The Discomfort of Antiscience

            My feelings for this novel are as capricious as ever; once again, I find myself enjoying one week’s reading in comparison to disliking that of a previous week. Although I do not care much for Phaedrus’s backstory (considering the fact that I have yet to figure out or accept whether he is real or not), I do appreciate the use of his origin story to convey the information and conclusions made by the narrator himself. The storytelling and philosophy-rambling finally flow seamlessly into each other, although I must admit that these two chapters deal more with philosophy than plot line, but I cannot complain because the narrator is touching upon ideas that I had not realized or contemplated myself. Now that I have, it upsets me almost as much as it upset Phaedrus.

            The whole concept of the scientific method being far from scientifically efficient, or in the words of the narrator, “antiscience”, is particularly striking for me. This is because for as long as I can remember, every single science course I have taken since I began going to school opened with learning, relearning, and reestablishing the scientific method. I have the entire sequence memorized, and for the most part, it makes sense to me. For those who dedicate more neurons for the sciences and uncovering scientific mysteries, the scientific method has become a staple procedure- and yet, as brought up by the narrator, I have to agree that it does bring the scientist further from the truth.

            I became a bit unsettled as I continued to read about “antiscience” and what “truth” is, and whether or not matter exists despite our only means of defining matter being through our senses. This is my issue with philosophy: the more you think abstractly, the more you find yourself running in circles until you are overwhelmed with unsolvable mysteries. This does not mean I disagree with abstract thinking, for that would be another extreme; I only mean to say that, for my own purposes, I try not to delve so much into abstract thinking because, like Phaedrus, I find myself becoming increasingly depressed and confused. I always stuck to my passion for the sciences because I believed that they provided truth as firm as it could possibly get in my lifetime. Upon further reading, this is where I hit a roadblock.

            Being so dependent on the truths of sciences, I became even more troubled when presented with the idea that facts and truths do not even lie in nature- to quote Einstein, “Nature only provides experimental data.” Thus begins my inner turmoil. I guess I will have to agree with the narrator on trying to find a less upsetting middle ground for these ideas.