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COFFEEHOUSE CULTURE -- Issue 2

If our sci-fi view of the Cosmos is wrong, it is not our fault. Blame it on the scientists. We are, after all, only going with what they tell us to be true. And, in many ways, it is true. It just doesn’t take in the broader picture. Because ‘the broader picture’ does not fit within the Newtonian Paradigm.
.....According to my dictionary, a paradigm is a ‘conceptual framework within which scientific theories are constructed’. Fine. But so boring it is hardly worth thinking about. However, hidden within that not so simple definition is the key to understanding what went wrong with our Cosmic view. For paradigms define our most strongly held belief systems. Unfortunately, that definition is one of limitation rather than expansion. But that is the nature of paradigms.
.....The up-side is that paradigms provide coherence and a certain clarification to scientific theories. But only to those theories that naturally fit or can be forced to fit. Theories that fall outside the conceptual framework that the paradigm provides are simply dismissed or provide the basis for another paradigm.
.....The classic example of the limitations of scientific paradigms is the Newtonian Paradigm. This describes the world in terms of mathematically precise laws and sets it up to be little more than a machine. One has only to look around at the richness, diversity and intricacy of nature and experience its uncertainties to realise the limitations of this and other paradigms.