Sciences and Man

“The only way to overcome temptation is to give in to it” – Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray

At the onset it would seem like an irrelevant statement to the topic at hand. On the contrary, it has everything to do with the topic being discussed here. To dwell into the psychological realm of human kind clearly falls outside the purview of this post, but to try and understand the circumstances that determined the course of human development is the ultimate purpose of this post.

At a holistic level, I will attempt to articulate the connection between natural sciences and social sciences. George Soros in his Theory of Reflexivity talks about the same undeniable connection between the two, which he also successfully tested with the stock market as the test arena and the various participants as the subjects.

Man is driven by needs and wants. There is a fundamental difference between need and want. A need is something which is essential for man’s survival. A want is more of a luxury, something that manifests itself when the primary urge for the need has been completely satisfied.
For example: A man “needs” food for survival. A man “wants” pizza for a meal. I think the example is self explanatory.

Man has various different requirements at different points in time. But there is always a reasonably defined path that is followed when the change starts to occur. Darwin, in his theory of evolution, talks about survival of the fittest. That is man’s first and foremost, primary need. Survival, security, sustainability and eventually growth are probably the driving needs for all of man’s actions. These are social needs which attempt to rationalize man’s actions. In this case, man’s actions being the development of natural sciences or, in common parlance, technology.

The growth of technology is driven by man’s obsession to consolidate the satisfaction derived from one level in the hierarchy of needs and eventually to move on to the next. Right from the time when man learnt to make fire down to the latest development in the various area’s of science, the motive has been to consolidate and grow.

When one need has been satisfied, man moves on the next level of need. What we now know as industrialized nations, what we now call as commerce, and what we now see as economy is a result of the development in man’s social needs.

It is man’s social requirement which drives man’s creativity. It is creativity which leads to man’s insuppressible urge for curiosity. Both of which combined have now led us to this point in time where the creativity and the curiosity have overcome their dependence on man’s social needs and have come to exist as a self sustaining force.

It is my opinion that it is the psychological needs of man which has led to the growth of technology. It is also my opinion that mankind is at a stage where the rate at which technology is growing does not commensurate the rate at which man’s social needs are evolving. The ultimate need for man is a feeling of accomplishment, a feeling of satisfaction. That is a void, attempting to fill that void is the reason why we are still left innovating.