In an earlier article (this article), I mentioned the limits of scientific thinking. It is hard to contribute to happiness and health. Today, I will explain it with another example.
How to be happy
Sometimes, we desire happiness, especially in a hard time. When we are struggling, we feel like we cannot do anything. In other words, we know neither what to do nor what works for our happiness.
It means we don’t know what the true cause is. We might try to deal with possible causes, such as a lack of money, a fault of our personality, our bad attitudes, our impatience, or sometimes our whole existence in the world. Although we do everything we can, we cannot find what causes this hardship.
That makes us despair and desire happiness.
In such a case, knowing the limits of scientific thinking might help. Scientific thinking by asking ‘Why?’ is helpless for health and happiness. Instead, we can ask ourselves, ‘Which is out of balance?’ It can give us another effective solution. Today, I will explain it with an example.
Monism vs. dualism
In health or happiness, we can think, ‘Which is out of balance?’ instead of ‘Why?’ This could give us a solution from another perspective.
To explain it, let me introduce two ways of thinking, as follows:
- Monism: To think that one problem has one cause. This suits technological development or achieving one specific goal. This style is based on scientific thinking and the asking of ‘Why?’
- Dualism: To think that things have two contradictory aspects and losing their balance causes problems. This suits finding a reasonable solution in a chaotic situation, such as for human life, health, or happiness. This style is based on many old medicines and traditional spiritual ways of living. They use the asking ‘Which is out of balance?’ instead of ‘Why?’
When we have a problem, we usually think, “Why did this happen?” We like the word why. Whenever we encounter difficulties, we ask the reason almost as a conditioned reflex.
This is scientific thinking. Understanding the cause allows us to solve it.
However, this is only effective if there is only one identifiable cause. If there are many unknown factors, this approach suddenly becomes helpless.
An example of the perfect meal
An example would make it easier to understand, so let’s look at an example. I will introduce the limitations of scientific thinking below.
One classic example is scientists who try to create one scientifically perfect meal. It has enough nutrients to maintain health. If only we eat it, we can live well. This would sound fascinating for people who want to make a new food business or have a quick meal.
However, this approach has a contradiction. The more perfect they pursue, the more imperfect the meal becomes.
Adding perfection
The scientist creates a meal and says, “This is the perfect meal! You can eat only this throughout your life and can be healthy!”
However, someone argues against it, “Can a baby eat the same amount as an adult?”
There is no way that babies can eat the same amount as adults.
The scientist has to add a condition to his meal: except for babies. This makes it perfect.
Then, another one says, “Can a 100-year-old man eat this?”
The scientist adds: except for those over 100 years old.
Another one insists, “What about sick people?”
“Can man and woman eat the same amount?”
“Do athletes not need additional nutrients?”
“Is it the same in cold areas and warm ones?”
The scientist finally says, “I finally made it! This is a perfect meal for a man who is 25 years old, 170 cm tall, weighs 60 kg, exercises 30 minutes twice a week, has no diseases, works at a desk 8 hours a weekday, drinks alcohol twice a week, lives in the same weather as New York, stays in a room with an air conditioner with the temperature 25 degrees Celsius… and who meets the following 1000 conditions! You can eat this throughout your life! …Although being 25 years old is only one year.”
The limits of scientific thinking
This perfect meal is worthless.
This is the limitation of scientific thinking. The more perfect they pursue, the more imperfect the meal becomes due to many factors that affect health.
Health is not made by nutrients alone. Many conditions affect it, such as age, sex, height, weight, physical state, mental state, habits, temperature, humidity, weather, room, clothes, or even relationships with others.
Filling them all is impossible. This is the contradiction when we apply scientific thinking to chaotic environments.
Pinpointing a single cause in a chaotic situation is the same. It is impractical to list all the factors and find the true cause. There are so many factors that affect happiness. The cause could be the environment but also be our way of thinking. We cannot clarify them.
This is why it is helpless to ask ‘Why?’ in a chaotic situation with many influencing factors.
How dualism solves
On the other hand, in a chaotic situation, asking ‘Which is out of balance?’ often works well. This is because we can focus on the most unbalanced areas. We don’t have to find and solve the cause.
In many cases, we can easily identify the most stressful thing. That is where we have to correct the balance the most.
‘Balance’ means finding a new degree. We don’t have to solve the cause. Moderation is sufficient.
If we balance them, we will head toward independence. This allows us to improve our lives steadily toward self-reliance. By repeating adjustments, we will be able to find our own way of life without identifying the cause.
Solving problems without clearing ‘Why?’
Remember the condition you are struggling with. Perhaps you were stuck in an infinite loop of asking ‘Why?’ and ‘What should I do?’ They are questions to find the cause and an answer.
If we stick to seeking the cause, we often ask ourselves repeatedly unanswered questions. Pursuing the meaning of existence might be one of them.
However, there is another way: thinking in balance based on dualism. In this way, without knowing the answer to it, we can get a comfortable life. It naturally frees us from sticking to the meaning of life.
This is the power of dualism. This is not scientific thinking. Asking ‘Which is out of balance?’ would give us a reasonable solution in a chaotic situation.
Conclusion
That is the limits of scientific thinking and how to think in dualism.
With dualism, we can get a comfortable life without solving the unanswered questions of ‘Why?’
This might give us another effective solution to improve our lives.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
