The Grand Tradition

We are all part of a grand tradition.

Typically is this hyperbole or a simple misuse of the English language. However, we are all, without exception, part of a tradition that reaches back to the beginning. The first person who "woke up" and asked themselves "what's going on here?" started the tradition: We all seek to understand our world.

This desire manifests itself in a way unique to each person. The original method of understanding was what we'd call "superstition." Despite the modern problems with lucky socks or similar nonsense, this was the beginning of the scientific method and true understanding. The practical knowledge may seem simplistic or naive, but given the context of the time, they're correct.

There is tremendous value in looking at historical or even mythological texts and looking for practical effects for what appears to be arbitrary teachings. Some of the most well-known are the prohibitions against pork and shellfish in older Abrahamic texts. Looking at these with a modern eye, trichinosis and the perils of unrefrigerated shellfish are very real threats. While not all of the tenets are useful (Knights Templar, I'm looking at you) it's a fascinating look back into the path Humanity has taken.

But is it useful? Well, our pork is now mostly trichinosis free, and we have refrigeration. Those old rules were for the old world, right? Well . . .

One of my favorite lessons from my coursework for PTSD, is that they had effective management of PTSD before professional militaries. (note: nothing is 100 percent effective, it's not magic, but as LTC Grossman points out, these close range engagements, at truly intimate distances, are as caustic as combat gets) The rituals, ranging from symbolic cleansing to simply keeping the fighters outside of a city for a time, did have positive effects. The latter, in particular is in line with modern therapy methods, as it forces the affected into an area whey they almost certainly will discuss the campaign, with the massive benefits provided by discussing the situation with the only other people who lived it.

So, if the answer is "it depends," what's the point?

People have this apparent need to feel that everyone who went before them were incompetent. The Renaissance, a true age of learning and science, felt the need to treat the Gothic period as a soft of dark age, despite it being an era marked by tremendous construction projects, the peak of the armor craftsmanship, and fine art. My first philosophy professor taught all religion as backwards and foolish, discarding the secular benefits they did and do, provide. This was in "philosophy of religion," by the by.

However, science is very clear about how knowledge is superseded: any new explanation must explain all old experiments. It's difficult, but not impossible.

Newton was not a fool, but Newtonian physics are incorrect. Given the world he lived in, his laws and models were correct, but his world was not the extent of reality. Einstein, a man whose name has become synonymous with "genius" proposed general relativity, and invalidated Newton's equations . . . kind of. Einstein himself was mostly discredited by string theory.

Now . . . that's not actually correct. Much like all knowledge from "not washing hands brings illness," the knowledge is not discredited so much as refined. But people sometimes think that the past is wrong simply because they lived in a different world.

Newton said Force = Mass X Acceleration. That's actually wrong, but we use it day to day. Why? Because it works. Really there's a Gamma factor in there, based on the percentage of velocity of the speed of light versus the speed of your frame of reference. This difference is so slight that it takes at atomic clock moving at orbital velocity to actually make a practical difference.

And why not be practical? An atom is mostly empty space, much like our solar system. The next atom over is like going to Alpha Centauri. The scope of the universe is so vast that we can't even see halfway across the universe because light is just that slow. And somewhere in there is a string that vibrates in eleven dimensions or something. I don't know, quarks are my limit of "impractically small."

As above so below. Practically.

I'd like to also note that a tree is mostly empty space, but don't try to fly a helicopter through one.

So it's a question of refinement of ideas. You can't turn a rock into a spaceship, but a stone hammer is the first step to a more precision tool.

But even that's too narrow. I focused on science, but that's not the be all end all of meaning. Some find meaning in art, music, family, or exploration. Each of these fields, and any unnamed, are a personal search for meaning. Moments of epiphany, refined by study of an unbroken line to the beginning. Each finds meaning as the blind find the elephant, seeing a rope, snake, or tree by virtue of experience and happenstance. None comprehend the elephant, but each may find their own meaning.

There's a saying about how we stand on the shoulders of giants, and we do, but more than that we forge a new link in a chain, we are that new link, from the beginning to the future. Even that's a poor example, because we don't come from and link to a single other piece, but rather we are a node in a vast interconnecting tree, cascading from the first moment of human sentience to whatever comes next.

Sometimes the old methods are the touchstones we need for today. Other times they were tools only useful in their day. The key is not to ape their solutions, but to ask how they identified and fixed a problem. The fabled "fast square root" formula is mostly useless these days, as modern processors have silicon that functions so much faster, but it's good to know for the times the processor doesn't have those options. Starting a fire with a bow-drill is pointless . . . until it isn't.

Each person has a unique makeup and situation. They use the tools they have that best fit where they stand. Some find the perfect tool, some use what they know, and some simply make their own. The key is understanding your own nature and situation.

It's a cycle. A slightly shifting ouroboros, changing with every loop. Each year we gain a little.

We are all part of a grand tradition.