Between Science and Spirituality

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

[beckett]

Between Science and Spirituality

By JOHN HORGAN

Can mystical spirituality be reconciled with science and, more broadly, with reason? To paraphrase the mystical philosopher Ken Wilber, is the East's version of enlightenment compatible with that of the West? If so, what sort of truth would a rational mysticism give us? What sort of consolation?

There are many claimed convergences between science and mysticism. Cognitive psychology supposedly corroborates the Buddhist doctrine that the self is an illusion. Quantum mechanics, which implies that the outcomes of certain microevents depend on how we measure them, is said to confirm the mystical intuition that consciousness is an intrinsic part of reality. Similarly, quantum nonlocality, which Einstein disparaged as "spooky action at a distance," clinches mystics' perception of the interrelatedness, or unity, of all things. I see a different point of convergence between science and mysticism: Each in its own way reveals the miraculousness of our existence.

The more science learns about the origin and history of the cosmos and of life on earth and of Homo sapiens, the more it reveals how staggeringly improbable we are. First there is the fact of existence itself. The big-bang theory represents a profound insight into the history and structure of the cosmos, but it cannot tell us why creation occurred in the first place. Particle physics suggests that empty space is seething with virtual particles, which spring into existence for an instant before vanishing. In the same way, some physicists speculate, the entire universe might have begun as a kind of virtual particle. Honest physicists will admit that they have no idea why there is something rather than nothing. After all, what produced the quantum forces that supposedly made creation possible? "No one is certain what happened before the Big Bang, or even if the question has any meaning," Steven Weinberg, the physicist and Nobel laureate, wrote recently.

Next questions: Why does the universe look this way rather than some other way? Why does it adhere to these laws of nature rather than to some other laws? Altering any of the universe's fundamental parameters would have radically altered reality. For example, if the cosmos had been slightly more dense at its inception, it would have quickly collapsed into a black hole.

A smidgen less dense, and it would have flown apart so fast that there would have been no chance for stars, galaxies, and planets to form. Cosmologists sometimes call this the fine-tuning problem, or, more colorfully, the Goldilocks dilemma: How did the density of the universe turn out not too high, not too low, but just right?

The odds that matter would have precisely its observed density, the physicist Lawrence Krauss has calculated, are as great as the odds of guessing precisely how many atoms there are in the sun. Some physicists are so troubled by the arbitrariness of the cosmos that they espouse a quasi-theological concept known as the anthropic principle. According to this notion, the universe must have the structure we observe, because otherwise we wouldn't be here to observe it. The anthropic principle is cosmology's version of creationism.

The next improbability is life. The evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins once declared that life "is a mystery no longer," because Darwin solved it with his theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet life is as mysterious as ever, in spite of all the insights provided by evolutionary theory and more-recent biological paradigms, such as genetics and molecular biology. Neither Darwinism nor any other scientific theory tells us why life appeared on earth in the first place, or whether it was probable or a once-in-eternity fluke.

Many scientists have argued that life must be a ubiquitous phenomenon that pervades the universe, but they can offer precious little empirical evidence to support that assertion. After decades of searching, astronomers have found no signs of life elsewhere in the cosmos; a 1996 report of fossilized microbes in a meteorite from Mars turned out to be erroneous. Researchers still cannot make matter animate in the laboratory, even with all the tools of biotechnology. In fact, the more scientists ponder life's origin, the harder it is to imagine how it occurred. Francis Crick once stated that "the origin of life appears to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have to be satisfied to get it going." In his book Life Itself, Crick offered the speculation that the seeds of life might have been planted on earth by an alien civilization.

Once life on earth started evolving, many scientists have contended, it was only a matter of time before natural selection produced a species as intelligent as Homo sapiens. But for more than 80 percent of life's 3.5-billion-year history, the earth's biota consisted entirely of single-celled organisms, like bacteria and algae. So not even the simplest multicellular organisms were inevitable. The evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould has estimated that if the great experiment of life were rerun a million times over, chances are that it would never again give rise to mammals, let alone mammals intelligent enough to invent negative theology and television. Similar reasoning led the eminent evolutionary theorist Ernst Mayr to conclude that the SETI program -- the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, which scans the heavens for radio signals from other civilizations -- is futile.

Multiply all of these improbabilities and they spike to infinity. As the psychologist Susan Blackmore has pointed out, we are bad at judging probabilities, hence prone to make too much of chance events; that is why we believe in ESP, clairvoyance, telekinesis, and other miracles. I do not believe in miracles, at least not defined in the conventional religious manner as divine disruptions of the natural order. 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.

Scientists may go much further in plumbing nature's secrets. They may decipher the neural code, the secret language of the brain. They may arrive at a plausible explanation of how life emerged on earth, and they may discover life elsewhere in the cosmos. They may find and verify a unified theory of physics, which will provide a more precise picture of the origin and history of the universe. Although there are good reasons for doubting the likelihood of such scientific advances, they cannot be ruled out. What can be ruled out is that science will answer the ultimate question: How did something come from nothing? Neither superstring theory nor any other of science's so-called theories of everything can resolve that mystery, any more than our supernatural theologies can.

Although we can never solve the riddle of existence, we can never stop trying. We must keep reimagining our relationship to the infinite. Skepticism alone --- and the cold, hard facts of science --- cannot serve as the basis for spirituality. Blackmore, a practicing Zen Buddhist, helped me reach that conclusion. She described Zen as a kind of rubbish-removal system that cleanses the mind of extraneous beliefs and emotions so that we can see reality as it truly is.

I found Blackmore's garbage metaphor appealing at first, because it provided a handy criterion for judging theories and theologies. The worst ones, I decided, distract us from the reality right in front of us by postulating parallel dimensions and universes, heavens and hells, gods and ghosts and demiurges and extraterrestrials. Too much garbage! Viewed this way, skepticism appears to be the ideal spiritual perspective. Skepticism clears away cumbersome beliefs on an intellectual level, just as meditation (ideally) clears away beliefs, emotions, and thoughts on a more experiential level. Skepticism can help us achieve mystical deautomatization, or so I wanted to believe.

My handling of real rather than metaphorical garbage gradually gave me a more complicated view of the matter. In my kitchen, we put garbage in bags that come in boxes of 20. After I yank the last bag from a box, the box itself becomes trash, which I put into the bag. Sometime after I interviewed Blackmore, every time I pulled the last bag from the box and stuffed the box in the bag, I intuited a paradox lurking within this ritual.

I went through more garbage bags than I care to mention before I solved the riddle: Every garbage-removal system generates garbage. Zen apparently works as an efficient garbage-removal system for Susan Blackmore. But as minimalistic as it is, Zen clutters more than it clarifies my mind. Once I started down this line of thinking, it was hard to stop. I began looking askance at skepticism, too. Maybe skepticism, instead of cleansing our vision, just substitutes one type of trash for another. Instead of belief in reincarnation, angels, ESP, extraterrestrials, parallel universes, and the Oedipus complex, the skeptic crams his mind with disbelief in reincarnation, angels, and so on.

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. Ludwig Wittgenstein had this problem in mind when he described his philosophy as a ladder that we should "throw away" after we have climbed it. At its best, art -- by which I mean poetry, literature, music, movies, painting, sculpture -- works in this manner. Art, the lie that tells the truth, is intrinsically ironic. Like Wittgenstein's ladder, it helps us get to another level and then falls away. What better way to approach the mystical, the truth that cannot be told?

At a scholarly meeting on mysticism I attended in Chicago, one speaker warned that if we can't talk about mysticism, we can't whistle about it, either. In other words, all our modes of expression, including art, fall short of mystical truth. But unlike more-literal modes of expression, art comes closer to uttering the unutterable by acknowledging its own insufficiency. It gives us not answers but questions. That does not mean mystical insights cannot be expressed within other modes of knowledge, like science, philosophy, theology -- and, of course, journalism. But we should view even the most fact-laden mystical texts ironically when they turn to ultimate questions. Some mystical writers, notably the psychedelic raconteur Terence McKenna, supply their own irony, but we readers can supply it even if the author intended none. We can read the Upanishads, Genesis, Dionysius the Areopagite, and the neurotheological suppositions of Andrew Newberg just as we read Blake or Borges or Emily Dickinson.

Viewed ironically, even the most fantastical ghost stories, including the old stories of religion, can serve a purpose. Whether they postulate superintelligent clouds of gas, insectoid aliens in hyperspace, a demiurge with multiple-personality disorder, or a loving God who for inscrutable reasons makes us suffer, well-told ghost stories can remind us of the unfathomable mystery at the heart of things. Our creation myths and eschatologies, our imaginings of ultimate beginnings and ends, can also help us discover our deepest fears and desires. But even the most sophisticated theologies and theories should never be mistaken for ultimate truth. What Voltaire said centuries ago still holds, and will always hold: "It is truly extravagant to define God, angels, and minds, and to know precisely why God defined the world, when we do not know why we move our arms at will. Doubt is not a very agreeable state, but certainty is a ridiculous one."

ther than art, is there any method particularly suited to evoking mystical awe without the side effects that so often attend it? In Psychedelic Drugs Reconsidered, first published in 1979, Lester Grinspoon and James Bakalar suggested that the chief benefit of psychedelics is "enriching the wonder of normality" -- that is, enhancing our appreciation of ordinary consciousness and ordinary life. That is the spiritual value cited most often by advocates of psychedelics. But those compounds can have the opposite effect. This world may seem drab in comparison to the bizarre virtual realms into which LSD or DMT propel us. Instead of opening our eyes to the miraculousness of everyday reality and consciousness, psychedelics can blind us.

All mystical technologies that induce powerful altered states pose this risk. One mystical expert who has reached this conclusion is Jean Houston. A pioneer of the human-potential movement, she works as a kind of spiritual psychotherapist, usually for large groups rather than individuals. She seeks to rejuvenate her clients' psyches through dance, song, chanting, guided imagery, and role-playing, often with a mythological dimension. She and her husband, the anthropologist Robert Masters, proclaimed in 1966 that investigations of LSD and similar drugs could help human consciousness expand "beyond its present limitations and on towards capacities not yet realized and perhaps undreamed of."

Houston subsequently became quite critical of the via psychedelica. "l am by nature not pro-drug," she told me. Timothy Leary was one of the most charming people she had ever met -- and one of the most irresponsible. Too many people lured onto the psychedelic path by this Pied Piper suffered breakdowns and ended up in mental hospitals, Houston said. "If I were to take the American pragmatic tradition and say, 'By their fruits ye shall know them,' then I'd have to say I haven't seen too much evidence" that psychedelics promote a healthy spirituality. "Some might say it is a shortcut to reality. But the fact is, it doesn't seem to sustain that reality."

Houston's disillusionment with psychedelics led her to seek safer means of self-transcendence. In the early 1970s, she and Masters devised what they called the altered states of consciousness induction device, or ASCID. It consisted of a suspension harness in which blindfolded subjects could spin around in three dimensions. The contraption worked so well that Houston and Masters discontinued its use. "People would get addicted to it and even refuse to explore their inner states without first taking a ride," Houston recalled. The experience reinforced her suspicion that any spiritual practice or path -- particularly those emphasizing altered states -- can become an end in itself, which leads us away from reality rather than toward it.

Anything that helps you see --- really see --- the wondrousness of the world serves a mystical purpose. According to Zen legend, when a visitor asked the 15th-century master Ikkyu to write down a maxim of "the highest wisdom," Ikkyu wrote one word: "Attention." Irritated, the visitor asked, "Is that all?" This time, Ikkyu wrote two words: "Attention. Attention." Fortunately, life itself is so wildly weird and improbable that sooner or later it is bound to get our attention. And if life doesn't grab our attention, death will. Whenever death intrudes upon our lives, we feel the chill of the deep space in which we are suspended.

Spiritual seekers have employed mementos mori, like a human skull, to keep themselves mindful of death. An extreme version of this technique, used in certain Buddhist sects, involves sitting next to or on top of a rotting corpse. It seems that this practice may merely desensitize you to death rather than sensitize you to life. Moreover, dwelling on death, the abyss, nothingness, may convince you that it is the only abiding reality, and that all finite, time-bound phenomena, including our mortal selves, are ephemeral and hence, in some sense, unreal. To be enlightened, Ken Wilber once wrote, is "to snap out of the movie of life." This is perhaps the greatest danger posed by mysticism -- that you will be left with a permanent case of derealization and depersonalization.

If you are lucky, your glimpse of the abyss will make this life seem more real, not less. You will feel what Albert Hofmann -- the chemist who, in 1943, discovered the psychotropic properties of LSD -- felt after emerging from the psilocybin trip in which he had found himself all alone in a ghost town inside the earth. 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. 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. Never forget the problem of fun.

John Horgan writes about science. This article is adapted from his book Rational Mysticism: Dispatches From the Border Between Science and Spirituality, to be published in January by Houghton Mifflin. Copyright © 2003 by John Horgan.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your post!

All of your questions are why I prefaced my explanation with this statement: I doubt that I can "define" this term to anyone else's satisfaction - but I can describe for you what I know to be true from my personal experience.

What I said is this: My spirit is who I am. It exists apart from, but is associated with, my body. It is not bound by the laws of physics, e.g. it exists outside of space and time. In between the two is my soul, which is my ego, my mind, sense of humor, etc.

Back to your questions:

How do you know it exists apart from your body? When I'm "in" the spirit, in deep worship, I can see my body.

Is this any different than your mind? Yes, my mind is part of my soul; that's where my ego, sense of humor, concerns, etc. exist

How do you know it [spirit] is separate from your mind? Because when I'm thinking about temporal matters, I cannot get "into" the spirit. I'm distracted. To get "into" the spirit, I lay everything aside and concentrate on who the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are and love them with all my power. That love is rapturous per se and elevates my spirit so that I can have an even greater appreciation and love of God.

How do you know there is anything not bound by the laws of physics, outside time and space, unless you can perceive outside time and space? When I'm "in" the spirit, I control my viewpoint for better appreciation - location, time and proportion - through very gentle nudges of thought. In one instance, I may be on the petal of an Iris, in the next, touching a ring of Saturn, in the next, at the sepulcher. It is worship and the feelings (joy, celebration, awe) are what energize it and what I treasure when I stop.

How do you know your soul is between the two? Process of elimination. When I'm thinking about this physical life, I cannot get "into" the spirit.

How do you know what it is you are experiencing? I initiate it, I remember it and I've been doing it a lot this past year.

Maybe it is all of one piece. Nah, for reasons explained above. The ego is like a heavy weight that grounds us from worship.

It is difficult to explain these personal experiences to people who are preoccupied with this physical life and it is impossible to explain to those who do not believe.

[LogicWings]

Your comment struck me as self-absorbed, so I cracked wise. I don't know one way or the other about you as an individual.

Then I appreciate your humor. I can see why you said what you said.

So many people say so many things here that it is almost a requirement that one pins things down. I've found myself defending against shadows before.

It was an inside joke that probably didn't deserve to be mentioned on this thread. I get all mixed up sometimes.

Maybe poetry is preferable to logic anyway. Who knows anything anyway?

[LogicWings]

It is difficult to explain these personal experiences to people who are preoccupied with this physical life

Don't make assumptions about me. I can question anybody on anything, but don't make assumptions about me.

I could just as easily argue the other side, and have. If we can't ask questions, then how are we to know? But don't make assumptions.

The ego is like a heavy weight that grounds us from worship.

The ego is the only reason you do worship, to save it. (uncbuck)

[Sabertooth]

I'm sorry I misunderstood you, if this is the case. This is exactly correct. We reason from ignorance to knowledge. So long as you do not take the position that reason begins with nothing.

Fair enough.

Sorry, I do not see what you disagree with here. First there are no concepts, then the first concepts are formed as simple identifications of percepts. What's the problem?

One problem was, you weren't saying that earlier.

Another is that you claimed repeatedly there is no self-evident knowledge, yet your posts are strewn with assertions that proclaim self-evidence of some knowledge, but couched in other words.

Suppose there is something that you will never know in any way whatsoever, directly or indirectly. It never has any affect on any aspect of your life or concsoiusness (if it did, you would at least have indirect knowledge of it). What I mean by the word "matter," is that a thing must have some kind of effect on one's life. There is nothing to figure out here: what you cannot know you cannot know because it has no effect on you life in any way. Only that which has some effect is some way on your life matters. Therefore: what you cannot know cannot matter, by definition.

You're shading definitions now. Doesn't matter.

Way back at #4, you said:

All that matters is what you can see and what you can know. There is nothing else. It is exactly that, nothing, and to the extent one wastes their minds on what is not, they waste their lives.

While knowing involves concepts based on percepts, it doesn't necessarily follow that something imperceptible and unknowable can't affect you, nor that if it did affect you would you necessarily know it.

If you wanted to say, "That which doesn't have an effect on you doesn't have an effect on you," that would be true, but not especially useful.

What you said was that which cannot be perceived does not exist and cannot matter.

This is the same baldly superstitious (by your definition) assertion without rational foundation as when you first posted it.

You are mistaken here.

tautology -- Logical truth. A statement which is necessarily true because, by virtue of its logical form, it cannot be used to make a false assertion.

I was using "tautology" in the not unknown sense of a circular argument. It's a common fallacy. You've no doubt heard of it, and my usage was certainly clear from the context of my comments.

But just in case…

Unacceptable or Insufficient Premises.
(1) Begging the Question (Circular Reasoning; Argumentum in Circulo; Fallacy of Redundancy; Tautology).
An argument that uses its conclusion as one of its premises is most often called begging the question or circular reasoning.
Sophistry: Logical and Rhetorical Fallacies; Faulty Reasoning.

TAUTOLOGY:
(a sub-category of circular argument) defining terms or qualifying an argument in such a way that it would be impossible to disprove the argument. Often, the rationale for the argument is merely a restatement of the conclusion in different words.
COMMON FALLACIES IN REASONING

Tautology
A tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such.
Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies:
Begging the question / tautology using the argument itself to prove its truth.
Rhetorical Fallacies

Circular reasoning
Also called "begging the question" or a tautology. Occurs when your conclusion is just a restatement of one of your assumptions.
Baloney Detection Kit

Your example, by the way is not a tautology.

Guess again.

"Joe is smart because he eats macaroni, and he eats macaroni because he is smart."

Circular all the way.

Now that you understand what a tautology is, and not what you supposed it was, you understand that my argument was correct and that there is no claim for self evidence, only the evidence of logical deduction.

Now that this has conceit has been dispensed with, let's be crystal clear:
you were using circular reasoning as evidence, so those fallacious arguments don't support your claim.

I was mistaken in assuming you understood the definition of the most basic words describing consciousnees in philophy. Percepts are elements of direct consciousness, all conscious creatures have them. They are non-cognative (not knowledge). "Concepts" is the term for those conscious elements knowledge is comprised of. A concept is also called an idea. I was simply referring to these definitions which are commonly known to those with a minimum exposure to philosophical terms.

First, I didn't misunderstand the distinction, and I posted accordingly. Second, the mention of the distinction is impertinent here, so much so, that I'm not sure you could have posted it in error. It looks like just a dodge.

"Consciousnees in philophy?" Teacher, teach thyself.

This is what I mean about not being entirely sincere. You did not quote all I said. The very next paragraph said:

I didn't quote all that you said because you were trying to have it both ways. You asserted a view and then claimed that anyone in disagreement was obligated to supply evidence to the contrary. Shifting the burden of proof is not emblematic of sincerity.

In your subsequent paragraph, you quibbled a bit as though you weren't really making an assertion, as cover for shifting the burden. I did quote the last sentence elsewhere in my post, however, your autobiographical one:

"The other name for beliefs without a rational basis is superstition."

I have nothing to prove. I'm not trying to prove others do not have some other way to the truth than reason. I only stated that I do not know and cannot imagine what it is. If anyone wants to convince me they can know something without reason, I believe I have a responsibility to ask, how?

This is disingenuous special pleading. You made an assertion not borne out by your arguments, then suggested that others are obliged to show differently.

Ask what you like, but your responsibility is to support your assertions.

If you want to believe things on any other basis than reason, that is your perogative. I'm not trying to dissuade you.

If you want to continue with backhanded straw man insinuations, you'll just make yourself look sillier.
Where have I made such an assertion?

Aren't you the guy that thought he had a "gotcha" earlier, because I was focusing on reason as a means of acquiring knowledge?

Until someone wishes to provide an answer to the question of how one acquires knowledge without reason, I will continue to call all claims to knowledge derived in any way other than by using the reational faculty (reason), irrational.

Call it Cap'n Crunch if you like, your nomenclature has never been the issue, its the presumption that you have any logically compelling basis for your assertions that ain't flying.

In fact, your presumption is irrational.

[beavus]

During recent research I have come to realize how damaged I have been by Logical Positivism, but be that as it may, this definition is self contradictory and has no meaning.

Maybe your 6th sense is not fully developed.

[MHGinTN]

You posted to Alamo Girl ... and, on this open thread, to the entire reading audience: How do you know it exists apart from your body? Is this any different than your mind? How do you know it is separate from your mind? How do you know there is anything not bound by the laws of physics, outside time and space, unless you can perceive outside time and space? How do you know your soul is between the two? How do you know what it is you are experiencing? Do you mind if I offer something here?

The notion of something being beyond physics, being 'meta-physics' has been raised. To delve into this a bit more, let's use the well worn analogy of Flatland, the 'realm' bounded by two dimensions of space, length and width, with no height, thus flat (I prefer to call length, width, and height variables of the dimension space). The science in Flatland would be limited to length and width measurements such that any 'things' having a third variable of space, height, would be unknowable in their entirety. But this would not preclude gathering at least some evidence of such three-variable things if discovered to intersect flatland at some location, some where/when. We are in a similar situation with our spacetime universe, able to measure and quantify those things having three-variable spatial and 'one' variable temporal (again, I like to express this as dimension time having three variable expressions but our sensing being limited to only the present variable, but that's for another discussion, perhaps).

With the above tedium offered as a base for conceptualization and hopefully discussion, should a flatlander discover some three-variable thing that intersects his two variable space, he might, after extensive experiences with the portion 'in his universe', begin to conjecture over what might be the greater essence of this oddity, and that assumption that it is an oddity might follow from extensive and careful observation and measurement of the intersecting portion conspicuously missing some greater portion not readily observable to the flatlander ... as differing portions of the three-variable thing intersect flatland, the summing of the data might infer a three-variable object, though the flatlander wouldn't likely have a belief system to express this oddity in its fullness. He might then devise one --devise a belief system heavy with conjecture and short on measurements-- and that new way of thinking about the oddity would be a 'meta-physical' conjecture.

Isn't this the sort of thing we have with religious belief systems?... Has humankind, confronted with a series of events where greater realities have intersected our spacetime, devised a way to conceptualize this realm and the beings and forces of this realm?

How do you know there is anything not bound by the laws of physics, outside time and space, unless you can perceive outside time and space? With the above thought line offered, it is unreasonable to infer it is possible to form conjecture regarding that which is not bound by our 'laws of physics' as we presently understand them. A sun centered solar system was meta-physical theory until the minds came to grasp the notion and devised ways to make measurements and observations. Regarding the soul and spirit, such conjectures follow from the summing of events and experience where a greater dimensional being or system has repeatedly intersected our realm of understanding. I would suggest that the life lived on earth by one Jesus of Nazareth, is just such an event, and the entirety of the things people reported of Him and His acts. Such experience and the faith associated to the reporting leads to a meta-physical belief system, but to assume such a system is invalid is a bit dismissive, don't you think?

How do you know your soul is between the two? How do you know what it is you are experiencing? In point of fact, since the experiences and the belief system are not confined to the 'laws of physics', there is no way at present to 'know' in the sense of physical proofs, a massive body of physical data which can be measured and theorized over and experiments devised to 'falsify' for scientific purposes. There are however data to mull over. The placebo effect in medicine may be closely associated to the 'meta-physical' portion of our existence ... inferring, of course, that we have a component of our existence --the soul and spirit-- that is not bound solely by the 'laws of physics' as we understand them, presently. The fact that 'prayer changes things', that miraculous healings can occur would seem to point heavily to reality as yet beyond our 'laws of physics'. I won't argue over miracles, since even medical science is coming to accept that there such healings that remian unexplanable in our current understanding.] And there are other issues which may well point to the intersection of 'greater than our spacetime' realities. [I've cited Angelic visitations as one such body of testimony, and I wouldn't like to go in that tangent as yet.] As long as we dwell in flatland, we cannot dwell in the greater universe where our soul and spirit may already have unmeasured connection.

[MHGinTN]

Ping-a-ling

[Hank Kerchief]

Originally, I thought you had a sincere question about my meaning in earlier posts. I attempted to make that meaning clear. You evidently have chosen to think I am interested in debating these issues. I am not.

I said: I have nothing to prove. I'm not trying to prove others do not have some other way to the truth than reason. I only stated that I do not know and cannot imagine what it is. If anyone wants to convince me they can know something without reason, I believe I have a responsibility to ask, how?

You said: This is disingenuous special pleading. You made an assertion not borne out by your arguments, then suggested that others are obliged to show differently.

Ask what you like, but your responsibility is to support your assertions.

I am not assserting anything, I am denying. I am denying mysticism. I am denying the existense of that for which there is neither material or logical evidence. I am denying fairies and trolls and goblins have any existense except the imaginary. I am denying that which is asserted by all those who believe there is any kind of knowledge other than what is derived rationally. I am denying what you assert.

But, even if I were asserting anything, I am under no obligation to prove it to anyone else. The pupose of logical proof is to ensure one's own reasoning is correct and to protect against errors, not to prove things to other people. While I am always more than happy to explain why I hold the views I do, I neither demand or expect others to agree, unless their own reasoning leads them to the same conclusions.

Your repeated demands that I defend or prove my, "assertion," are asking me to prove a negative, which you know is not possible. If you know there is some other means to knowledge than reason, you have the advantage of me. If not for any other reason, then out of kindness, why wouldn't you want to at least give me hint of what that source is, or how it works, or at least show me how to discover it?

If you did this, I could no longer say I had no evidence or reason to at least suspect there might be another way to knowledge. Instead I could say, "look here, Sabertooth showed me this, and, by golly, there might actually be something to this mysticism thing after all."

In the meantime, I will go on in my ignorance, "asserting," I do not know of any other means to knowledge than reason, and no one else has ever presented me with any evidence or arguement for any such means. I must presume, until someone does present such evidence, anything anyone claims to believe which they admit is not based on reason, is merely superstition.

I have no interest in convincing you or anyone else to give up their superstitions. Most of the world is steeped in superstiton. If the ruin they make of their own lives and the disasters they make of their nations following their superstitions does not convince them of their folly, no amount of reason or argument is going to convince them. Only fools waste their time trying to change others.

Thanks for the interesting discussion. You have helped me clarify some of my views. I appreciate that.

Hank

[MissAmericanPie]

I don't understand those that stumble around in darkness rather than hit the light switch on the wall next to them. The bible makes it very clear why the universe is, what's going to happen to it, and what happens to us after death, and after the big crunch.

There is no need for speculation other than for the fun of it I suppose. But it's like having all the answers to a test and then debating why the answers were correct even after you have received your A+. I have never understood this refusing to crack the Book open and read it as reality.

God gave us some of His names, "I Am", a bi"O"nary Yes, as science says, everything breaks down to yes or no. "I Am the Alpha and the Omega, the begining and the end", is this one so very hard to figgure out for the scientific mind? I would hope not.

What about when the sun burns out? Who cares? According to scripture we will no longer need the sun in the future. This and all kinds of questions are answered for those that simply read the truth in the pages of the Bible and realize that this is our reality.

What we term the "miracles" of Jesus, He would most likely term something beyond Quantum Mechanics. He created the universe, and he certainly gave ample evidence that He knows how to manipulate it. The universe has it's physical end, the crunch perhaps, a dimension meld perhaps, and on the other side is "all things new", "world without end", not "all new things" and not one life that ever was is lost, but renewed to be judged and kept or eliminated.

If science can catch up with reality, well and good. But what is recorded in those pages is reality, even more so than the desk holding your monitor up.

[Sabertooth]

I am not assserting anything, I am denying. I am denying mysticism. I am denying the existense of that for which there is neither material or logical evidence. I am denying fairies and trolls and goblins have any existense except the imaginary. I am denying that which is asserted by all those who believe there is any kind of knowledge other than what is derived rationally. I am denying what you assert.

But, even if I were asserting anything, I am under no obligation to prove it to anyone else. The pupose of logical proof is to ensure one's own reasoning is correct and to protect against errors, not to prove things to other people. While I am always more than happy to explain why I hold the views I do, I neither demand or expect others to agree, unless their own reasoning leads them to the same conclusions.

Your repeated demands that I defend or prove my, "assertion," are asking me to prove a negative, which you know is not possible.

Correct. Yet you asserted the negative anyway, and continue to do so.

That you can't prove it doesn't change it's nature; it's an assertion.

How can an unprovable assertion be arrived at through reason alone?

Thanks for the interesting discussion. You have helped me clarify some of my views. I appreciate that.

Likewise. I appreciate your civility even when I've been contentious.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

I did not intend either statement in the last paragraph of my post to describe you. I would have no way of knowing.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the heads up to your analysis! Hugs!

[MHGinTN]

For what it's worth ...

[MHGinTN]

There may well be a component of imagining that is 'meta-physical' in the phenomenon, Hank.

[Alamo-Girl]

Your point of view is very important to me.

[LogicWings]

Maybe your 6th sense is not fully developed.

That must be it.

[Alamo-Girl]

I left something you said untouched, but I'd like to come back to it.

I said: The ego is like a heavy weight that grounds us from worship.

You said: The ego is the only reason you do worship, to save it. (uncbuck)

That is not true in my case. I love Him more than anything, including my own life which I do not value over anyone else's. If His will required my destruction then I would be happier that His will be done than I would be sad over my own fate.

[LogicWings]

I did not intend either statement in the last paragraph of my post to describe you. I would have no way of knowing.

Ok, since you were posting to me I thought maybe you were referring to me. Sorry if I sounded strident, but I think you know I mean no harm. I just have lots of questions.

[BikerNYC]

I don't understand those that stumble around in darkness rather than hit the light switch on the wall next to them.

How did you come to pick the Bible as your light switch as opposed to the Koran? If an alien from another world visited us, someone who was unfamiliar with any of our planet's "light switches," how would you convince him that your light switch was better than all the others?

[Alamo-Girl]

I should have checked more wording more carefully before pressing "post." I apologize for the misunderstanding.