« RAISON When is the age of reason? Paradoxically, while, for better or worse, reason has endowed it with terrible powers in the material world, humanity has remained largely irrational and infantile. It is clear that she has not yet reached the age of reason. The president of the world's leading economic power is flirting with creationism! Politicians and even heads of state often behave like children in a schoolyard! Except that they have means that would allow (or will?) completely destroy this court and that we have no other one at the moment... The archaisms of beliefs and pseudosciences abound all over the earth and religions are not the only ones to disseminate them. Obscurantism spreads ignorance and terror everywhere. Jihadism is only the tip of this sinister iceberg. Yet reason is an incredible tool at the service of man. Its power has allowed it to better understand the Universe and thus to act effectively. This power is extraordinary, incomprehensible, far more mysterious than all the false mysteries invented over the centuries by religions. While it has already managed to cure so many evils and could be much more and much better used to relieve the suffering of humanity and free it from its physical and mental poisons, it is still often neglected or even denigrated by followers of false spirituality. How could one trust someone who claims to hold a truth inaccessible to reason, but who does not himself use his own reason to approach the many truths (certainly partial but very concrete) accessible to reason? Such a character is not imaginary: there are even many examples in this world. Of course, reason is not all-powerful: it alone will never be able to achieve an exhaustive understanding of reality. But I find it fascinating that it is the reason itself that has managed to identify and understand its own limitations! However, it is this very surprising result that the mathematician Kurt Godel has achieved in the field of arithmetic, with his famous "theorems of incompleteness". I think this is one of the most fantastic and disturbing successes of human reason. The limits of reason Did you know the imaginary story of this explorer captured by members of a forest tribe, not very friendly, but somewhat philosophical, who imposed a rather embarrassing choice on him: "Tell us a proposal; if it is true, we will pierce you with arrows and, if it is false, we will boil you in this great pot"? The explorer, more philosophical than them, or perhaps I should say more scientific (what is philosophy?), managed to save his skin, saying simply: "I will be boiled"! It is clear that this line could only plunge our aspiring philosophers into a deep perplexity since, in completing their project, they would have been faced with a proposal which, if true, would be false and which, if it were false, would be true. Unfriendly, but honest, they decided to free the explorer. This response from the explorer is a simple example, among many others, of these proposals that mathematicians call "indecisable". Perhaps the most famous of these curiosities is the epimenid Cretan paradox declaring "All Cretans are liars". What Kurt Godel has been able to demonstrate is that a system of arithmetic axioms is either incomplete or inconsistent, in the sense that it leads to an indecisable proposition. No system can be complete without being inconsistent... unless you contain an infinite number of axioms (without any finite procedure to find them...)! There is no other alternative. This astonishing incompleteness seems to me to be very rich in teachings. Not only is it entirely reasonable to consider that there is something (and even many things) beyond reason, but it is even the reason that has succeeded in demonstrating this incompleteness of itself! It should not be inferred, however, that it is legitimate to believe anything! Just because we now know limits to why we should not continue to use it within those limits. On the contrary, it can be used with more confidence, more security. Science and consciousness It is certainly not the reason that alone will save humanity, by taking it out of the bad pass in which it has embarked: reason is capable of the best and the worst. On the other hand, it can help us to become aware, to establish the diagnosis, to acquire a firm determination to change the world. Reason and compassion should be able to support each other in building a fairer world. I bet too, but my bet is very different from That of Blaise Pascal. I bet that reason will succeed in establishing an authentic universal spirituality on sound foundations of compassion and benevolence, a spirituality finally freed from dogmas and false morals. I bet that this liberation will facilitate everyone's access to their inner light in order to achieve true brotherhood, replacing the multiple communitarianisms, more or less disguised, more or less assumed. I'm not sure I'm going to win my bet, but it helps me keep the flame, the motivation, the hope. He is, among other things, at the origin of this book. I am convinced that we must abandon constructions on the sand of false spirituality and rebuild everything on the rock of a spirituality compatible with our knowledge of reality. And then, perhaps the mind will be able to venture safely beyond the now better known limits of human reason. »

« TRUTH "What is truth?" (question from Pontius Pilate to Jesus Christ according to the New Testament, John 18:38) Whether it is written with a capital "V" to put on an air of absolute or with a more modest tiny "v" to simply oppose it to lies, truth remains more an ideal to pursue than a goal that can actually be achieved. You never have it completely, but you can get close to it all the time, like an asymptote. One can even demonstrate by reason that absolute truth is inaccessible to reason, to human logic! You might therefore argue that it is not interesting, useful or unfugly to seek by logic this truth which will ultimately always be inaccessible to it and that it would be wiser to turn instead to a truth or truths directly accessible to the conscience, without it having to go through reason, kinds of subjective truths, to oppose the objective truth sought by science. I cannot deny the existence of this second type of truth since there is at least one which is, for me, absolute, completely indisputable: the existence of my own conscience. Yet I cannot be satisfied with this approach, in a sort of mystical way, which provides no answer to the countless multitude of very practical questions posed by all those who seek to understand our so-called real world. Moreover, a possible subjective ultimate truth seems just as inaccessible as a possible ultimate objective truth. And even if it were accessible, it would necessarily be incomplete if it did not provide communicable answers on objective questions. It is science's quest for objective truth, yet inaccessible in absolute terms, that has brought humanity an incredibly abundant and magnificent harvest of models for understanding and acting on the world. How can we be content with a truth that cannot be incommunicable by the normal means of human reason when the search for objective truth is perfectly communicable and it never ceases to show its formidable effectiveness? In other words, if we should call God a possible subjective ultimate reality, it seems to me that a good, reliable and communicable way to approach it is to study objective reality, its "creation" in a way, using the only means at our disposal, our reason. « ... to achieve to deviate from it, to reach the unattainable star" (Jacques Brel, The Quest) In any case, in this search, the main attitude to adopt is to never lie, neither to others nor to oneself, and to not compromise with any lie. It is with this state of mind that I feel solidarity with all truth seekers and especially those who work in the field of objective truth, scientists. I am constantly searching for the truth, not the faith, which, by its indulgence towards beliefs, too often pacts with lies. For me, to be in the truth is to seek to discover what exists and progress in this discovery; to be in error is to believe in what does not exist, to persevere in a "faith" without seeking to validate it through observation and reasoning. Never completed, the search for truth frees because it breaks the mental stiffness of beliefs and its insatiable need for verification leads constantly to new discoveries. Anything that hinders the search for truth can only be harmful: history abounds in examples of beliefs that have blocked progress towards more humanity and more well-being. The audit concern must be ongoing. It must become a habit, a second nature. This requirement is becoming increasingly important with modern means of communication such as the Internet, which disseminate and multiply hoax, "hoaxes" of all kinds, often malicious. It is not by repeating a lie indefinitely that it becomes a truth, but this repetition is an effective method to bring malicious projects to fruition by spreading slanderous messages. However, this effectiveness is due only to the credulity of the recipients of these messages or to their prejudices. The practice of systematic doubt and verification is the only effective parade. »

« SCIENCE Saint Anthony and the car keys Mr. Jourdain was astonished to learn that he was doing prose at any time without knowing it. He probably thought that this art was reserved for specialist prose. I would not be surprised if many people today would feel the same astonishment if they were told that they "do science" at any time without knowing it. It is because the idea is widespread that science is reserved for scientists, those who, for example, reassure the layman about the effectiveness of a toothpaste by using "scientific" experiments! In fact, fortunately, everyone regularly practices the scientific approach, even if there are specialists in science, as there are prose specialists. Let's take an example: you misplaced your car keys. If, to remedy this unpleasant situation, you ask St. Anthony for help, you use a religious approach. You can also hypothesize that you may have left these keys in the refrigerator by serving you a glass of fresh water. You open the refrigerator to check this hypothesis. If this experiment does not confirm the hypothesis, you can formulate another one, for example that you left these keys on the nightstand. It is then necessary to carry out another verification experiment, and so on until the problem is resolved (or not...). This second approach is the scientific approach and nothing else. Science is observation and reflection, experimentation when possible, that's all. Anything in the physical world that can, in principle, be verified (confirmed or refuted) is scientific, even if the theoretical or material means for the implementation of this audit are not yet available. In any case, it is in this sense that I take the words science and science in this book. For this reason, the usual separations between so-called "hard" sciences and the human and social sciences, between science and literature, between science and history, between science and art, etc. seem to me to be ultimately illusory and misleading. Of course, there are literary specialists, historians or artists, but fortunately these specialists are also scientists as soon as they have to solve a problem that falls within the physical world! Science and belief Science is a method, not a religion or an ideology. Whenever one reasonably practices the observation-reflection or observation-reflection-experimentation cycle, one has the scientific mind and approach. To lay down this method and to reserve it for "professional" scientists leads to many absurdities and dramas. Believers often tend to regard science as a belief: they equate those who practice the scientific method with the kinds of believers, as there are many others, professing a faith different from their own. It is that they have not understood anything in mind or in the scientific approach, which is universal. A scientific theory is nothing more than a kind of harmonious summary of what one knows about a subject at any given moment. It is neither indisputable nor definitive. The notion of belief is totally absent. If we accept this theory it is simply because it is the best we found at some point. If later we find even better, we abandon without any scruples or regrets the old theory. Science and contemplation Science is not, in itself, contemplation, but, as it requires sustained attention, a long work of settling, it can lead to contemplation, to wonder, to an opening to the spiritual dimension of the Universe. The discovery of what is usually called (probably inappropriately) the "laws of nature" can lead to an awareness of a reality beyond objective reality, as reflection on suffering can lead to compassion. The practice of science leads to a great mystery: the harmonious nature of the models that describe the Universe. In their quest to better understand the apparent complexity of reality, scientists discover, almost systematically, that as their construction improves, it becomes more and more harmonious. It is so true that the search for harmony ends up becoming a guide to understanding reality: we often realize that theories, equations are more likely to be appropriate to describe reality when they are "beautiful". Many scientists, without always admitting it, are fascinated by this discovery of harmony. I think that this kind of contemplation is largely used to keep them alive with the flame of research. Science is nothing more than a method of getting closer and closer to objective reality, one that can easily be shared with everyone. It is not armed to describe subjective reality, that of consciousness and mind. The exploration of this other world is rather in the realm of spirituality and the preferred tool that of meditation. Yet the practice of science can lead, through the contemplation on which it leads, to the threshold of this other reality (but is it really different?). Science does not allow us to find out what the Universe is; it only allows (and it's already huge...) to find what can be said relevant to the Universe. Finding out what the Universe really is is perhaps more about meditation (the misnamed) than reflection, for this hypothetical ultimate reality is probably no stranger to our consciousness and that of God, if it exists. »