edgar-mitchell

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The Way of the Explorer
In the Newtonian worldview derived from Descartian philosophy, belief
about physical reality is irrelevant, because belief represents only lack
of knowledge. The physical universe was conceived by Newton as a deterministic
machine grinding inexorably toward whatever destination God
had in mind. The universe was simply there. It was absolute, and man was
only the passive observer who needed to discover its physical laws in order
to understand it completely, and thereby better follow God’s commandments.
Enlightenment, in this system, simply means belief in God and complete
knowledge of how His creation, the physical universe, works.
By the mid-19th century a strict materialist philosophy, energized by
Darwin’s theory of evolution, had captivated most European and American
intellectuals. The spiritual portion of Descartes’ dualism was discarded.
Indeed, philosophy itself nearly vanished from universities at the beginning
of the 20th century, as scientists came to believe that all the problems
of the physical universe were nearing solution. Then Einstein suddenly
proposed that light was both wave and particle. This opened the way for a
new physics—quantum physics—which has occupied physicists for the entire
20th century and totally revised our modern scientific thinking. But
Einstein too was greeted with skepticism and censure, in the beginning.
Before the last century, life moved at a pace measured in lifetimes and
centuries. In each culture the fundamental beliefs about the world were
instilled in children before puberty, and mostly by family. In a largely illiterate
and slowly changing world, the beliefs learned at mother’s knee served
for a lifetime, as there was seldom any need for young people to update
the way they interpreted the world around them. There was no desire to
change because cultural beliefs were considered absolute knowledge: Formal
education merely added detail and reinforced the basis for the cultural
beliefs. But in today’s rapidly changing world, this process isn’t enough.
Beliefs of the past, though considered absolute Truth in their time, we
dismiss as ancient myth and medieval superstition. We tend to forget that
our forbearers were sincere and intelligent folk trying to understand the
mysterious world around them. All they lacked were the tools of our time.
We also tend to forget that we don’t have all the answers today, as the
search is incomplete.
Today we know that one’s belief system begins its development prenatally,
and unconsciously. Sounds, sensations, and feelings are stored while
still in utero. When an infant struggles to find nourishment, and finally
does so as it discovers its mother’s nipple, even then the child is developing
its belief system. It creates meaning for its mother, as it has found her soft,
warm, and nourishing—a gestalt of information formed from many small
acts, movements, and sensations. As the child grows it never loses this
information about its experiences with mother. The memories are forever
sealed, though some in abbreviated form or outline, mostly in the