The answer to the question “What is true science?” is not as simple or sustainable as our Crown English media and self-styled “scientists” would have us believe. This article explains how and why this notion of “science” is very exclusive and unhelpful, how no one can know what true science is, how we are all born scientists to some degree, why no human being is “a scientist” and how there can be no dispassionate (impartial) “body of science”.

Simplicity~~Complexity
(A great paradox of our lives).

“The universe is incredibly simple.”

Neil Turok, “Theoretical Physicist”
Video of his Public Lecture: The Astonishing Simplicity of Everything

This insight that everything (all things in their entirety) is fundamentally simple has been articulated by many sages for many millennia in terms of their languages of their day. And they all, in the ways of their culture, tend to add the caveat that it is our experience of existence that is messy.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Lao Tzu, as translated~adapted into English by Stephen Mitchell *

“Everything changes, nothing remains without change…All conditioned things are impermanent’ — when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering…Change is never painful, only resistance to change is painful.”

Legendary insight attributed to Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) in India

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated…A truly great man never puts away the simplicity of a child…The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue…”

Legendary insight attributed to Confucius (Kong Qiu) in China

These three great legends have endured for over 2500 years. They provide significant evidence that all three sages were informed with extraordinary insights into the Psychology~Physics of our human situation and had a clear appreciation of the simple truths of the Conservation of Energy Principle, this being reflected in their more simple, sustainable lifestyles.

A form becomes manifest in the universal potential, the continuous universal transformation.
This form we call a “flame”” exists as an exquisite, unique balance of forces for a finite period.
The balance ceases to be and the flame passes entirely into the vast universal entirety according to the principles of physics.
Adapted from Candle-flame-and-reflection.jpg: Richard W.M. Jones, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons”

Our Contemporary Crown English Formation of “Science”
(In a brief, illustrated chapter)

In 2009 the English Guardian reported the Britain’s Science Council had given a year to formulating a new definition of “science”. Its members finally decided thus:
“Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence.”

It would seem recent developments in Artificial Intelligence compound this exclusivity, judging from ChatGPT ‘s answer in August 2023 to my question “What is Science?”
Answer: “Science is the intellectual and practical activity that encompasses the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment12.
Science is also a system of knowledge that is obtained and tested through the scientific method23, which involves making hypotheses, collecting data, analyzing results, and drawing conclusions4.
Science can be divided into different branches or disciplines, such as physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geology, etc123.
Learn more: 1. bing.com 2. merriam-webster.com 3. dictionary.cambridge.org 4. en.wikipedia.org +1″

An Internet search asking “What is Science?” delivered pages crowded with similar definitions. They share a common belief: “science” is merely an exclusive, inductive amoral way of thinking and this informs a unique formation of knowledge they call “Science“, the domain of an elite called “scientists” (fewer than 10 million of Mankind). The remainder of us- more than 99.9% of human beings – are deemed to be “non-Scientists”.

Worse, this notion of “Science” can be and is divided into different branches or disciplines, each with their own exclusive language and culture. Without compassion, these “disciplines” soon become constructs of the ego, forming delusional, structures of knowledge much like a tree with disparate branches, none of which are connected to the central trunk, the wellspring of daily life that keeps a tree grounded and sustained in the earth.

Clearly the question “What is science?” generates an exclusive, divisive, complexity. This is characteristic of the machinations of the ego when the human psyche lacks compassion.
Many long-sustaining cultures and whole regions are deemed to have no “science” whereas some of the most corrupt, wasteful and polluting cultures on Earth are accounted for as being more “scientific” because they have the disproportionate numbers of paid “scientists”, many of whom are bound by psychopathic copyright laws.

These answers lack wisdom. They are dis-empowering and depressing. They are unhelpful in our daily lives and we sense in our guts they are hopeless, alienating, even insane. So it is wise to ask a different question before explaining why we sense the Crown English notion of “science” is profoundly unsustainable and means we are further risk of becoming stuck in the quagmire of the ego.

In the Spirit of the Ancient Sages and Our Children
(A Notion of Science Informed by True Hope Born of Physics)

We can also draw on the wisdom articulated by more contemporary renowned people. Invariably they are drawing on and reiterating truths articulated in countless ways since antiquity.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

– Isaac Newton (1643–1727)

The truth always turns out to be simpler than you thought.

– Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

“The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
—

– Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931)

Out of clutter find simplicity;
From discord find harmony;
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

-Albert Einstein 1879–1955

So let us assume best we can that we know nothing, adopt a very simple approach and inquire with wonderful, fearless spirit of a child, “What are the requisites for science to exist?”

Here is a draft list of the requisite qualities:

• humility, self-forgiveness and inclusiveness;
• collegiality, openness and sharing;
• inquiry, wonder and awe;
• honesty and trust;
• meticulosity, care and stewardship;
• generosity of time and reflection;

These are not mere ways of thinking. These are all profound ways of being and they have one quality in common – they are all active elements of compassion. And what is compassion? It is the exclusive force in our psyche counterbalancing the inclusive force of the ego.

Science is a Profound Way of Being
(Implications of a Compassionate Definition of the Word “Science”)

• Science is fundamentally a moral state of being;
• We are all born into a significant state of compassion and thus science;
• The genesis of the state of science residing in our experience of compassion means the ultimate motivation of the scientific person is to reduce suffering;
• We experience both the state of science and non-science in any moment of self-awareness depending on the balance of the forces of the ego and compassion in our psyche;
• We live the paradox of science: every man (human being) is both a “scientist” and a “non-scientist” to a relative degree, no man is a “Scientist”;
• Science is a state of being that primarily involves developing and conserving the arts of transcending paradox;
• Science is a state of being that enables us to develop all manner of sustaining arts (skills) i.e. Civics and the formation of civilization;
• Science is a state of being that enables us to embrace as central to our existence the principles of physics –the Conservation of Energy Principle in particular.

Psychology and physics are understood to be inextricably linked. This is because our notion of energy determines how the universe is manifest in our lives – energy being the universal potential, all of which is active. And how is it active? It continuously forms, informs and transforms all formations, all things. Fundamentally energy is information – vibrant, vibrating information.

The Conservation of Energy Principle, a wondrous, wise statement of this reality, advises us that energy is continuous, universal transformation and it is so bounteous it can usefully be understood to be a constant. Paradoxically all change is unchanging.

This great enduring principle underpins and informs all lessons of every type in a Compassionate Curriculum Framework, whether it be the study of language, history, geography, drawing, physics, chemistry, biology, technology, information systems, mathematics or Civics in general.

Always the exclusive force of the ego is with us, arising, as it does with the schism of our consciousness in our moments of self-awareness. It is the cultivation of our inclusive force of compassion in our schools and their communities that enables us conserve the essential balance of our psyches. It is this essential balance that enables us to transcend the limitations of the ego and experience the state of true science.

A profound implication of this psychology~physics is a heightened awareness that every child is born into a considerable state of compassion and thus science. There is no need to “instill scientific practice” in children. Rather the prime duty of “the educator” or “care-giver” is to acknowledge, learn from and conserve this vital, inherent state of being in the child.
Such conservation and cultivation of the child’s precious state of science most truly happens when the educator’s own lifestyle is in accord with the principles of physics. To the extent the educator’s ways are unsustainable, they are manifest as dissonance and discordant language that corrodes the child’s state of compassion and destroys their state of true science.

The Information~Ènergy Principle
(A great evaluation and prediction tool)

Information being physical, our use of a symbol is subject to the great principles of physics – the Conservation of Energy Principle in particular. We live the paradox of information: any form informs all even as it is informed by all. This means our use of a symbol (including a word) simultaneously reflects and generates our state of being.

So, as a rule, our state of well-being depends on how relatively harmonious~~dissonant our lifestyle~language is with the ways of the universe, especially the Conservation of Energy Principle. We can usefully employ this great principle of the ways of the universe as our touchstone of reality and the sustainability of our language~behaviour.
The Conservation of Energy Principle holding true, then the following principle of information also holds true:

A symbol used in acceptance of the continuous universal transformation enhances the capacity of the user to embrace and enjoy harmony with reality whereas a symbol used in denial tends to generate delusional hopes and misery.

The Information~Energy Principle

We are each unique information beings, finite formations of energy. Here is an analytic framework exemplifying how we can employ the wisdom the principles of energy in practical ways to transcend our human condition. Observe how it lists the primary properties of the universe and suggests questions to ask when tracking the changes in historic behaviour and the changed meaning give a word (its etymology).

Below is a template of a table mapping both the changed behaviour and meaning given a word over millennia, these changes occurring in the framework of the properties of the universe.
The principle reference is the wonderful https://www.etymonline.com/
This template can be applied to any word – see more exemplars at a glance

Notes on Transcendent Words and Phrases
(from the exploratory essay “What is Science?)

The beauty of employing The Conservation of Energy Principle as our guide is that it enables us to transcend several thousand years of meaning at a glance. The ego is less able to bog us down in endless, divisive debate about minutiae and we are better able to see the fundamental correlating patterns of change in our language and behaviour.

A feature of sustainable languages is they contain many words that enable able us to transcend thought and paradox. Such inclusive (transcendent) words and phrases tend to be lacking in ego-driven, dualistic cultures, such as our contemporary Anglosphere culture.

For instance, even as recently as the 19th century the word “man” simply meant any and all human beings – young and old, male and female . Nowadays many English speakers cannot imagine that “man” has not always exclusively meant “a male human being” and they contrast “man” with “woman”, reflecting a divisive, exclusive culture, one that has us deny us we are earthlings, creatures of the humus.
The transcendent use of the word “man” has gone the way of the dodo and other victims of the current extinction of species.
Maori culture, for example, has not only conserved a transcendent word for a human being (“tangata”). Maori language transcends the Crown English singular third person pronoun conundrum (he, him, she and her) with the simple word “ia”.

This escalating dichotomy in the English language reflects escalating societal confusion and division, which is typical of the ego run rampant in a society. Indeed there are less than one hundred contronyms (aka “Janus words”, “auto-antonyms”) left, which is a mere fraction of a percent of the 20,000 most commonly used words out of a potential million words in the English language. Here is a list of English contronyms.

“Cleave” is one such contronym. Observe how the word arose from two words with very different meanings in Proto-Indo-European:
gleubh- “to tear apart, cleave.” and gloi- “to stick”, “glue” and “clay”.

Words such as “cleft” and “clever” arise from “cleave” while “glue” is associated with bonding or binding together.
The word “clay” is fascinating because the hygroscopic qualities of this form of rock can make it malleable – paradoxically fluid while solid.

A multitude of religions and mythologies speak of how our human form arose from clay. See a list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_of_life_from_clay

Some recent research indicates the amazing plastic properties of clay~water systems may have provided the essential temporal conditions required for life to form on Earth over eons. If so, it is well possible that all these myths are founded in true hope of physics.

In other words, the original meanings of the word “science” remind us of the paradox of our human condition and how we each exist as an exquisite, dynamic balance of inclusive (connective, sticky) and exclusive (divisive, splitting) forces.
We are being informed by all even as we inform all.
We cleave together even as we cleave apart.
We live a paradox of information: we experience uncertainty amidst knowledge.

“The only true wisdom is in
knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

The legends of Socrates had a significant impact on our notions of knowledge and there are many variations on this popular quote attributed to Socrates, some more helpful than others.

A compassionate interpretation of Socrate’s paradoxical statement informs us that wisdom and knowledge are not the same thing and very “clever” people can act in very unsustainable, divisive ways . Indeed, the psychopathy of the ego can flourish in catastrophic ways when cleverness is not moderated by wisdom.
Compassion reminds us we are all fallible beings in that we can never experience true wisdom because the arrogant know-all ego would always have us know something. Some form of knowing always occurs in any moment of self-awareness.
Compassion also reminds us of the limitations of thoughts and words: no amount of thinking or clever use of words can enable us to transcend our conundrum, our human condition. Our cleverness simply traps us in ever-spiraling thoughts generating delusions and hopelessness.

The English Combustion Revolution
(A radical transformation of the English Language)

The Anglo Empire arose from the City of London Corporation (“The Crown”) a millennia-old, supranational state sited on a square mile of land by the estuary of the Thames River in England. It expanded rapidly this past three centuries to become the first truly global empire on Earth, supercharged by the adoption of the delusional doctrine that it is the right of the merchant bankers to burn the biomass (living and mineral) of the planet at their will. Crown media would have us believe their empire was enabled by “the English Industrial Revolution”. The reality is the global empire is primarily sustained and motivated by the unprecedented use of combustion.

As can be seen on the page A Word in History at a Glance, the English Combustion Revolution reflected~generated a radical transformation in the English language and ethos. The Crown English notion of “science” is no exception. Previously the word “science” was often conflated with “philosophy” – the loving of wisdom. Now The Crown defined it as an amoral, deductive way of thinking.

Immorality can flourish with ease in an amoral ethos, both states thriving when compassion is lacking in the dominant culture. The English Combustion Revolution generated a vast tide of slavery, dispossession, warfare, despoliation of ecology and pollution across the British Isles and around the planet. This , in turn generated a backlash (“The Romantic Movement”>>”The Environment Movement“) and, as can happen when there is a clash of egos, the reactionary force sustains that which it opposes.

In June of 1833, some have reported “a stormy exchange” occurred at a meeting of the newly founded British Association for the Advancement of Science — now the British Science Association (BSA). The prominent Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, challenged the prominent English Romantic poet polymath, mathematician and “philosopher”,William Whewell, about his terminology and, in response, Whewell coined the word “scientist”. He later elaborated on it thus:

“As we cannot use physician for a cultivator of physics, I have call him a physics. I have call him a physicist. We need very much a name to describe a cultivator of science in general. I should incline to call him a Scientist. Thus we might say, that as an Artist is a Musician, Painter, or Poet, as Scientist is a Mathematician, Physicist, or Naturalist.”

William Whewell – The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. London, 1840
Professor of Moral Philosophy , Trinity College, Cambridge University

Whewell’s statement is an exquisite exemplar of the exclusive, divisive force of the ego.
It dis-empowers 99% of all human beings and 100% female human beings, enforcing our current unsustainable Anglosphere state in which fewer than 1% of us are deemed to be a “Scientist” or an “Artist”. Even fewer are deemed to be a “Physicist” or a “Philosopher”. Such dis-empowerment of citizens is indicative of a culture lacking compassion and thus bereft of Civics.

It is noteworthy that, during the years around 1833, extraordinary, delusional inversions of the meanings of word occurred in the Crown dialect of English , as you can see at a glance. For instance, subterranean biomass is named a “fossil fuel” i.e. existing to be burned while both the words “economy” and “resource” are redefined to be any action that profits the merchant bankers of The Crown.

Thewell’s statement effectively forms the foundation of Anglosphere Empire and two centuries later it remains the amoral framework of the Anglo media. An internet search ten years ago of all available national and state curriculum frameworks in the Anglsphere did not reveal a single mention of the word “compassion” while a search of the vast majority of national governance structures revealed they all employed the Crown English unsustainable notion of “energy” (“The ability to do work”.)

Our English educators’ introduction to and definition of “the scientific process” typically reads thus, “The four steps of the scientific method are to make observations, make a hypothesis, test your hypothesis, and make a conclusion.”

Crown English educators typically teach, for instance, that there are, for instance, 8 “Science skills”:
1. Observing
2. Classifying
3. Quantifying
4. Predicting
5. Controlling variables
6. Interpreting
7. Communicating
8. Forming conclusions

https://learning-center.homesciencetools.com/article/how-to-develop-science-skills-in-students/

Other Crown English educators typically teach there are, for instance, 9 “main characteristics of science”:

1. Objectivity
2. Verifiability
3. Ethical Neutrality
4. Systematic Exploration
5. Reliability
6. Precision
7. Accuracy
8. Abstractness
9. Predictability.

https://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/science/top-9-main-characteristics-of-science-explained/35060

The author of the PBS article explains:

The reality is children have had their innate spirit of fearless, open inquiry systematically repressed by adults in the pervasive Crown media, a process that intensifies at about age 4 or 5 when they enter and are socialized by the the formal Crown English education system. So they find lessons about “How to practice Science” dissonant and irrelevant. When adults then begin inculcating them in a sterile description of the process that they had previously experienced in such a holistic, vital way.

Also young people are keenly aware that teachers and other Crown media are often very unscientific in that they fail to act in accord with what they preach. Further they conflate energy with forms of energy, warming with warming-up, climate change with human-induced climate change, an economy with a dis-economy, energy efficiency with deprivation and, in general, deny the truths of the principles of physics. This denial is manifest in vast waste, warfare, injustice and the disruption of the global ecosystems that sustain mankind.

Non-Science
(A Recipe for Dystopia)

The 8 skills, 9 characteristics and circular process of “Science” outlined above have one fundamental flaw in common: they all lack any reference to to the sustaining role of compassion in our lives.
Without compassion, we become locked in an inward spiral of escalating delusions, alienation and ultimate self-destruction. The ego has us use knowledge to serve its exclusive ends and existence becomes increasingly meaningless.
We enter a fatal cycle in which we know more and more about less and less. In the process, our general lifestyle and language cease to be wise, scientific and sustainable.

The lack of compassion is evidenced in the extremely exclusive explanations of the skills and characteristics of “Science“. For instance, the explanation that “scientific” information must be “objective” and “verifiable”. Neither are possible in an Anglosphere culture driven by the principal objective of maximising short-term profits to the principle shareholders of research corporations and where all their “scientific” information is bound by extremely restrictive (psychopathic) “copyright” and “commercial sensitivity” laws.
Most students graduate feeling either they are failures at “science” or they become inculcated in this deceitful ethic. And the notion human beings can be “ethically neutral” is delusional. Consequently these laws privatizing information pose perhaps the greatest single threat to civilization and Mankind because they destroy our sustaining potential. Our skills become our own worst enemy.

Let us briefly reflect on the explanation offered with the no 8 skill on the Learning Centre list:
“Communicating.This skill touches every other one. Students must be able to transmit information through words, charts, diagrams, and other mediums.
You should emphasize to students the importance of using correct language when communicating with an audience (teachers/parents, family, friends/classmates)...”

Children enter the formal Crown English education system about 5-years old equipped with the vital experiential knowledge of the principles of forces, balances and thermodynamics required to care for Earth’s climate system. By age 10-years old our Crown English media has inculcated them in conflating, confounding language that is in profound denial of those fundamental principles of physics. By age 20-years old they have developed sophisticated rationales justifying their rights to waste and pollute at their will. like their adult peers. The prevailing Crown English non-science has often transformed their innate trust, connection and open inquiry into deceit, division and myopic research.

True Hope in Physics
(Enjoying science as an art of living)

We are all born asking the question, “What does it all mean?” We prosper to the extent we enjoy meaning in existence. We despair ( from de “without” (see de-) + sperare “to hope,” from spes “hope” (from PIE root *spes- “prosperity;“) to the extent we feel our life is without meaning.
The question arises, “What exactly does the word “meaning” mean?” The ego, the arch know-all in each of us, would have us argue in endless circles in vain endeavour to define it. We can transcend its machinations by glancing at this chart from the essay “Treasuring Transcendent Words”:

Three threads weave together to give us the word “meaning” – commonality, moderation and thought. We of the human formation all live the paradox of information amidst the continuous universal transformation informing all even as we are informed by all. Words alone cannot describe existence and the ego entraps us in ever-circular argument. The nearest we can get to expressing our sensation of energy is to define it as the universal potential, all of which is active.

The question arises as to how can we best invoke and being invoked by the universal potential in ways that inform and sustain us all in prosperity? Without compassion the ego would have us invoke it in arrogant, deceitful and acquisitive ways serving its narrow interests.
It is our experience of the balancing inclusive force of compassion that enables us to transcend the exclusive force of the ego in our psyche. And as discussed earlier, all the requisites for true science exist in compassion, a state of being that enables us to transcend our human condition. Accordingly we can more truly define “science” thus:

Science is a state of being arising from the qualities of compassion, which enables us to develop all manner of sustaining arts (skills) including languages and civics.

Compassionate definition of ”science”

In other words, science is fundamentally the spirit that enables us to enjoy harmony with the principles of physics, the ways of the universe. All existence involves paradox and science better enables us to embrace and transcend our paradoxical condition.

Physics is the experience~study of the ways of reality i.e. the continuous, universal transformation, all of which involves paradox.
Psychology is fundamentally the exercise, study and art (skill) of transcending paradox.
Philosophy is the loving of wisdom, which is the art and act of living in harmony with the universal reality.

The most transcendent, profound description of the universal reality is the Conservation of Energy Principle, which forms an anathema to the ego. As with all, we experience this great enduring principle as a paradox and it is compassion that enables us to transcend and live with this condition. We have discussed how the Crown dialect of English is ego derived, delusional and unsustainable.

With compassion, we can employ the wisdom of the the Conservation of Energy Principle and rectify our information systems in true hope, including our notions of science and our formal education systems.
An example is the Compassionate Education Curriculum Framework . This framework is designed around the central axiom of the Conservation of Energy Principle with all perspectives (disciplines) being employed by educators to communicate its fundamental truths. Hence all are better able to conserve the scientific state we are born into and civilization can flourish

First draft 18 Feb 2025