The Disappearance of Mystery

Simone Weil’s Thoughts on Science

Abstract

Simone Weil was deeply concerned about the change from classical to modern science in the early 1900s. Her concern was that the notion of truth and the mystery supporting it disappeared in this change.

　

According to her, science involves the mystery, whereby our refusal of the world by regarding it mathematically leads, strangely, to its restitution to us like a windfall. Thus the world is given at the cost of an infinite error. Although this mystery is the source of science, classical science was unable to sustain it and thus sought to banish it from its content.

　

Modern science arises from this mystery which barely remains in classical science. However, under the influence of quantum theory, modern science considers the world not as necessary but as probabilistic and ambiguous. When the world is probabilistic, the notion of error disappears. Thus, science as Weil understands it also disappears. She alleges that modern science is no longer science, since it places a high value on utility but ignores mystery and truth. This disappearance of mystery implies not so much the overconfidence of scientific technology as the false belief that human beings no longer have to know if there is anything beyond them.