Disclaimer: this thread is inspired by recent interviews by Prof. Dr. Mattias Desmet, which raised questions about the limits of the mechanistic worldview. The ideas and questions I present here are for the most part my interpretation of what he has said, and not my own.


The Mechanistic Worldview

The mechanistic worldview, also the scientific worldview (though not the same as the scientific method), found its origin during the Age of Enlightenment, during which it can be said that the dominant method of understanding the world went from religious and spiritual beliefs, to scientific theories and rationality.

Through observation and calculation it was found to be possible to understand the complex phenomena that underlie our reality.

Great strides were made in many fields of human understanding, confirming the validity of this (mostly) new way of looking at the world.

Today, the scientific worldview is dominant. We have narrowed our understanding of reality down to elementary particles and quantum physics, and the prevailing view is that every phenomenon can be understood as long as we can understand the way these elementary particles interact with one another.


The Allure of the Mechanistic Worldview

In an era where men were thought of as slaves to God, the scientific worldview raised them to masters of reality. One by one, "God's" secrets fell at the hands of increasingly thorough and complex scientific study.

The mechanistic worldview contains within it a promise of power. A promise of complete control over our reality. A promise of certainty - of complete understanding.

Man, trapped as he is in a complex and uncertain reality, desires this security of knowing above all else, and the mechanistic worldview promises that.

The nature of morality changes when its basis is no longer fuzzy debates over thousand-year-old scriptures, but instead reason, rationality and hard facts and logic.

Therefore the power that was promised did not limit itself to the physical world, but extends also to the world of thought, offering new, supposedly conclusive justifications of our ideals.


The Limit of the Mechanistic Worldview

The scientific method has brought mankind very far indeed, and it has made good on many of it promises.

However, today we are also increasingly confronted with its apparent limits. Complex systems theory, chaos theory and quantum mechanics are examples of fields of study that bring man close to what is ominously called the edge of chaos - the boundary between predictable order and unpredictable disorder.

Concepts like the Lorenz system and the Malkus waterwheel show us that chaotic systems, while still possibly deterministic, as evidenced by the fact that plotting its movements seems to yield all kinds of geometric shapes (reminiscent of Plato's forms, perhaps?), may yet be inherently unpredictable by man.


The Need for a New Worldview

While science suggests that we ought to be humble about the extent of our current knowledge, the mechanistic worldview, where it has mostly been faithful to scientific methods and principles, now has departed from it.

It clings to past promises, but no longer seems to require a scientific basis for any of them.

Instead, it assumes that all of these things are 'right around the corner', and when science will (soon) make good on these promises, its conclusions will definitely coincide with today's preconceptions.

We may observe this mode of thought when it comes to complex systems such as the human body, the human brain and psychology, human societies and politics, virology, climate, etc.


Increasingly we see that, where once the mechanistic worldview was a source of progress, humility and scientific rigor and critical thought, it instead is becoming a source of arrogance and wishful thinking.

Especially in the realm of politics we see how governments eagerly seek to turn the mechanistic promises of power over reality, into power over people. The slightest scientific hint or statistic is enough to justify the most far-reaching conclusions, and through it, the most far-reaching intrusions into the lives of citizens.

Citizens, meanwhile, are seen as little more than soulless objects, not unlike the machinery that once instilled us with trust in the mechanical worldview. Given the right input, the citizens can be made to exhibit the politically desirable output. Through processes of social engineering man can be constructed to suit the purposes of other men. Man has become a machine.


So, what is the alternative?

If you believe I will now suggest a return to the days of scripture and dogma, and of the selected few who by their extraordinary faculties had the ability to tell us of the nature of God, you are wrong.

In fact, I will argue we are already back at this unfortunate state of affairs.

The mechanistic promises of absolute power over reality and life and death is the new God and paradise. It's dogmas the theories that provide nigh-unbounded power over citizens and promises that have yet to find any grounding in our observed reality.

And its clergy? No, not the scientists themselves. Indeed it were never the religious philosophers or theologians that went on turn their intellectual fruits into a tool for subjugation. Politicians are the new clergy, appointed by the masses (if even that) and thereby divinely qualified to interpret the facts and distill from it exactly the kind of power they may now wield over the unknowing 'common folk'.

They have churches which we now know as 'media outlets' in which their gospel is preached and the followers faithfully sing along.

I could carry on this simile for a while, but I think the image I am sketching is clear.

They even have an inquistion - legions of ideologically possessed fanatics that have a special knack for rooting out heresy and other 'dangerous' ideas that may challenge their worldview. Obviously people are no longer burned at the stake upon suspicion of heresy. The days of such barbarity are far behind us(?). Instead today we practice 'cancel culture', but in addition to bullying disobedient individuals into silence, we allow them to live.

Oh, how far we've come.


So, the alternative? I don't presume to answer such questions for others. I'll leave that up to you to discuss and decide.