In a previous blog I wrote, "The "woo" or "woo woo" factor generally refers to any belief in the supernatural which "big science" has not proven." For this blog I would like to refer to big science as "wow wow" with such things as the big bang model, black hole model, and neural science models some of which, incidentally, seem confident that conscious or mind is a product of the brain.
Not all models are the same and not all models are perfect. There are many different kinds of models from scale models, mathematical models, economic models, weather models, etc. They are, all of them, limited by what they assume, e.g. a mechanistic world, the theory that the brain produces consciousness. They can and often do serve a useful need when they work, for example, the billiard ball model of gas. They can offer a certain explanatory power you could say. Nevertheless, models and the theories which create them are always part of “as if” thinking (Hans Vaihinger) which expresses "the method of fiction" which is found in all the sciences.
At the heart of big science is "wow wow" triumphalism, that is, the tendency to become overawed by one's fictions (this includes models and theories which help to build these various models). One imagines to have the final word but fails to see what is really going on, namely, the imposition of one system upon another apparently not caring about the unintended consequences.
With "woo woo" there is more of the tendency to look within; to value the first-person; to explore the human potential; discovering more of what man can do. It is not limiting man to death, for example, when we die that's it. "Woo woo" opens the door to rebirth saying that man as a conscious agent is not limited by his anatomy—fundamentally he has always transcended it. As to be expected there is a war going on between "wow wow" and "woo woo" which although seemingly bloodless is not without casualties in the example of Nikola Tesla and many others.
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