Café Philos: an internet café

If one thinks of creation stories as containing psychological truths, rather than physical truths, then perhaps those stories in which the world was created out some pre-existing substance are more psychologically true than those stories in which the world was created out of nothing.

I've tried to point out in the post that follows this one how our awareness of the world is limited. That is, we are not aware of the world as is, but only as interpreted. This psychological truth seems to imply, however, that our interpretation is derived from some kind of information we get from the world. Our eyes detect photons. The photons are of the world and pre-exist our interpretation of the world. We then interpret those photons. That act of interpretation can be seen as an act of creation in which we make the world -- not out of nothing -- but out of something (photons).

Yet, if all that is true, and if one wants to look at creation stories as psychological truths, then those creation stories which state the world was created out of pre-existing matter would seem to be more psychologically accurate than those creation stories which state the world was created out of nothing.

My senses tell me I'm sitting in a solid chair. On the other hand, physics tells me the chair I'm sitting in is mostly empty space. How can it be there is a difference between my subjective impression of the chair and what physics tells me is objectively true about the chair?

The short answer is that my brain and nervous system (very much including my senses) do not reconstruct reality as it is. My eyes do not, for instance, see the atoms of my chair, nor the empty space between the atoms. Instead, my eyes take in photons that have bounced off the atoms of the chair. My eyes and brain then process and interpret that information. In the end, what I see bears little resemblance to what is actually there according to physics.

One way to understand the relation between my subjective impression of the chair and what physics tells me is objectively true about the chair is to consider the analogy of a pilot landing an aircraft on instruments. Although the plane's instruments give the pilot very little information about the world -- and even though what information they give him is highly processed and interpreted -- the information he gets is sufficient for him to navigate. Just so, our brains and nervous systems give us very little information about the world and the information they do give us is highly processed and interpreted -- yet it's usually sufficient for us to cope with the world.

We are all like that pilot -- we must cope with the world on instruments alone. That's the position our brains and nervous systems leave us in.

Unless you are trying to pass a class in metaphysics, whether god ontologically exists or not is trivial at best and more likely irrelevant. It's true that discussing the issue can, if done well, exercise the brain and sharpen one's thinking, but so can many other issues exercise the brain and sharpen one's thinking. Overall, wondering whether god exists or not is nearly pointless -- except perhaps as a way of distracting ourselves from dealing with more authentic challenges of living.

Underlying the mistaken notion that god's existence or non-existence is vitally important are the assumptions that god, merely by god's ontological existence, saves us from meaninglessness, makes sense of our suffering, preserves us from eternal death, is with us in times of need, and so on and so forth. Yet, not one of those things can be demonstrated -- not to you, not to me, not to anyone.

The mere ontological existence of god implies almost nothing about the nature of god or god's relationship to us. For instance, suppose that tomorrow someone finally proves the universe must necessarily have a creator, and therefore god must ontologically exist. Fine. But would it necessarily mean anything to us? Would it mean there was salvation from eternal death? Would it mean god in any way cares for us? Would it tell us a thing about whether god has a purpose for us or not? On what grounds could anyone answer "yes" to those questions?

Yet, it is crucial to point out here that some people experience god. To be precise, they have an experience of something they choose to name "god". Other people, having similar experiences, choose to say they experienced the Tao, the Buddha-Nature, the Great Spirit, the Void, the Ultimate Weirdness, or some other placeholder. It doesn't much matter what people call their experiences experiences of. That seems to be more determined by what society, religious tradition, or culture they come from than by anything else. What matters is those experiences are so often transformative.

They are transformative in ways the mere ontological existence of god is not. For instance, someone who has had such experiences might find they no longer fear dying. Not because they now believe in a life after death, nor because they now have a reassuring theology, but simply because they have changed, been transformed, into someone who doesn't fear death. Likewise, someone who has had such experiences might find they are now capable of much greater love. Again, not because they believe god ontologically exists and has commanded them to love, but simply because they have been transformed into someone who is more loving. While the ontological existence of god (or the Tao, or whatever) is at best trivial, the experience of god is often profoundly transformative.

The question of whether god exists or not is insignificant compared to the transformation that can occur when one experiences god. Moreover, that transformative experience does not come about from believing in god. You can believe in god to your heart's content, but all your hours of belief will do nothing to bring about a transformative experience of god. Why is that?

"God" is just a symbol -- no more, no less. To say you believe in god is quite the same -- and just as trivial -- as saying you believe in the star that represents Paris on a map of France. It is just as insignificant -- and just as trivial -- as saying you believe in your wife's name. Nor does it matter in the least how elaborate, sophisticated and complex your notion of god is. For does it matter whether you say you believe in the star that represents Paris on one map, or you say that you believe in the more detailed street map that represents Paris on a different map? In both cases, your mere belief will not be the same thing as an actual experience of Paris -- regardless of how passionately or fervently you believe.

For those reasons, belief in god is quite often mere escapism. It is like reading a map of Paris rather than visiting Paris. It can be no more than a longed for daydream.

At Andersonville during the American civil war, the Union soldiers who were held prisoner there by the Confederates lacked salt. When you go without salt, you begin to crave it, and the craving of some of those soldiers became so intense that they would cut the world "salt" from their Bibles and chew the word. It did nothing to preserve their lives -- they starved for salt anyway. But it had a psychological effect on some of those who ate the word. It comforted them.

For many people belief in god is just such a comfort. It does nothing to really nourish them spiritually, it is by no means as transformative as experiencing god, but it does give them a morale boost -- just as eating the word "salt" comforted some of the soldiers who did it at Andersonville. Perhaps ironically, I think most of us would prefer the comfort of believing in god to the experience of god. That might be why we place so much emphasis on whether we believe or not.

"The aim of Zen is to focus attention on reality itself, instead of our intellectual and emotional reactions to reality...."

- Alan Watts


Source

Many people -- perhaps even most people -- hold the naive belief that normal, everyday consciousness mirrors reality. That's an especially dangerous assumption which can, and does, cause all sorts of emotional and logical problems. For one thing, when we assume our thoughts mirror reality, we become much more inclined to narrow-mindedness. For another thing, we are much more prone to becoming attached to our thoughts and to believing our thoughts are just as important as the things they "mirror". Both of those mistakes are quite common, and they can both be traced back to the naive assumption that normal, everyday consciousness mirrors reality.

Instead of saying that normal, everyday consciousness mirrors reality, it would be far more accurate to say that it maps reality. That is, the relationship of consciousness to reality is basically the same as the relationship of a map to its terrain.

The differences between a map and a mirror are many and subtle. Yet, if you spend enough time comparing and contrasting those two metaphors, you will gain for yourself the practical insights of an introductory college course in epistemology -- and all without ever having to learn how to spell "epistemology"! Deals like that don't grow on trees.

From time to time, I will post articles here on the many and various implications of the notion that consciousness is to reality as a map is to its terrain. But in this article, I only wish to discuss one of those implications: A mirror reflects reality, but a map merely symbolizes it.

To illustrate, suppose I take out an indispensable map I recently bought which shows the locations of all the erotic dance clubs in Colorado. Looking at the map, I first notice that it does not reflect Colorado and its dance clubs like a mirror would, but instead it symbolizes Colorado and its dance clubs. For instance, the location of each dance club is symbolized by two tiny figures -- the first of a dancer, and the second of an enthusiastic patron trying to take the dancer's g-string off with his teeth. The two tiny figures do not reflect or mirror what the dance clubs look like, but they do symbolize the dance clubs.

Again looking at the map, the second thing I notice is that the map's usefulness to me in no way depends on its mirroring reality. I am able to use the map to find the dance clubs despite the fact the symbol for the dance clubs in no way reflects or mirrors the actual clubs.

Consciousness is remarkably similar to a map.

In my room is a floor lamp with a rich green shaft. According to the naive view that consciousness mirrors reality, when I look at that shaft, I am seeing "what's really there". But is that so? Physics, for one, tells me differently. When I look at that shaft, I am not seeing "what's really there", but am instead seeing photons of certain wavelengths that have bounced off the shaft. Moreover, the shaft, which appears solid to me, really is not. Instead, it is made up of atoms that are themselves mostly empty space. Yet, the notion that I am conscious of "what's really there" gets even more problematic when we turn from physics to psychology. For then I learn that as my brain processes the information coming to me from the lamp shaft, it repeatedly steps down and deletes information, so that, in the end, the information I have to think about is less than one hundredth the information that entered my eye when I looked at the shaft. In short, what I might naively think is "really there" is actually more like a symbol of what's really there. The lamp shaft I see is not the lamp shaft that exists, but rather a construct of my brain -- a symbol of what exists.

Yet, even though I can only be conscious of a symbol of what exists, that symbol is useful to me. What I see when I look at that lamp shaft is just as useful to me as what I see when I look my indispensable map of Colorado's erotic dance clubs. In both cases I can use the symbol to negotiate and cope with reality.

Both physics and psychology reveal that all consciousness is symbolic. Therefore, when discussing consciousness, it is more appropriate to think of its relationship to reality as like a map to its terrain, than it is to think of its relationship to reality as like a mirror to what the mirror reflects.

"As soon as you conceive of the Buddha, you are forced to conceive of sentient beings, or of concepts and no-concepts, of vital and trivial ones, which will surely imprison you between those two iron mountains."

- Huang po Source

I have no reason to believe in the ontological existence of God, but I have every reason to believe in the experience of "God" -- or whatever one wants to call a certain kind of mystical experience.

That's not quite so profound a statement as one might sometimes think. As any sophomore who has taken a course in philosophy knows, it is quite problematic to prove the ontological existence of anything, let alone deity. I can no more prove the ontological existence of God than I can prove the ontological existence of my friend Eryn. Yet, my experiences of "Eryn" exist regardless of whether Eryn herself ontologically exists. In the same way, experiences of "God" do happen to folks regardless of whether God ontologically exists or not.

That might raise an interesting question: If we cannot know whether God ontologically exists, then of what value are any experiences of "God"?

One way to answer that question is to stick with the parallel: If I cannot know whether Eryn ontologically exists, of what value are my experiences of Eryn? A short answer to that is my experiences of "Eryn" are valued by me regardless of whether I have any philosophical doubts that such an utterly fascinating person as Eryn could exist or not. The same can be said about any experiences of "God" I might have: The ontological existence of God simply has no impact on whether or not I value the experience of "God".

Yet, I can look at that same question -- what is the value of experiencing "God" in a wholly different light. That is, the experience of "God" seems transformative in ways that normal experience is not. In future posts, I might get into the ways in which experiencing "God" can transform us psychologically and spiritually. But here it is only important to note that the experience of "God" can be valued as a transformative experience even if no God ontologically exists. In a sense, that's really saying no more than I can enjoy the experience of talking with "Eryn" even if no Eryn ontologically exists.

So far as I myself am concerned, God only matters insofar as the experience of "God" matters.

I'm up late and thinking about God. After all, this is Colorado Springs -- there's not much else to do this time of night but think about God.

For some people, mostly mystics, the word "God" refers to a certain kind of experience.

Their meaning for the word "God" is somewhat at odds with what most people might mean by "God". For most people, "God" is not an experience, but instead an entity that exists independent of anyone's experience. That is, a being.

I sometimes think the two camps are a bit like folks who have traveled to France versus folks who have stayed home. The travelers think of France in light of their experiences. But the homebodies don't have any such experiences, and without any actual experience, they have no reality-check on their thoughts about France.

Perhaps the homebodies resort to reading maps to learn about France. That often seems to propel them headlong into very quaint arguments over which maps of France are true or not.

Quaint, because so often the arguments focus on such absurdities as whether it is more accurate to symbolize Paris with a dot or a circle, or on which map is the oldest and thus in some thoughtless sense "primal".

Most of the billion or so arguments about the nature of deity that this world has seen are not arguments between mystics -- mystics more or less tend to agree on the nature of deity. Instead they are remarkably petty arguments between non-mystics.

Whether or not the mystic's experience of "God" is of an entity that exists independent of the mystic herself is an interesting but ultimately trivial question. Of what final importance is it whether France exists independent of my experience? All that really matters to me is whether I can make reasonably accurate predictions about France. I need not assume the country exists independent of my experiences of it to do that -- although, it seems that by assuming such I can create the simplest possible model for predicting my experiences of it.

So, too, it's of little final importance whether anything -- including "God" -- exists independent of my experiencing it. All that really matters is whether I can make reasonably accurate predictions about my experiences of something -- including "God". It is just as feasible to model "God" as merely an experience as it is to model "God" as a being. Either model can predict with equal accuracy our experiences of "God".

Does any of that make sense, or should I have gotten some sleep before tackling the subject?

I've mentioned this before: All symbols -- including symbolic thought -- have the same relation to reality that a map has to its terrain.

Going a bit beyond that, I happen to think that all thought is symbolic. At least all thought about "things" is symbolic. And if that is true, then it follows we cannot think of a "thing" -- but only of a symbol of a "thing".

Or, to be more precise: since our thoughts of things are inevitably symbols, things themselves are the symbols we create. That's to say, one might argue reality itself does not have "thingness". Instead, we create "thingness" whenever we think about reality. What we are conscious of becomes a thing.

One practical implication of all this -- assuming any of it is true -- is that looking at "things" in this way is psychologically liberating.

When I have fully realized that my thoughts are to reality as a map is to its terrain, I am freed of mistaking the map (the symbol) for its terrain (for what it symbolizes). And that means I am much less likely to become wrapped up in identifying my self with this or that particular map or symbol. Or, to rephrase it, I am much less likely to become emotionally attached to a map or symbol.

In practice, that means I am much less likely to invest an inordinate amount of my time and energy into preserving the "purity" or "sanctity" of mere symbols. For instance, to the extent I realize the map is not the terrain, I am freed from the delusion that gay marriages will destroy the sanctity of my own marriage. I now see that delusion for what it is: a confusion of the map with the terrain. For the only thing that gay marriages will change is the map for the word "marriage". They will not in any way change the terrain or reality of marriage. Yet, this simple truth might have eluded me until I fully realized how my thoughts of such "things" as marriage were entirely symbolic.

It seems most of us at one time or another confuse the map with the terrain when we believe our thoughts about ourselves are ourselves.

That's to say, the map is our thoughts about ourselves. The terrain is who we are. Yet, so often we think what we think about ourselves is who we are.

I can think of myself any number of ways that are not likely to be borne out by my experience of myself. I can believe all sorts of things about myself that simple observation will disprove.

Are at least some mystical observations intersubjectively verifiable?

At first, it might appear the most truthful answer to that question is, "No, mystical observations are not intersubjectively verifiable." For one thing, mystical observations are not replicable at will. There appears to be no path or technique that guarantees someone employing it will have a mystical experience. And if you cannot replicate a mystical experience at will, how can you assert that what mystics observe during their experiences is intersubjectively verifiable?

On the other hand, there are some surprising agreements among mystics of different cultures and ages about the things they have observed during their experiences. For instance, mystics of different times and cultures have spoken about experiencing a sense, perception, or feeling that all things are profoundly interconnected. Since those mystics can have lived in cultures and times as separate from each other as 1200 A.D. Spain from 500 B.C. China, there is little chance that their agreement is a matter of their having influenced each other. In short, it's pretty clear that at least some mystical observations are intersubjectively verifiable even though they cannot be replicated at will.

At this point, however, we must be very careful not to take mystical experiences as irrefutable evidence of something they are not irrefutable evidence of. For instance, as stated above, mystics commonly enough experience a sense, perception, or feeling that all things are profoundly interconnected. Can we therefore conclude on that basis alone that all things are indeed profoundly interconnected? No. For to do so would overlook the possibility the mystics are experiencing a sort of common delusion. We know, for instance, that people of different ages and cultures can experience the same optical illusions. What is there to keep us from judging that a sense, perception or feeling of profound interconnectedness is not some kind of commonly shared illusion?

While mystic experiences might be delusions, and therefore cannot be taken as conclusive evidence that, say, all things are profoundly interconnected, it's also possible they are not delusions, for we have no independent evidence that they are indeed delusions. So, the jury is still very much out on whether such mystical observations as the profound interconnectedness of all things is a delusion or not.

Where the jury is no longer out is on the question of whether mystical experiences are intersubjectively verifiable -- I submit they are indeed intersubjectively verifiable, even though we don't know whether they are delusions or not, and even though we cannot replicate them at will. Of course, the main reason I might believe they are intersubjectively verifiable is because I haven't had enough good beer yet today to be thinking clearly. So, what do you think?

A friend of mine is one of those liberals to whom the word "foolish" might be applied. She is so focused on the world of ideas, she trips over the world she lives in. That's to say, her principles get in the way of her feet.

So, for instance, she loves humanity, but doesn't love very many flesh and blood people. She hates the powerful people she's read about who oppress the Latin American poor, but adamantly defends a real life friend of her's who is a cruel bully.

Another friend of mine is one of those conservatives to whom the word "foolish" might be applied. He also is so focused on the world of ideas, he trips over the world he lives in.

So, for instance, he is so opposed to public charity in principle, he even opposed Federal assistance to Katrina victims. Because the Bible tells him the Jews are God's chosen people, he cannot see the injustice of Israel's settlements on the West Bank.

Ideas are more like maps than anything else. Just like maps, their truth value is in whether they are sure guides. But some people are more in love with the maps they make than they are with the terrain the maps are supposed to be guides to. They are like undisciplined cartographers who would sooner have an especially attractive map that's wrong than they would have a plain but useful map that's accurate.

A young man recently asked me, "In a universe with no observers, would anything exist?"

I've been wondering now whether that's an epistomological question or a metaphysical one. At any rate, such questions have a way of revealing what we think truth is.

This morning, I'm a bit confused after reading a letter to the editor published in The National Post (of Canada).

The author of the letter is Don D. Wallar, and he holds a Masters in Neurochemistry. Mr. Wallar wants to argue against naturalism, which is the philosophical position that only nature exists. That is, nothing supernatural exists. And Mr. Wallar specifically wants to argue against the notion, "there is no mind or soul independent of the brain; all thought and behaviour is purely the result of neurochemical synapses in the brain."

Now, when I'm on a first date, I often make a point of telling my new friend that I'm much more fascinated by epistemological naturalism than I am interested in ontological naturalism. The point, of course, is to impress her with how many big words I know. It seems to work, because my dates are so impressed by my droning on about the various naturalisms that they never go with me on second dates. And that's how I avoid the horrible troubles associated with extended romances.

Consequently, I really perked up this morning when I sighted Mr. Wallar's letter, for I immediately grasped that it might provide me with juice for initiating an engaging conversation at one of those tender moments after the dinner, and after the movie, when I'm back at my date's apartment and she's just dimmed the lights.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wallar's letter left me more confused than intellectually armed.

That's because Mr. Wallar argues in his letter that naturalism is untenable because it leads to our denying the existence of free will. He says:

There are serious scientific and philosophical reasons why physical [i.e. ontological] naturalism cannot be tenable. One philosophical argument is based on the idea of free will.

Human beings are known to exhibit what is known as libertarian freedom, that is, they can literally choose between bona fide options... A or B.

If all thought and behaviour are indeed only the result of the biochemistry of the brain, then free will cannot exist, and all we have left is pure determinism.

Furthermore, any concept of moral obligation and responsibility is also nonsensical if determinism is true. But we do not live this way because we do not believe this way. [stuff in brackets mine]

Here's something my old philosophy professor taught me shortly before he taught me how to practice safe sex by engaging my dates in philosophical conversations at strategic moments in order to deter them from pursuing their base romantic desires: "One cannot legitimately argue that something is false merely on the grounds that if, it were true, one wouldn't like the consequences of it's being true."

Applied here, that means Mr. Wallar cannot legitimately argue that ontological naturalism is false simply because there can be no free will if it's true. Yet, it seems to me this morning that is precisely what Mr. Wallar is doing in his letter. He's urging us to reject ontological naturalism on the sole grounds that, if we accept it, we have to discard any dear notion we might have that our wills are free. And that's confusing me.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding his point, but is that the best grounds he wants to offer us for rejecting ontological naturalism? "It can't be true because we don't like what it implies"?

But there's another possibility. Having said all that, I think it's possible that Mr. Wallar is actually arguing:

1) Ontological naturalism implies no free will.

2) But we have libertarian freedom of choice (i.e. we can choose between options).

3) Libertarian freedom of choice is the same as free will.

4) If we have free will, then ontological naturalism is false.

5) We have free will.

6) Therefore ontological naturalism is false. False! FALSE!

That's a different argument than the first one. Yet, if that's what he's arguing, then the trouble is premise #3 is wrong. Contra the premise, libertarian freedom of choice does not actually imply free will.

You can see that when you think of how a computer works. A computer can be programed to choose between options. That is, a computer has libertarian freedom of choice, which is the ability to choose between options. But a computer certainly does not have free will. Hence, there is no precise equivalence of free will and libertarian choice.

Of course, if premise #3 is wrong, then the conclusion that ontological naturalism is false does not follow from Mr. Wallar's argument. Instead, we have to go back to square one, and find other grounds on which to argue either for or against ontological naturalism.

I'm still confused though. I really don't know which argument he's making in his letter. If I had to bet, I'd lay money on the second one, because that's the stronger argument. But it seems to me it could just as easily be the first argument that he's really making. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I need to quit reading arguments against naturalism so early in the morning.

At any rate, what do you think of Mr. Wallar's argument? Do you buy into it? Do you reject it? Would you like to go on a first date?

"All models are wrong. Some models are useful."

- Anonymous


What is objectivity? The naive view is that objectivity represents reality. That, however, is a metaphysical assumption, because we have no experience of an objective reality -- all experience is subjective, and we are merely speculating when we posit that an objective reality exists.

That raises the question of how -- and even whether -- the concept of objectivity is a useful model of reality.

What do you think?

Some thoughts from the Bhagavad Gita:


Foolish men talk of religion
in cheap, sentimental words,
leaning on the scriptures: "God
speaks here, and speaks here alone."

...

As unnecessary as a well is
to a village on the banks of a river,
so unnecessary are all scriptures
to someone who has seen the truth.

...

When your understanding has passed
beyond the thicket of delusions,
there is nothing you need to learn
from even the most sacred scripture.


- Mitchell, tans. From Chapter Two.



Mystics the world over have always challenged us to see for ourselves, pointing out again and again there is no substitute for experience.

Because mystics think experience is primary, they often find themselves at odds with folks who think holy scripture is primary. And sometimes, the folks who think holy scripture is primary end the dispute by burning the mystic. (That tendency to burn people at the stake is not reciprocated -- So far as I know, there is not even a single case of a mystic murdering a non-mystic to suppress what the non-mystic has to say. ) It is no longer fashionable to actually burn mystics, at least not in the West, though it is still fashionable to dismiss their claims as hallucinations or delusions.

Indeed, perhaps they are hallucinations or delusions. To paraphrase the Taoist mystic Chung Tzu, "Last night I dreamt I was a butterfly. Awaking from my dream, I now wonder if I am a human dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a human." How are we to know which is the "dream" and which is the reality?

Perhaps psychology, neuroscience, or some other discipline can someday answer that question, but as of now, I know of no body of experimental evidence which strongly supports the notion mystics are hallucinating when they describe experiencing a sudden end to subject/object perception and all that follows from that. Besides, even if mystics are hallucinating at that moment, their hallucinations seem to bestow real benefits on them in the aftermath. For instance, they tend to become much less susceptible than most folks to being manipulated by language and symbols. The mystic challenge to "see for ourselves" might be worth taking up simply to improve our quality of life, without reference to whether mystical awareness is truer than non-mystical awareness.

“The claims of mystics are neurologically quite astute. No human being has ever experienced an objective world, or even a world at all. You are, at this moment, having a visionary experience. The world that you see and hear is nothing more than a modification of your consciousness…. This is not to say that sensory experience offers us no indication of reality at large; it is merely that, as a matter of experience, nothing arises in consciousness that has not first been structured, edited, or amplified by the nervous system.”

- Sam Harris, The End of Faith

For the last five days, some folks have been hotly debating the nature and merits of "spirituality" over at PZ Meyers' blog, Pharyngula.

Meyers started the fist fight when he posted an entry titled, "Spirituality"? Another Word For Lies and Empty Noise. The ruckus has now reached 230 comment posts and still counting.

I gather from what I read of the debate that almost as many definitions of "spirituality"are in play as there are people debating the merits and nature of "spirituality". Everyone seems to have their own pet definition for the word, and is sticking with it. Consequently, the participants are in most cases talking pass each other.

Despite that, it's a good debate with a lot of sharp insights on both sides.

Most common words have more than one meaning and "spirituality" is no exception. Depending on who you are talking with, the word can be used to mean anything from a belief in ghosts and spirits --- to an emotional high --- and beyond that to a sense, feeling, or perception of connectedness to all things.

It is folly to insist that any one usage is somehow more correct than all the others, but we should be clear about what meaning we ourselves are using for the word.

Recently, Sam Harris has offered a new definition of the word in his book, The End of Faith. Harris uses to word to refer to anything having to do with the sort of awareness that comes about after a sudden end to subject/object perception occurs while the continuum of experience yet remains.

Whether one would personally use Harris' definition of "spirituality" or not, the man should get a medal for being the first in the long history of the word to give it a more or less operational meaning. Yet, Harris goes even further: He wants to put the study of spirituality (along with mysticism --- another confusing word) on a scientific footing.

Perhaps only an American can believe humans will someday fly, travel to the moon, or study spirituality scientifically. But that latter thing is exactly what Harris hopes to do.

More power to him. If Harris succeeds, then some fist fights over the nature and merits of spirituality might become a thing of the past.

More over, this is the 21st Century, and many people who have had spiritual experiences of the sort Harris describes feel it is high time for biologists like PZ Meyers (along with many other scientists and non-scientists alike) to recognize there is more to human nature than is dreamt of in their philosophies.

Can Harris succeed in placing the study of spirituality and mysticism on a scientific footing? What do you think?

"In our endeavor to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears its ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of a mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations."

Einstein and Infeld, The Evolution Of Physics


When I first heard such ideas as an undergraduate, I could not make sense of them. A long time and a lot of work passed before I had a more or less clear understanding of what folks like Einstein and Infeld were talking about.

The basic idea is still a strange one: Reality is inaccessible to us. In the language of Einstein and Infeld, we cannot open the closed watch to peer inside. The best we can do is make models of what we think is inside the watch. All of these models will be wrong, but some of them might be more useful than the others. What we call "truth" is no more --- and no less --- than the most useful model we have of any particular reality. Yet, we cannot be certain that the reality even exists, let alone that we have correctly described it in our model.

It is here that many artists and scientists are in fundamental agreement. Neither the astute artist, not the astute scientist thinks even for a second that he or she has created the only possible interpretation of reality. Both recognize they have created only one of what might be many possible interpretations of the reality. Neither thinks of truth as an absolute. Both think of truth as conditional.

That irks a lot of people.

The astute artist and scientist are playing the game of "What Is Reality" on the pro-level, but a lot of people play that same game more or less on the level of a bright high school freshman. Until an artist, scientist, or someone else comes along to inform them that reality is inaccessible, they are not even dimly aware of the fact. Can you blame them for being uncomfortable with such a strange idea? I certainly don't. I remember too well the hard work it took me to grasp somewhat clearly that strange idea.