Mythological Motifs in Modern Scence

Note: This chapter was a bit difficult to follow. While I did gather some high level ideas, it probably needs a re-read. This is one of those written lectures from Watts that uses complex language and is less direct in its points.

The ideal man according to Buddhism is not one who is so enlightened that they separate themselves from everyone. The isolated monk ends up becoming victim to the trap. Instead they come back to help others be enlightened, for there is no way of escaping the life with others.

We try to understand every single thing about nature and turn it into laws. But this ignores that our consciousness is part of the reality. So we can never fully understand it, since we’re influencing it, like trying to understand the brain’s consciousness itself.

Our understanding of science is limited to what we allow ourselves to understand.

Science is a mirror of God mythology.

We are basically trying to build tools to give us whatever we want, but we also likely want some kind of “surprise” to make it interesting. Kind of like Gods that have powers but can’t just have everything perfectly.

Watts emphasizes the importance of playfulness in science. Rather than just following everything to the letter, we need to try out random things in order to see what’s possible. This was a very prescient thing to say in his lifetime, as now we have the crisis of academia where so much time is spent on papers but no real learnings are made, because no one is incentivized to be experimental. Or, I suppose, even if they tried, they’d be rejected.