The Deification of Data

A month or so ago, for political reasons, I did a small amount of research into a school of economics called Austrian Economics. The first page of Google results was rather stark in contrast. There were pages on how Austrian Economics had predicted things that other schools had failed to do, and there pages that expressed criticism on the whole idea, suggesting that the predictions made were either lucky, incomplete or too vague, among other things. One of the critical pages linked to another, much longer criticism. This particular document, in short, said that the entire school was a joke because it rejected scientific principles in economics (saying many things in economics can't be analyzed with math and predictions due to the human element, as well as the sheer complexity of most economic populations), and said that it was invalid because it was little more than philosophy. The contempt for the concept of philosophy was clear in the writing, as well as the blind admiration of science.

This struck me as a little foolish, and a comment I read shortly after (I think it was on the same page as the document itself, but I can't remember) seemed to describe the flaw perfectly. The comment simply said "Science cannot prove itself except with philosophy." What a wonderful truth! Philosophy is the school of human thought. It has developed many tools throughout its existence, and science is certainly one of the most prominent, but its important to remember that science is simply a philosophy, based on human thought. There is no recursive, ipso facto proof to science. Science is not self-evident. It has not transcended human existence or thought. It only has more weight than most philosophies because we give it more weight. The only thing that validates science is acceptance and logic, and logic is philosophy.

This reinforced in my mind that humanity, whether on its own or with help from some outside source, is actually deifying science. We raise it above other disciplines, above other ideas, above even ourselves, and give it a status nearing on divine. Science is no more accurate than its methods and instrumentation, both of which are crafted by humans, whose perception we cannot challenge because we are all human. And, because of its deific status, if a few people did gain a perspective that is, in some or all ways, superior to science, they would be mocked, because we can not see it. The tyranny of the majority.

Now, I realize this sounds a bit paranoid, or overly Socratic. And, I agree. There's no point in arguing that science at its core could be flawed because human perception at its core could be flawed. It accomplishes little, because we are limited by that perception, and all we can do is work within it. However, my point is that science is not God, so why is anything that recognizes the weakness in it mocked for not conforming to the absolute majesty of Science with a capitol S? I personally think admitting that perhaps economics tries too hard to put traditional mathematical methods on overly complex and human systems is perfectly valid. Guess what else science can't accurately predict? The weather. Many animals have been able to predict weather more accurately than science for thousands of years. So, clearly, because they don't use math and science, they're bogus.

This can be looked at another way. How many atheists don't believe in science? I would wager very close to none. Certainly every atheist I've ever met treats science as their religion, allowing it to fill in all the holes in their understanding. And, in relation to my first post on faith, there is no way they personally understand the entire scope of what they are accepting as truth. They are not being skeptical and rigorous, as much as they might think they are. They are accepting a philosophy because it makes sense to them. And when someone else accepts another philosophy because it makes sense to them, the atheists get annoyed, haughty or even angry. I'm not saying all atheists are that way, certainly, but many are. They are so sure that their Science is God, they refuse to allow any other concepts into their lives. Which is, of course, exactly the opposite of what science stands for. Science has been, and will continue to be, proven wrong on many occasions. As instruments and methods improve, old things are proven inaccurate, or incomplete. Who knows what philosophy of the future awaits to debunk something that most of us hold self-evident?

Science is nothing more than a child of human thought. Religion, if it is a true religion, would truly be something with the capacity to transcend the capacities of mortal humans. Meaning, that people of faith have a reason to have a perhaps illogical respect for their creed, but people of science should, honestly, carry with them a healthy dose of skepticism for theirs. Don't be so quick to discredit something on the grounds of it not being science.

Absolute Power

As an initial disclaimer, this post will be part of a series of relatively shorter posts that I believe are requisite to understanding future posts. They are, in a sense, the foundation for rational comprehension of my religion.

Years and years ago (I'm not even sure how old I was... no older than fifteen, I think), I was contemplating the nature of God, His power, and the concept of sin. This contemplation led me to think up a thought experiment that rejected the concept of power corrupting, and, more accurately, absolute power corrupting absolutely.

I started with a hypothesis of sorts: God is not corrupt, and he is all powerful. Thus, absolute power must not corrupt absolutely, or even at all. From this hypothesis, I came to decide I needed to start with a definition of power, and a definition of corrupt. The following are the definitions (roughly, anyway) I settled on.

Power: the ability to manipulate forces to carry out your will. I believe, in context, this is the most basic definition possible.

Corrupt: the tendency to perform selfish, greedy or abject acts. This is particularly done in the desire to gain more power or maintain current power regimes. This is definitely the more subjective of the two definitions, but I'm fairly certain we can all agree on a general definition implicitly.

I then crafted a hypothetical place to run my experiment in, and a hypothetical person to execute it. Coincidentally, this eventually grew into the setting and main character of a novel idea (no pun intended) I'm working on.

For the setting, I just let it be a world much like ours, with the same laws of consequences, and human behaviors. The test subject is a character who, compared to other forces on the world, is unbeatable. While he cannot control minds, almost all physical powers are within his grasp. Control of the weather, control of human life, control of kinematics, etc. He also possesses several intangible powers, such as political and economic control. Possessing such power, he soon gets it into his head to control the world. As he cannot be defeated, he doesn't truly have any physical difficulty doing so. In cliche fashion, he starts to follow the path to corruption, killing those who resist him, growing arrogant and spiteful.

At this point, several issues arise. First and foremost is, in order to say he has power, he must be able to manipulate forces to his will. Well, is this conscious or unconscious will? Meaning, he had some motivation to take over the world originally. The most probable candidates would be, to make it a better place in his eyes, or to become happier. Well, assuming he became 'corrupt' while obtaining this power, the world has not become a better place, by mass opinion. His opinion on the matter is irrelevant, because power is not subjective in this experiment. Thus, by becoming corrupt, he effectively became powerless, as he could not manipulate forces to do his will. If he desired to become happier in some way by doing these things, he will equally fail, as he will be decidedly alone and feared, and rarely loved. He cannot control thoughts or emotions, remember, so his happiness will be lessened, even if his pride conceals it. Thus he becomes powerless to truly do as he wished again, and simply becomes a slave of his very power he sought after, depending on it to smother his sorrow.

So, lets say he not only had this tangible, shallow power to manipulate the forces of the world, but also the wisdom to know what truly make the world a better place, and be happiest of all. This would, truly, be absolute power. In order to keep this power, though, he must not become corrupt, for the very act invalidates it. This is the power and wisdom of God. He is not corrupt because he has true power, and that cannot be corrupted, less it cease to exist.

This idea has been used several times already, and will continue to be used in later posts. This is a very brief version, as the full version will fill a novel or three, and as such certainly does not address all the minutiae of the issue. It does, I hope, present enough of the idea that you can work it through yourself. The argument rests in the definition of power being more than just conscious intent, but the consequences of that intent (sin).