My Library

and look at it. You can subject it to microscopic examination. You can poke at it, pound or wiggle it. THERE IT IS. Eventually everyone will agree that THERE IT IS, and most will usually agree as to what it is. But in the psychological sciences, in metaphysics, in parapsychology, you can’t plop this or that piece of non-matter onto a plate and look at it. It is elusive, it is invisible, it isn’t THERE -- except by inference or interpretation or by some abracadabra statistical interpretation. So, there is no ultimate need to have agreement that it is there -- like a piece of physical matter is there. Now, it would be clear that interpersonal relations become, well, more secure among those who deal with "hard" physical matter, because there is the possibility of some kind of ultimate certainty regarding the physical matter itself. It is true that such people do have interpersonal difficulties. But in the end the certainty of matter more or less resolves a good deal -- with the possible, and probable, exception of WHO is to possess the most of matter deemed VALUABLE. However, in the "soft" sciences there is no certainty of the kind obtainable by plopping a piece of physical matter on a plate and saying "Well, THERE IT IS." This type of certainty is not really possible in the soft sciences, and so those who work within them are usually more stressed than those who work in the hard sciences -- perhaps more unhinged (at times.) By way of allegorical illustration: First scenario: "Now," a geologist says, "the material sample I’ve put on this plate is a kind of hard carbon otherwise known as a diamond. This specimen is flawless and therefore very valuable. THIS IS a diamond."