Humans have had technology since human cognition evolved. We controlled fire, water, minerals, plant and animal kingdom, understood the power of herbs, and seasons and tides. But that was applied science. Scientific thinking in its purest form is a few centuries old, one based on doubt, measurement, experimentation and falsifiability. One where no one is trusted except evidence. And knowledge keeps expanding as tools of investigation get better.
While statistically we can argue that we are living in peaceful times, anecdotally we know that life is full of problems. As tribal communities lose their forest habitats, as countries attack each other over territories, as genocide is argued in international courts of law, and as there’s a pushback against women’s rights and queer rights, one wonders if we have overestimated the power of science.
The problem is this: science is based on measurement. You can measure material things, and therefore it works very well in the realms of physics and chemistry and to some degree in the realm of biology, as we can measure the behaviour of plants and animals. However, science cannot measure sensations, feelings, emotions or thoughts, which constitute the subjective realm of living organisms. Science cannot measure jealousy, pride, anger, frustration, or disrespect. These are things that shape society. Therefore, science deals with only one half of the world-the visible, measurable half. What in Sanskrit is called ‘sa-guna’, not the invisible half, which is called ‘nir-guna’, the formless half.
In ancient India, these two worlds were clearly separated: the physical and the psychological. Science has huge powers in the physical world and very limited power in the psychological world. All solutions are designed around the physical world, none around the psychological world. Currently, with science and technology, we have produced vast amounts of food to feed the whole world, and yet there is starvation. The reason for the starvation is not the availability of food but the distribution of food. The distribution of food is shaped by emotions because power can be obtained by hoarding food and denying people access to food. Religious and nationalistic schools focus on these emotional aspects and use these emotional aspects to control society.
Right now, across the world, democracies are being fought not on tangible, measurable topics like unemployment or failure of infrastructure but on ideological grounds such as diversity and inclusion, inequality, and traditional practices. We are finding in places like Europe, people are getting tired of tourists as well as immigrants who threaten the traditional way of life. Similar protests are being seen in Japan.What we call the left wing focuses on the material aspects of life and ignores the psychological aspects of life, notions of identity, of who we are as a people. When the left speaks of identity, it talks only about gender and sexuality, ignoring ideas like religions, cults, castes, communities, tribes, nations, and ethnicities. When it does refer to communities, it talks in terms of oppressors and oppression, forgetting that oppression can also be imagined and is not always measurable. Woke movements reject science entirely-curiously aligning with violent religious movements. They reject biology using complex arguments that make sense only to them-much like a ‘flat earth’ believer. Social justice is seen as a tool to create equality using policy. It fails miserably as oppression cannot be measured. And it is easy to fantasise trauma and victimhood, something rampant in affluent western universities that yearn for ‘safe spaces’.
The world of data analytics and artificial intelligence is located in the realm of the measurable. It will solve measurable problems. It will never solve non-measurable problems. No technocrat can either measure or reduce anger, greed, jealousy, fear. Nor will the rational economist or political scientist. No policy will make the capitalist less greedy and the communist less envious. For that we need to explore the inner world-a promise offered (but eventually betrayed) by religion, as it turns competitive.
