Reductionism And Materialism Are Not Scientific Givens

[Legion]

Well OM I confess. I am trying to keep the discussion away from reductionism yet still within the bounds of science.

 

But I have enjoyed nearly every diversion and side trail we have explored. And I love having the opportunity to both witness and participate in this discussion.

[Antlerman]

There is a saying which fits in with this discussion quite well: "Nirvana and Samsara are the same." Samsara is the materialistic view and Nirvana is the "mystical" view. It is not a case of one or the other being correct, quite the contrary. I would suggest that both are simultaneously true, though neither is correct independently. When I wore a younger man's clothes (and hair) and practicing shamanism, my teacher defined a shaman as one who walked between worlds. It wasn't until I fully converted to Zen and began contemplating "Nirvana and Samsara are the same." that I realized what he meant. There are no worlds to travel between, it's a change in how the mind operates. In day to day life the materialist view functions, but for those of us who have broken the "I" we are aware of Nirvana always in the background. We can flip flop back and forth (but hopefully not while we are crossing the street or operating heavy machinery) but we should not cling to either view as being all there is.

 

Krishnamurti was right, truth is formless. There is no "local consciousness vs non-local consciousness". There is no "God vs. Not-God". There is no "mystical view vs materialist view". All of these are concepts, models, dependent views, it is beyond such things. We can't touch it with words, we can't touch it with thought forms, we can't touch it with models and paradigms; all we can do is point toward it. We fight, argue, and debate over phantoms; but this is it as well. When we drop our concepts, our resistances, and our preferences then it becomes clear. To do this requires the "death" of self. Death of the body is scary, death of the self is mind-numbing terror. Until one gets to that point, straight empiricism and good old fashioned common sense is good enough.

 

I can't go any farther with words or else I will start raving like a lunatic.

All of this I see as true. The path of the Ascent and the path of Descent, should not be exclusive - the mystic versus the materialist, but a circle completed in the ONE where we are not self, but Self which then descends into self and the material world from Self. In other words, the unification of our existence in Being, both subjective and objective descending from non-duality and returning to non-duality.

 

But where I might disagree is to say that, "Until one gets to that point, straight empiricism and good old fashioned common sense is good enough." The problem with this is that a philosophy of materialism denies and rejects validity in looking at, engaging in, or otherwise finding value in that internal, subjective path of Ascent. All that is, is what can be measured, studied, and explained. The entire world of surfaces, of exteriors. Only the material is *real*. Only what can be understood objectively can be trusted.

 

It devalues the interior world, places it as inferior to the objective, and consequently does not pursue or incorporate its depths into the whole. It excludes it. It places a preeminence of meaningfulness over anything having to do with the spiritual. Only an exterior understanding of the world is real and of any lasting value. It is the flip side of the spiritual who devalues the material as nothing but illusion, death and decay, and that only the spiritual is eternal, lasting, and meaningful. There is no place of unification within the individual, their society, or the natural world itself.

[Legion]

The title of this thread is “Reductionism and Materialism are not Scientific Givens”. Many of you seem to be arguing that science is not the only means for gaining understanding. And I agree with that. But what does it have to do with the title of the thread?

[florduh]

The title of this thread is “Reductionism and Materialism are not Scientific Givens”. Many of you seem to be arguing that science is not the only means for gaining understanding. And I agree with that. But what does it have to do with the title of the thread?

Exactly.

 

Science is a specific discipline. From Wikipedia:

 

To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[1] A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.

 

That understanding of science is well removed from having a feeling that there must be some other dimension of spirit, or that quantum physics should somehow be applied to religious thought. Science doesn't require faith.

[Legion]

Thank you Chris. I thought I was going a bit crazy there for a moment.

 

However, I have to disagree with the idea that science doesn’t require faith to some small extent. Science rests on several philosophical underpinnings. I think one of these underpinnings is a “faith”, for lack of a better word, in causality.

 

Most of us generally assume that phenomena can entail other phenomena. But many philosophers have pointed out that there is no way to be absolutely certain about this. It is a small step of faith.

[florduh]

A very small step. How about "blind faith" then?

[Neon Genesis]

Any model to explain it becomes 'not it'. "God" cannot be known objectively, but subjectively moving into Unity of Subjective and Objective. God is "Not this, not that", Emptiness/ALL.

Karen Armstrong brought this up in The Case For God where she argues that God is "Nothing." She argues that God neither exists nor non-exists because God is more than just another being in the universe and to add human attributes to God is to turn the indescribable God into an idol. I've also seen videos where she's argued that atheism is a necessary smashing of those idols. Someone also correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't science originally a form of religious philosophy in the ancient Greek world?

[Legion]

Someone also correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't science originally a form of religious philosophy in the ancient Greek world?

Well I once thought that Galileo was the father of science, but increasingly I am thinking it was Aristotle. I don’t know if Aristotle conflated science with religion though.

 

I am reminded here of a quote by Einstein.

 

"The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is."

 

- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (1949)

[Rev R]

If it was a challenge... it was said while bowing deeply in your general direction.

 

please no bowing, I'm just a guy with a shaved head and odd taste in clothing.

 

 

I think science is an endeavor to create models. I don’t know what your idea of a model is, but when someone possesses a model of a natural system they are able to accurately predict certain aspects of that system’s behavior. That doesn’t strike me as being akin to illusion.

and another example of the murky depths of language. a-man pretty much nailed it (aside: I don't recall being interpreted before, it's rather strange).

 

It will take more time than I have available at the moment to dig into the responses further. In the meantime, science and spirituality are simply tools on our belt. If used correctly, they do what we designed them to do very well, but they are still tools not reality itself.

 

Of course you already know what happens when they are used poorly.

[sojourner]

Hi everyone, too many of you wonderful people I got to know a while back to try and mention names, but I do notice some of you here on this thread that Keith gave me the link too. TY Keith, nice to see everyone I havent been on forums in quite some time, just got burned out on them I guess.

 

I had forgotten how much I had to rely on a dictionary at this forum LOL So off I go looking up reductionism, wondering how this might fit into marraige? If I examine more closely the socks thrown one foot away from the dirty clothes hamper consistantly will I understand the male mind that can never quite hit the mark? I dont know, and if I concentrate a lot on that hamper, could I directly influence his aim??? Would this prove a sufficient amount of connective love though, or discontent?

 

Just some thoughts

 

For OpenMinded, have you read a book called The G.O.D. experiments by Gary E. Schwartz? You might find it interesting if you havent.

 

anywho, I made it thru the first two pages and then jumped to 20 because my attention span is just not there right now for indepth talks. And I noticed this on 20

 

Karen Armstrong brought this up in The Case For God where she argues that God is "Nothing." She argues that God neither exists nor non-exists because God is more than just another being in the universe and to add human attributes to God is to turn the indescribable God into an idol. I've also seen videos where she's argued that atheism is a necessary smashing of those idols. Someone also correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't science originally a form of religious philosophy in the ancient Greek world? by Neon

 

Hi Neon , do you happen to recall where you saw those talks? I am interested to hear that about the smashing of idols

 

nice to see you all

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

[/i]Hi Neon , do you happen to recall where you saw those talks? I am interested to hear that about the smashing of idols

 

nice to see you all

It's good to see you again, Soj! These interviews are from the documentary A History Of God which is based on Armstrong's book by the same name. I posted a link to where you can watch it on youtube here: http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/34007-a-history-of-god/ She brings up the smashing of idols and atheism towards the end of the documentary after they cover the history of Islam.

[sojourner]

TY Neon, Good to see you too! I will be checking that talk out for sure. I love her.

[Open_Minded]

Hello Sojourner - nice to see you back on board. Like you, I've been away for awhile... this thread has been a good reunion, though. It's been nice to be back in a conversation with old friends.

For OpenMinded, have you read a book called The G.O.D. experiments by Gary E. Schwartz? You might find it interesting if you havent.

I took time to look this book up on Google Books and was able to puruse it here, the last few nights. Dr. Schwartz had some interesting insights, many with which I agreed. But.. all in all... his use of science to try and "prove" God troubles me.

 

As I've mentioned earlier in the thread, I try very hard NOT to define God. That whole process can lead to a lot of trouble, not the least of which are conflict, violence, war, etc... I'm more inclined to agree with the quote given above....

Karen Armstrong brought this up in The Case For God where she argues that God is "Nothing." She argues that God neither exists nor non-exists because God is more than just another being in the universe and to add human attributes to God is to turn the indescribable God into an idol. I've also seen videos where she's argued that atheism is a necessary smashing of those idols.

 

However.... in reading through The G.O.D Experiments on Google Books, it occurred to me that Dr. Schwartz may have needed to go through the process of "proving" G.O.D to himself. He writes that he grew up in an Agnostic family, and that his professional training required that belief in anything be logical and consistent with science. So... as Rodney said earlier....

science and spirituality are simply tools on our belt. If used correctly, they do what we designed them to do very well, but they are still tools not reality itself.

 

Karen Armstrong's approach and Dr. Schwartz's approach are two tools, both of which are valid. The difference between tearing down all definitions/metaphors of God and building up definitions/metaphors of God, is really pretty slim when you think about it. They are both tools which can lead to a deeper understanding of reality. But... we must be wise enough to know we are using pretty crude tools.

[Open_Minded]

The title of this thread is “Reductionism and Materialism are not Scientific Givens”. Many of you seem to be arguing that science is not the only means for gaining understanding. And I agree with that. But what does it have to do with the title of the thread?

Hello Legion.... what may be happening is that science is being required to find new ways of observing, and as of yet, its found no answers...

 

Following is are some quotes from earlier in this same discussion: http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/33617-reductionism-and-materialism-are-not-scientific-givens/page__view__findpost__p__489899

And moreover, what if the entire paradigm we use in science is ill-equipped to examine this?

I think it is, by definition. Science observes the observable. It can't examine "what ifs." I'll get back to this as soon as I can. Too tired right now.

 

I responded as follows.... http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/33617-reductionism-and-materialism-are-not-scientific-givens/page__view__findpost__p__489905

 

How does one observe:

 

• The moment of the Big Bang
  
  
• What was "before" the Big Bang
  
  
• A multi-verse
  
  
• A non-local consciousness
  
  
• A non-local anything

 

Science is rapidly moving into uncharted territory. Just an observation....

 

And....

 

You are right, the light we receive from space is a literally picture of the universes ancient history....

 

But... as to the mathmatical models.... what I meant when I observed that science is moving into uncharted terrritory is simply that at some point the mathmatical models must give way to imperical data. That is becoming harder and harder to do. That's all I was observing.

 

It's a wonderful problem to have, if you think about it. Uncharted territory is where the adventure usually begins..... right.....

 

The bottom line is that science finds itself in a position of having to study something that can not be nailed down by imperical data or even mathmatical models.

 

Just take a moment to really think about the implications of studying non-locality... Non-locality changes relativity... at the level of nonlocal events space and time do not operate as solid foundation for relativity. If photon B "knows" what photon A is doing instantaneously from the other side of the universe, without being limited by space/time than how does science go there?????

 

And what is really unsettling for a lot of people is that, empirically speaking, this non-local reality is affected by and intertwined with what we would call "consciousness"..... how does science go there???

 

Rodney said earlier in the thread....

 

Krishnamurti was right, truth is formless. There is no "local consciousness vs non-local consciousness". There is no "God vs. Not-God". There is no "mystical view vs materialist view". All of these are concepts, models, dependent views, it is beyond such things. We can't touch it with words, we can't touch it with thought forms, we can't touch it with models and paradigms; all we can do is point toward it. We fight, argue, and debate over phantoms; but this is it as well. When we drop our concepts, our resistances, and our preferences then it becomes clear. To do this requires the "death" of self. Death of the body is scary,

death of the self is mind-numbing terror

. Until one gets to that point, straight empiricism and good old fashioned common sense is good enough.

 

Think about it... until very recently in human history.... science reduced the "self" of humanity to nothing more than a side-affect of the brain's biological processes. The discovery that consciousness is intimately linked with deep reality is a very real "death" of human consciousness. It removes humanity from the center of the "conscious" experience and side-lines us. "We" are no longer the "center" of the "conscious" experience...

 

Science has reached the outer limits of what reductionism and materialism can accomplish and as a result.... the empirical sciences now find themselves in the same ocean that philosophy, the arts, and religion have been swimming in for thousands of years....

 

When all is said and done, after 1000s of years of conflict over what "reality" "really" is .... we all find ourselves at the same place...

 

Scientists, one by one, are questioning the validity of hard-core, fundamentalist reductionism and materialism and tossing it aside for a more pragmatic approach. This more pragmatic approach acknowledges the need for the empirical sciences.... the need to break apart natural processes in order to understand them better.

 

But... the more pragmatic approaches to science also understand that there is a time when one must personally "let-go" of rigid adherence to reductionism and materialism. One must be willing to explore things like what it means to experience "consciousness"... one must be willing to experience the "death" of human centered consciousness and allow for bigger possibilities.... One must be willing to swim in an ocean with no floor, no bottom to discover and explore.

[Legion]

OM I think there is definitely a time for most everyone to experience a strangely humbling, yet empowering, awe and wonder at the mystery of all existence. And many of us somehow know intuitively that everything is interconnected and whole.

 

Some people want to go a step further and unravel these mysteries and thereby gain understanding. Some of these people want to gain explicit understandings and many of these people are scientists.

 

Some part of me thinks that you are actually accepting the premise that science is equal to reductionism. But I think we can have science without approaching organized natural systems from a reductionistic standpoint. I think relational biology does just this.

 

I agree that science is likely due for a paradigm shift. But I don’t believe this shift will render science obsolete. In fact, I think the just opposite. I think new non-reductionist approaches will make many of our sciences much more powerful in their ability to explain and predict the natural world.

 

And I think you touch on a good point here. New ways of observing. I think if we are to understand things in a new light then we will have to observe differently. Not only that, I think we will also have to reason differently.

 

That felt like a somewhat disjointed post. But I’ve been wanting to communicate much of that to you for a while now.

[Legion]

I wanted also to touch briefly on the efficacy of mathematics. (even if it’s ignored )

 

I think mathematics is the study of formal systems. I think formal systems, in turn, are sub-languages of natural language.

 

I think mathematics holds the greatest potential if we want to ensure that our reasoning is rigorous. I think many of us, including me, automatically associate mathematics with number and hence with quantity. But there has arisen in mathematics since the 50's formal systems, namely category theory, which are essentially qualitative in their nature.

 

In science, where the goal is to create models of natural systems, formal systems are often employed. Calculus, geometry, algebra, statistics, set theory, and category theory have all been used.

 

I think if we abandon the idea of using formal systems to model natural systems then we will likely also give up any notion of drawing rigorous inferences.

[Rev R]

science and spirituality are simply tools on our belt. If used correctly, they do what we designed them to do very well, but they are still tools not reality itself.

 

Karen Armstrong's approach and Dr. Schwartz's approach are two tools, both of which are valid. The difference between tearing down all definitions/metaphors of God and building up definitions/metaphors of God, is really pretty slim when you think about it. They are both tools which can lead to a deeper understanding of reality. But... we must be wise enough to know we are using pretty crude tools.

 

I would take it as far as saying there is no difference at all between tearing down and building up. Both are attempts at creating a conceptual framework to describe what is. Because of this I would also say that both views are equally invalid.

 

Language is the crudest tool of all. Sometimes language can fuel wisdom, but more often it fuels the mind that discriminates and separates.

[Legion]

Oh heavens! We wouldn’t want to distinguish, discriminate, discern, or separate things!

 

Don’t give it a name!

No, no, no

We know it’s a shame!

Oh, oh, oh

ambience all the same!

Flow, flow, flow

My mind’s all aflame!

So, so, so

Don’t give it a name!

[Rev R]

Oh heavens! We wouldn’t want to distinguish, discriminate, discern, or separate things!

 

 

Prosecution rests

[Legion]

Oh heavens! We wouldn’t want to distinguish, discriminate, discern, or separate things!

Prosecution rests

 

No comment on my awesome song!?

[agnosticator]

No comment on my awesome song!?

 

I liked it Legion! I'm working on an orchestral accompaniment for it. I could always use a talented lyricist (just kidding!).

 

This is a great thread! I'm not done reading and rereading it, though. I would like to comment on the usage of "faith". Christians get confused whenever the heathens use it. I make a distinction between "Faith" and "faith"; trust vs. belief in the supernatural, for their benefit. Otherwise they get their panties all twisted and I feel compelled to give them a snuggie!

[agnosticator]

I am reminded here of a quote by Einstein.

 

"The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is."

 

- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (1949)

 

I love Einstein! Many of the things he said are timeless.

[Ouroboros]

I love Einstein! Many of the things he said are timeless.

That would make him God, since God is timeless too.

[agnosticator]

I love Einstein! Many of the things he said are timeless.

That would make him God, since God is timeless too.

 

It's funny, after I typed it I thought about that too! You caught it, which means you have been putting up with LNC far too longggggggg! May the Immaterial, timeless, voyeuristic, yet nonexistent God of LNCism be with thee forever and ever!

[Legion]

I would like to comment on the usage of "faith". Christians get confused whenever the heathens use it. I make a distinction between "Faith" and "faith"; trust vs. belief in the supernatural, for their benefit. Otherwise they get their panties all twisted and I feel compelled to give them a snuggie!

I can see your point here Agnosticator. And I agree that using the word “faith” in any scientific discussion has the potential to confuse religious people. But consider this definition of faith from Wikipedia....

 

Faith is the confident belief or trust in the truth or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.

 

It seems to fit perfectly with how I now view causality. I can think of no philosophically ironclad proof for the idea that phenomena can entail other phenomena. But I have a confident trust in the truth of the idea. I think if I am careful to note that it is causality that I have faith in then this should minimize the confusion.