I’ve been thinking about the nature of society and the intellectual climate, so to speak, of the modern era. Being the eternal optimist that I am, I’m inclined to disagree with recent lamentations on the end of the “Age of Discovery,” which basically target an inaccessible scientific world. People can no longer enter a field on the merits of their own curiousity and thrive on that alone.
The “Age of Discovery” is, indeed, over. For the most part, we’ve discovered what makes the world tick. The devils that are in the details are still being worked out, but the physical world as we know it today has been all but explained. Of course these new advances are absent from the minds of the common man–they’re virtually inaccessible, given their complicated references to 50 years’ worth of research in the field. Read about the latest and greatest discovery and you’ll have to learn a new vernacular and teach yourself advanced calculus. Specialization in the fields of science are becoming more and more inaccessible and, I think, the “Age of Discovery” is pretty much over.
However, it’s nothing to lament about. It’s not a brick wall–it’s a landmark. I think we’ve now entered the “Age of Information,” where the emphasis is being placed on data, discoveries, conclusions, and theories that have already been made. The purpose of the system, rather than progress, is organization and accessibility. It’s an exciting time to be alive. And, for the first time since the Greeks, really, science and philosophy are re-engaging in a dialogue. Science is taking the most fundamental principle of philosophy–ontology–and applying it in the fields of autonomous cognitive systems. Conversely, philosophy is borrowing from science and applying its findings to all sorts of philosophical questions, most prominently in the subject of human identity.
Georg Hegel, the famous German philosopher, believed that all of reality occurred within the framework of a “dialectic,” whereby the knowledge and information of the world changed and grew in three stages: the thesis, the antithesis, and the synthesis. Essentially, a basic idea accepted as truth (thesis) is challenged and torn down (antithesis), only for the first and second stages to combine into a final stage (synthesis) of thought. I believe we’re in the final stages of the process now. The “Age of Discovery”, also known as the “Age of Reason,” was a breaking down of the fundamental religious principles that dominated our society for over 1,000 years. A synthesis is beginning to take place, though, whereby the scientific–the objective–is taking into account and, in some cases, coalescing with, the subjective–whether it be ontological, phenomenological, or otherwise.
The mistakes of one and the transgressions of another can be drawn upon and avoided in the future. With any luck, we could be on the cusp of a new era. Of course, given humankind’s past history, we might just manage to screw it up if we’re not wary of dogmatism, ideologies, or the irrational. But hey, there’s always hope…which I have plenty of.
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