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.

[f.Christian]

To: taxed2death

t2d...

Previously posted: "In Communism and Fascism the system...is everything".

Cool, you can also add capitalism.

---

m_c...

Capitalism is not a system of government as Communism and Fascism are. It is the free market system of economics. To equate it with the other two is inaccurate.


33 posted on 12/07/2002 12:17 PM PST by music_code

[Hank Kerchief]

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

Well....Maybe. Not sure what you intend to convey, however. Your use of the word, "meta-physical," is strange to me, because I use the word "metaphysics," to designate that branch or philosophy that deals with the ultimate nature of existense. One of the questions of metaphysics (philosophy), is whether material (perceiveable) existense is all there is (the view of the strict naturalists) or whether material existense is part of a larger existense (many worlds type theories) or a subset of a greater existense (the view of supernaturalists).

In an earlier discussion with Sabertooth, I was impressed by the assumption that seemed apparent that I only believed we could know what could be perceived, which is not the case. We are conscious, but consciousness itself cannot be perceived. The strict naturalist is mistaken because he must either ignore consciousness (which most do) or deny it (which behaviorists actually do).

Consciousness itself has none of the qualities of material existense and cannot therefore be defined by them. We know we are conscious the same way we know we can see. We cannot directly perceive our seeing, we know it because we do it. In the same way, we cannot directly perceive our consciousness (or that of any other being, either), we know our own consciousness because we are conscious, but must take the word of others about theirs, and assume it for other creatures from their behavior.

I do not particularly like the word, "supernatural," so do not use that word, but those who do, I think, refer to what seems apparent to me: material existense is not all there is, because there is at least also consciousness, which cannot be material existense or an aspect of it, if for no other reason (and there are actually many), since material existense is that we are directly conscious of (i.e. that which we perceive), it cannot itself be a material existent, because we cannot perceive it. (No behavior, by the way, is proof of consciousness, because all behavior can be simulated or otherwise explained without it.)

Of course, as soon as human (rational/volitional) consciousness is brought into the question, the fact that both volition (choice) and knowledge (cognition) exclude causation, in the material sense, the suggestion that consciousness is an aspect of material existense becomes absurd. If all conscious choice is nothing more than materially caused events, all of our behavior becomes nothing more than accidental events that happen to us, and, if all our ideas are just materially caused phenomena, then there is no more cognitive significance to an idea than to an itch.

This view is a strictly rational one, however, and there is no place in it for irrationality or mysticism.

(Please understand this treatment has been very informal and is only meant to express my viewpoint in a very general way.)

Hank

[LogicWings]

Excellent post. Finally someone has constructed the argument is such a way as to actually create a possible workable hypothesis. Welcome to Flatland. I think this line of thinking was briefly alluded to in a previous post as the existence of something that exists throughout all time, or in all times, if you will. To use your metaphor, what would a Flatland creature think if its plane intersected the branches of a tree? How would it ever determine that what appeared to be separate things were really part of one thing outside its plane.

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.

Yes, but one must never forget that it is still conjecture. You have a hypothesis, not a proof.

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?

Yes, and more than just religious systems. The problem is in verifying that there is anything that extends beyond our space time, since we cannot see out of our space time continuum, or mistaking what we see as not being something that is actually part and parcel of our space time continuum but in a manner we do not yet understand. Shouldn’t one rule out the latter before leaping to the conclusion of the former?

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.

I think you mean it is ‘reasonable to infer’ not unreasonable here. Yes, it is reasonable to infer, if you have certain evidence, to form the conjecture. But is still just conjecture.

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?

If you accept that as evidence then you accept that evidence. At this point, with what I have seen people conclude upon evidence today, I can’t blithely accept evidence from people 2000 years ago that were predisposed to a certain view. The accuracy of those reports can in no way be verified. It isn’t that I assume the system invalid, I don’t see the evidence it is valid.

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.

This is exactly the point, couldn’t have said it better myself, and you answered my question. No one can know, at this point. Unless we can find something we are overlooking.

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.

See, I would draw exactly the opposite conclusion from the same data, that ‘soul and spirit’ are, in fact, part and parcel of this universe, not outside it. If we have evidence of something happening here, why assume it must be from outside here? Go with the evidence, it is here.

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.]

I have yet to see truly documented cases of these things. And I started in all this by believing and looking for them. That the human body has the power to heal itself, and that ‘believing’ is the key to the healing power is well documented. The problem here is that it doesn’t matter what you believe, only that you believe. If one believes in something strong enough, that belief can heal you.

I told this story before. There was a Chinese writer in Red China who was diagnosed with lung cancer. Two separate xrays and diagnoses. He was given 6 months to live. They wanted another set of xrays to determine the extent. As he was waiting for the xrays to develop he found himself praying to the Buddha. He wasn’t a Buddhist, had never prayed before, but found himself chanting over and over almost against his will. He didn’t even really know why he was doing this. When the doctor came out he said the xrays were clear. Based upon this he figured there was a reason he was being given a second chance at life and figured out how to leave China and now lives in France. I used to collect these stories, I can dig up dozens. And many have nothing to do with Jesus. So what is really happening here?

As for effecting reality outside the mind/body connection, statistically speaking, it never rises above the level of chance. Nobody has yet prayed a bridge into existence. There are plenty of examples of prayer failing.

As long as we dwell in flatland, we cannot dwell in the greater universe where our soul and spirit may already have unmeasured connection.

And it may well be we already dwell in that greater universe and just don’t see it because we think it is separate from this one. I think the evidence is that this is actually the case, and we don’t have to leave this space time continuum to understand this. Just look at it in a different way. Maybe Flatland isn’t really all that flat.

[LogicWings]

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.

I sense, we are not using ego in the same sense. The happiness you would express in laying down your life is the same ego. It is you knowing you exist. That you lay down your life for an eternal life is not a loss. It is just a matter of timing. A thousand years from now what will it matter if you lived to 30 or to 80? Assuming your friends and family all share the same faith, it is like going on a vacation for a couple years. Sooner or later you all end up together anyway.

[LogicWings]

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

i often suffer the same fate. no need to apologize. its not like you're trying to hurt my feelings.

[Alamo-Girl]

Indeed, I would never intentionally hurt you.

The happiness you would express in laying down your life is the same ego.

In the scenario I used, the decision to end my life would be His alone. My happiness would be that His will shall be done. Self interest is not a factor at any point.

I guess you are right, that we do not using the word ego in the same sense. I use the term as a matter of will as compared to being.

[LogicWings]

My happiness would be that His will shall be done. Self interest is not a factor at any point.

Then why does it matter if you are happy or not?

[beavus]

Kind of a long-winded way of saying that there are things we don't understand and therein may lie an explanation for your religious beliefs.

You man want to read this.

There is one sure thing we can say about those things that we do not know--We don't know them.

[MHGinTN]

"Maybe Flatland isn't really flat at all.' Amen! That is the essence of all my ramblings ... the realm from which Angels descend to interact with us exits in the greater universe and the portion we cannot yet measure and experience directly is part of the same universe of our spacetime. Our soul and spirit are somehow attached to that portion as yet beyond our direct experiencing, thus we may exercise faith 'substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen.' In one of the novels upon which I'm sporatically working, the exchange occurs where a new believer learns that our spacetime bubble protects us; he asks (The Listener (the Lord) 'But from what does it protect us?' and is inform 'From knowing too much ... for beyond your bubble, only truth may exist.'

To use your metaphor, what would a Flatland creature think if its plane intersected the branches of a tree? How would it ever determine that what appeared to be separate things were really part of one thing outside its plane. In offering the flatland analogy on previous occasions, I've posed the notion that for a three-variable being to introduce a flatlander to a pencil (a three variable thingy), the three-being would pass the pencil 'through' flatland and the residents therein would have to 'sum' the visible intersections over time to get a concept of the whole. [Kind of a borrowing from calculus.] I use this analogy to explain how it is that God can walk among men, 'Summing the totality of the experience of Jesus among us, we have a better notion of His fullness, yet we can never see His totality inside our limits.'

[MHGinTN]

Perhaps taking the dunce in the corner, did you offer that link as an insult or because you assess my reasoning to be too flawed?

[Hank Kerchief]

To discover the truth about the material world, one must use pure concept, reason, to do so. As I used to read Plato, he exalted the Forms and relegated the Matter as diminimus. There's a difference between Math and Science. Math is reason. Science has nothing to do with the knowledge of the material world, except for measuring that which reason defines and predicts.

I'm sorry but this seems hopelessly confused to me. What can you possibly mean by "pure concept?" It sounds like some Hegelian or Kantian non-concept to me. Plato was a mystic whose contributions were more damaging than useful to understanding anything. I suggest you read Aristotle.

As for, "science has nothing to do with the knowledge of the material world," what knowledge does it have to do with. Is not the physics that discovers the nature of light enabling the creation of Lasers knowldge about the material world? Is not the chemistry the enables us to understand the nature of polymers enabling the creation of plastics knowledge about the material world?

I suspect you are a mathematician, or greatly influenced by that discipline. Numbers are not "pure" concepts. If there were never anything to count, there never would have been a concept of numbers. All of mathematics (which is nothing more than a method for dealing with one of the qualities of material existense, i.e. its measureability) could not possibly exist or have meaning.

All of mathematics and all of the concepts which comprise it are nothing more than abstractions from the identification of qualities of material existense. Without material existinse, there can be no mathematics.

Hank

[LogicWings]

"Maybe Flatland isn't really flat at all.' Amen! That is the essence of all my ramblings .

And then you went off in a direction completely different than what I meant. That it insufficient to fulfill what I was driving at is ok. 'Nothing' is what is separate from our 'direct experiencing.'

But that's enough for one day, maybe for the rest of the week.

[forsnax5]

Of course, as soon as human (rational/volitional) consciousness is brought into the question, the fact that both volition (choice) and knowledge (cognition) exclude causation, in the material sense, the suggestion that consciousness is an aspect of material existense becomes absurd.

PMFJI, but consciousness and the mind have always been one of my fascinations. :)

It has been my understanding that the mind is kind of a neural thunderstorm that constantly flickers within the physical brain. Sequences captured by magnetic resonance imaging dance like cloud lightning in summer cumulous in response to external stimulus. The idea that "volition (choice) and knowledge (cognition) exclude causation, in the material sense," seems to deny the observed phenomena.

If all conscious choice is nothing more than materially caused events, all of our behavior becomes nothing more than accidental events that happen to us, and, if all our ideas are just materially caused phenomena, then there is no more cognitive significance to an idea than to an itch.

I've often wondered where ideas come from. Trying to dredge up AHA! moments is an exercise in frustration and, when they do occur, they seem to come from nowhere. The fact that you can generate new ideas seemingly at random (with, alas, random usefulness), with free association (scanning magazines, flipping through TV channels, surfing the internet, etc.) seems to indicate that internal neural communications are an inexact process, and those AHA! moments are fortuitous linkages caused by "short circuits."

Do you recall the sequence from the file "2001, A Space Odyssey," where Dave removed the memory blocks from HAL's "brain," one at a time? As HAL lost more and more of the physical repository of his mind, he regressed into his "childhood," and finally expired.

I had the unfortunate experience of watching my father die of Alzheimer's disease. It was like that film sequence, except that it was dragged out for a number of years. At the end, he knew no one, seemingly not even himself. He finally died when his autonomic systems failed.

I apologize for mentioning that, but it seems such an obvious example of the direct connection between the physical brain and the conscious mind, and the fact that the mind cannot exist without the brain.

[Alamo-Girl]

Then why does it matter if you are happy or not?

Exactly! It doesn't matter - not a bit.

Thanks for your post!

[MHGinTN]

If all of time is as a panoramic plane to the Creator (leaning loosely on the concept of flatland), then going to a point on the plane of time is as easy for Him as anything He does. When again your father is conscious (and I believe he will be, because of my faith in God's promises found in scripture), he need not follow a linear direction of time on that plane any longer. I know, that's extremely esoteric, but it is a way to conjoin faith and some 'rational' use for the theory I've tried to present on this thread regarding time and space.

I'm not a scientist, but I read voraciously on the things of science. I've spent decades pondering these concepts and writing around the edges. I do believe your father exists eternally and he will be in a body again, with consciousness. Perhaps that's as deep as I ought go in such an agnostic forum, but I will pose one last notion.

To this Christian, the Cross of Christ occurred thousands of years ago; Where/When that event occurred, it had meaning for all that had lived and all that would live ... the force of what He accomplished on that Cross and with His ressurection reaches as far back in our reckoning of time as it reaches forward. But in His reckoning, it is all of one time ... like that 'panoramic' plane. It is our understanding of the phenomenon of time that needs work, for faith's sake and for further scientific advance.

[Cvengr]

How do you explain reported out-of-body-experiences, without ignoring more evidence than the testimonials provide?

[Cvengr]

I've found that more important than agnosis or gnosis is epignosis.

[Cvengr]

Incorpreal consciousness isn't self-contrdictory.

What I tell you is real, although unless you have been reborn of the Spirit this will seem as foolishness or may play into the hands of deception.

Man is body, soul and spirit. This is not merely some echo of jingoistic religion. It is a concise report of intuitive phenomena and understanding.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 1 Corinthians 15:53-54

[Hank Kerchief]

I apologize for mentioning that, but it seems such an obvious example of the direct connection between the physical brain and the conscious mind, and the fact that the mind cannot exist without the brain.

I have no doubt at all that a physical brain is necessary to consciousness. Consciousness must be conscious of something, and there must be some actual (logical) relationship between consciousness and that which consciousness is conscious of.

However, I do not believe consciousness is and "emergent" quality of matter, but distinct from it. Though it is unlikely that you would have heard of it, all of existense can be described is levels of differentiation, from the simplest differentiation of "position," to " motion," to " accelleration" (and notice, differences of position are spatial, and differences of motion are temporal, and differences of accelleration are the qualities of mass and energy, if you are familiar with physics). The next level of differentiation of the same existense is no doubt consciousness, and rationa/volitional consciousness the last.

Hank