Suppose someone said in English, “I don’t know a single word of English.” Their statement would be a blatant self-contradiction.

A similar self-contradiction results when scientism abuses science to deny the existence of consciousness.

Science is an attitude, a way of analyzing the world through empirical observation and rational inference. As a matter of methodology, science largely seeks natural explanations for natural phenomena, wherein natural is a synonym for material. Science is ideologically noncommittal – whether anything exists beyond matter is out of syllabus for science.

In contrast to science, scientism is an ideology. Scientism claims that science is the sole source of knowledge for all of reality. By this claim, scientism presumes that all of reality is material, for science investigates only material reality.

Scientism undercuts the very foundation of science, as seen in scientism’s view of the self. A rigidly materialistic worldview leaves no place for the self as a conscious center of awareness. For such a self can’t be detected by the most hi-tech scans. Why not? Because that self is an experiencer, and experience is essentially non-material. Matter is insentient; it experiences nothing, not even its own existence. Experiencing anything, including matter, requires an experiencer who is non-material.

And an experiencing investigator – an observing, reasoning, inferring self – is indispensable for scientific research. In Einstein’s words, the experience of the mysterious “is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” The longing to learn, the excitement of exploration, the thrill of discovery – these emotions fuel science’s search for knowledge. No experiencing self, no science.

Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (16.09) reproaches fanatical materialists as soul-destroyers. Materialists who misappropriate science to deny the nonmaterial self are like the witless woodcutters who cut the branch they sit on.

Think it over:

  • What is the difference between science and scientism?
  • Why do the most hi-tech scans fail to detect the self?
  • How is an experiencing self indispensable for scientific research?

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