The True Test of Science is How it Faces the Unknown




So how does science approach the unknown?


The reality is things have always existed outside the current understanding of science. Yet somewhere, the assumption is made that because science does not understand something that this thing doesn’t exist or that it is folly to suggest that is does.

It is a bit like a traveller that wants to understand a foreign country but dismisses the locals as stupid because they speak a different language… but on a brief tangent, isn’t this what most colonising countries did!!

To truly understand something (and someone), you need to learn the local dialect and customs. There is a whole world of nuance and understanding that is lost when someone is not willing to admit the tools (in this case language) they have for understanding are limited.

There is so much that science can and does contribute to the world, and there is no doubt we need science and the scientific approach. Indeed, science is not limited in what it offers humanity, its only limit is the tools they use to understand life.




So, let’s break this down. The body receives information from all its senses which is transmitted to the mind for processing. From here there are a series of automated and decision based actions. We automatically regulate our body temperature with things like sweating and shivering, and we choose various responses to the world based on our mind’s interpretation of what we see and feel. This is important; in the mind driven approach to understanding, we feel, we interpret, THEN we respond.


Society has tried and championed this mental approach for decades and the result is a more divided society than ever before. Through this approach we have created enclaves of ideology, fortified by the fact that we are able to filter what we see in the world and thus interpret everything to fit what we believe.







What if we could learn to not react to what was felt but stayed with that feeling? What if we can understand what is going on through the body rather than dropping into the mind and following the interpretations offered by preconceived ideas?


Why is it called cardio-centric? Because to build this ability (conscious presence) requires the fostering of our connection to our body, and more specifically our inner-heart.





Methodology: Build conscious presence through the Gentle Breath Meditation™ to develop a greater awareness of feelings that are either are driven from a mental construct or/and those that are simply felt from the world around us.






As with all discoveries before it, the initial response to a new dialect may be scorn, mistrust or even ridicule. However, the truly scientific response to this difference would be a willingness to explore any tools that would offer a deeper understanding of life.

What is there to lose?

By Joel Levin (Western Australia)

Further Reading:
What Is Science?
This is Science
Connecting to a Body More Intelligent Than The Mind

771 thoughts on “The True Test of Science is How it Faces the Unknown

  1. Science is understanding what is already known. Dung beetles were rolling dung long before humans made the first wheel.

  2. We are all walking science laboratories, and for main stream science to ignore this is to me like cutting off our nose to spite our face. They do not hold all the answers but our bodies do.

  3. We feel things all the time and this cannot be denied. And so it is for us to give permission to feel this, and then honour it which means to act in accordance to what we have felt. Simply stated but often not how we act or behave.

  4. Objectivity is all about looking at something without forming a prior opinion or belief about it, and about taking the facts as what is observed. This is something we can all learn to apply to life and comes best from our capacity and ability to hold ourselves steady and… breath gently.

    1. I so understand what you are saying here Henrietta, history has shown is that there have been many predictions of the future before the proof by microscopes or Geiger counters. Many people have been dismissed in their lifetimes for ‘discoveries’ later to have proved them to be true. Science could be more open, knowing this has happened in the past..

  5. Thank you Joel – I love how you have made the analogy of Science as a language and approach and compared it with someone visiting a foreign country and learning the language. With this we need a openness, an inquisitivity but also a humbleness and willingness to learn. This is not always found in the scientiic communities though at its core is one of its key values.

  6. How different are we from the “brainwashed” religious people if our belief in science does not let us see outside of the realms of what is already “explained”?

  7. Looking forwards into the unknown should always be with an openness because that is the point. There needs to be an awareness that as we don’t have all the answers, how we view the body, or understand how everything is interlinked, so there will always be a different route from what is mainstream and acceptable.

  8. “The result of this position is that alternative ways of understanding are dismissed, rejected or ridiculed as a threat to their ‘ownership’.” I can really see this in science, and in addition there is now the corruption including research based on agendas for profit – a science that has been hijacked for self and not for the benefit of all of humanity. Science has definitely lost its purity for the time being.

    1. I feel that as the grip of religion is loosened on society science is taking its place as another force that wants to control. So I agree with you Melinda when you say that science has lost its purity for the time being.

  9. A true test of a wise person is one who is forever open to deepening and expanding their wisdom. Insisting that there is nothing further to learn beyond the current perception is a mark of a fool.

  10. Science likes to own because then it can control and we have witnessed throughout history what happens when institutions control people’s lives. And still we allow ourselves to be controlled …why?

  11. If true science is about understanding life then the science we have today that controls the results to suit itself isn’t true science. Having a result that suits you and yours isn’t understanding life, it’s padding out a picture of how life should be.

  12. Joel I love your analogy of a truncated version of science that is not open to understanding the universe and the explorers visiting a foreign place and deeming the inhabitants stupid because they do not speak their language. How limited a perspective can we take and live as humans when we deny the bigger picture on offer.

    1. Denial of the bigger picture has become one of the hallmarks of sponsored science and thus, we keep turning around in the circles of our own narrow making.

      1. Sponsored science pays for the results it wants…My first thought was “Then truly how much of science can truly be called science with the definition Joel has shared?” and “Even if the science isn’t sponsored is the ignorant attitude affecting others?” Not really a question because beliefs and ideals following into every part of life, not just one.

  13. At one level there is so much we don’t know about the world and life, but there is also so much that we are choosing not to know.

  14. There is a HUGE difference between looking to science and knowledge with arrogance as a ‘betterment’ which sets us above other people because of the information and understanding we are privy to, and being forever humble and open to life bringing a deeper and more expansive view from whatever angle it comes. One has us doggedly defend an outlook even in the face of much pointing to its fallacy, and with the other we move wide-eyed and open-hearted ready to observe, reflect, learn and expand with life itself.

  15. I reread and find so much hidden in this description of true science Joel. It is so true that with any discovery, there is initially scorn, mistrust or even ridicule. But if we were really accepting and open to anything and everything, the truly scientific response would be an unbiased willingness to explore anything that would offer a deeper understanding of life.

    1. Only that this willingness is not there because the truth of the matter would severely rock too many boats and put too many comfortable mis-truths at risk, especially the ones that the pillars of society,i.e. religion, education, health, culture and nationalism, are based on.

  16. It makes such sense that we can feel first what is happening before we choose to accept or dismiss it. When we are more connected to the body, we start to realise that the body feels everything and this affects everything including learning what is true science.

  17. What you present here Joel, absolutely challenges the belief, which many have, that they can’t feel what is going on around them and in them – “we can’t override or dismiss something without feeling it first on some level.” You have certainly given us much to consider, for if we were to accept this truth and began to explore it for ourselves, I, for one, know that life will begin to change, and we will soon realise that the holes of disbelief we often choose to stay stuck in are totally of our own making.

  18. The definition of science for me, is the putting in to words what is already happening in life. So the activity comes first and then the words are used or invented to describe it. this is what pure and simple science is to me.

  19. Thank you Joel… I have always felt that the true scientists… So to speak, ended up in quantum physics where there is always an open admission of how little is understood.

  20. Joel, Science still dismisses what it doesn’t know or what it cannot fit into a box. We seem to like putting everything into a box and then labeling it. But I have found that ‘Mother Nature’ cannot be tamed it cannot be put into a box and the arrogance of the scientists is such that ‘Mother Nature’ will bite them in bum so to say.
    If they cannot see this coming then in my opinion they are blind as well as arrogant.

  21. Having a large group of people living in conscious presence all be it to varying degrees would make a great scientific study because what is felt in the body can be described with clarity.

  22. “What if we could learn to not react to what was felt but stayed with that feeling? ” – the more I do this ie lessen to loose my reaction and live my life being about energy first, the more life becomes understandable.

    1. So beautifully said Zofia and a great point too that I am working on in my life as well. Sometimes I cannot stop the reactions, but as soon as I can catch it, provided I have the willingness to look deeper at what is happening then so much more opens up for me and this is an amazing way to deal with life and understanding it more.

  23. Brilliant. This explains so well how we have been retarding ourselves all along by getting in the way of what is so tangibly felt as our innate ability to connect and understand the unknown. This drive to own and control whatever is ‘out there’ – be it a person, a land, a religion whatever we perceive as ‘them’ – is what destroys relationships. Amazing how the concept of ownership and control came into creation to bastardise Oneness.

  24. Science and scientists are only limited by what they accept as proof beyond any doubt, yet there is a vast amount that is open to science to discover if they took one step further and realised that some things are true but not provable in the same way.

    1. Just imagine how the scientific world would change if scientists, as a whole, made the choice to open their eyes, and their hearts, to what discoveries might be possible, instead of narrowing their view by the refusal to accept what they do not currently understand. It seems to me that so many scientists are either driven by their own agendas or they have narrowed their view of the world so much so, that in the process they are missing out on the marvels, the magic and the true medicine the universe is always offering us.

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