Nonsense Science

Dear reader, The Platypus makes absolute fools of us all.

What is Nonsense Science? To answer that I would ask you what is Science? The book answer is a systematic way of learning about the world around us through observation, experimentation, and analysis.

But really, what IS science TO you? Is it stuffy, logical, people wearing lab coats and committing rat genocide? Is it a doctor in a lab curing cancer? The people making the chips that allow you hold a super computer in your hand and read this rant?

Science, to me, is Humanities self aggrandizing complication of the universe.

What does that mean? It means go find a biologist and ask them for a fact, after they give you that fact, ask them if there are ANY possible exceptions. There almost certainly will be. Ask a physicist the same and there will be. In the science of paleontology people just like you and me go dig in dirt, find the trace remains of one bone, make as many assumptions and conclusions as possible and then present them as fact based largely on the fact that other scientists trained the same way they were agree with them. Not a single one of them ever having actually seen a dinosaur.

Look, I am not anti-science, I love science and I love all the unquestionable benefits given to us by amazing discoveries and advances made by science, but when I DEFINE what a scientist is and does, I can’t help but see the nonsense of it all.

So what is nonsense science then?
_{Nonsense: language, conduct, or an idea that is absurd or contrary to good sense.
Science: a systematic way of studying the natural and social world through observation and experimentation}

I suppose the book answer would be a systematic way of unlearning the assumptions and preconceived notions about the world around us.

A more personal take on it would be that I accept that water boils at a certain temperature, but I learn to ask myself what the true difference between boiling water and regular water is? I am not looking to categorize, quite the opposite really, because practically speaking it doesn’t matter, its a nonsense question, instead I am exploring and experimenting with my perception of boiling water.

Maybe a better example can be pulled from religion instead of science. Dogen, a pretty badass Buddhist thinker-not-thinker from Japan, who founded the Soto Zen sect of modern day Buddhism once taught about firewood. Here’s a little excerpt:

"Firewood becomes ash. Ash cannot turn back into firewood again. However, we should not view ash as after and firewood as before. We should know that firewood dwells in the dharma position of firewood and it has its own before and after. Although there is before and after, past and future are cut off. Ash stays at the position of ash and it has its own before and after. As firewood never becomes firewood again after it is burned and becomes ash, after person dies, there is no return to living. However, in buddha dharma, it is a never-changing tradition not to say that life becomes death. Therefore we call it no-arising. It is the laid-down way of buddha's turning the dharma wheel not to say that death becomes life. Therefore, we call it no-perishing. Life is a position at one time; death is also a position at one time. For instance, this is like winter and spring. We don't think that winter becomes spring, and we don't say that spring becomes summer.   "

Maybe you read that and it seemed a little foreign because "Of course we think of spring as becoming summer" but just ignore the cultural differences and stick with me on the idea that, at least momentarily unlearning the scientific process of degassing and fuel consumption etc. etc. can allow one to simply accept that fire wood IS a thing, burnt wood isn't fire wood. Burnt wood is likely ash, if there is wood with burnt marks that isn't Burnt Firewood it is firewood. The part that burnt is ash now. 

Applying this kind of science to life, I would argue, is far more practical than constant categorization. 

Where Science seeks to test and categorize, to logically pin down the nature of all things, and KNOW the world, Nonsense Science seeks to break down those categories, to test the testers, to intuitively embrace the unknowable and free ourselves from the programmed ways we have been told to see the world. 

Religions ask us to have faith that the unknown is known by gods, Science asks us to invest our energies and time and have faith that we will find the unknown and know it. Both these things have their place, but Nonsense Science asks me to invest my time and energy embracing the unknowable. 

This science works best when directed inward because YOU are all YOU have control over and no matter how clearly communicated no two people can ever KNOW the exact same thing in the exact same way. We all form our own internal realities based on our experiences and perceptions. If I say water is hot you might imagine hot like lava, remember a time you got 2nd degree burns, then touch it and laugh because my "hot" was based on my internal reality of memories of ice water I had this morning and a time a got thrown in a pool unexpectedly. 

I encourage you to try it. I called it Nonsense Science because the Scientific method can be used to accomplish the process. Take something you KNOW to be true and try to remove all your knowledge and preconceptions about it, then test WHY and HOW it is true. 

For example, I KNEW that working out was good for my mental health. 

Ask a question: Is working out good for my mental health?

Make observations: Scientists, therapists, my friends and family, other people who work out and other people who struggle with mental health all agree it does. When I work out I feel better.  

Form a hypothesis: Working out is probably pretty good for my mental health.

Make a prediction: If I continue working out my mental health will improve!
 
Conduct an experiment: I start working out and for a while my mental health improves! I stop drinking alcohol, I stop smoking, I lose weight and get stronger and when I do have mental health episodes they're much less severe!  Over time though I begin developing anxiety in the gym, my arms aren't as big as that guys, my weight loss slowed down, I am not lifting enough. I start taking supplements, creatine, drinking tons of water eating "healthy" is making me not enjoy food or daily life outside of the gym. 

Analyze the data: Going to the gym improved my mental health for a while, but ultimately consumed my sense of self. I set out to improve my mental health and I did, but along the way I picked up new habits I didn't want to, I spent more time judging myself and if continued in this way I would eventually allow my mental health to decline again. 
 
Draw a conclusion: My mental health problems are separate from my physical health, and while being physically healthy lessens the burden of my mental problems simply working out does not actually do much at all to truly improve my mental health, that is something I have to work out separately. 

That is an actual personal example, call it me being vulnerable here on this public forum. It is nonsense, the science and everyone around me, studies and every logical thing leads me to believe that physical exercise improves mental health, and if I accepted all that I would likely just agree and add to the chorus of people saying it like a fact, but through actually applying a scientific process I found a way to realize that under the "fact" of improvement lies a delusion. Taking a look at the people saying the fact now, I realize half of them don't even go to the gym, all of them have their own mental troubles at some point or another and very few of them ever solved those problems by moving heavy objects. 

They aren't wrong, but the facts aren't truly facts sometimes, seriously, ask a biologist to define a mammal and then ask them about a platypus.

In the end, and if you read this far, whew, thank you champ. Nonsense Science is all about breaking down FACTS to see what the truth underneath really is, eschewing ignorance by questioning the validity of knowledge. So go out there and ask all the questions, don't just accept the first answer some flawed dude in a lab coat gives you and send me a picture of a platypus if you meet one!