The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [1]
The last chapter examines the implications of this approach to knowledge and what it means. If all views at all times are valid, which is the right one? Is there any direction to the development of knowledge, or merely substitution of one form for another? If this is the case, can there be any permanent and unchanging values or standards? Has the course of learning about the universe been, as science would claim, a logical and objective search for the truth, or is each step taken for reasons related only to the theories of the time? Do scientific criteria change with changing social priorities? If they do, why is science accorded its privileged position? If all research is theory-laden, contextually determined, is knowledge merely what we decide it should be? Is the universe what we discover it is, or what we say it is? If knowledge is an artefact, will we go on inventing it, endlessly? And if so, is there no truth to seek?
An Egyptian wall-painting from a tomb of the 18th dynasty (1567-1320 BC). The figure top right is the surveyor, playing out his measuring string as he and other officials walk the boundaries of a field. The small figures are peasant workers.
The Way We Are
Somebody once observed to the eminent philosopher Wittgenstein how stupid medieval Europeans living before the time of Copernicus must have been that they could have looked at the sky and thought that the sun was circling the earth. Surely a modicum of astronomical good sense would have told them that the reverse was true. Wittgenstein is said to have replied: ‘I agree. But I wonder what it would have looked like if the sun had been circling the earth.’
The point is that it would look exactly the same. When we observe nature we see what we want to see, according to what we believe we know about it at the time. Nature is disordered, powerful and chaotic, and through fear of the chaos we impose system on it. We abhor complexity, and seek to simplify things whenever we can by whatever means we have at hand. We need to have an overall explanation of what the universe is and how it functions. In order to achieve this overall view we develop explanatory theories which will give structure to natural phenomena: we classify nature into a coherent system which appears to do what we say it does.
This view of the universe permeates all aspects of our life. All communities in all places at all times manifest their own view of reality in what they do. The entire culture reflects the contemporary model of reality. We are what we know. And when the body of knowledge changes, so do we.
Each change brings with it new attitudes and institutions created by new knowledge. These novel systems then either oust or coexist with the structures and attitudes held prior to the change. Our modern view is thus a mixture of present knowledge and past viewpoints which have stood the test of time and, for one reason or another, remain valuable in new circumstances.
In looking at the historical circumstances which gave birth to these apparently anachronistic elements, which this book will attempt to do, it will be seen that at each stage of knowledge, the general agreement of what the universe is supposed to be takes the form of a shorthand code which is shared by everyone. Just as speech needs grammar to make sense of strings of words, so consensual forms are used by a community to give meaning to social interaction. These forms primarily take the shape of rituals.
Rituals are condensed forms of experience which convey meanings and values not necessarily immediately obvious or consciously understood by the people performing them. They relate to those elements of the culture considered valuable enough to retain. Involvement in them implies that the participants are not maverick. They conform by acting out the ritual. Each participant has a specific role to play, and one that is not invented or elaborated but laid down prior to the event.
A wedding, for instance,