26.9.06

induction & deduction

Science has taken many pot-shots at religion over the years. Only fair, since historically, religion has trampled science quite a number of times as well. But let's take just a few seconds to look at both. Religion predates science, as a thought-induced endeavor. Who can be sure which roots were laid first, but before we had enough awareness of our environment to begin any real intellectual pursuit of science, we were well on our way to numerous varied belief systems.

Religion was the first application of our natural drive to systemize chaos. It wasn't mature, couldn't be mature, things need time to mature. Most of our understanding back then was inductive in nature, fitting the pieces of the puzzle of the world into bigger systems that could be used to take advantage of this world.

At some point there was a moment of maturation that allowed us to step back and say, wait, what if the bigger systems work similar to smaller systems? this step was the beginning of science. The switch from inductive to deductive thinking on a large scale. Since then, both religion and science have developed, both taking advantage of inductive as well as deductive tools. For some reason science has always felt inferior to religion in an oedipal kind of way.

In any case, I wonder if people have really noticed how much of religion's former steam has been redirected into the pursuit of art. Religion is only loosely coupled to rationality, while being tightly related to intuition and inspiration. Science has inherited the importance and structure of inter-dependent systems to use induction and deduction as predictive implements. Religion inherently lacks some element of control that is the foundation of science.

The short version is: Science is forever binah while religion is rooted hochmah. As much as science may despise religion, it can't get by without it. Vice versa is also applicable, religion cannot truly grow without being informed by science.

[It's probably important to note that i'm using religion mostly in the colloquial sense.]
[also, I know I can't stand when people bury their true insight when they try to flesh it out and fail. I think i'm too lazy (or don't have the time) to flesh out these ideas in a way that they are truly palatable here, the short version is the essence of my insight, everything else is just an ADHD attempt to flesh it out. anyways it was this post that started me thinking on the topic.]

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