How does the scientism proceed
from the culture to me?
The scientism is the equation-alone based thinking that dominates our culture.
Let's illustrate with an example from a real person, a student. The example is an exchange between him and his mother.
Student: "Mom, what do you think about that? Don't you think something should be done to show Steve (name changed), how very wrong what he did was?" (it's important to know that what Steve did was indeed actually wrong)
Mom: "I think you're over thinking the situation. Sometimes people will do things that we don't like, but as long as Steven isn't hurting anyone else he can do what he wants and we need to respect that. There is nothing wrong with doing what you want." 1
Here you see the mom passing the scientism to her son. This could as well be any other person in his life that has influence; the strongest are family, teachers and friends. Friends include people who are not properly friends, for example some people on social media. Teachers include those who influence through music, TV, internet videos, other internet content and other sources of information. As family and friend structures weaken, these types of systemic, more institutionalized, modes become more prominent.
What was wrong with the mom's explanation?
Her explanation distorted his understanding of the first physics. By saying: "he can do what he wants and we need to respect that" with respect to something that is opposed to reality in a severe way (which, as we noted above, is the case), she is implicitly teaching him that the meaning of reality is assigned by us, by our wills, instead of being what it is: reality is a meaning existing outside of ourselves that is to be discovered and conformed to. Things have meanings before we even exist!
What is the source and power of statements like hers?
The source (and hence its power) is in our root understanding of the world, the equation-alone physics at the base of all our modern thinking.
How does that work?
Her statement implicitly employs the false understanding of substance (see A Kid's Introduction to Physics (and Beyond)2 (KIP)) that arises from the equation-alone physics at the core of all our modern thinking. Substances are the real things around us (e.g., you, me and the tree) that have their own existence (in contrast to properties which proceed from and thus exist in a substance). This means she distorted her son's understanding of substances from its true meaning to a false one. A substance is something that exists by itself, but she was effectively treating it as a mental construct that we make, so as to use it as we want. Mental constructs, such as involved in thinking, "here's how I want to live and I'm free to do whatever I want," use substances as symbols of something else. The substance is preempted by our use of it. If we do this substance disappears for us. That is, for us, there is nothing that exists outside of ourselves; there are only things that exist because we made them up.
As you can see, through the distortion of his understanding of substance, his understanding of everything is distorted. Many errors result from this, but the deepest is the loss of contact with reality and the "will trumps truth" mindset that arises from it. The "will trumps truth" mindset arises as we end in thinking that what we want, we create, and therefore is what is, and thus is what is good, so, in this way, we can basically decide what is good for us; empty and contradictory as it is, we end by acting as if executing our own will is what is good for us. Basically, it boils down to "if I want something, it is and thus I should be able to do it."
What is the general summary of this?
The equations in modern physics are by habit treated as substitutes for the essences of things; this changes the meaning of the first physics (see KIP2) in multiple ways and at multiple levels. This is transmitted to all subjects from this base. At the most profound level, the equation-alone physics at the core of our culture teaches (in innumerable ways, through almost everyone we know) to treat reality as if it were there for us to assign meaning to, not for us to conform to. We thus treat reality as if it were simply artificial symbols created by us for a place in our mental constructions and, in this way, act as if we create reality by our own will. This leaves us to effectively make of our thinking a bouquet of properties with no essential unity conforming to reality but one that changes at the whim of the scientized culture, especially through our family, friends teachers and to some lesser extent our own whim.3
Again, substance is only one example, each element of the basic understanding of the physical world given in KIP2 is distorted in various ways and degrees by the equation-alone physics at the core of our thinking.
This happens to all of us in everyday living and conversation in subliminal ways that we do not recognize. At some real level, every explanation we have received from our parents, teachers, and friends passes on the scientism to us in a fashion like that outlined above, and it is of utmost importance for us to study the first physics and begin the process of fixing all the twists and turns and errors in our understanding of it and all that follows from it. There are all kinds of truth in what is said around us, but it rests on a confused base.
Until, we get the right physics and the metaphysics that follows from it, (see KIP and The Science Before Science4 and "Reintegration of the Modern Mind"5), each one of us is governed by this equation-alone physics.
Footnotes: