What have we been missing? What have we been missing in terms of truly finding the answer? What have we been missing that would allow us to make sense of life, our own lives, and this universe?
Time after time, we’ve come close, only to veer off the mark and later return, once again nearing the truth. It seemed as though the truth was right there, tantalizingly near, but always just beyond our grasp. But this time, we finally made it—or at least we now have the ability to do so. Each of us—each and every one of us—has the ability to reach higher, make something of ourselves, and make our lives brilliant and worthy. Here’s what we were lacking before:
- The data. We finally have all—or at least enough—of the data. All the philosophizing ever done by humankind took place against a backdrop of missing information and guesswork. We never had enough data to fill in the gaps. So, time after time, we came up with wonderful ideas that never quite worked. But now science has, for the most part, sorted out the macro world: what’s happening, how it works, and the basic principles involved. That was vital information. Then, beginning in the early to mid-twentieth century, science also gave us experimental data from the micro world, allowing us to realize that there was more to the picture than we had previously thought. After some false starts, these findings spurred a new direction in thought.
- A criterion for truth. We needed to nail down that truth, in this universe and with regard to this universe, means workability. There may be other, more transcendent truths, but we don’t need them to solve the issues we face while living in this universe. We needed to recognize that workability was the key. Our utopias have always been characterized by wonderful ideas that never quite worked. It was a little like looking at a car that was out of fuel and thinking, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just pour about a cup of salad oil over the top of the car and get it to run for weeks?” Yes, it would be wonderful—if it worked. But it didn’t, doesn’t, and never will. Take all the failed utopias of yesterday and consign them to the ashcan. Take behaviorism, communism, materialism, transhumanism, and all the brave new worlds and give them the heave-ho. We have better answers now.
- A purpose. We needed to have some idea of what we are here for. What is the meaning of our lives? Knowing that, we can see what truly works to fulfill our purpose and then do those things.
- Honesty and courage. We need to see what we see, hear what we hear, and know what we know. We need to take an unflinching look at what lies before us and have the courage to acknowledge what it tells us. Truth is a demanding master and brooks no fables. From the beginning, one of the main purposes of science, as it has been practiced, was to force us to look squarely at what we see. To do this, science restricted itself to the physical, the tangible, and the repeatable. This worked fabulously right up to the point when we had to look at something we couldn’t touch—something we couldn’t pin down to a lab bench. But having learned the lessons of viewing the tangible, we could apply those lessons to the intangible and use them to reach the top of the mountain.
We have the tools. Let’s march!