The lack of credibility by scientistic esotericism

Anticipating the outrage and feelings of insult of some believers, let me foreclose (again) that I consider myself as a pragmatic relativist. My pondering in all kind of religions, philosophies and theories led me to the conclusion that simply nothing is true or false, right or wrong. There’s simply no (objective) reality out there to base any (universal) truth on. Thus, I’m no disciple of science, either. Heck, I consider science just as much of a belief than religions for example: It’s basic axioms in methods and theorems in theories are arbitrary presumptions – premises. However, this is where pragmatism comes in: Science has provided the most comprehensive and compelling concept for explaining this our world (in the West) so far, calmed down people’s worries and doubts and thus contributed the most to life’s highest values – may it be longevity, happiness or human progress (as I think is the basis for the prior).
I’m trying to understand every different concept for explaining the world. This attempt of course is limited and sometimes thwarted by my social imprint (which is of a Middle-European Protestant-Christian, rather Republican than liberal democratic kind). I see logical inconsistencies in the argumentation of people who on the one hand affirm the subjectivity of our consciousness and the important role of the human subconscious and on the other hand, claim to have got conscious of all their social imprints and to be able to transcend them. Such transcendence would not only require full objectivity but also full awareness of the subconscious. This is logically contradictory, I reckon. But again, such people may immunize their opinions by claiming that they have also transcended logic – which I must admit haven’t managed myself nor observed among great philosophers, animals or nature in general: Trial and error, learning by doing – life is doomed to be logic, it seems. Thus, such people rather appear like heretics in my eyes and out of different presumptions alone, must be excluded out of this discussion.
And nevertheless or just in fact, it’s such logical contradiction and the subsequent lack of credibility among certain alternative concepts of beliefs to science that I want to discuss at this point. Recently, a huge variety of rather new concepts of beliefs have come to my attention that try to merge spiritual ideas with scientific findings. The term “spiritual ideas” may not have explanatory sufficiency (as in the sense of mathematical sufficiency), but seems to hit the spot as the basic difference between such concepts of beliefs and science is that it assumes “non-materialistic”, thus spiritual factors in the universe that play a role in our life. Again, it’s important to notice that such beliefs do not assume that this might be materialistic aspects that just haven’t been discovered or proven by science, yet, but presume (and thus immunize the discussion) that this cannot be researched by scientific methods. “Only through your spirit you can explain consciousness”, I was told. Well, this reminded me of semantic linguistics where my friend told me that you cannot really explain scientifically the coordination between words and their empirical referents. Another common example is that there’s no way to explain with science why human beings have consciousness. On my behalf, however, this question is flawed because again, we analyze our consciousness from a subjective point, raise it over living being’s state of being and think that we’ve reached the peak of evolution. How the heck should we really know what we are, what we are thinking when our subconscious is so overwhelming? I rather favour the cyberpunkish conception that consciousness and identity is the result of an overflow of information that cannot be processed in time. In such a view, consciousness is not digital – existent or inexistent – but analog-dynamic: You can have more or less. On a sidenote, I don’t see any other motive in the general dichotomic conception of human beings on the one side and the rest of the nature of the other side than the “eternal” struggle of the human ego to be special. Dodge this!
So, we’re talking about concepts of beliefs that draw most of their ideas from spiritual and religious beliefs like Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism (Heck, most of those people don’t even know the source of both Buddhism and Hinduism!), Daoism, Shintoism, etc. General characteristics of these beliefs are that they exclude (monotheistic) deistic entities, stress on the human spirit and other polypolistic forces in nature. This renders the explanatory content rather flexible or differently put, ambiguous and vague.
I don’t see any logical inconsistency in those views. They’re perfectly fine in regard of their intrinsic premises, the argumentation and conclusions.
However, the bogus comes in when disciples (especially Western people) try to merge these ideas with science. By trying to fathom the limits of scientific explanatory power, in the present case, quantum physics, they try to build a bridge to spiritual concepts: Waves are no immaterial, thus spiritual. The logic is incredibly flawed. Why? Because science is built on materialistic premises! You cannot connect to line of argumentations that are built on different presumptions! Further, empiric science itself consciously excludes itself out of the whole wave and string theories because experiments have already proven that the very act of empirical analysis influences the object of investigation. (Personally, I also see that case in social sciences where descriptive and especially instrumental theories turn normative as their explanatory power influences the empirical referent more than the other way round. Jensen’s free cashflow theory might be a famous example. Personally, I’m studying on the case of corporate governance in Japan in general.) Thus, such disciples simply abuse the huge comprehensive and consistent body of findings, arguments and conclusions by science in order to prove their own ideas right – even though you cannot prove but only confirm or falsify theories of a humanistic approach!
But, why the heck would they want to merge those ideas with science anyway? There’s only one simple answer: They cannot belief them without having approved their own (socially imprinted) beliefs of Western science and norms! In other words, they’re still (unconsciously) trapped in their old beliefs – and haven’t even got aware of that! Thus, they do not only implicitly confirm their old Western beliefs but also betray their new-claimed spiritual ideas, deprive their credibility and create an illogical bastard of esotericism. That’s what esotericism is anyway.
Instead, those disciples should keep their hands of scientific findings and turning them into scientistic arguments, but instead should stick to their completely distinct premises. And if they want to proselytize – either because they need confirmation in their own beliefs by convincing others or because they want to make profit out of it – they shall argue the only valid way: with pragmatism. They shall foreclose – just as I did – that their ideas are also mere beliefs, not to be proven (scientifically), but to be believed, and argue that then– and only then – they would fulfill those aforementioned highest values even better than science does.

I really like discussions on YouTube - my way!

As the four different endings of Deus Ex: Invisible War draw up quite a good selection of scenarios for the future development of our society, I can't help but to keep arguing with others - on YouTube!

TheCorrupt (1 month ago)
Hm, unfortunately this is the "best" ending...

Karakas4 (3 weeks ago)
Well, such an outcome is only the prediction of an elitist who doesn't believe in common sense and reason among all people. Both history and my own experiences in democracy have made me believe that the introduction and combination of various opinions and ideas of different people had resulted in way better decisions than some more or less clever dictators' (or call it a philosopher ruler's according to Platon) thinking.

Mulluns (3 weeks ago)
IMO, this is the closest thing to a "Happy" or "Good" ending i think is in Invisible War.

Karakas4 (3 weeks ago)
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven? Huh? This is the worst ending of all! It's a simple tyranny in our most sacred dominion, reason and knowledge!
There's no right nor wrong. There are just different views. The more you can combine and include, the better will be the outcome - for everyone and thus in general. Thus, you don't have to patronize people but help them to develop. Dude, that's the basic idea of Enlightment. I just feel like we never really have managed to achieve that goal, also because of such elitist's misbelief.

TheCorrupt (3 weeks ago)
I have to say that i personally don't believe in common sense amongst "ALL" people. Look at our world. For example, people killing each other just because they have a different religion! Where's the commen sense in that? I agree with you! Totally! But of course we never and never will achieve that "goal" because i think its not possible. Like you say "there are just different views". And thats it! You just can't combine all different ideas and opinions!

Karakas4 (3 weeks ago)
I perfectly understand what you mean. But then, not to believe in it is the first step to failure. Now this would have sounded totally pathetic and spiritual to me some years ago, but in the end it's really just about the "enacted normative concepts" we believe in. Homo hominis lupus est? Nobody can either proof nor disprove Hobbes. Same goes with the homo oeconomicus. Is time linear or not? Space endless or limited? We even believe in things we don't want to or are aware of.
In this sense, the idea of common sense and reason is mere belief as well. You might have played the first part of Deus Ex and read the quote of Voltaire at the ending of the Illuminati part: "If there's no God, one has to create him." This quote may seem to fit perfectly not only because it comes from the context of the Illuminati ending of the first part but pretty much reveals the arbitrariness of reality. Personally, I prefer to create a god of common sense and reason instead of quasi proven cynism. And if you refer to all those religious fights around the world? Just think what they fight for! Exactly, beliefs that gives meaning to their lives - as weird or mislead they might seem to you. Actually, the idea of Jihad or the Holy Crusade just derives of such elitist ideas of indoctrinate people. It'll still take ages till this fragmented world will harmonize in beliefs - and even if not its outcoming cosmopolitan views will be bound to respect each others' varieties.

TheCorrupt (3 weeks ago)
I have to say that i personally don't believe in common sense amongst "ALL" people. Look at our world. For example, people killing each other just because they have a different religion! Where's the commen sense in that? I agree with you! Totally! But of course we never and never will achieve that "goal" because i think its not possible. Like you say "there are just different views". And thats it! You just can't combine all different ideas and opinions!

ziilon2206 (2 weeks ago)
i do not care whether it is tyranny or not the people look happy and thats what life is about

Karakas4 (2 weeks ago)
Why don't we all get stoned all day long then? Happiness is like the most euphemistic word ever. But as I said: Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom in Heaven. Thinking never makes you happy. You don't have to read Nietzsche to understand that.

zombieninja666 (1 week ago)
Bah, I think maybe 70 to 90% of humans are meh. At least selfish and somewhat apathetic, if not just plain cruel, and in many cases stupid. I may sound cynical but I'm just basing this off of maybe thousands of people that I've had at least 5 hours of contact with. 5 hours isn't enough to judge the individual, but I suspect my margin of error isn't too great. Because of this, you're idealist ideas are essentially impossible. At least for a few thousand years.. and the odds of society improving from its current state, are, well, astronomical, considering what it is today, and the poor likelyhood of enough people changing that.

I picked the Helios ending the first time, and I imagine that's your favorite, but now I haven't the slightest which one I'd go for..

Karakas4 (1 week ago)
You didn't get my point. It's all about what attitude is prevalent and of course, as long as people keep thinking the same way you do, we'll never get anywhere. Take the Medieval Age as an example: Clerics actually kept the plebs ignorant and in belief to create a stable system. The parallels to this ending are obvious. The humanists and revolutionaries during the Enlightment wanted to carry humanity to a new level of rational reason. It didn't fail because of its idealism but usurpation.

zombieninja666 (2 days ago)
And what kind of attitude is that? Don't get me wrong, I try, I participate in things, I've worked with people, and I preach about a number of things (Most particularily cruelty and selfishness) to the point that people sucking with me is like Gard and nukes (read Tommyknockers). But, see, I've kind of resigned myself to the fact that the most I'm likely to achieve is improving the lives of as many individuals as possible, not doing anything notable for a long term change in society overall.

Comment from godking1212:
"thinking never makes you happy"?
sure it does contemplation of ones own achievements can bring happiness, perhaps not an everlasting happiness but happiness nontheless. although that is a self satisfaction, neglecting the need for material and physical desires.scientifically though, our bodies are simply a make up of matter(O.K more complex but still) thoughts are simply chemical interactions that occur in the brain, therefore emotion is artificial and happiness is an illussion

Karakas4 (5 minutes ago)
You've managed to warp a tautological argument in paradoxical reasoning which doesn't have much to do with the matter anyway. First, to consider emotions as well as thoughts as mere chemical AND electronic (Depends whether you consider the transmitting ions in the cells themselves as chemical or electronic particles.) reactions is the very basis of materialism. But then, materialism is nothing but thoughts, too, and thus contradicting or at least devaluating itself. There's an Indian religion, actually one even Hinduism and thus Buddhism is based on, a religion called Jainism which clearly points out that if any thought you do lies under the shadow of future risk assumptions. How can you be happy about an ingenious idea of yours if you don't stop there but keep on thinking that you might forget it, get retarded or whatever. Guess why Nietzsche called his one work much relating to this problem "Thus Zarathustra spoke"!
Thus, if you stop thinking at your self-satisfying, ingenious idea, you're just a bit less naïve, but still naïve. Henceforth, considering all the risks lying in the future renders really thoughtful people unhappy - even for the present. That's what Nietzsche concludes, that's what Jainism concludes, that's what Buddhism is all about - don't think at all! Guess what Nirvana means, "desolving yourself in nothing"? Doesn't that remind you of an orgasm, that "little death"?
Anyway, the problem isn't any lack of foresight of this idea or the belief that thinking can't make you happy, but the asymmetric concept of risk which is deeply rooted in the termination of the word itself and thus our concept of uncertainty in general: We only see the downside risk, not the upside one. Human beings are risk-averse. That's the whole problem. If one cares about the future, he normally sees problems instead of chances first.