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Science vs. Spirituality
My mind is still not up to full speed after being on retreat, but I am thrilled by all of the back and forth on the topic of spirituality. It is, as we can see, a particularly charged area of discussion. And given that part of my purpose is to look at things through the lens of American Philosophy, it is good to mention that the topic of spirituality is particularly charged in this nation. Freedom of religious choice and the separation of church and state have left America much more religiously oriented than other developed nations with many more active religious denominations, sects and experimental spiritual communities of all kind.
In our discussion I would like to look into what spirituality is while remaining as intellectually rigorous and philosophically rooted as possible. So to start I would like to take a look at the nature of philosophy itself. I propose that philosophy in its most general sense can be understood as “The human endeavor to understand the nature and functioning of reality.” Human beings are thinking animals that use ideas to guide action. Philosophy is the human effort to create ideas that accurately describe the way things are so that we can use those ideas as a basis for acting.
In the development of Western philosophy there have been two approaches to the endeavor of philosophy that persist to this very day. These two ways of going about philosophy are sometimes known as Rationalism and Empiricism and in fact these distinctions existed long before the terms were created to describe them.
In short, Rationalistic thinkers put their faith in reason. They mistrust sense experience that is not mitigated by reason because they recognize that our senses can deceive us about reality. For this reason they believe that ultimate truth lies in the realm of ideas and reason. Empiricists, on the other hand, put their faith in our sense experience of the world. They mistrust ideas that are not grounded in sense experience because they see that ideas on there own easily fly into fantasy. Science as we know it today can be seen as a special case of Empiricism and Spirituality as a special case of Rationalism.
Science is an Empirical pursuit that makes use of the scientific method for determining the truth from our sense experience and has as its aim a complete understanding of the material world. The scientific method involves hypothesizing a theory and then testing the theory through experimentation. Only information that is obtained in this way is truly scientific. If a theory is not testable it is not considered scientific.
Spirituality is a Rationalistic pursuit that maintains the validity of “revealed truth” and that has as its aim the moral transformation of the individual to act in accordance with revealed truth. In traditional religious terms revealed truth was seen as the word of God – for instance as recorded in the Bible. In our own time revealed truth has come to be interpreted as personal “spiritual” experience which seems to “reveal” something of the ultimate nature of things to the experiencer. These revealed truths are generally seen as being self-evident and therefore no experimental testing is required to “prove” them.
Early in human understanding the distinction between philosophy, science, and spirituality was not clear and all three were intermingled. With the age of Enlightenment these distinctions became clearer. And over the centuries Religion has been largely usurped by Science as the dominant world view in the Western World.
So this question of “Does spirituality have any significance in the modern age?” is one that humanity has been wrestling with for a long time. In Christian philosophy the defense of religion is called apologetics. And you can see the arguments of apologists appearing and reappearing throughout the history of human understanding defending the validity of “revealed Truth” in an increasingly empirically driven world. So my question to myself and to all of you is “Does Spirituality have any validity and if so, what is it?”
While I have not studied carefully the differences in definitions between rationalism and empiricism, as a scientifically trained person my experience is that science puts its faith in reason (mathematics, logic), grounded in empirically demonstrated fact. In other words, I think thaht science combines the two. While I think one can have rational deductions based on no data (e.g., the musings of the early geometricians who deduced the nature of reality based on geometric theorems) or empirical experience collected without any effort to synthesize understanding from the facts, science combines the two. Science, both hypothetical-deductive science (which you describe) and inductive science (which is the tradition of “discovery” based on accumulating observations in which I was trained and which is the approach taken by much of biology), starts with observed facts but then uses reason (or logic) to draw conclusions from those facts, collects further facts to extend or strengthen confidence in the conclusions, and so on. Again, this is my understanding, and it might not stand up to a scholarly debate.
To me an interesting question in all of this has to do with whether we believe there are two realms or kinds of substance in the universe (matter and form, as Plato called them, later described as body and soul in Christian theology) or just one (we might call it energy or Being). I think when we use terms like “spiritual” we need to be very clear about whether we are suggesting a universe made of more than one “thing” or not.
My understanding of experiences I have had of non-duality as well as of those in the spiritual traditions that I have read about, is that there is only one Thing, one Being, one Substance. While it might take different forms — energy, matter, life, etc. — it seems that it is all one thing and that as it becomes more complex, properties such as self-awareness, intelligence, personality, and all the rest of it emerge. As a result of this development, it becomes capable of actively guiding its own change or evolution over time, paradoxically ACTING as though it were many different things but actually just being One.
Given a nondual view of the universe — whether based on scientific understanding or spiritual experience — what do we mean by “spirituality”? Is it “rational” or “empirical” or both? Can it be “scientific?”
My own experience is that it is empirical, given that I would not really understand any of the concepts of non-dual spiritual teaching had I not had direct experience of them. It can be quite rational, in drawing conclusions from experience, for example, inferrdng what might happen at the moment of death. And it ought to be consistent with scientific understanding, even though there might be knowledge in science not relevant to spiritual consideration, and spiritual experience that so far extends beyond the ability of scientific observation to detect (e.g., the energy that people feel in a room with meditation masters). I guess I believe that it ought to all hang together.
I think that both Rationalists and Impericists utilize both reason and expereince. The difference is one of degrees. As I have come to understand it the easiest way to think about the difference is:
A Rationalist mistrusts experience unsupported by reason and an Impericist mistrusts reason unsupported by experience. A Rationalist believes that our ideas give us a more potentially accurate picture of reality than our experience.
—-I propose that philosophy in its most general sense can be understood as “The human endeavor to understand the nature and functioning of reality.” Human beings are thinking animals that use ideas to guide action. Philosophy is the human effort to create ideas that accurately describe the way things are so that we can use those ideas as a basis for acting.—-
—“The human endeavor to understand the nature and functioning of reality.” — What we know is that the Universe is mirroring back to us our thoughts. What you think you create.
—-Human beings are thinking animals that use ideas to guide action. —– Ideas that have been passed down since the beginning of time. Idea’s made out of fear based thinking instead of from the supernatural form.
—-Philosophy is the human effort to create ideas that accurately describe the way things are so that we can use those ideas as a basis for acting—- From my experience living life, whoever speaks the loudest, has the most education, and the most money decide how life will be lived. We are not living life as the monks who have extraordinary supernatural experiences that lead to an easy, effortlessly way of being.
We cannot build a life on this earth that is peaceful, effortless, joyful and fun the same way that it has been built up until now by fear based thinking and creating.
Happy Creating!
Jeff, that’s a helpful clarification. You suggest degrees along a continuum, and some of my reading after posting my comment seemed to suggest the same thing (e.g., on Wikipedia, not necessarily authoritative but convenient).
I often appreciate Andrew Cohen’s use of the term “scientific” which seems to suggest with respect to certain topics, such as meditation, that there are principles or rules that govern spiritual phenomena and practice, that they are verifiable through experience and results, and that they are discoverable, as in scientific laws. Seems like a combination of experience and reason in that the logical description of a model and process predict certain outcomes that can be verified.
That all hangs together for me, makes the experience of life and consciousness whole rather than segmented into different “domains.”
In addition to all this talk of science, reason, rationality, empiricism, truth, and reality (integral-right); seems to me spirituality is also in league with emotions, imagination, culture, art, beauty, and goodness (integral-left).
So now that we’ve narrowed it down…
I agree, especially with emotions….it is always good to start broad and narrow in later. I think the big divide between those that are more science and spirituality is that science fundementally trusts that which can be seen where spirituality trusts that which can not be seen. Now that discussion will stir up trouble.
I read a story a few years back about NASA spending billions of dollars trying to connect to the Zero Point Field that creates our reality.
Why would NASA spend so much money to find the key ingredient that would unlock the “supernatural law?” Are they not all about the Sciences? And, what do you believe they would do with that knowledge?
Thy will be done.
Its exciting to imagine how things might fit altogether. I think it is possible that science one day will know all the answers to this kind of discussion. Lets fantasize!
Could it be that all kinds of dualism is lack of understanding? Lets take something like “the seen” and “the unseen”. We already know a lot about things that once upon a time where “the unseen”: cells, molecules, electrons, and so on. In spirituality there is a paradox between the experience of oneness in meditation and the duality in dayly life of good/bad, ego/spirit, interior/ exterior. Can we imagine that science one day will be able to remove the borders – transcend them? If we really think about it everything has got the same history, when everyting was created.
Evil and good all grew out of the universel “wanting to live”. And in the bible we see the myths trying to explain the same thing: The fallen angel where once with God. Also reason and experience should be something that could be united – we just havent got all the knowledge yet.
I believe that spirituality and science can be united one day, not in my lifetime I guess, but some day (if this earth and humanity will survive the global crises we create).
I convinced it’s the demand and predilection that spirituality and science must be united in our life time(to make it or not is the different matter) and one live life to put fundamental trust that which can be seen and can not be seen. (learn forward into life).
Same time the survival (the fear of can I able to survive?pararised about life) is real as well.
I think science tries to uncover what is not seen, to account for it by figuring out what’s missing from the seen (e.g., to explain the measured behavior of sub-atomic particles by postulating additional particles or forces that have not yet been detected). So science sometimes uses what is “not seen” to explain what is seen, and then tries harder to “see” it, or to provide some other plausible explanation for the data.
In my own spiritual life, I can say without a doubt that the experiences in which I have “seen” (not always visually, but through direct experience) the reality of non-dual consciousness are the ones that have shaped my understanding for more than any concepts that make sense but that I have not experienced directly. I remember vividly numerous experiences (e.g, of open-eyed nondual awareness, or of collective consciousness) where I said aloud, or to myself, something like “Oh! THAT’s what they’re talking about” (usually referring to teachers, living or past living). The experience is so much more compelling and, usually, clarifying than merely the idea. I have experiential anchor-points in my own history to which I return, and which I can sometimes use to “see” more directly in the present moment, such as times when any sense of the separate self has dropped away and I have experienced Communion in one form or another.
So I would say that spirituality, if we continue to call it that, also places great weight on those things that are experienced directly or “seen” vs. those things that are merely asserted by others or logically demonstrated. Seems like both areas of investigation — science and spirituality — depend on what is seen, and try to uncover what has not yet been seen but is suspected.
I don’t know what will happen at death, although I have some ideas. But I suspect that the direct experience will be a lot different from those ideas.
Thanks Jeff for this very nice blog. I found myself agreeing fully with Carl’s comments after reading this blog.
In Science, both Theory and Experiment go hand in hand. An experiment without a logical understanding ( or interpretation of it) is as useless as a Theory with no Experimental verification.
I believe this is the same for Spirituality. Namely if a Master theorizes on something that nobody can test, then why would any one bother; it is just meaningless. Likewise, if we have Spiritual experiences that we don’t understand, it is not very useful because we will be unable to progress out of them.
What I love in Andrew Cohen’s Teachings is that it is all about Meaning and Progress. Exactly just like the scientific method.
Only Science and Spirituality don’t have the same field of application ( at the moment) , they don’t have the same definition of what they call the Reality. The Science of today seems to specialize on a very narrow view of what Reality is ( reproducible experiments) and in my view, it is because of of this narrowing of perspective that it has so much trouble to Evolve.
Catherine’s words on theory and experiment remind me of a quote by Charles Darwin:
“About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorize; and I well remember someone saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!”
For several years, I taught a meditation that gave a person their self-realization. I had nothing to sell. I gave an experience to someone who had to decide for themselves if they experienced any differences within.
This meditation wakes you up from a deep dark sleep, and you can fully become aware of yourself.
This was the rub. The meditation in itself is life transforming, but if the person practicing this meditation did not have the courage to see their faults to release them, they would continue down that deep dark road.
What I had notice, from those I taught this meditation to, was the lack of courage to see themselves for who they really were. What I learned, is that most people do not want to believe they are responsible for what is not working in their lives.
Yes, there lives got better. Good things were happening for them. Life became easier to live. However, it was at a price they weren’t ready to pay. Releasing of those negative things that felt comfortable to them.
I was frequently astounded by the lack of courage a person had to receive all the goodness the world could give them. From the conversations I was having with those I taught meditation to, some could not see the changes they were going through until I pointed out to them the things that were occurring in their lives that were different from before. Which seemed to shock them once the realization hit them that the negative part of their lives was changing, and good things were happening to them. It was almost like they did not want to let the negative part go from their life. Most of the people that I, and others taught did not stay very long. It seemed the transformation was too much to take all at once. Let me rephrase this. Most of the Americans we taught would not stay long. Those who were not originally from America, stayed the longest.
I often felt if I could put the transformation you receive from practicing this meditation into a pill, and gave it to my students, and they had the same experience the meditation gave them from the pill, they would have accepted the transformation. People seem to accept the sciences help more than actual spiritual experiences to fix a problem. This proves to me were the psyches of the humans are now.
I just had a light bulb moment. Jeff is this why you are asking the questions about Science and Spirituality, because Americans believe more in the sciences than actual spiritual experiences making them and life better?
This is the direction I want to pursue. I believe that we are all (and perhaps Americans even more so) much more materialistic than we realize and much more so than the facts of reality truly warrant. We live in a culture that makes it easy to believe in a scientific worldview and many people have adopted that world view as truth, even though they themselves have not done enough scientific investigation to be personally convinced. This is the way it was in days long gone by with religion. It was the culturally held belief so it was easy to believe it without realizing it was a belief. It simply seemed like the Truth and if you looked around everyone else was constantly supporting that belief as Truth. I am using this forum to open up these questions and to listen and learn from some wonderfully thoughtful and inspired people who are coming at this from all sides. I am not entirely sure where this is leading, I just throw things in and fantastic stuff comes back through your comments and that leads to the next thing.
Can we say that science is the investigation and discovery of how the material mundane dimension operates and that spirituality is the exploration of the metaphysical dimension of humanity. Science insists on proof with instrumentation and duplication of that proof whereas with spirituality, humans haven’t developed yet devised ways of proving it’s findings other than miracles, anecdotes and faith. We have long mystical metaphysical traditions which are usually given short shrift by those not inclined to believe in such. Faith is that isn’t it, a matter of believing and suspending disbelief.
I submit that living without spiritual belief and not behaving in accordance with spiritual tenets is to be only partially developed as a human being, often damaged psychically.