The heart of the matter about matter is perhaps that, in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter. —Roy Charles Henry
In our previous Current Events essay #109 we encouraged our readers to create a context (silence, simplicity and solitude) in which to begin the process of self-transformation. To change direction in our lives involves moving “toward” healthy behaviors but also “away” from our unhealthy conditioning.
One common underpinning in our species’ worldview is reductionism. Unless we free ourselves from this false belief we can never attain genuine consciousness. Jacquetta Hawkes gives us this definition of reductionism: “Reductionist thought suggests that the whole is no more than the sum of its parts and so leads to an old-fashioned mechanistic view.” (1)
Our belief in reductionism is a barrier to accepting Oneness as the foundation of an authentic worldview, the necessary paradigm shift, which will empower us to create a sustainable human community. “Since the time of Galileo, most of us have believed in an objective, independently verifiable reality, to be investigated, measured and controlled through the scientific method and manipulated through science. In the 20th century the Cartesian/Newtonion science began to crumble.” (2)
Reductionism is that scientific worldview which contains the belief that it can keep in touch with reality only if it narrows its outlook to specific facts. “Theoretical physicist Paul Davies recognizes this in his book entitled The Cosmic Blueprint (1998), in which he points out that the major conflict in the physical sciences is between holism [Oneness] and reductionism, as it has been from the time of Plato and Aristotle down to today.” (3)
Man asks for bread, and science gives him a stone. He had better turn back to the old myths and get the story of the wholeness. —Arthur Young (4)
Today, the inhabitants of the Global Village are more enamored of science than ever before. Have we made a good choice by putting more and more of our eggs in the basket of the human intellect? “Science had decided that unless something was definable and measurable (‘reality is measurement’) it was unreal and imaginary. Thus, science invalidated any serious study or inquiry into the human value of love, compassion, beauty, forgiveness, inspiration, faith, companionship, loyalty, gratitude, hope, and happiness—in other words, all that constitutes the actual core and reality of human existence and motivation.” (5)
If you want to continue with us as we finalize our case in support of Oneness as the ultimate reality, click on the link below.
Insight # 111: If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creations must be an act of thought. —David Foster (1)
Link:
- Reductionism in this blog and in The ABC’s of Simple Reality: The Encyclopedia of Self-Transformation, Vol 2 (2018), pages 148-149, by Roy Charles Henry.
- Current Events #109
References:
- Foster, David. The Philosophical Scientists. New York: Dorset Press, 1985, page 48, book jacket.
- Henry, Roy Charles. Science and Philosophy: the Failure of Reason in the Human Community. Create Space. October 2015, page 13.
- Singer, June. Seeing Through the Visible World: Jung, Gnosis and Chaos. San Francisco: Harper, 1990, page 6.
- Young, Arthur. The Reflexive Universe. Cambria, California: Anados Foundation, 1976, page 2.
- Hawkins, David. The Eye of the I. Sedona, Arizona: Veritas Publishing, 2001, pages 78-79.
