I think evolution has done such a marvelous job at creating the illusions we live, that you can only cut through so much. It's given a bit of a safety net, in that our natural state is to ignore a lot of the things we find out, and just go back to autopilot.
You see it in the way people respond to what seem like large shifts in the foundations of what humanity believes and the understanding of who we are. Get rid of God? People say it doesn't really matter. Get rid of Free Will? Not a big deal. We're actually mindless robots programmed to delude ourselves into thinking we're conscious beings? No biggie, I'm going to watch the basketball game.
I'd say the real question on how to look at science, is probably just to get what you want out of it. The desire for knowledge on the matter is just another instinct on the pile of instincts running the ship, so ride that desire as far as you want, knowing that evolution has set up a nice safe delusion to retreat to should things get a bit uncomfortable.
You see it in the way people respond to what seem like large shifts in the foundations of what humanity believes and the understanding of who we are. Get rid of God? People say it doesn't really matter. Get rid of Free Will? Not a big deal. We're actually mindless robots programmed to delude ourselves into thinking we're conscious beings? No biggie, I'm going to watch the basketball game.
I'd say the real question on how to look at science, is probably just to get what you want out of it. The desire for knowledge on the matter is just another instinct on the pile of instincts running the ship, so ride that desire as far as you want, knowing that evolution has set up a nice safe delusion to retreat to should things get a bit uncomfortable.
