POETRY, HUMANITIES AND SCIENCE

We are all dealing with truths. Some are temporary truths; some are more permanent in nature. But eventually, everything is true. There is nothing as such as a lie in this universe. Just think about it, is not lie always in particular context? But we can always de-contextualize it and make it true for a different context? We can always analyze the statement in his own assertion, and we find there is some grain of truth in it. 

Poetry, Humanities and Science are three different kinds of truth I have encountered in my life. Science is mostly considered as universal truth, something which is more of a permanent kind of truth. It is reproducible, falsifiable and so on. But even this universality has a backdrop of assumptions and epistemic terminology which is very situational and circumstantial. For example: We assume now a days that Newton discovered Gravitational force. Gravity was there before Newton gave it that name. But think about it, isn't defining Gravity as a force was purely Newton's choice, he could have interpreted it quite differently and that would have decided the fate of subsequential mechanics. For example, if something falls on something, today our understanding about it is there must be something pulling it. Contact or non-contact, without force, it is not possible to pull or push something. It is common sense today. But, in Newton's time, any other model to explain the phenomena would have easily been accepted. Now, we are coming to what I wanted to convey. It is the mathematical model that we are describing and not the actual universe. How are they different? They are not very different. The actual system in sciences is often replaced by a similarly functioning model which allows us to do experiments and theoretical work on it. It is worthwhile to note, what makes a scientist choose a particular model depends solely on the kind of variables and terminologies he is dealing with. Now, is the picture correct?

Describing nature = Describing a model = Choice of model = Terms that we define to describe the system = Choice of the terms and quantities = discretion of the scientist or may be an intuition about the phenomena. 

Isn't it interesting? The so called objective scientific method conceals from the beginning that we have chosen a particular epistemology to describe it and not some other way. So, if someday, someone like Albert Einstein, decides to change this epistemology by considering a space time continuum and gravity as the curvature of space time, it is not really a big change. It is the change in the choice of mathematical model or rather the epistemology to describe the system. When we look at science like this, we find that there is a scope of interpretation in science as well. But, to make it application friendly, now a days, Scientists run from interpreting stuff. There is always a risk of looking like a Charlatan.

How is it different from Humanities where we do the same thing, but just we use different opinionated lenses to describe the human societies. In my opinion, nothing. I see both as same. In fact, here I align myself more towards the post-modernists. I think the epistemology of humans employed by them are mostly the same. And it is really unknown whether we actually know anything at all. All that can be said is that the models and descriptions work in some situations, so we say they are correct and in some other situations, they fail, so we say, they are incorrect.
Our notions of truth and false is applicability based. Whether there can be a system of epistemology where we can actually know the nature and human systems remains an unknowable and hence often discarded by Modern and post-modern scientists. 

In my opinion, if we look at Science, it is truth which can be replicated throughout its domain in different parts, and it still holds true. This is an amazement really that in a black hole, where almost all laws break down, Second Law of thermodynamics works. Humanities' claim is more of contextual. It does not and in my opinion should not claim universality. Although there has been an obsession of universalizing by Eurocentric thinkers in the past but now a days, we are more and more thinking about provincializing.  Humanities is a different kind of truth. It is contextualized in space and time. Sometimes it replicates but changes form and definitions. Sometimes it changes altogether. Sometimes the epistemology is widened so much that some questions become redundant. Like: What is a woman? is no longer a question that can be asked in Humanities. All I can say, is a historical progression of this idea. To say, what do you feel about it, may be is in spirit of humanities, but it is not really humanities. 

To say that these two branches were once part of a big tree called Philosophy seems such an absurd thing. One branch hardened like a rock and has assumed the responsibility of running the whole world today, while the other has been limited to understanding human societies and finds application in limited areas. But, epistemologically speaking, they are almost the same. 

Where does Poetry fits in all this? A contextual truth: Humanities, A so called universal truth: Science. What is poetry? Poetry is truth of the moment. Poetry assumes no context. Poetry assumes no time and no space and hence no claim to universality. But it does not affect the profoundness of the truth. It remains the bold and defiant truth that all truths usually are. 

So, Poetry: Momentary truth, Humanities: contextual truth, Science: "Universal truth" 

if someone says, "I love you!", it can be analyzed through three different lenses. For humanities perspective, this will require a context, a background, who said this, what is his social background, which economic class, what kind of privileges, and then a categorization follows that for example, this is a bourgeois love. For Humanities, Love and Elections might be similar phenomena. A scientific perspective will be more mechanical and crasser. Some chemical outflows and so on. For Science, Masturbation and love might be similar concepts. But Poetic perspective will say, "Fuck context, or time or assumptions", the truth of the moment is, "I love you", that's all. Nobody cares about the future, nobody cares about the past, it is here and now. "I love you". The brilliance of truth has nothing to do with context and universalization. Such is the magnitude of poetry. 

Where do I find myself? Over the years, I have shifted to many directions at the same time. From a rigid stance towards modernity and scientific revolution to more mellow and towards poetry and towards, society and humanities and then back to reason, I have been more than ambivalent to all these disciplines. 

What is truer? I don't know. But if you understand that it matters less and less since, an obsession to find the truth might be an escape to experience different kinds of truths and being ambivalent about it, then you may think not so much about closure, but about co-existing and being comfortable with all kinds of possibilities. Lies, what are they really? These are human constructs based on applicability of statements with respect to curated situations. All in all, I stand by my statements, everything has truth. something or the other, poetic, humanistic, or scientific. It is us, who decide to categorize. I can live without closure about truth, can you? And after all, I think, the obsession to be able to explain everything is but a disorder and a disease. Let it be!

Over the years, Of the debate of Weinberg vs Anderson, I have shifted to Anderson. More is different. It means, as we search more, we will find more varied phenomena in the universe. There need not be a universal theory. Let it be, keep on searching but be ok with secrets and inabilities to find and understand the truth. Someday, I will emphasize on upon what was the debate. Just mentioned here so that I do not forget. Let it be!