and diversity for a long time. Until Empirical came along, I could only find magazines that either had a fairly narrow focus in their own specialist field, or else felt random and directionless. Your focus on radical empiricism (an approach I share) as the "connecting theme" gives it a great focus without limiting the scope at all. 

--Simo Sakari Aaltonen, subscriber from Finland

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Anatomy of a half of an hour

Think of a half of an hour. 

What bearing does a single half of an hour have on us when there are so many hours, day, weeks, and years in our lifetime? Thirty minutes, eighteen hundred seconds, one forty-eighth of a day, one sixteen-thousand-five-hundred-twentieth of a year. Time is something that is both misused and misunderstood simultaneously. That is not to say that time is unimportant or unfair. There are many of us who have a slanted perception of how time ultimately affects us. There are many things that can and cannot be accomplished in a half hour. You definitely aren’t going to enact social policy, but you could enjoy nature for a moment; admire the forests and streams that may soon be gone. You might not be able to watch the great plays, but you could finish a chapter in a novel.

So why the lack of time?

As if some were given more time than others?

The answer is simple.

Perception is the key to life.

Some see only what they cannot have and others see what they already do have. That perception leads us to see that responsibility of our own choices is what frames our lives. Let us think of our elders. This modicum of people has experienced and can reflect back on their years of worry and realize that there was more around them than they believed. They once saw life as a race in which you could never beat the clock. They experience life anew, returning to places and participating in things long forgotten. As we move through this life, we are often faced with the overwhelming certainty that we will not finish what we have started. We barrel through life as if each precious second was wasted if we stopped for a moment. But it is this life that we race through that we are truly missing. The elderly see life as it was: the simplicities that make it great and the complexities that often leave those still seeking purpose confused and bewildered. It is in the two extremes of life that we see beings understand the world for what it is, our elders and our children. Children are beset with such wonder for the world that they are fundamentally unburdened with a need to categorize time. They are free of this because they wander about experiencing the world around them. Even things that are already known can be experienced anew. Their choices and their consequences are simple to them because they are seeing them for the first time. They will not slant them and pervert them as purpose-finding beings often do. A child will not be heard saying that they don’t have enough time to finish playing in the woods. They understand the simplicities that we often take for granted.

So what can be done to make use of your time?

Different people at different points in their lives perceive time differently. Most waste time, but there are those who find a focus for their lives: a purpose. You, and the choices that you have made, have created the foundation for whatever walls stand in your way. Time is not the culprit of your ills, but human action, or inaction for that matter. Habit and repetition can help you to make good use of your time because once it passes you by, it is gone. All you can do is make the best of the time you have left. Focus on what you want and stop complaining because everyone else is too preoccupied to listen.

A New Condition

The world is in crisis.

We have been lied to.

Each of us deceived by those who we thought would protect us. Conditioning has placed us where we are. Conditioning is what will free us once more. There is much about the world around us that we cannot understand for what it is; interconnected parts working for each other against the best interests of humanity. Like lambs to the slaughter, we were shown our roles. We did not fight for what we believed, nor did we conform to what they wished.

We succumbed to the will of perceived inevitability.

I think that we are avoiding the most obvious point of it all. It is not whether it is happening because we started it. The thing that we must remember is that we can do something about it. What we know and believe is little more than what we were told to believe; the wealth of our knowledge is little more than what has been told to us. The nations of this world are divided by walls and barriers that are not physical, but instead ideological and financial. We are not creatures of evil or apathy, but instead we are taught throughout our lives to behave this way, adhering and following the antediluvian archetypes of centuries and empires past.

What can be offered is not a panacea.

What can be offered is to help find the value in living, and the love in what is all around you. These times that face us are powerful and sorrowful, for each day defines the next. A change does not appear before our eyes, but is instead the earnest, incremental struggle of ideals and beliefs that will change the world.

It has been said that one human being cannot change the world. This creates a false dichotomy insofar that we have been made to believe that either our actions can change the world, or they cannot. This is not the way of things. We may change, for good or bad, upon the shoulders and backs of our brothers and sisters. 

The world is sick.

Humanity is ailing.

We have hunger, famine, disease, and widespread violence the world over. Consuming the resources of this one planet, we do so at such a rate that we will collapse beneath the weight of our own refuse before our time. If we are to survive, then we must fight to stay. We must believe that this world is worth having, and prove that we deserve to occupy this planet.

Some have deferred responsibility, saying that the world will do what it must and technology will catch up. But how can technology match our consumption and destruction pace for pace, if all of our monetary resources are being funneled into that consumption and destruction? All of us are responsible for what we do, how we behave, and the lives we live.

Granted, some of us are dealt sadder and tougher hands than others. I find it prudent to say that those nations and societies that have the least – at least in terms of what the West has designated as categories for determining status – have the strongest cohesion amongst the members of their societies because they must become interdependent. They see crisis and they join together, whether they understand it or not, and survive.

We as a species face such a need for survival. No longer can we look at the plights of the world through rose-colored glasses, or from atop our distant steeples. We must accept responsibility for the actions of the nations in which we live. Though we did not deprive a village of their resources, our constant demand for new things has driven industry to knock on the doors of nations the world over for resources.

It is time to stand up and say no more.

Caring about other people needs to be trendy.

Not because it is popular amongst the rich and the famous, but because it can and will save the world. None of us are perfect. Nothing is expected of us in this life except what we are willing to give. But we must not be afraid to give.

We are a community whether we wish to believe it or otherwise. Even if you strand yourself in the farthest reaches of the world, your existence is dependent upon the creation and distribution of consumer goods that you will need in order to survive. We are an interconnected world. We have this one world and we have to prove that we belong here. I have heard – from loved ones and mentors alike – that we cannot be responsible for what is happening to his world; that we are too insignificant to make an impact.

This feels like an excuse.

We want to be responsible when it is in our best interest. People wish to judge the actions of others, but not be judged themselves. They wish to say whatever comes to their minds, critiquing and attacking others, but not to be held responsible for the insufferable, illogical discourse that marks their opinions and doubts. 

The constructs of what we have been fooled into believing is the result of our own ignorance, and the arrogance of those who skirt across the tops of the economies and industries of the world. Some blame money for our ills: corporations. Others say that greater laws that enforce the practices of the corporations are the answer.

But, in the end, the existence of corporations is for profit. Private ownership and multinational corporations are two entirely different entities. The concept of personal freedom and the necessity for broad mass marketing of goods couldn’t be further from each other. We don’t need all of the things that we have.

I’m not saying that consumerism is the root of evil, but it is certainly a negative impression on the record of humanity. Our ever-growing hunger for consumption and subsequent squandering of resources might as well replace baseball as our national pastime. There are numerous documentaries already that can aptly explain to you the vicious cycles of production and consumption, and the eventual and monumental process of disposal. 

It is often hard to realize that the reality we have found ourselves in is a conditioned one. We were not born with ideas of capitalism or communism, libertarianism or determinism. These sorts of thinking (I hesitate to use that word) are generated from socialization and the ways in which we are instructed and conditioned to think. David Hume was a firm believer that society was not born of a social contract agreed upon by a meeting of the minds, but instead that we were born into an invisible caste bondage that holds us for our lives, if we allow it.

I find that I agree with such a position.

The inner-workings of class structure, as well as the distribution of wealth, tell us much about the realities of how we are programmed to think and conduct ourselves. Though there is something to be said for free action and thought, this seems a luxury that is talked about more than it is exercised.

The vicious cycle of consumerism is a product of this conditioning.

When the holiday seasons approach, as they inevitably do, it would do us good to look at the consequences of our behavior. It is the season of giving, but I challenge that prospect. Is giving for all to see truly giving? Is buying materials and transmitting them to another human being who is expecting that gift truly the giving spirit? Are we not simply doing what is expected of us when we ravage national chain stores, hording goods that have been discounted to move product that will only end up in a dumpster a few months later and contribute to an ever-expanding vortex of garbage that threatens to consume us?

Is this too negative?

Am I a scrooge?

Hardly.

Giving is not about physical substance, but about enriching the lives of others. If you truly wish to give something during this self-proclaimed giving season, then I would challenge you to give something that will truly help someone else. Give a child attention and enrich relationships with family. Donate time to help those less fortunate. Impossible, you say? My relatives would never go for something like that, some will say. I can hear the objections, but tradition has long been poor criteria for what is right and moral in this world.

But what is giving?

Is it simply time?

Or is it something more?

Kantian philosophy would have us believe that it is deeds done because they must be done, and not because of how they make us feel; to some extent this is what I am talking about. Giving because it is expected, or because you enjoy the outcome, the cheery faces and the thanks, seems empty compared to goodwill that is done without regard for personal satisfaction. This selflessness seems an impossibility given the nature of consumerism, but I feel as if there is a well of hope in humanity that is waiting for a moment to be great. When the giving season becomes a time during which personal tragedies and depression rank as trademarks of the holidays, we have to question what we have become. 

As our need grows, it expands beyond the boundaries of what the forest and bounty of our own land can yield. As skillful consumers, we take the lands of those people who we perceive to be in less need of their resources. Because, after all, we are the greatest nation in the world and our needs come before naked villagers in a far-off country whose name we cannot pronounce or spell.

It would appear that empathy is a forgotten emotion.

In our air-conditioned homes in the summertime, and heavily-heated homes in the winter, we are perfectly insulated from the plights of those people who are without homes or resources. Or are we? The ever-growing number of poor and homeless in the United States is an epidemic. Children still break open fire hydrants to cool off on hot summer days. Families still turn on ovens to heat their homes because they cannot pay energy bills, and that is if they are lucky enough to have a stove. The unequal distribution of wealth in this country is astounding. The gap between the rich and the poor grows each day.

Creating a system in which the blame falls on the individual despite the nature of the system has become the standard. We think that every person is capable of overcoming circumstances; that advantages are not awarded by birth and affluence. Pop culture has told us that if we think positively about something, if we dare to dream, then we can influence our future.

But this strikes me as logically incongruent.

And it should sound problematic to the world.

This type of belief blames those who do not rise above their circumstances. There is a passive nature to this time of admonition, hidden behind a beautiful possibility. I ask: is this truly the nature of the world? If you believe something, then doors will open for you? I think the outliers and exceptions have become the norm. We expect that if we try hard, then we will be rewarded.

What of those afflicted with famine and victims of genocide forced into refugee camps the world over? What of rape victims? What of children abused? Did these people not wish hard enough? Did they not direct their thoughts in the proper direction to find hope? I have certainly outlined only the horrors of the world, but we cannot turn a blind eye upon these sores on the back of humanity.

We have to stand up for those who have no voice.

Have we become a nation that hears, but does not listen? Have we become a nation that speaks, but says nothing? Some of my peers, as well as those a generation older, fear assisting those less fortunate; that by giving to them, the will to achieve will be broken. That somehow helping those that cannot help themselves will erode the fabric of who we are.

Is this true?

I am not suggesting that we bankrupt ourselves to help others, but as Peter Singer has suggested, we should give enough so that the least well-off can rise to a level that could be considered basic. When there are children starving in countries where what we pay for a gallon of gas could feed them for a day, I have to question whether sacrificing some comfort and affluence so others may simply live should not be considered.

We have been tricked into believing something that is not true.

They told us that there is a right way and a wrong way. They said there are republicans and democrats, conservatives and liberals. All around us the constructs of our society dictate endless false dichotomies that force us to choose one over the other without examining the rationality, or possibility, of something that we cannot perceive.

I sometimes try to think of a world that is so unlike this one. The mantra that there is no better place to live, or that we are number one, simply makes me sad. Who wants to be number one in a world where there is so much suffering and sadness? In America, there is immunity to the horrors and travesties of the world. We are insulated from the world that surrounds us.

We rally behind demagogues, partisan rhetoricians, who care more about the game of being elected than demanding excellence and change of policy. They have become so assimilated into the culture of domination and conditioning that their campaign rhetoric is little more than a clever game of chess with words. They dance and shuffle with issues that should matter, but know that the hot button issues (the ones we have been conditioned to care about) should have well-articulated and formulated opinions. 

I ask you, the reader, if an elected official changes your life.

We all see the numbers.

Unemployment goes up or down. Astronomical numbers of national debt are trickled down through the media. Wars are raged and lives lost, but to what end and purpose? Is there a greater good that is being accomplished by this careful illusion of smoke and mirrors? Or have we simply been deceived?

What is most interesting is that the people who rally the hardest for party politics are the ones most deceived by those in power. The struggling middle class and the poor unite behind a talking point. People have forgotten that they control everything. The concentrated wealth of the rich is such that they no longer fear.

The world does not change because power is assumed. One man can direct the world in a positive direction, but the capacity for change is in each of us. The ability to radically alter our circumstances is in the belief that we are equal, that we can help each other. Leaving those deemed as unworthy to fend in a world that rewards selfishness and shuns those less fortunate prepares us for failure.

I fear that when the times do not regulate themselves quickly enough, that change does not happen with the turn of a phrase or the passing of a single day, some will be quick to demonize. One man can lead. One man can inspire. But it takes a nation to change. It takes a world to see.

There are times in history we look back upon and shudder at the humanitarian violations of a government and the apathy of the people at its base. We wonder to ourselves how a nation loses its moral compass.

Apathy.

Compliance.

Comfort and Conformity.

I would like you to ponder the information presented. Take it in and really think about it. Talk about it with your friends and family and encourage intellectual discourse. Find your own answers. Seek out information. Do not be satisfied with the status quo or the regurgitated material that you see on every news channel. Fight against the propaganda and lip service of news that is created for you. Remember that you have the power to change your mind.

People may tell you what to think, but you decide whether or not you will believe what is being feed to you is truth, or if you will search for something that might be difficult. Some may try to convince you that questioning the good life is wrong, or that what you have read is wrong.

There is nothing wrong with disbelief, it encourages discovery.

Do not be afraid to be proven wrong, or to prove something wrong. These are the issues I grapple with every day. These are issues that I think autonomous beings of the free world must talk about. It would be intellectually dishonest of us as thinking beings to not analyze the impact of who we are on the world.

A new condition must prevail.

"Putting the Radical into Empirical" by Olav Bryant Smith

This letter from the editor appeared in the July 2012 issue of Empirical magazine. You can preview and buy the digital version here or subscribe to the hard copy of the magazine here.

Much of the emphasis in the introductions to our previous issues has been on what we mean by the term “empirical.” We love science at Empirical, but we don’t believe that narrowly defined science, as in the advice to not believe something unless you see it, tells the whole story. Science at its best is informed by the humanities, including art, literature, poetry, philosophy, history, religion, and even that sacred literature known as “mythology.”

That is what William James was after when he coined the phrase “radical empiricism.” His belief was that all of the evidence of our experience, much of it reported by the humanities, has to be taken into consideration as we attempt to arrive at the truth about the nature of ourselves and the world we live in.

Truth, of course, is often called a “relative” term, and the implication to many people today is that there is no Truth to be found. Radical empiricists, along with many scientists, of course, hunger after the Truth. This hunger is what drives us to weed out the untrue from what we find to be true. And we do this by gathering evidence and discussing it in light of other experience and other evidence.

The problem that arises in the pursuit of the Truth, and what makes our individual truths “relative,” is the fact that each Truthseeker is limited in terms of experience, and limited in terms of our ability to process the information of that limited experience. Most of what we know, we know through a process of induction. We observe patterns in Nature as we collect the data of experience. But we can never be sure that what we’ve seen in the past is an accurate representation of the limits of Nature. We can never be sure that there isn’t relevant information that we’ve left out. We do our best. But as William James told us, it only takes one white crow to prove that they’re not all black.

But we’re creatures of habit, and fortunately, the Universe seems to be made up of other creatures of habit. We see patterns, we accustom ourselves to those patterns, and we make due as best we can in most cases. And it works out most of the time. The last thing we want as we’re trying to finish a job is to see someone rocking the boat by saying that things aren’t quite the way we think they are.

About 2500 years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato told a story about some prisoners chained up in a cave. We’re not supposed to take this story literally. It’s an allegory. But like other forms of symbolic fiction, including our sacred myths, it lifts up truths that we’d find it hard to understand any other way. That’s why Jesus told parables. It makes it easy to understand the deeper truths.

So we suspend our disbelief for the time being when Plato tells us that these prisoners can’t see themselves or their neighbors. All they can see is some shadows on the walls that are created by some guys behind them carrying shapes in front of a fire. The prisoners’ fate depends on how well they can interpret the shadows, so some of them get quite good at it.

One day, we’re told, a prisoner is freed, but as he turns toward the fire, his eyes have a hard time adjusting. He is pulled up a hill toward the mouth of the cave, but he resists. He is afraid of the unknown, and he is disoriented. But making the best of what seems like a bad situation, the liberated prisoner adapts. Just when he thinks the worst is over, however, he is taken into the direct light of the sun, and then it is really hard to see. The prisoner had lived his entire life in a world of darkness and shadow with only the smallest hints of light breaking into that darkness.

Eventually, Plato tells us, this prisoner’s eyes adjust, first seeing a reflection in a pond, and then being able to see things as they really are. The prisoner realizes, in what we might think of as an epiphany, that being able to see the Truth about things is dependent on the light of the sun breaking into an otherwise dark world.

It is one of our great sources of hope and inspiration in literature that the prisoner does not rest self-contentedly with this new knowledge. The prisoner remembers his neighbors and friends and returns to the darkness of the cave to let them know that they are living in a world of shadow and illusion.

One is reminded here of the Buddha being told by Mara, “the evil one” of Buddhist scripture, that he should take what he has found, i.e., enlightenment, and leave this earthly realm. The Buddha is told that no one would understand what he had to say about Nirvana anyway. But the Buddha responded “Some will understand.”

Our liberated prisoner in Plato’s story evidently felt the same way. So he returned. But upon his return, his friends and family noticed there was something different about him. Something peculiar. He saw things in a different way than he had before. They might even tell him, “You used to be good at interpreting these shadows. Now you’re not even interested in it. What’s wrong with you?”

The liberated prisoner has become a “radical” in the story. He’s rocking the boat. It makes it uncomfortable for the other prisoners in the cave. They’re just trying to make do with a bad situation. They’re not sure there is a Truth, and they’re not sure they want to hear it even if there is one. Plato tells us that if the liberated prisoner keeps it up, he’s even likely to be killed. People don’t like “radicals” coming around with even the best of intentions.

Plato had Socrates in mind as the liberated prisoner. When Greek-educated converts to Christianity compared the story of Jesus of Nazareth with this allegory, they imagined Jesus in the role. As I’ve indicated, the Buddha fits the role as well. The fact is that all of these wonderful Truth-seeking and Truth-bearing radicals through history have found themselves in just this situation. The word radical itself comes from the word for “root.” These radicals get at the roots of the problems we face, and when they do that, it often means pulling up some weeds that we’ve grown quite accustomed to in our daily lives.

In this issue of Empirical magazine, we celebrate the radicals: people like George Washington, who rebelled against the British Empire in pursuit of justice and freedom; the Great Soul “Mahatma” Gandhi, who taught us the power of non-violent resistance to evil by leading his people to independence from the British; Martin Luther King, Jr., who built on this non-violent model to awaken the conscience of Americans who had slumbered through an American apartheid that we called “segregation”; Rosa Parks, who refused to accept that her “place” was in the back of the bus; Robert F. Kennedy, whose conscience would not allow him to sit idly by and ignore the injustices of that American apartheid; Susan B. Anthony, who had the “nerve” in the 19th-century to insist that women should be given the right to vote; and Caesar Chavez, who helped us to see and understand the plight of immigrant and migrant farm workers in America. The list is long, fortunately, of these spiritual heroes–more than I can name here.

Yes, there are many injustices that we are just too busy to notice. And there are many injustices that will require some uncomfortable change in order to find remedies. But thank God for the radicals who, upon empirically gathering the evidence of their experience, shine their reflected light on our otherwise dark worlds.

Read John B. Cobb's article, "The Importance of Being Radical" here.

"The Importance of Being Radical" by John B. Cobb Jr

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING RADICAL

by John B. Cobb Jr

Is it bad to be “radical?” Often one hears the statement that so-and-so is a “radical” as a reason not to pay attention to what he or she says. To label people as “radicals” may be a way of warning others that they are dangerous. It has much the same effect as calling them “communists” or “terrorists.” This fear of radicals is not without reason. They do propose new ideas that undercut some of those to which most people are attached. They question the need for institutions and practices that others consider essential and beneficial. From the point of view of those who are benefited by the status quo and those who think that things are going well, radicals are dangerous.  

Rosa Parks, PHOTO: USIA

When the modern period began in Europe, Christian institutions and beliefs were very well established. A few brave modern people raised radical questions that undercut the authority of Christian institutions and the credibility of supernaturalist Christian teachings. Some of these radicals paid dearly for their efforts. Christian institutions and beliefs did not disappear, but they changed drastically. The change in their role in Western societies has been even greater. The work of radicals has led to the replacement of Christian societies by secular ones.  Modern scientists were often in the lead in advancing radicalism of this sort.

What is less noticed is that radicals are just as threatening in other aspects of society. Political organizations, governments, professions, academic disciplines, and educational institutions resist and oppose their work just as religious communities often did. Sadly, this is true also of modern sciences that profess to be fully open to evidence. In all these contexts, radicals engage in just the questioning that is not wanted. While modern culture celebrates the work of the radicals of earlier times, it is no more hospitable to contemporary radicals than were the established leaders of those earlier periods.

Many of us, at one time or another, have been irritated by people raising questions of a theoretical nature in a group whose job it is to deal practically with a problem. The zeal of radicals to go deeper simply slows us down in getting our work done. Not all radicals have good judgment about when and where to raise their questions, and for many people the answer to the question of when and where radicals should seek attention is: never and nowhere. It is easy to understand and even sympathize with those who abhor radicals.

But modern society has needed radicals as much as earlier. A century ago a few voices were pointing out that American society was rooted in racism and sexism. The vast majority of Americans dismissed such talk as “radical” and therefore irrelevant. They were right that it was radical. But these radical voices finally forced themselves into the public consciousness. More and more people recognized that the call for radical change had truth and righteousness on its side. There is still a lot of racism and sexism in American society, but they are no longer supported by law and official thinking. The work of radicals has changed society radically. Even many who were once irritated and even angered by them are now grateful for their work. Today the most glaring problems in American society are economic. Accordingly, this is the area most in need of radical investigation. We need radicals to go to the roots of these problems. This could lead us in a variety of directions. The financial sector now dominates the economy; so we could focus on how this has gained so much power. The increase in inequality in the distribution of income and wealth has grown very rapidly. Radicals ask for the deepest reasons for this development.

Some of the reasons that radicals will find are grounded in political power and personal acquisitiveness. But there are strictly theoretical contributions to these evils. There is a good deal of synchronicity between economic teaching and governmental and global practice. Accordingly, one place to apply radical analysis is the dominant economic theory.

Let’s take a simple example. The discipline of economics is founded on the assumption that bigger is better. It is supposed that the more economic activity takes place, the better off people are. Economists take their role to be showing how to make the economy grow. From time to time radicals have asked whether growth is the right goal for the economy, but within the academic departments of philosophy, the question has not been seriously discussed. Those who have tried to do so have not been well treated.       


Asking that question is threatening to the discipline of economics as it has long been constituted. On the other hand, failing to ask it out of respect for the current authorities has the same kind of effect as failing to ask about racism or sexism out of respect for the existing authorities of an earlier day. The global growth of economic activity on a finite planet is responsible for such serious problems as global warming.  If the economics guild continues to silence those of its members who raise this question because it is “radical,” the danger to human life is increased.

The crucial question is simple, but radical. Is growth a final good in itself? Or is it good only insofar as it improves the human condition? If the latter, should we not investigate how the increase of economic activity, guided by the principles of standard economics, is actually affecting the human condition? That is a “radical” thing to do. It is also empirical.

To be empirical is to pay close attention to the facts. That is, itself, a “radical” thing to do. In some cases, the facts will not support the patterns of thought of many people, perhaps not those of any of us. Science at its best calls on us to accept the facts even when we wish they were otherwise. For example, many people prefer to think we are fundamentally disconnected from all other living things and, for a long time, science supported that idea. But the evidence for evolution became overwhelming. However unsettling the truth may be, it remains the truth, and many of us hold to the radical idea that we should affirm the truth and adjust our way of thinking to it.

"Galapagos Islands" PHOTO: Michael R. Perry

I have spoken of “science at its best.” Sadly, science is not always at its best. Modern scientists like to point to one particularly dramatic example of failure at this point: the case of Galileo. It is often presented as an instance of science vs. religion, but it was in fact a matter of a new development in science that opposed the scientific consensus of its day. The church supported this consensus. 

The best science of the medieval period was based on Aristotle. The church shared the scientists’ respect for Aristotle. Aristotle thought that heavenly bodies were fundamentally different from the Earth. The scientists who followed him were persuaded by his arguments. Galileo used a new technology to introduce evidence that did not fit into this understanding of the universe. The scientists who represented the scientific consensus of that day refused even to look through the telescope. They wanted to silence Galileo’s radical challenge to established science. Modern scientists have liked to condemn the resistance of late medieval Aristotelian scientists to the evidence provided by Galileo. They often imply that this was a failing of medieval scientists that modern science overcame. Sad to say, modern scientists engage in the same kind of practice even today. They strongly resist attending to evidence that does not fit into their worldview. To point this out is to be a “radical.”

For example, most modern scientists are committed to a worldview in which events in the physical world can be affected only by other events in the physical world. There is an enormous amount of evidence that physical events are in fact affected by what happens in human subjective experience. That my hands type one set of words rather than another certainly seems to be affected by my thinking. That mental activity plays a role in bodily behavior is not only common sense but also has an immense amount of evidence in its favor. But the metaphysics with which modern science is closely associated says that it is impossible. Accordingly, such affirmations are rejected by most scientific guilds as impossible. Most scientists refuse to look at the evidence. This exclusion of a great amount of evidence is not science at its best.

Asking science to open itself to evidence that does not fit into its worldview is a radical act. It is as difficult for modern scientists to do this as for Aristotelian scientists to accept the evidence provided by Galileo. One reason for this difficulty is the commitment of scientists to what they call “empiricism.” This empiricism was shaped by philosophers and scientists in the early modern period. It affirmed the view that the only access to the world external to the individual thinker is through the sense organs. For practical purposes, scientists and philosophers limited themselves to what could be seen or touched. We can call the resulting idea about how we know anything about the world “sensory empiricism.” Scientists found that it was possible to agree on a great many things when they limited themselves in this way. They celebrated the “objectivity” of science. They often identify “science” as such with the body of theory that developed out of sensory empiricism.

This magazine is certainly committed to “empiricism,” in the broad meaning of this term. We must begin all our reflections in experience. In order to explain our experience, we may have to posit some things we do not experience. Indeed science does this in spades. These days scientists tell us that most matter and most energy can never be experienced at all. They call them “dark.” But these theories, and all our theories, should be tested again and again in experience.

There is no question of the crucial importance of experience. However, we need to ask more radically about it. When we do so, we find that it includes much more than the deliverances of the sense organs. In fact scientists have to assume a great deal that they cannot derive from sense experience.

I limit myself to one example. Much of science is engaged in explaining how things come to be through time. Causality is usually understood as the impact of the past upon the present. But vision and touch give us only the present. Of course, we assume that we see things following one upon another. But that assumption requires something other than the immediate delivery of visual or tactile experience. We have to remember the previous visual experience in order to see that there is a change or motion.

If this point is not immediately clear, take a little time to think about it. Focus on what you are seeing in a single moment. It will be a complex pattern of colors. Now you are very likely to think that you see changes taking place. But if you limit yourself entirely to what is given you through your eyes this is not quite true. In the new moment you are seeing a slightly different pattern of color, but you are no longer seeing the previous one. Without memory, you cannot compare them. You do not see the change.  We do not see or touch memory.

Puzzles of this kind have long been formulated by philosophers but they have rarely been taken seriously by scientists. If one does take them seriously, one is pushed to a more “radical” empiricism, one that examines experience as a whole with greater care and sees the interrelationships of its ingredients. William James contributed this term: “radical empiricism.” Our actual experience is one of constant change. It is not wrong for science to talk about changes in the world based on experience. What is wrong is to claim to limit itself to the objective world as known only through sight and touch. Science does not do this. It cannot do this. Unfortunately, it does not attend to the contribution of other aspects of experience, and it gives support to a very truncated view of reality.

Those who build their understanding of reality on what contemporary science offers tend to devalue value. The reality of our experience is that it is profoundly value-laden. We have hope and fear, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, enjoyment and misery, and so much more. We are constantly involved in questions of better and worse. Scientists may acknowledge that such feelings occur, but modern scientific orthodoxy insists that they have no effect upon the world. The world is value free, and science is supposed to be value free. Now research universities are supposed to be value free as well – which means that their only value is money.

Radical empiricism is another matter. For it, feelings, beliefs, sensory experiences, memories, anticipations, bodily experience, and intellectual activity are all equally real and very much bound up together. We can, of course, abstract certain sensory experiences from this whole and concentrate upon them. Much can be learned in this way. But when this limited aspect of knowledge is given special privilege and all the rest is disparaged, we are in serious trouble.

The real world, the world of the radical empiricist, is much richer. It calls forth concern and commitment as the purely “objective” world does not. It opens us to fresh approaches in economics and in physics, and in everything else as well.

Earlier I mentioned the overwhelming evidence that evolution has taken place and that the human species emerged through evolutionary processes. But radical empiricism opens us to an understanding of evolution quite different from the one to which sensory empiricism, with its purely objective world, has led us. One example is the explanation of the emergence of new species. Standard academic teaching that fits the narrowly scientific worldview is that all the variations in plants and animals among which natural selection operates are caused by random mutation of genes. Lynn Margulis disagreed, saying that at least some of them occurred by symbiogenesis, that is, by diverse organisms combining. She gave as her most important example the emergence of the nucleated cell. She said this did not come about by random mutation of genes but by one bacterium swallowing another and not digesting it. Her idea was long rejected, even ridiculed, because it did not fit the standard model. But the evidence finally forced its acceptance. Sadly, despite this important realization, and even though Margulis provided evidence of the role of symbiogenesis elsewhere as well, the standard account of evolution has not been modified to make a place for it. Radical empiricists, in contrast, are completely open to the evidence.

More broadly there is a great deal of evidence that purposive actions on the part of animals, especially human beings, play a large role in evolution. But mainstream evolutionary theory ignores the effects of the action of animals on evolution because this would give an opening to acknowledging a role for some sort of purpose in evolution.

The exclusion of purpose from evolutionary theory is one of its sacred principles. We find evolutionary biologists vigorously denying that purpose plays any role in the world for the purpose of maintaining ideas that do not have empirical support.  Radical empiricists do not see why we should ignore the evidence for the role of the purposes of the evolving animals, especially human beings.

Late Medieval science allied itself with Aristotelian philosophy and gave much too large a role to purpose. Modern philosophy allied itself with materialism and denied purpose altogether. Wouldn’t it be better for science to pay attention to the evidence, all the evidence, instead of being enthralled by its companion philosophy? Let’s join radical empiricists and this magazine in the truly open-ended quest for truth.

PHOTO: Harley Pebley

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