Philosophy over
Science
Cooperation over Coercion
Love over Hate
Henry H. Lindner, MD
![]()
What do you call the act of creating and criticizing theories of the causes of things? What do you call our efforts to understand ourselves and the Cosmos? Science? Wrong. The archetype of modern Science is Einstein's Relativity and Quantum Theory. These are mere models of the observer’s consciousness—his sensations and measurements. They do not attempt to get beyond conscious experiences to model or explain the Cosmos itself. In Relativity and Quantum theory, the only reality is the observer's experience. All other sciences attempt to imitate theoretical physics by limiting themselves to the description and modeling of experience.
So what do we call our attempts to go beyond experience--to explain the
Cosmos--what exists and what causes our experiences? Religion? Well,
religions were serious attempts to explain everything, back when they were
created. Unfortunately, they are belief systems that could not evolve with the
advance of knowledge; they are dogmatic fossils. What would we call a religion
if it never became dogmatic, if it grew and changed with the advance of
knowledge? What would we call a religion that didn't make obvious errors
like using animalian or human analogies to explain the origin and nature of the
Cosmos itself? What would we call a religion that integrated all the facts
and all our best theories of causes into a unified model of the Cosmos, human
nature, and human life?
There is a name for such an open-ended, natural religion: from the time of its invention by the Ionian Greeks in the 7th century BC, it has been called "philosophy". You would think that mankind would revel in this open-ended, ever improving, non-sectarian “religion”, but such has not been the case. In fact, philosophy has always been suppressed, reviled, belittled, and ignored. No religion has ever been so abused. It is slandered as mere unsupported belief, soft-headed mysticism, or a form of art. In our schools, it is reduced either to a canned history of “ideas”, to useless speculation about the meaning of words, or to a "dialogue" about morality. What our culture calls “philosophy” is a mere fossil, a petrified remnant of what should be the most powerful tool that our minds possess.
Philosophy is the full, uninhibited use of our intuition and our language-based
intelligence to criticize and create theories of the causes of all Cosmic
phenomena. Philosophy is our only path to the truth; our only tool
to integrate the facts of experience and to understand the Cosmos and
ourselves. With philosophy, we can reach beyond our sensations
and measurements and grasp the nature of existence and the causes of all
phenomena--in every science. Philosophy uses scientific methods and
mathematics plus all the other tools of theoretical
cognition. Philosophy pays no false respect to ideas that are not consistent
with the evidence and/or do not sufficiently explain the evidence.
Philosophy
is the natural religion of all mankind—our only hope for a peaceful and
prosperous future together on Earth and among the stars.
![]()
On Philosophy, Science, and the Cosmos
![]()
On
Human Life and Society
![]()
Consider
That:
We are all one species living on one planet. If we allow anyone person
or group to commit violence against any other person or group, we destroy the
moral basis of our peaceful coexistence and put everyone at risk. We must
condemn the initiation and maintenance of violence everywhere at all times,
including the covert forms of violence like slavery and occupation. We
must employ every means available to stop the perpetrator, including force if
necessary.
Human children are not born evil, they're born immature; just like puppies,
kittens, and all other animals. We should satisfy their needs and gently
guide their self-motivated development; not force them into adult forms of
thought and behavior.
![]()