Between Science and Spirituality

The Chronicle of Higher Education ^ | Nov. 29, 2002 | John Horgan

[Phaedrus]

Thanks for the recommendation. For a long while now, I've felt that God and consciousness will escape any small, reductionist boxes we try to put them into. Some meld of quantum mechanics and Buddhism moves in the right conceptual direction, always acknowledging that concept is not reality, and that direction is not antithetical to Christianity unless Christians themselves draw the line. I just ordered to book.

[tpaine]

Rand's A = A is fine as far as it goes. Yes, there is an objective reality out there. And yes, A = A throughout the knowable universe.
But Rand's problem, a direct outgrowth of her grandiosity (the same grandiosty that impelled he to announce her atheism at 14,

It is 'grandiose' to decide at 14 your faith in a religion? Why? -- That is roughly the age for 'Confirmation' in the RC Church.

setting the course for a lifelong suppression of the emotional abuse she suffered as a child, which, in turn, lead directly to her over-reliance on and over-hyping of the power of reason),

You're playing at being a psychic, while pretending at philosophy, as was remarked earlier. Amusing.

is that she assigns meaning to A = A far beyond its utility. It's fine, but in the end it is a banal observation.

As yours is a banal comment.

The very certainty of Objectivism discredits it. You either understand that or you don't. 50 - beckett -

I doubt that any do, save you.

[MHGinTN]

Do we sense in the present variable expression of time and remember because of the past variable expression of dimension time? If so, what does that infer regarding the nature of electromagnetic energy (and the weak force, as it has been connected to the other two forces)? How would time being composed of three variable expressions affect the gravitational force?... for unification (G.U.T.) purposes.

[beckett]

Not gonna bite, TP. Exchanges with you are too pointless.

[Hank Kerchief]

The very certainty of Objectivism discredits it. You either understand that or you don't.

I am not an objectivist, although I believe most of objectivist philosophy is correct, as far as it goes.

I am only defending the view here that the ability to reason (rationality) is the only faculty man has for discovering and understanding the truth. If we have any knowledge, it is only throught the faculty of reason that we have acquired it.

Those who do not agree with this view, it seems to me, are obliged to tell use what other faculty man has for aquiring knowledge, and how it works. Do you believe there is some other means to knowledge than reason? If so, what? And, when you have acquired this knowledge without using reason, how to you verify it, that is, how do you distinguish it from hallucination, delusion, illision, or some other form of deception, without using reason, of course?

I do not tell anyone they cannot have knowledge without reason, only that I have discovered no other way to it. I, and all other merely rational men, only have our rational minds for acquiring knowledge. Those of couse who have some other kind of knowledge are irrational, that is, have beliefs and convictions not based on reason. The other name for beliefs without a rational basis is superstition.

I am opposed to all forms of superstition.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

You sir, are a man who thinks. I would be proud to shake your hand. A is A, existence exists.

Seems so simple, doesn't it? To what great lengths men go evade the truth. The motive is not good.

Thank you! Here is my hand.

Hank

[Sabertooth]

[Would it make sense to pose the temporal dimension as past, present, and future for the variables?... analogous to past=linear, present=planar, future=volumetric.]

I'm not sure I think those analogies hold. Also, who's to say that we have all of the spatial dimensions figured out?

How would time being composed of three variable expressions affect the gravitational force?... for unification (G.U.T.) purposes.

Oh, I'm saving that for my Nobel Prize winning thesis.

Actually, I have a hunch about the G.U.T. If we ever do come up with a theory that explains everything in the observable universe, it will be a tautology.

[Hank Kerchief]

Must one learn they are conscious before they know they exist?

I know this is going to suprise you, but the answer is a very definite YES! Although I would not say one has to learn the word, "conscious," before they know they exist, they must at least have learned enough to know what existing or being is, and that they are a unique being.

The key word here is knowing. My cat is conscious, but does not know she exists. She does not know anything, she just perceives her surroundings and her internal feelings and the instinctive impulses and motives that cause her to behave. She never once considered the question, do I exist. She does not need to know it. She just does it, exist, I mean.

Neither does a child know it until she has learned enough to consider such questions, usually in very simple terms at first, such as when answering her mother, "I'm over here." In some sense she must knows she is to know where she is.

Hank

[PatrickHenry]

Can mystical spirituality be reconciled with science and, more broadly, with reason?

I have to be in the mood for this stuff, and right now I'm not, so my answer is "no." However, in the immortal words of Rodney king: "Can't we all get along?"

[tpaine]

"Not gonna bite, TP. Exchanges with you are too pointless."

How droll. -- That's exactly my point about your pretentious efforts at 'philosophy'.
They are pointless exercises in declaratory self puffery. You declare Rand to be 'grandiose' yet 'banal', -- apparently just for effect. Grow up.

[LogicWings]

Multiply all of these improbabilities and they spike to infinity.

At heart this is a self contradictory statement. If improbabilities are infinite, so are the probabilities. So the following

But if a miracle is defined as an infinitely improbable phenomenon, then our existence is a miracle, which no theory natural or supernatural will ever explain.

doesn't make sense either. Absolutely nothing can explain it, so why is he trying here? Just some of the many things I found wrong with this article.

We must keep reimagining our relationship to the infinite.

Does the 'infinite' in fact exist? I'm not assuming one way or the other but without answering this question first, what does this statement really mean?

The problem is that any truth or antitruth, no matter how initially revelatory and awe-inspiring, sooner or later turns into garbage that occludes our vision of the living world.

Including what this writer is writing here, i presume. Therefore everything is garbage and we can't believe anything anybody says, including this guy.

Anything that helps you see --- really see --- the wondrousness of the world serves a mystical purpose.

Huh, what did he say? Does that include or not include the garbage?

When he returned from this hellish solitude, back to the world and his dear friends, he felt "reborn," and he was overcome with gratitude and joy at the "wonderful life we have here." This is by far the greatest gift that mystical experiences can bestow on us: to see -- really see -- all that is right with the world.

That means the psylocibyn worked, doesn't it? Isn't this guy contradicting himself?

Just as believers in a beneficent deity should be haunted by the problem of natural evil, so gnostics, atheists, pessimists, and nihilists should be haunted by the problem of friendship, love, beauty, truth, humor, compassion, fun.

Haunted by the problems of friendship, love, beauty, truth, humor, compassion and fun. These are problems? And nothing previously mentioned included gnostics, they are never mentioned, defined or included.

While I admire the guy for poking holes in just about everything all he ends up with is an empty bag.

[cornelis]

art comes closer to uttering the unutterable by acknowledging its own insufficiency

There was a time when "art" was burdened to paint the soul. They never came close. They tried again in the early part of the 20th century (Paul Klee, I think). Again, not any closer. Artists tried to paint motion. Again and again, the practitioners of art will strain to the point of abuse every limit as they despair for sufficiency

So let's drop the art part of that phrase, and instead recognize the last part "acknowledging insufficiency" is not an act that respects methods. Both the artist and the scientist can understand there's no squaring of the circle.

Plus, if the acknowledgment of insufficiency is honest, it is bound to create respect for Mr. Horgan's "trash." It makes one conservative. It can recognize that even a lie is burdened with truth (if for no other reason than that it comes from a liar). But that makes "trash" a very poor word choice which apparently Mr. Horgan and his editors perhaps saw, but did not make clear. Because it's worth is not in the dispensible, rather in what is retained in it. This attitude recognizes that Newton's physics, although displaced by a newer art, is a ladder still standing and much steadier than Descarte's physics.

It appears then (after our happiness for his "acknowledging insufficiency) that Mr. Horgan has promoted an slight infatuation with obsolescence, which is the peculiar disposition of the Marxist, in the physical sciences and history.

[Hank Kerchief]

Without reason it is not possible to know anything.
Again, how do you know? It's not a kid's question.

Since I am not certain whether your question means, how do I know reason is the only means to knowledge or how do I know reason actually gives knowledge, for the first let me reference an answer already given here:

#65

As to how I know reason is a means to knowledge, or that I have knowledge at all, a complete answer would require my entire epistemology, which I know you are not interested in and I could not do here. But, you do not doubt that I have knowledge. You never questioned that I would know what all the words you used mean, or even that I would know the meaning of your question. That I have knowledge, you have already acknowledged, and of course we all must do that, or communication between us would be impossible.

The only question remaining, it would seem to me, is how we distinguish between ideas we hold which are true from those that might not be true? The answer to that question for me is simple. One uses reason to insure that one's ideas do not contradict any other ideas within the logical hierarchy of all their knowledge. A contradiction automatically means there is an error.

Of course, you are probably using the word agnostic in the very narrow theological sense. I am not constrained by your narrow usage.
OK. Can you define your non-theological usage?

I use the word agnostic to mean what its Greek root means, "not know" or "I don't know." It is for me, the correct answer to all questions for those who attempt to find answers without using reason, "I dont know." What one gets without reason, that is, using anything but the raional faculty, is the irrational, or superstition. Superstion is not knowledge.

Hank

[tpaine]

"Must one learn they are conscious before they know they exist?"

I know this is going to suprise you, but the answer is a very definite YES! Although I would not say one has to learn the word, "conscious," before they know they exist, they must at least have learned enough to know what existing or being is, and that they are a unique being.
The key word here is knowing. My cat is conscious, but does not know she exists. - HK -

-- The Mirror Test --

Scientists have long known that children begin to recognize themselves in the mirror at around 18 to 24 months. That mirror self-recognition, many researchers say, usually marks the beginning of self-awareness, introspection and the ability to perceive the mental states of others.
In 1970, Dr. Gordon G. Gallup Jr., a professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Albany, devised a "mark test" to determine whether other animals were capable of recognizing themselves in the mirror. If test subjects marked with a dye go to the mirror and examine the mark, they are believed to exhibit self-recognition.
Confronted with a mirror, many animals either ignore it or respond to it, often aggressively, as if it were another animal, Dr. Reiss said. After becoming familiar with the mirror, some animals, including monkeys, lesser apes, elephants and African gray parrots, begin to use it as a tool to find hidden objects but not to examine themselves. Previous studies suggested that dolphins recognized their own images, but the results were not considered conclusive.
Until now only chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas have used mirrors to investigate their own bodies and passed the "mark test," the researchers said.
The new finding with the dolphins, Dr. Reiss said, "opens the discussion about brain evolution because the brains of primates and dolphins have evolved along very different lines for more than 60 million years."

[from a NY Times article]

[Hank Kerchief]

Either may leg is longer since you posted and I read it, or I just don't get it. How do you get, "suggests 'existense' identical with 'knowing,' from, "science and math can only discover what is."

While I am careful to say, knowledge exists (as a phenomenon of the mind, not material existense), I would never confuse knowledge with that which knowledge is about. My statement only means what-is-not cannot be known, obviously, there is nothing to be known or known about.

If science is a means to knowledge, then it must be knowledge about what is. How can you object to that?

What did I miss?

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

-- The Mirror Test --

Interesting post. It would seem to pretty much verify my point. Even in the case of children and higher animals recognizing themselves, there is no evidence of "knowledge," which requires conceptualization of the percepts that are recognized.

Perceptual recognition is pretty much automatized in most creatures, and to some degree in men.

Hank

[cornelis]

I would never confuse knowledge with that which knowledge is about.

OK. That's cool.

Still, others might, considering your first reply, "All that matters is what you can see and what you can know. There is nothing else.""

Striclty speaking, since existence is not restricting by our knowing, there also exist things that we cannot know (or have not known, or will not know).

[MHGinTN]

... there is no evidence of "knowledge," which requires conceptualization of the percepts that are recognized. Language acquisition would seem to refute your assertion. also, that an animal can be shown (repeatedly if necessary) where something they want is hidden and then they can go to it and take it from hiding seems to refute the assertion.

Octopuses can learn how to take a desired food thing out of a bottle, simply by watching a neighboring octopus do it, and the process of removal can be somewhat complex, as in removing a stopper from a bottle to get at the food. If the animal can learn the action and repeat it without first trial and error discovery, that would appear to refute your assertion, also.

When Koko's --the Gorilla who learned amislan-- kitten was killed and the handlers brought another of very similar size and color to her to become her pet, she refused to call it 'allball', insisting that it was not allball, though she hadn't touch allball after it died out on the street outside her enclosure.

[tpaine]

"Perceptual recognition is pretty much automatized in most creatures, and to some degree in men."

Yep, and some of those automatized 'perceptions' seen on FR can curl yer hair.

[beckett]

...gnostics, they are never mentioned, defined or included.

I questioned the use of the term too. At first I thought he meant to say "agnostics," but, since he himself takes an approach that in some respects can be called agnostic, that made little sense. I suppose it's possible he means to define gnosticism in its most occult sense, to include satan worship, etc.

As for his use of the term "problem" in connection with "love, beauty etc," clearly he is being ironic. He's poking fun at the absurdity of it, and quite rightly suggesting that the mystery of evil in a universe created by a beneficent God is no more mysterious than the existence of "love, beauty, fun etc" in a pointless universe which popped unbidden out of the void.