Assumptions of the scientific method...

Musings on Reality, the Scientific Method, and the Cure for Dandruff:

"The Scientific Method pre-supposes that we live in an objective universe, where observer and observed are separate entities. This is the common model of reality we share in the West.

However, I feel it’s best not to make that assumption because I strongly suspect it may be incorrect. And I do not want to make all the decisions of my life based on an inaccurate model of reality. For one, that would mean making some really, really big mistakes… the kind that human beings have been making all throughout history. I have no interest in repeating that pattern.

I can only be “scientific” to the degree that I subscribe to the objective reality model of the universe. Now don’t get me wrong. This model certainly has its advantages. Nothing can take the place of the Scientific Method in the area in which it works. But if reality is not entirely objective, then there is an area in which the Scientific Method won’t work. And that area may be hugely significant.

Very few people in the West are aware that the Scientific Method begins with an unprovable assumption about reality. Even experienced scientists will admit that science begins with an assumption, and in fact, many scientists are running right up against this limitation when studying quantum physics and are seriously questioning the validity of that assumption. Some scientists are already uprooting it… and suffering the slings and arrows of their peers as they do so.

...Instead of matter and energy being the fundamental building blocks of everything that exists, I think it’s more likely that consciousness itself is the fundamental structure. In my current “best guess” model of reality, I see the world as a collective co-creation by conscious beings. The world remains relatively stable (i.e. seemingly objective) because we keep recreating it in the same pattern (past, present, and future). But if every human being were to shift their beliefs about reality, then I suspect reality would change to accommodate our beliefs (including the past, present, and future).

Furthermore, I suspect there is in fact only one consciousness, and we all share it. We have separate minds and bodies, and therefore our own individual thoughts, but consciousness itself is an underlying field that we’re all connected to. One of the freaky things I did a few months ago was to shift my identification of self away from my own body-mind and into this field. Imagine regarding your self identity not as an individual person with a body and a mind but rather as all of consciousness itself. Then from that vantage point, you regard your body and your mind merely as parts of you but not the whole you. Your body and mind are merely limbs in a larger body. But then in this larger identity, you also have access to other limbs, like the ability to manifest synchronicities out of thin air or to manipulate reality through intention."