It is easiest to point to “traditional” or “religious” societies and say they are guilty, but the scientific and philosophical movements of the “modern” societies share just as much of the blame.

In particular, the concept of scientific laws is one that requires great attention. It is a common error to ascribe to science an air of lofty infallibility — a characteristic of another more ancient human institution.

It is against the very nature of the scientific endeavor to say that any law is absolutely true. We often forget the point of science is not to establish irrefutable truths, but to provide possible, empirically testable explanations for natural and social phenomena.

Science neither can prove fully nor disprove a claim — and that is its key feature. Science properly understood fosters a constantly self-improving and self-criticizing mutable paradigm that strives to find the most likely explanations for what we experience.

Without turning this into a digression on the semantics of the word “law,” it would be easier to understand what we refer to as laws as “generalizations.” These generalizations can be defined as things with a solid amount of evidence behind them, capable at any point of being affected positively or negatively by some novel experiment.

This notion hopefully would reinforce the idea of science and its topics of study as paradigms-in-flux, ideas with certain sets of empirical characteristics that can be removed, replaced or otherwise improved upon.

The appeal of dogma and easy explanation is dangerous. It is self-referential and irresponsible with regard to the introduction of new knowledge.

If we put our faith in constants and laws we believe fully explain behavior and phenomena, we are guilty of closing our minds to new ideas and burying our heads in the sand. One of the greatest dangers to humankind is a stagnant knowledge base.

By becoming complacent in our intellectual pursuits we harm ourselves and leave a negative mark on the progression of human knowledge.

This is not to imply there is some objective end of knowledge toward which we always are moving. However, making such an argument would be indeed dogmatic in its own right, and I certainly am aware of the seemingly dogmatic nature of the argument I am making now.

The difference between law-seeking dogmas and the one I am advocating is that the former are closed systems of knowledge that seek to explain everything within terms already purported to be known.

The latter is a more open system, which ideally allows for the growth of terms and concepts that were formerly unknown.

The search for and belief in life’s “constants” is something that can be reassuring for us in times of emotional need. The ability to comfort ourselves after the passing of a loved one by saying he or she is in a better place is such an example.

Obviously, the things that motivate us to get up and carry out our everyday routines also represent these constants — we are working for something greater or serving a purpose and so on.
These emotional and mental constants we carry within ourselves are themselves worthy of a deeper analysis, but are an issue of their own.

We forever must seek new ways of knowing and understanding. To do this, we must have in our minds an open perspective on the ideas and motivators of our lives and an ability to modify those when needed.

We need to be careful not to fall victim to the comforting appeal of what already is known.

Matt Korovesis is a State News guest columnist and a political science and Russian senior. Reach him at koroves1@msu.edu.