Embrace Traditional Knowledge

“Philosophy began with a simple question: what is everything made of? The man who asked it wanted an answer that did not rely on magic and myth. He was Thales, who lived in the 6th century BCE in what is now Turkey. This one man is credited with triggering Western thought as we know it.” (Jackson, 2020) 

I read this quote in a book I picked up from the bookstore a couple years ago called Philosophy: An Illustrated History of Thought. This quote was the first thing I read on page 10. I immediately closed the book and started writing. 

This one man… 6th century BCE… magic and myth.  For reference, The Vedas were written 1,100 years before 600 BCE.

Let’s start with common ground. What do magic, myth, science, religion and philosophy all share in common? 

They’re sense-making vehicles reliant on human-created stories. 

Science, while proven by facts, is still investigated and communicated via a story framework– an introduction, detail, and conclusion. Hypothesis, experiment, knowledge. It’s not a coincidence, stories are how our brains work to make sense. 

Reality is best explained observing how academic research is conducted today. As a grad student, I was surprised to learn that studies are not designed for the sole benefit to an area of society, although an altruistic grad student like myself may try to orient the study so the results will produce something positive. But even med students who seek to cure rare diseases are at the whim of the university's budget and politics. And while science always attempts to be transparent and eliminate bias, there is simply too much complexity in the real world to truly account for all variables. Scientific discovery, especially in environmental science, is at a saturation point where we are trying to solve for an equation where the numbers are rigged. How can we expect truly objective results when there is so much human influence on the objective, design and execution of experiments? 

I often return to Jackson’s quote about the origins of Western thought as it represents a wider belief about theories of knowledge. I don’t say this as a criticism of Tom Jackson, who wrote a well-organized chronology of Western philosophy. Far more widespread than a single author, this assumption that humans began wondering about the nature of reality in a formalized way as late and as suddenly as 6th BCE runs deep in Western culture, and thus, governs the globalist empire.

Evidence that we were thinking about the nature of reality in a systemized, deep way is not concrete, but I believe there are signs. Take for instance that tool use began 3.5 million years ago, preceding our change in diet and brain growth one million years later. From this juxtaposition between tool use, diet change, and brain development across 2.5 millennia, it seems we may have started teaching children tool usage, thus leading to a change in diet, and higher cognitive thinking led to brain development. One million years later, we were using fire and tools consistently. Perhaps this signaled trade and communication between tribes, or further, a recognition of environmentally tied social scarcity. Evidence from 160,000 years ago shows burial ceremonies, which I think is the clearest root of “Western” thought, i.e. individual materialism. Because how else do you preserve the ego if not to ritualistically bury your significant people in the ground? 

If the origins of thought did not emerge suddenly, then when did we start thinking? Could “thinking” have originated prior to Homo sapiens? Does it precede humans entirely? What if thinking and creativity are not just “creature” processes at all, but exist elsewhere across life? 

Life moves towards understanding. Curiosity leads to yearning, which leads to action. Wonder is nature’s phenomenon. We can see it in pets, livestock, and even plant roots that explore the underground in search of contact with other plants. Humans likewise crave certainty, seeking answers, solutions, and validation. It is why we have myth, science, and religion. 

Spirituality and “myth” need not be separated from science and philosophy. I respect and understand the need for “objective” reasoning. I know about the wild misinformation plaguing the times we live in, for goodness sakes. However, I believe there is a cultural compulsion for certainty driven from fear of ego death that has resulted in patriarchal states exploiting the world for generations. You can see it in our history books, and you can see it in media. 

I was influenced to consider what is generally called eco-feminism and Western-environmental dynamics initially by two critical texts, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis from 1967 and The End of White Christian America from 2017. Together, these readings tell a story about how Abrahamic religions (and Western thought) have led to so-called revolutions of science and technology. These “revolutions” resulted in our ongoing ecological crises. Underneath it all, those who uphold purist ideals are becoming increasingly anxious as the world transforms. Conservatism is an undercurrent throughout history, but science and technology have made the effects of anxiety more and more disastrous. The world at any moment could explode at the hair-trigger of several powerful men’s egos. 

I do not think the recent advance of New Ageism, mental health awareness, and luddite lifestyles is a coincidence. As a whole, our story seems to be similar to the Hero’s Journey, except instead of the hero returning home at the end, we are returning to a realization that we are always home. We are a part of nature as much as nature is a part of us. 

Science deepened my spirituality, it never conflicted with it. As a child learning about natural history and the laws of astrophysics, every new fact became an additional star in my worldview’s constellation. Out there, the patterns weren’t separate. Everything pointed to a fundamental miracle that is life, its rarity and beauty. Interconnected exponentially. 

Katherine Hayles in Searching for Common Ground  opens a dialogue about the false duality between science and spirituality, highlighting knowledge as a process to connect people with differing perspectives. Her thesis is that interdisciplinary cooperation is essential for understanding how cultural beliefs shape our behavior with the environment. Hayles restructured my perception of nature from being a duality– either cultural construct (outside, outdoors, state parks) or objective reality (all there is outside my body)– to instead a bridge between the two– a  consciousness-reality flux. 

Fikret Berkes in Indigenous ways of knowing and the study of environmental change expands on this idea. Ironically, Berkes begins by presenting an epistemological paradox, illustrating the dichotomy between traditional knowledge and science. Berkes explains that both perception and knowledge production can be interdisciplinary across Western and indigenous schools of thought. Berkes’ literature review also reveals that traditional knowledge is often better equipped to deal with ecological and social complexity and nuance than its Western counterparts. 

Religion, philosophy, and frameworks of all kinds brought me clarity and hope. I’ve found health and peace thinking about my behavior and consumption through the Vedic systems of Yoga and Āyurveda, as well as Ancient Chinese medicine traditions. At the same time, Western pharmaceutical practices and modern technology are necessary for certain outcomes. I feel every day is a new chance to find the bridge that feels authentic, safe, and ultimately brings harmony.

What really is harmony? Well, I’m on an explorative journey into quantum physics and theories of consciousness to answer that question. From what I understand, it seems scientific inquiry into these subjects predicates on the same misconceptions aforementioned with Western thinking– that materialism is paramount to ultimate truth. From my vantage point, it is the mysterious nature of space, of nothingness, and paradox that points to the obvious: consciousness is woven into the DNA of the Universe, and we must integrate science and spirituality to understand it. I thank Amit Goswami, Ph.D for The Self Aware Universe in which he writes, “consciousness is the agency that collapses the wave of a quantum object, which exists in potentia, making it an immanent particle in the world of manifestation”. Essentially, we (we being consciousness) think reality into existence, and reality creates our minds to create it. 

Who is consciousness, and is there such a thing? Or are we ourselves, separate identities? Are we a part of something larger, inaccessible to our “monkey mind"? Here again, I believe paradoxical thinking and alternative knowledge can teach us to See what we already see. It’s like that YouTube video that reveals the viewer’s inattentional blindness: it starts with two basketball teams, one with white shirts the other with black shirts. The goal for the viewer is to count the number of times white shirts pass to the black shirts. By the end of the video, you’re asked “did you see the gorilla?” when on first watch you most likely missed it. We can sometimes ignore what has been there the whole time. 

The case to Embrace Alternative Knowledge is supported by academic literature, as well as my and many others’ lived experiences, as a pathway towards “true” sustainability. If we do so, I believe leaders and learners of all backgrounds would be more empathetic and equipped to adapt to change. Further, indigenous wisdom provides a spiritual and practical pathway for lifelong environmental stewardship. 
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer says, “knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”

Read more in The Charter 1.0