Cairan Scientism

Cairan Scientism is a subset of Cairan philosophy which is concerned with the pursuit and interpretation of scientific discoveries from a Cairan perspective. Natural sciences (and their related branches) are science described independently of religious context or goals (often in a broader Messenian context, including non-Cairan scientists), while Cairan Scientism covers the scientific pursuit within the Cairan world as a whole, including the religious and non-religious aspects. The terms are closely related but not entirely interchangeable anymore.

Cairan Scientism can either sponsor scientific research in order to increase Cairans' understanding of their world or, on the other hand, try to interpret independent discoveries and theories to fit with the Cairan worldview (including within the context of translationism). The search for understanding of the way in which the world, the creation of the Cairan deity-figure Aedif, works is central to Cairan doctrine as a way to improve the scope and efficiency of the Restoration undertaken by mankind by repairing the world’s broken mechanisms.

Cairan Scientism has been the principal force driving pre-scientific and scientific inquiry in the Cairan world since the Antiquity and has largely been cofounded with natural sciences. However, since the industrial era and with the gradual influences from Vaestic externalism there has been a slow shift toward a more concrete epistemological distinction.

Work on the nature of cairon and its relationship to the material world offers a microcosm of such shift. Progress has constantly pushed the scope of possible interactions further and further toward the infinitely small as scientists (both Cairan and, indirectly, Vaestic), have established that the material realm follows a set of rules that appear to be close to impervious to any influence by cairon. This has led to the rise of the different philosophies of permaterialism and paramaterialism, with the latter presenting the heterodox view that anything that pertains to the laws of the material universe cannot be related to cairon, which is inherently supernatural, whereas permaterialism posits that cairon is actually a natural substance. Permaterialism is the official viewpoint of the clergy and the innate understanding of most faithful and, even today, many scientists. Paramaterialism is mostly adhered to by a minority of scientists (in particular in fields like physics), and some dissident argans.

Historical outline

Prior to the onset of the scientific revolution scientific endeavours and Cairan Scientism were not distinguished, being confounded inside the concept of natural philosophy. Scientific inquiry remains a rather central tenet of Cairan philosophy and theology due to its desire to understand the inner workings of the "clockwork universe" rationalised by Aedif and since "perverted" by the Unpardonable Infamy.

A clergywoman teaching male students geometry, circa 1310.

Within that context, the pursuit of science (as understood today) was principally reserved for women, who were the main actors in religious roles, while men were mostly active in philosophical, literate, and other art fields (e.g. poetry) that would be considered secondary or not scientific in a modern context; the female polymath Vita of Saint-Julien (c. 885-941), the (likely apocryphal) inventor of gunpowder, may thus be contrasted with the male geographer and chronicler Cassiodore. During the Post-Secote Era, the spread of Orange Revivalism in the Cairan world did start a process of re-organisation of Sabāmanian-inherited gender roles within society but did not touch science as much as it touched politics and some other fields. Nonetheless, the sceptical analysis at the core of Orangism did spread to scientific inquiry and combined well with the pre-existing emphasis on empiricism, which led a lessening in women's hold on science and similar intellectual pursuits.

The first instance of a non-clerical and "secular" intellectual movement was the La Roche School, which developed at the University of Poignes after Paul Valère de la Roche in the mid-13^th Century. As the Sabamic region transitioned into the Early Modern Era great male scientists started to emerge along their female counterparts, such as the 16^th century mathematician Aurèle de Latreni, who was the first great Savamese exponent in the field; his famous predecessors had been women, such as the mathematician-astronomer Florentia Sirminesis a millennium earlier.

The scientific revolution that occurred in Outer Joriscia, especially with the rise of mundane mechanics, did not break away from religion (on the other hand, it became deeply integrated within the framework of Vaestism), but nevertheless completely revolutionised scientific inquiry. The scientific method introduced a purely eliminative inductive method of scientific inquiry, while the dominant approach in the Cairan World (and Messenia overall), remained an inductive-deductive process. While induction was sufficient for discovering universal truths by generalisation, it was not considered to be capable of identifying the underlying causes of those truths. To do that, deductive reasoning was necessary, which was the purvey of philosophy, and relied heavily on prior established knowledge. Thus, abstract reasoning and empirical observation were combined. There was also a degree of belief that first principles could be derived from logic alone, which became more popular in the Post-Secote Era, but never completely displaced the dominant inductive-deductive approach.

The Vaestic world broke away from similar approaches and underwent a significant change that introduced the modern scientific method (known as externalism in Zaconic parlance) in the 17^th Century. In this, Vaestic scientists believed that inductive reasoning should proceed from fact to axiom to physical law, and that it was necessary for scientists to free their mind from pre-conceived notions or ideas that could influence their view of the truth. Observation became central, and a specific, widely accepted set of procedures to move from hypothesis to theory via experimental confirmation became the established norm. In a way, this liberated Vaestic science which started to accelerate compared to Messenian science.

During the same period inductive research became gradually more important within the framework of Cairan Scientism, as mathematical explanations became paramount, but it never managed to break away completely from deductive reasoning and pre-established norms, in particular with the focus on how new knowledge should fit within the framework of Restoration. This led to the development of a number of highly complex pre-classical theories that provide acceptable approximation of natural theories such as classical mechanics, but never made ways in finding the actual underlying causes for their theories.

An example is the best pre-classical version of the theory of gravity was Rémin du Plessis-Gazet's theory of Caironic pressure from his Traité sur la Pression Caironique. It proposed that different kinds of motion (for example, of objects on Arden and that of planets) were not fundamentally different but all manifestations of the underlying pressure of cairon on physical objects. Plessis-Gazet's mathematics provide a good approximation of classical mechanics for both mundane objects and orbital motions, but still have enough errors that no long-term predictions can be made from them. A similar approach outside of the Cairan world but built on the same principles was the Pufendorf model for the Solar System (by the Zepnish astronomer Erhard von Pufendorf), which combined ardenocentrism and heliocentrism; as long as one ignores any attempt at explaining why the planets move as such, this model is mathematically identical to the heliocentric model.

Although the proper scientific method never emerged on its own, the necessary underlying philosophical and mathematical understanding required for it were present in Messenia in the 18^th century. Discoveries made by Vaestic science started to spread back to Messenia and gave rise to the academic discipline of translationism, which focuses on extracting scientific theories of their Oriental religious context and re-interpret them into a Cairan (or Sirian or Arlaturi) framework or, more recently, a secular one. Once the Vaestic interpretation was removed, many Messenian natural scientists readily accepted the new theories, given that they could follow their inductive reasoning and verify their experimental results themselves (Vaestic science never accelerated enough compared to Messenian science that it would become unable to be understood by the Messenians). This helped Messenians, and Cairan Scientists in particular, to adopt the modern scientific method within their own worldview toward the end of the century.

During the 19^th century and accelerated scientific progress and societal changes the movement toward an increased epistemological disconnect between the natural science and Cairan inquiry also accelerated somewhat, including with the emergence of the paramaterialist vision of the role of caironic substances on natural laws. The increased interactions with Vaestic science also helped this phenomenon in two ways.

Firstly, many elements of the clergy were not particularly found of so-called "foreign science" disrupting Cairony's philosophical framework, which generated tensions with scientists that were becoming more and more accepting of Vaestic-like methods. Additionally, new discoveries made immediate and commonly understood beliefs obsolete and easy to disprove, pushing the boundary between the material and spiritual further and further away from basic human comprehension. For example, shortly before the advent of the industrial era there was great excitement with scientists about the discoveries surrounding electricity; its strange properties were considered a perfect example of the type of special influence that cairon could have on the material facet. However, as the knowledge of the law of electromagnetism progressed, this interpretation was rejected and electricity was rightfully perceived as an integral part of the material realm instead. Using another example, Cairan Scientism originally had a very similar approach to nuclear power and weaponry than had Vaestic science, considering that the formidable energy that could be yielded by fission process was a manifestation of cairon. However, as knowledge of nuclear theory progressed, Cairan Scientists also distanced themselves from this view.

Secondly, some translationists started to apply the same logic on Cairan Scientism that they were applying on zaconic interpretations and argued that if essential principles could be extracted from Vaestic science, then the same could be done from Cairony. As such, reality must be divorced from any spiritual element, hence the paramaterialist belief that cairon is a supernatural (outside of nature) substance. This allows natural science to exist in a secularised space aside Cairan Scientism. Truely secular or atheistic scholars are still rare, but have become somewhat more common from the second half of the 20^th century. The controversial Argevan biologist Rémy Douaquin is certainly the most famous current example of openly atheistic science in the Sabamic space.

Furthermore, in recent decades "hard" paramaterialistic inquiry has been digging deeper in order to "prove" that the spiritual is divorced from the material (with the exception of inner cairon), something which has not necessarily encouraged cordial relationships with the clergy. A famous example is the 1971 study in which volunteers were taken to different locations in Brex-Sarre where cairon was supposedly restored to a certain degree, including Etamps-La-Sainte and several other nexi, as well as "neutral" locations. The volunteers were kept blindfolded while travelling between the different venues, and not told where they were. In-depth emotional assessments (both objective and subjective) were done at each venue, the researchers attempting to detect a difference due to the location. Previous studies had claimed such differences as increased positive emotions and satisfaction when in proximity to a nexus, but were criticised for their methodology; the 1971 study was not able to find any significant difference. The Cairan clergy, in particular the Reformer Ecumenical Sorority's Ecumenical Scientific Council has dismissed the study, deeming its methodology "flawed".

Major themes

One of the most important question that had baffled Cairan Scientists is the nature of cairon and the exact relationship of the holy substance with the material realm, notably through the exact meaning and implications of principles such as equivalence or cairon channeling and engineering. Today, this question is also formulated as understanding to which extent the laws of the universe are driven by cairon: where is the boundary between laws that describe properties of the material universe and laws that describe cairon?. Investigating this question has usually taken the form of attempting to physically measure a change linked to cairon; this in particular was done with the goal of being able to quantify the effect of restorative practices on cairon and guide future practices.

Para vs Per

In modern times, two school of thoughts or interpretations exist regarding the link between cairon and the laws of nature, which can be summarised in how they answer the following question: is cairon a natural or supernatural substance?.

Orthodox view

Historically speaking, and today within the general public and the clergy, the common orthodox point of view is called Permaterialism (from Old Sabamic per: "through"). Permaterialism subscribes to the idea that at some level cairon interacts with and is governed by the laws of the universe, making it a natural substance. Outside of inner cairon, which is a separate topic, cairon engineering is based upon the belief that non-human and unalive elements of the material world can influence cairon, which must thus obey a set of rules relating to matter. Permaterialism remains the leading philosophical interpretation among most scientists although many scientists may have the understanding that the scope of interaction between cairon and matter is more limited than what an average member of the public believes.

Due to the progress of natural science, the scope of phenomenon that could be correlated to cairon have shrunk (see the undermentioned example of nuclear energy). Most permaterialist scientists believe that today, if cairon does indeed interact with the law of the material universe, it is most likely only at the lowest subatomic, quantum levels. If macroscopic phenomenon, such as the shape of a building, can affect cairon, it is likely due to some hitherto hidden variables relating micro and macroscopic levels for cairon. Revealing those hidden variables has been a major goal of quantum science in the Cairan world since the mid 20^th Century.

For example, some scientists argue that the dark energy driving the expansion of the universe is actually the most direct manifestation of Cairon inside the material realm; this idea is notably based upon the proposition that a perfect universe should be static. This would imply the existence of an anti-dark energy that compensate for dark energy when Cairon is restored, and that this energy would be created by manipulations such as cairon channelling or cairon engineering. A famous permaterialist framework for the interpretation of the mathematics of quantum theory is the Merands theory, formulated in the 1950s by Brexo-Sarrois theorist Cornélien Merands. Another more recent proposal is that cairon manifests as a pervasive field that forces the objective wave-function collapse and can be influenced by mind-related processes like consciousness and so-called reversed hierarchy feedback mechanisms.

Heterodox view

Paramaterialism (from Old Messenian παρά, pará: "beside; next to, near, from; against, contrary to") is the second, stricter heterodox interpretation. Paramaterialists hold that anything that pertains to the laws of the material universe cannot be related to cairon. The Holy substance is said to exist independently of both the material and spiritual realms, and thus is seen as supernatural.

Paramaterialism does not deny the influence of inner cairon, but rejects that cairon has any influence on the laws of nature. As such, cairon engineering is a useless pursuit according to this interpretation. A variant of paramaterialism called soft paramaterialism exists, which generally accepts that inner cairon can have an influence on the material world and vice-versa due to the special nature of consciousness; thus, soft paramaterialists believe that channeling is the only way the environment can be affected by human actions, still rejecting cairon engineering.

Having emerged in the 19^th century due to the side-effects of academic debates surrounding the translation of Oriental science, paramaterialism has since been bolstered by the advances of natural science, which has failed to identify any clear and indisputable phenomenon that could be correlated to cairon. This has also helped with the growth of a more secular approach toward scientific inquiry, divorced from the framework of Cairan beliefs or Scientism. Nonetheless, paramaterialism remains adhered to by a small number of people, often those deeply involved in physical sciences dealing with fundamental physics (ironically most of the well-known interpretations of quantum mechanics have been produced by permaterialist researchers). Paramaterialism is not officially endorsed by any argan, national or dissident, but some dissident argans have positions that mirror it closely and have largely been influenced by paramaterialistic scholarship. For example the Savamese Darnelite Argan is probably the largest and most recognisable paramaterialist argan.

Inner cairon

The influence of cairon on humans, and vice-versa, falls somewhat outside of the particular questioning about cairon's natural or supernatural qualities (although it is sometimes included in theories), but it remains an important subject of debate for Cairan Scientism. Indeed, Cairony believes in the existence of a human-only special property, inner cairon, that provide a direct link between the two facets of a human being: the body in the material facet and the soul in the spiritual facet.

The mechanisms by which inner cairon interacts with the rest of cairon (dubbed external or environmental cairon), and by which it interacts with the soul and body are questions that usually fall within the scope of Cairan scientific questioning. For example, thoughts and emotions are believed to cast a form of "shadow" on Inner Cairon, affecting it: negative emotions will damage the purity of one's inner cairon. The reverse is also true; a damaged inner cairon will trigger more negative emotions, essentially creating a negatively-reinforcing loop. Cairon channeling is based on this belief, where the active manipulation of thoughts and emotions by acts such as examination and meditation, positively impact on inner cairon.

A source of debate between permaterialism and paramaterialism, and within each position, is whether the inner cairon is influenced, and conversely can influence, cairon in general and the material world. The common permaterialist point of view is that a mechanism links inner cairon and the rest of cairon, thus allowing cairon channelling to modify environmental cairon (the reverse being true, with passive manipulation of cairon via engineering methods allowing to affect inner cairon through this link). Permaterialist scientists disagree however on this mechanism's scope and scale, and whether it is symmetrical or not (that is, is environmental cairon's influence on inner cairon stronger than the reverse? or vice-versa? or neither). Hard paramaterialism asserts that no such link exist; as such, the only part of cairon that is accessible and matters to humans is inner cairon. On the other hand soft paramaterialism, while rejecting engineering, accepts that there is a link between inner cairon and environmental cairon, differentiating itself from permaterialism in that the only mechanism to modify cairon, inner or outer, is to use channelling on inner cairon; while environmental Cairon can affect inner cairon in soft paramaterialism, there is no way to manipulate it outside of changing the inner cairon itself, which then "radiates" changes back to the environmental cairon.

Case study: the theory of relativity

The theory of general relativity has been confirmed over and over again by experiments, notably with recent advances in atomic clocks. General relativity (and its predecessor, special relativity) was initially very badly received in the Cairan world because it rejected the classical notion of immutable absolute space and time. Although the mathematics of classical physics had only been formulated in the 17^th Century, and also in Outer Joriscia, the notions of geometric absolutism of space and time were inherent to prior Cairan cosmology and close approximation of classical mechanics had emerged independently in Messenia (such as the theory of Caironic pressure). This allowed classical mechanics to be readily and quickly accepted in Messenia once Vaestic mathematics were removed from their infidel context.

Relativity was eventually accepted too (no less thanks to its experimental validations), although it offered new questions as to the nature of Aedif's perception of space-time and the validity of the principle of equivalence. Quantum Mechanics suffered a similar problem, further breaking down the simple physical order that was preferred by Cairans. Further, its incompatibility with general relativity is causing issues for Cairan Scientists who are faced with two theories that are independently verified by experiments but cannot be reconciled mathematically.

Case study: perpetual motion

A common belief was (and remains) that in a restored universe, perpetual motion is possible. Many people have attempted to build perpetual motion machines over the ages. Some of those machines were built with the belief that perpetual motion was possible in an imperfect universe, but a majority was probably designed in order to attempt to measure degrees of Restoration. Indeed, if perpetual motion is possible in the fully restored universe, then a perpetual motion machine should perform increasingly better as humanity progresses toward this goal. Similarly, such machines should perform better at nexi than at any other location. However, modern Cairan Scientists have given little credit to this belief, apart from suggestions that advanced perpetual machines, built to the standards of modern science, could indeed be used as experimental instruments.