By golly, JB, I think you've got it. Now lemme just cut and paste and email to all those in my addy book helping to make your wish come true. But, I gotta think about the novena part for a bit

�For a continuation of this presentation, please turn the cassette over. It is not necessary to fast-forward or rewind.�

That�s it! And like those tapes, sometimes we are wound too tight or get warped from too much heat. And we ALL need Dolby noise suppression. I just wish we could erase a few things on our tapes in order to make room for some beautiful music.

Gaaahhh! You mean there's another side on those cassette tapes?? I always wondered why the message seemed to stop sort of in the middle of things. Who knows what I'd have learned, or what I'd be like now, if I'd have ever turned them over?

Glad you summarized what they were really all about, JB. Maybe I'll do a book on that topic sometime.

From �The Mystery of Matter�: For Maritain our inability to know the precise position and velocity of a particle stemmed from the disturbances our measurements create. It is not the place of physics to elevate this fact into a philosophical conclusion that speaks of the indeterminacy of nature itself, but this is the kind of self-discipline that comes hard to physicists.

I remember distinctly what I thought upon first being exposed to Quantum Weirdness. �This can�t be right.� And I know now that I wasn�t speaking of the experimental results. I never had a problem with them. They just were what they were. But eureka! � did that quote above ever resonate in every intuitive bone in my body. I always KNEW there was something wrong here but it�s so easy to be cowed by the �experts,� After all, who am I to question the Copenhagen interpretation and the geniuses behind it?

And the point is this: can a simple reductionist philosophy (which I suppose is what most of science is) really draw us any closer to the nature of reality? Does mathematics, no matter how precise and clever, say even a formula such as e=mc2, predict, describe, emote, or even allow for something like the reassuring feelings of a human hug? If I take a baby or a rubber ball and slice and dice them into their component parts, looking every-deeper into their structures, am I left with anything that even resembles a baby or a rubber ball? Maybe, just maybe, in some sense the baby and the ball ARE irreducible in the sense that reducing them to their supposed component parts tells us only of these parts but tells us little of the greater whole. If I take a 6 ft. stick, and cut it in half, and do it a million times is there any point where I can�t cut what�s left in half again? Planck length be damned! I can imagine half of a Planck length so what REALLY can mathematics tell us of ultimate reality?

So, yes, JB*, I can see there is an inherent philosophy (not that you asked but I�m just telling you what you already know) in science even though they may deny it. They may deny it just as ultra-liberals** (you KNEW I could make this connection) deny that secular-humanism or any of their other anti-religious sentiments don�t also contain aspects of religious belief. Inherent in most science is the search for ultimate reality (accompanied by a variety of philosophical outlooks which often the scientists aren�t even aware of). And (this is really quite funny) at the end of their quantum yellow brick road they tell us like a cop at a crime scene �Sorry folks, keep moving along. Nothing to see here� and they don�t recognize their philosophical statement for what it is.

I found a real lesson in all this - one of many really. One is that there�s almost an explicit statement of the rightness and goodness of the common sense of the good man or woman. There�s always been a certain prejudice in favor of the �educated.� They are the ones to trust. They are the ones with all the answers. Well, of course, nowadays the educated among us can make quite extensive use of science for some really amazing things. But this power should not to be confused with wisdom or common sense. We can respect people for their specialized knowledge and the fruits this knowledge often brings, but we must never automatically assign to them any other grander traits that they have not clearly demonstrated. It is quite clear that a mother holding a baby in her arms might indeed be just as in touch, if not more so, with reality than any scientist peering deeply into his or her particle accelerator. This isn�t about bringing back the Luddites. It�s about balance, eh?

In truth I�ve always had it in the back of my mind that in order to live I first had to understand. I couldn�t just be swept up in the whirlwind of life without knowing the �why� of things. We can�t have all these unsolved mysteries lying around. But in a very real sense there is no deeper reality than that baby or rubber ball. One need not know anything more about them except that they exist. Food for thought.

*Since JB's on vacation I know Phil knows that every reference to JB also means "Phil". I'm not really convinced these are two separate people anyway.
**The �ultra� was thrown in for your comfort, JB. I don�t need it.

It is quite clear that a mother holding a baby in her arms might indeed be just as in touch, if not more so, with reality than any scientist peering deeply into his or her particle accelerator.
YES...I would so agree, Brad. This whole post was terrific and full of wisdom. Thanks so much!

But in a very real sense there is no deeper reality than that baby or rubber ball. One need not know anything more about them except that they exist. Food for thought.
And excellent food it is too. This is not to say that science isn't useful or doesn't have it's place, but it can truly never answer the "why" of reality. It can answer the "why" of how this interacts with this to cause this...but as you were talking about slicing and slicing and slicing, you can always go deeper and never find the "beginning" of anything.
Very cool post!

Brad, I think one of the primary problems with some scientific approaches is that they tend to be reductionistic, trying to explain complicated things in terms of their parts. So, for example, while it is true that water is two parts hydrogen to one oxygen, that doesn't explain wetness, which is a quality which water possesses as water..

Years ago, in God and the New Physics, Paul Davies pointed out the problem with this approach and emphasized that holism needs to be considered in science as well as in philosophies which reflect on scientific information. A molecule is something new, in addition to being a combination of atoms. Same goes for cells, tissues, organisms, and even communities. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, although it needs those parts as a kind of infrastructure. This affirms the perennial philosophy's insight into a chain of being, which has gained considerable credibility during the past few years.

What this means to me in terms of knowing something is that we must relate to it as it is in its wholeness rather than reductively. Lots of implications for knowing things.

In a Biblical paradigm, knowing something or someone isn't a matter of philosophical insight (although the Jewish sages valued that as well), but a matter of experiential contact. Very holistic! To say you know something or someone means you have had experiential contact. This includes knowledge of God. In a Biblical sense, knowledge of God has little to do with philosophy and even theology, but has everything to do with the experiencing God. It is this which faith makes possible, as faith configures the mind and heart to attend to and receive from God what God wants us most to know about God. Or so goes the Biblical affirmation.

Phil