Modern Mindset
Modern Mindset
Each person develops their own perspective of life and the world based on their own human experience. However, no one person is completely separate from his or her society, consequently the mindset of a culture tends to reflect the individual’s beliefs. The Western society is no exception. Their perception is mostly consisted of materialistic mindset, revealing enormous influence of science and avocation for rational thinking. This modernized materialistic mindset not only dominates people’s views, but it also effects their actions against nature and the world. Materialistic mindset views the world as matters and machines. It emerged during the Scientific Revolution of seventeenth century. Before the innovation, the general belief was that the universe consisted of a spiritual and physical world and that a supernatural being, God, controlled both realm. Kings and Popes were regarded as ruling by divine right, and humankind was thought to be the ultimate creation of God. Four scientist destroyed these medieval ideas and brought forth new ways to approach inquiries. Galileo Galilei, famous for discovering the law of falling bodies, proposed that one should only study the quantifiable: numbers, measurements, and shapes. Using this method, one would gather inarguable facts and would not be inclined by feelings or values. Francis Bacon contributed to the idea by formulating a clear theory of inductive reasoning. He applied his empirical method to the human relationship with nature, going far as to believe that scientists had to torture “nature’s secrets from her.” To Bacon, world was just a machine that existed to aid in scientific discoveries. Rene Descartes practiced radical doubt. Uncertain of his and the world’s existence, he reduced everything to its parts, until he arrived at a conclusion: if he thinks, he must exist. Descartes is known for his reductionism. Reductionism consists of breaking up problems into small pieces, arranging them
Each person develops their own perspective of life and the world based on their own human experience. However, no one person is completely separate from his or her society, consequently the mindset of a culture tends to reflect the individual’s beliefs. The Western society is no exception. Their perception is mostly consisted of materialistic mindset, revealing enormous influence of science and avocation for rational thinking. This modernized materialistic mindset not only dominates people’s views, but it also effects their actions against nature and the world. Materialistic mindset views the world as matters and machines. It emerged during the Scientific Revolution of seventeenth century. Before the innovation, the general belief was that the universe consisted of a spiritual and physical world and that a supernatural being, God, controlled both realm. Kings and Popes were regarded as ruling by divine right, and humankind was thought to be the ultimate creation of God. Four scientist destroyed these medieval ideas and brought forth new ways to approach inquiries. Galileo Galilei, famous for discovering the law of falling bodies, proposed that one should only study the quantifiable: numbers, measurements, and shapes. Using this method, one would gather inarguable facts and would not be inclined by feelings or values. Francis Bacon contributed to the idea by formulating a clear theory of inductive reasoning. He applied his empirical method to the human relationship with nature, going far as to believe that scientists had to torture “nature’s secrets from her.” To Bacon, world was just a machine that existed to aid in scientific discoveries. Rene Descartes practiced radical doubt. Uncertain of his and the world’s existence, he reduced everything to its parts, until he arrived at a conclusion: if he thinks, he must exist. Descartes is known for his reductionism. Reductionism consists of breaking up problems into small pieces, arranging them