For centuries, the human brain has been a kind of black box, a place we could theorize with impunity, which is to say, without fear of scientific contradiction. Well, the box has been cracked open, and our theoretical free lunch is at an end. And what contemporary brain and consciousness research is discovering is at best, perplexing, at worst, terrifying.
Indigestible.
So what will the result be? What happens when an indigestible fact hits a culturally sensitive stomach? Will we get sick? Or will we pass it like a green penny? The history of evolution provides us with a possible model of what to expect, with the battle being primarily fought over education. But then, I would argue that evolution is only partially indigestible. Where a good fraction of us have abandoned the theoretical accounts handed down to us by our self-aggrandizing ancestors, the kinds of theories brewing in brain science could prove psychologically impossible, as opposed to merely socially difficult, to believe.
Ever wonder how people can believe Elvis and Hitler are still alive?
Sad fact is, we are bunglers when it comes to believing things we can’t immediately see. We are prone to over-simplify. We are prone to feel certain about dubious things. We are prone to cherry-pick what confirms our views, and to selectively overlook what challenges them. We are prone to understand complex phenomena in psychological terms.
The list goes on and on.
Science can be seen as a kind of compensatory mechanism, a family of principles and practices that allow us to overcome enough of our cognitive shortcomings to waddle toward an ever more comprehensive understanding of the world. Unlike ‘theory’ in the conspiracy or detective novel sense, scientific theory is the result of processes developed over centuries to correct for our biases. If the technological transformation of the world over the past few centuries provides us with a stunning demonstration of science’s theoretical power, then the thousands of years of muddling that precede that transformation provide an equally impressive demonstration of our theoretical incompetence absent science.
