Transcript:
History, and daily life keeps showing us how vulnerable we are to ‘the truth’. What is the truth? We think something is true, until it’s not true anymore, until there is a better truth; a better truth because it became demonstrably true, and contradicts or suppresses the previous one. The structure of the truth is probably one of the most complex things there is to understand in the mind, and there are very few people on this Planet who can properly teach this. One thing we can do right now, since at Cosmic we are interested in the narratives of paradigm shifts - is to start digging into how paradigm shifts actually work.
My name is Camille, you’re listening to Cosmic Dynamics, 5 minutes of exploration on Art, Change & the music of the universe.
What do we mean by paradigm shifts? What is a paradigm exactly? This is part 1, and we’ll publish part 2 tomorrow in Cosmic Dynamics nr. 20
There is one thing we seem to constantly forget as humans. Paradigm comes from the Greek Paradeygma : Para = besides ; Digma = comes from deik (to show, to indicate, to demonstrate) and suffix ma, expressing the result of the action. So, paradigm would be “standing beside the result of a demonstration”. And that’s what we do every day. We stand besides things we consider true - we organize all of our reality around these truths, these models, this matrix. (I thought this might be an interesting topic)
We chose to believe they are true because they are true!? Is that so? Not really… It’s safer to say “because the form in which it was presented to us is making us feel it was demonstrated as true”. Well, no no no, when it is scientifically demonstrated, then it is true and even more true than true… Yes! Within the current scientific... paradigm.
You might have heard of a fundamental book called The Structure of Scientific Revolutions about the history of science by the philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. published in 1962. Kuhn seems to be the first one to use the term “paradigm shift”, and this is not to indicate small incremental changes... According to Kuhn, a scientific revolution for instance, is such a big change than the previous paradigm cannot even compare to the new one, because even the words to describe it are new words or terminologies.
His model goes like this: There is an established paradigm… for instance, the universe revolves around Planet earth, the center of the Universe. Models are developed from this established paradigm: (normal science). So here that would be formulas that explain the movement of the planets around the Earth: like in famous Cycle and Epicycle by Ptolemeo
Then comes the stage of the scientific revolution: New ideas flourish, like Copernicus saying, no the sun is the center of the universe, and planets revolve around the sun. Finally comes the establishment of the new paradigm, with a demonstration by Galileo Galilei - and his telescope - that Copernicus was right. This discovery changes the whole set of formulas and “truths” that were developed from the old paradigm. And from there people started standing on the side of this new truth, because they believed in Galileo Galilei’s demonstration via the telescope.
Now, we live in a system and paradigm where “the form” has unlimited potential. The form, this thing that makes it look true, sound true, feel true. If you don’t believe the Earth is flat, there are a number of videos that can make you change your mind, because their producers are so good at packaging the story. Or think fake news, or political campaigns. The form is everything. It’s the ultimate playground for humans & the stories they tell.
So, we don’t know who to trust anymore?... We can never be sure if that it’s actually true. True! “Well, I trust only what is scientifically proven…”. ok, let’s cover this tomorrow
In the meantime, to meditate on “the form”, you can have a good laugh looking into the historic work of the Yes Men, a culture jamming activist duo and network of supporters created by Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos. I’ll put a couple of links in the notes, you’ll see that manipulating the form via tactical media is also an art. In a day and age where everyone can be a media organization, food for thoughts!
