Infernal Contracts

On the Surprisingly Platonic History of Science

Key Takeaways:

1. Science presumes an empirical model of reality, but the history of science curiously suggests a rival Platonic model, in which ideas exist independently of mind.

2. Examples include René Descartes inventing the Cartesian coordinate system after an angelic visitation, August Kekulé discovering the benzene molecule during contemplation of occult symbolism, Alfred Russel Wallace co-discovering evolution during a malarial fever dream, and more!

3. Overturning the prevalent empirical model of reality could be the next great paradigm shift lying in store for humankind.

Infernal Contracts

The only way to deliver electricity across vast physical distances involves the rapid alternating of voltage and current. Without alternating current, electricity would be lost to resistance as it travels over miles of power lines. After it was pioneered by famed inventor Nikola Tesla, this crucial method of energy delivery transformed society in the 20th century.

Tesla was struck with the epiphany about alternating current during a recitation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s play Faust, which Tesla had memorized in its entirety. The figure of Dr. Faust, who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for secret knowledge, evolved directly into the convention of the mad scientist.

The Italian painter Fabio Cipolla brilliantly rendered the moment the devil promises the archetypal Dr. Faust hidden knowledge that will help him win the heart of the lovely Marguerite. His work serves as the Title Card for this essay.

Empiricism vs Platonism

Science presumes that our minds are housed within our bodies, while our bodies navigate a much larger external reality. This way of thinking is the standard in modern society. It’s frequently associated with the Greek philosopher Aristotle, and is known as “empiricism.”

Empiricism is the fundamental idea behind science’s striving for objectivity. It’s what makes science such a powerful tool; subjective biases are filtered out through repeatable experimentation.

But the very notion of subjectivity presumes the existence of objectivity. Science is built on the assumption that there IS an objective reality out there waiting to be discovered (once we factor out the distortions arising from flawed observation).

Aristotle’s mentor, Plato, had a different view of reality. He suggested that ideas have an existence of their own; that they’re floating around in what he called a “Realm of Ideals”, waiting to shape our physical reality through the lens of human consciousness. Plato might have regarded Tesla’s idea of alternating current as an idea whose time had come.

Though science itself is built on an Aristotelian presumption of empiricism, the history of science itself lends credence to Plato’s view. The tale of Dr. Faust and his infernal contract with the devil is a story about hidden knowledge coming into our physical reality from an external source.

Like Tesla’s alternating current, many of science’s most significant discoveries came from bouts of madness, fits, and dreams. Some discoveries occurred simultaneously to multiple individuals, further suggesting Plato’s concept of ideas having an existence all their own.

René Descartes

René Descartes is one of history’s biggest names. He invented the Cartesian coordinate system, with its x and y axes. With his philosophical concept cogito ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am"), Descartes laid the foundations for Western philosophy. And he believed that divine spirits revealed these ideas to him.

One year after the infamous Defenstration of Prague touched off the Thirty Years’ War, Descartes had joined a Catholic Habsburg army on its way to Prague to fight the Protestants. On the night of November 10, 1619, he hunkered down inside a shed to escape a howling snowstorm.

According to his biographer, Descartes was visited by a series of three divine spirits, who announced, “the conquest of nature is to be achieved through number and measure,” and inspired the revolutionary ideas he shared with the world. Descartes’ otherworldly experience is an early example of a cornerstone in the Scientific Revolution inspired by a supernatural event.

August Kekulé

The discovery of the ringed shape of the benzene molecule revolutionized the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, plastics, and explosives. The modern world would be unrecognizable without it. The structure was discovered in 1865 by the German chemist August Kekulé. The famous story he told was that it came to him in a reverie, or daydream, of a snake eating its own tail.

He was describing the ouroboros, an ancient symbol that dates back to dynastic Egypt. It was prominent in Classical Greece and Rome, and was used during the Renaissance by the Medici family of Florence. Renowned Swiss psychologist Carl Jung reportedly saw the ouroboros in his dreams BEFORE coming across it in crumbling old books on alchemy.

Kekulé’s attribution of his discovery to a similar magical vision demonstrates that major scientific breakthroughs sometimes announce themselves through visionary states, which are then logically rationalized after the fact.

Alfred Russel Wallace

We associate Charles Darwin with the theory of evolution, but there was a co-discoverer. Alfred Russel Wallace was on a research voyage in Indonesia when he came down with malaria. During the sweaty, tortured fever dreams that ensued, the idea of natural-selection-driven evolution came to him all at once.

After he’d recovered, Wallace dashed off a letter to his old acquaintance, Charles Darwin, back in London. Darwin was astonished when he received the note, because he was busily writing up the exact same idea. The two published a joint paper together in 1858 on what was known for years as the “Darwin-Wallace Theory of Natural Selection”.

But Wallace couldn’t put his strange experience with malarial fever out of his mind. He developed a keen interest in the occult that embarrassed the rest of the bewhiskered and stiffly-cravatted scientific community of the Victorian Era. Today, schoolchildren hear only about Charles Darwin.

Although Darwin’s co-discoverer is all but forgotten, Wallace’s experience is another example of a significant scientific discovery being inspired under bizarre circumstances.

Conclusion

The discovery that the Earth orbits the Sun was a paradigmatic shift that marked the transition from the feudal economic system of the Middle Ages to the modern era. The medieval Church endorsed an “Aristotelian” model of the solar system (in which the Sun orbited the Earth), but a burgeoning Scientific Revolution proved the Church wrong.

As our modern capitalist economic system reaches the end of its lifecycle, perhaps another paradigmatic shift lies in store for us. Just as the Aristotelian model of the solar system was overturned 500 years ago, a similar shift might lead to the empirical, Aristotelian model of reality being overturned. The history of science hints at a possible Platonic alternative, in which the reality experienced through the senses is an illusion emanating from a hidden realm of ideals.

The example of Calculus being independently co-invented by the likes of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Sir Isaac Newton would have further buttressed Plato’s view. As with Tesla and his alternating current, it’s as though Calculus was an idea whose time had arrived. Sir Isaac Newton and his curious practice of alchemy will be the subject of next week’s essay.

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Further Materials

The rainbow’s arch of colour, bending brightly,
Is clearly marked, and then dissolved in air,
Around it the cool showers, falling lightly.
There the efforts of mankind they mirror.
Reflect on it, you’ll understand precisely:
We live our life amongst refracted colour.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust Part II, 1790, Act I, Scene I