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Contents
of Part 3
5.2. Popular Physics-as-Mysticism: Capra and
Zukav
5.3. Ken Wilber
5.4. Polkinghorne and Davies: compartments
5.5. Dennett and Dawkins: two reductionists against
religion
5.6. Sheldrake and Mae-Wan Ho: non-reductionist biologists
5.7. Tipler: science fiction?
5.8. Studies in Consciousness
6. The Spiritual in Art and Science
7. Conclusions
References for part 3
5.2. Popular Physics-as-Mysticism: Capra
and Zukav
Though many scientists, through the confrontation with quantum theory
and other developments in the 'new' physics, were having to re-evaluate
science itself, and in many cases found parallels in religion or mysticism,
it was the physicist Fritjof Capra who first brought the parallels to
popular attention. His book The Tao of Physics was turned down
by twelve publishers until Wildwood took it in 1975; a million copies
have now been sold worldwide. Gary Zukav, trained in the liberal arts
rather than physics, followed with The Dancing Wu Li Masters in
1979. Both books are good introductions to the 'new' physics, and to the
parallels with mysticism, but neither authors have the kind of depth-exposure
to the spiritual that Ken Wilber (discussed below) has. If we relate the
works of Capra and Zukav to our simple taxonomy of the spiritual, then
the parallels they draw are mainly to the transcendent, with references
here and there to the occult.
5.3. Ken Wilber
Ken Wilber wrote his first book The Spectrum of Consciousness in
1973, while a graduate student. He has been a prolific and maverick author
since that point, spanning the spiritual, the scientific, and the psychological.
His reading in the spiritual is broad and deep, and as a result gives
a much subtler interpretation of the parallels between physics and mysticism
than offered by Capra and Zukav. Indeed it may be just their work that
he is complaining of in this quote in his preface to Quantum Questions:
The theme
of this book, if I may briefly summarize the arguments of the physicists
presented herein, is that modern physics offers no positive support
(let alone proof) for a mystical worldview. ... It is not my aim in
this volume to reach the new-age audience, who seem to be firmly convinced
that modern physics automatically supports or proves mysticism. It does
not. But this view is now so widespread, so deeply entrenched, so taken
for granted by new-agers, that I don't see that any one book could possibly
reverse the tide [39].
Wilber wishes to tread a more delicate path than either the New-Ageists
or the conventional scientist who compartmentalises. His work is more
engaged with the psychological or psychoanalytical than is directly relevant
to this paper, but he presents us with an interesting possibility for
the integration of seemingly opposing fields (the spiritual, the artistic,
the scientific) through his concept of levels of consciousness. His idea
is that the apparent contradictions are merely there because one is debating
phenomena related to one level at a level that is inappropriate to it.
This idea does not translate directly to the theme of this paper, but
we shall return to it later.
Wilber's Quantum Questions is a good source of the writings of
some of the key scientists on the spiritual this century, perhaps as useful
as Lipsey's An Art of Our Own. However, in the ten years since
Wilber's work science and the spiritual have generated a quite new debate,
bringing physics and mainstream religion together.
5.4. Polkinghorne and Davies: compartments
John Polkinghorne, theoretical physicist and recently ordained into the
Church of England, has written for many years on science (with the emphasis
on quantum theory) and religion. His premise is that both are 'an enquiry
into what is.' Although his book Reason and Reality includes a
chapter called 'Quantum Questions', he seems unaware of Wilber's book
of the same name and the main proposition in it. Polkinghorne argues for
a form of 'complementarity.' For example, both theology and science are
concerned with the origins or genesis of the universe and life; for both
this becomes a legitimate enquiry; and the traditionally 'exclusive' accounts
can in fact be accommodated by seeing them as complementary to each other
while appropriate to differing contexts of human activity. Valuable as
Polkinghorne's work is, it restricts itself to a narrow band of congruence
between science and religion: that of the 'enquiry' leading to explanation.
(The main problem with this is that it cannot touch on the devotional,
for the devotee, whether ecstatic or sober in their love of the divine,
cannot be said to be pursuing an enquiry, more that of a relationship.)
For Polkinghorne revelation is the religious equivalent to the
scientific procedure that leads from enquiry to explanation, but in the
work of Paul Davies revelation is mistrusted.
Paul Davies is a British-born physicist currently working in Australia.
Davies (one of the scientists featured in Equinox: God Only Knows)
won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1995. This prize,
worth $1m, has previously been awarded to Mother Teresa, Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
and Billy Graham, and went to Davies in recognition of his work which
includes God and the New Physics and The Mind of God (a
reworking of the former title, some nine years later). The title of the
latter book comes from the last sentence in another famous modern physicist's
book, A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. The Templeton
Prize, larger than any prize in physics is given to a living person who
has shown "extraordinary originality" in advancing humankind's
understanding of God or spirituality [40].
Davies' spiritual interests lie clearly in the religious category, according
to the definition in this paper. There is little of the occult or transcendent,
and his reading in theology, though broad for a scientist perhaps, is
limited compared to that of Ken Wilber for example. What is it then that
has made his books best-sellers, and attracted the Templeton Prize? Davies
is a scientist with no faith in the supernatural, as this quote
shows:
I have
always wanted to believe that science can explain everything, at least
in principle. Many nonscientists would deny such a claim resolutely.
Most religions demand belief in at least some supernatural events, which
are by definition impossible to reconcile with science. I would rather
not believe in supernatural events personally [41].
Davies books introduce the new physics (relativity and quantum theory
and their more recent developments) in a lucid style, with a running commentary
on the theological implications. He takes a very different route to Capra
and Zukav, by dealing with mainstream (Christian) theological problems,
and even seems a little hostile to Oriental thought:
The popularity
of "holistic science" in recent years has prompted a string
of books, most notably Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, that
stress the similarity between ancient Eastern philosophy, with its emphasis
on the holistic interconnectedness of physical things, and modern nonlinear
physics. Can we conclude that Oriental philosophy and theology were,
after all, superior to their Western counterparts? Surely not [42].
Even though his later book concludes with a brief section on mysticism,
Davies avoids it on the whole, and perhaps this is his popular appeal:
a dialogue with mainstream Western religion. He provides an update, via
the new physics, on the arguments for the existence of God, most of which
looks even less convincing than in the days of the old physics. He makes
a nod at some of the metaphysics emerging from 'new' physics, including
the anthropic principle and holism, but is not that enthusiastic about
straying from 'proper' or reductionist science. However his position is
weakly anthropic, as the closing section in The Mind of God suggests:
What does
it mean? What is Man that we might be party so such privilege? I cannot
believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate,
an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama.
Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species Homo may
count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some
planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance.
Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness.
This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless
forces. We are truly meant to be here [43].
This might be mildly encouraging to the conventionally religious person,
but in fact Davies is not in favour of religion at all, as the closing
remarks in his previous work show:
I began
by making the claim that science offers a surer path than religion in
the search for God. It is my deep conviction that only by understanding
the world in all its many aspects reductions and holist, mathematical
and poetical, through forces, fields, and particles as well as through
good and evil that we will come to understand ourselves and the meaning
behind this universe, our home [44].
Is conventional religion so desperate that it is grateful that scientists
even bother to write about God? When mostly the argument is against the
very concept? And to the tune of $1m? This is not to denigrate Davies'
work, merely to emphasise that there is a strange phenomenon here. We
can of course point to Davies' very limited exposure to the religious
in all its forms, and also to pick up on a point in the last paragraph
quoted above: let us indeed have the poetry. His knowledge of the world
of gravity is profound, but in the world of grace a whole education is
lacking.
5.5. Dennett and Dawkins: two reductionists against
religion
There can be however no general thesis that science is amenable to the
spiritual: many eminent scientists of today are not only reductionists,
but see in the success of their reductionism reasons to attack religion.
Daniel Dennett is a philosopher by training, but now works with 'cognitive'
robots and is best known for his book Consciousness Explained;
Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist at Oxford known for his excellent
science writing, including The Selfish Gene: both are fiercely
anti-religious. If we compare them to a third well-known modern scientist,
Francis Crick, we find a reductionism common to all three, but a lower-key
approach in the latter. Crick received, along with James Watson, a Nobel
prize for his share in the discovery of the double-helix structure of
DNA. Despite this achievement, he changed course, and at the age of 58
took on a new scientific challenge: consciousness, and has recently published
a book on the subject called The Astonishing Hypothesis. This hypothesis
is that 'we are nothing but a pack of neurons', and that one day we will
discover the neural correlate of consciousness. His attitude to religion
(probably fairly common in the scientific community) is summed up in some
of these passages:
The record
of religious beliefs in explaining scientific phenomena has been so
poor in the past that there is little reason to believe that the conventional
religions will do much better in the future. It is certainly possible
that there may be aspects of consciousness, such as qualia, that science
will not be able to explain. We have learned to live with such limitations
in the past (e.g., limitations of quantum mechanics) and we may have
to live with them again. This does not necessarily mean that we shall
be driven to embrace traditional religious beliefs. Not only do the
beliefs of most popular religions contradict each other but, by scientific
standards, they are based on evidence so flimsy that only an act of
blind faith can make them acceptable. If the members of a church really
believe in a life after death, why do they not conduct sound experiments
to establish it? ... If revealed religions have revealed anything it
is that they are usually wrong [45].
While a passage like this sums up the views of not only many scientists,
but also a large section of the modern lay public, Dennett and Dawkins
are not content to limit themselves to a few throw-away paragraphs like
this embedded in their writings. Dawkins, recently appointed Professor
of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford (a chair sponsored, a little
alarmingly, by Microsoft), considers religion to be a (harmful) virus,
and said of religious people confronted with science that they were 'know-nothings'
and 'no-contest.' He has admitted since then only that his scorn was a
'tactical error.' [46] The Churchman has said of his
work: "One great virtue of this book [The Blind Watchmaker]
is to demonstrate the incompatibility of Darwinism and theism. The author
points out the inconsistency of these sophisticated theologians who wish
to appear in step with modern science, while at the same time retaining
a corner for God in their cosmogony." David L. Edwards in the Church
Times says this: "Dr Dawkins is determined to hunt down any theologian
who tries to prove, or even suggest, God by finding gaps in neo-Darwinian
biology ... And it is surely important that those who would defend religious
belief in the age of science should grasp the full force of the explanation
of nature which has no need of God." [47]
We can assume both of these comments come from their author's own, but
different, agendas; the battle is an old one, and obviously not yet drained
of potential for further conflict. One consensus that is emerging however
is that a God required merely to fill in the gaps in scientific knowledge
(a trend started with the Deists of the Enlightenment) a 'God-of-the-gaps'
is satisfactory to no one.
Dennett is a pugilist of a scientist, a little like Crick (who has a lengthy
appendix in The Astonishing Hypothesis that dismisses most of his
opponents within science with acerbic one-liners), but is happy
to take a swipe at anything within or outside of science. He sees Darwinism
as a "universal acid" capable of dissolving away biology, ethics,
economics, and religion. The following extract from an interview is illuminating:
[on Dawkins:] "... By my work is much more concerned than his with
the genuine pain of those with religious beliefs when they confront what
he and I both say they have to give up". [my italics] ...
Can we not just leave the religions to be happy in their so-called delusion?
No, says Dennett. Change is necessary. "I acknowledge that this is
hurtful and I say, yes, people will suffer. But they have to make whatever
accommodation they can to the obligation to educate their children with
truth and not falsehood. ..." [48]
The reductionism of these scientists is absolutely necessary for the advancement
of science, though in the cases of Crick and Dennett they face tough opposition
within the emerging science of consciousness community. Their continuous
barracking of conventional religion is strange however, and is running
counter to the reverse trend of attempting its takeover. Before we look
at Frank Tipler, a physicist who believes that not only has physics taken
over theology, but that he has proved the existence of God, we should
look at some biologists who disagree with Dawkins.
5.6. Sheldrake and Mae-Wan Ho: non-reductionist
biologists
It has become a commonplace truism that the roles of physicist and biologist
have reversed over the last 150 years: the animism and vitalism of the
early biologists has now been replaced by the 'hard' reductionism of Crick
and Dawkins (you are 'just' a bunch of neurons, or 'just' a selfish-gene
carrier, take your pick), while the clockwork universe of Newtonian physics
has been replaced by the mysticism of quantum theory. However, there are
some notable biologists who reject the reductionism of their colleagues.
Rupert Sheldrake (friend of Andrew Harvey of Mother Meera fame) is foremost
in this area, and has had the unusual honour of provoking the editor of
Nature to declare that his books "were fit for burning"
[49]. Sheldrake comments on his early training:
... But as I advanced in my studies, I was taught that direct, intuitive
experience of plants and animals was emotional and unscientific. According
to my teachers, biological organisms were in fact inanimate machines,
devoid of any inherent purposes, the product of blind chance and natural
selection; and indeed the whole of nature was merely an inanimate machine-like
system [50].
Later on he began the attempt to integrate the reductionist biology of
his training with his early 'direct and intuitive' experience of nature
that led to hostility from the establishment. His book, The Rebirth
of Nature, has one subtitle (on the front cover) 'New Science and
the Revival of Animism' and another (inside) 'The Greening of Science
and God', both of which reveal some of his concerns. The book is in two
parts, the first dealing with the historical development of the modern
reductionist view, and the second laying out his ideas for the reintroduction
of a form of animism into modern science.
A quite different approach is taken by the biologist Mae-Wan Ho, author
of The Rainbow and the Worm the Physics of Organisms. Although
she takes her cue from quantum holism, her idea is that organisms are
much less centrally controlled than our study of brains lead us to believe,
and that a better model for living things and the world as a whole is
that of a 'participative universe'. This does not require quantum theory,
and can be approached quite legitimately from a systems study of organisms:
it just requires that assumptions about the brain and control be put to
one side. This is perhaps a form of anti-reductionism that does not require
(as Sheldrake's does) new forces or fields.
5.7. Tipler: science fiction?
Frank Tipler, author of The Physics of Immortality, represents
an extreme reaction of the scientist to the spiritual possibilities of
the theories of his discipline. His book has provoked the reaction, similar
in intensity to reactions against Sheldrake, that he should be 'de-frocked'
of his PhD (this attack came from the biologist Lewis Wolpert in the Equinox
programme). A close look at his book does, to my mind, remind one of the
view that logic is a whore, at least in Tipler's hands. However, I think
the book is an important landmark, and should not be ignored in fact it
might make a useful touchstone for a modern liberal education: its breadth
and challenge need a broad educational base from which to mount any attack
on its central thesis.
To summarise Tipler's ideas: modern cosmology predicts the elimination
of biological life as we know it, either through the 'heat death' (lack
of energy in fact) in an ever-expanding universe, or its consumption in
the inferno of the 'big crunch' (the final singularity of the universe
as it contracts again). In any case organic life on Earth has only some
billions of years to go before the Sun wipes it out. However, the anthropic
principle discussed above requires that life (consciousness) is central
to the cosmos, and therefore the future evolution of it must be such as
to ensure its existence (in some form or other) for eternity. From this
premise Tipler deduces that we shall all be resurrected by God to live
for ever in the far future: what's more he claims to have the scientific
'proof' for the existence of God and our immortality. Here is the conclusion
to his book:
The Omega
Point Theory [the name is taken from Teilhard de Chardin's writings]
allows the key concepts of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition now
to be modern physics concepts: theology is nothing but physical cosmology
based on the assumption that life as a whole is immortal. A consequence
of this assumption is the resurrection of everyone who ever lived to
eternal life. Physics has now absorbed theology; the divorce between
science and religion, between reason and emotion, is over.
I began
this book with an assertion on the pointlessness of the universe by
Steven Weinberg. He repeats this in his latest book, Dreams of a
Final Theory, and goes on to say "... I do not for a minute
think that science will ever provide the consolations that have been
offered by religion in facing death."
I disagree.
Science can now offer precisely the consolations in facing death
that religion once offered. Religion is now part of science [51].
To show that
his premises lead to his (startling) conclusions, Tipler has to make a
number of radical assumptions along the way. Firstly, life, including
the personality of every person that ever existed, can exist as a digital
simulation; secondly that robot 'probes' can colonise the universe (thus
disseminating digitally encoded life) and engulf the universe with intelligence
before its collapse has gone too far; third that this intelligent
life can engineer the final collapse in an asymmetrical way (harnessing
the features of chaos theory) in order to provide huge amounts of usable
energy; fourthly that this collective intelligence (called the Omega Point)
will be benign enough to collect all possible data regarding each one
of us and initiate our eternal simulation on vast computers; and finally
that the last infinitesimally small period of time before the final singularity
will feel 'subjectively' to us like an eternity.
Each of these major assumptions then requires another group of assumptions
to make them work: for example that colonisation of the universe will
be achievable through matter/anti-matter engines (no-one knows at this
point how to build one), and that mind is computable so that we
can be 'uploaded' into computers (Roger Penrose, for one, disagrees with
this). Our resurrection then depends on the fact that living persons now
(and in the past) can be photographed billions of years in the future
from the light-rays bouncing off the edge of the universe, and that will
give the Omega Point sufficient information to run an exact simulation
of us, preferably choosing us in our prime. Tipler does recognise that
there could be a practical difficulty with this (we cannot even photograph
an entire planet even within our own galaxy at the moment,
not even as a spot of light), so he suggests that instead the cosmic computer
could reconstruct us all knowing that we are 'completely defined' by the
four billion-odd genes in our bodies. This would unfortunately mean resurrecting
an inconceivably large number of people who never existed, but Tipler
can be generous: he has already shown that the Omega Point has infinite
computing power at its disposal.
As if all the scientific odds were not stacked against his theory (putting
it charitably), Tipler also has to show that various religious and cultural
attitudes to immortality are wrong. The most important of these are eternal
recurrence and reincarnation, both of which require lengthy discussions
through philosophy and religion to dispose of.
Tipler supplies a Scientists Appendix to The Physics of Immortality,
which he claims proves mathematically various elements of his theory.
His strategy, if one were inclined to the cynical, is to argue very tightly
and scientifically small points, and then make huge (but downplayed) leaps
between them, thus stringing together some plausible science in the service
of an implausible conclusion. It is an enjoyable read however, and it
deserves a refutation. My own suggestion is to take Tipler's devotion
to determinism at face value and point out that immortality is already
guaranteed by the very theory of eternal recurrence that he tries to argue
against. I simply have a different version: if the universe started from
a Big Bang, and returns to a Big Crunch in an entirely deterministic fashion,
then it only takes one simple leap of logic to suppose that it will do
the same again and again, and in exactly the same way.
This answer to Tipler (which is in one sense 'trivially true' and therefore
not in the least interesting) gets, I believe, to the heart of his obsession:
he absolutely requires a 'continuity' of personhood, which such a theory
denies. He obtains support for his view from certain parts of the Judaic-Christian-Muslim
traditions, believing for example that while waiting for resurrection
the billions of years will feel like no 'subjective' time at all.
While I believe that the anthropic principle deserves a place in modern
thought, it is undermined by Tipler's obviously emotional attempt to avoid
his own, and others', mortality. The really interesting part of his work,
and of a growing number of other scientists', is their willingness to
use (some would say hijack) the language of religion. In terms of the
categories of spirituality developed above, it is religious rather than
occult or transcendent.
5.8. Studies in Consciousness
Zukav and Capra represent a populist New Age 'physics-as-mysticism'; Wilber
a subtler note of caution in this endeavour; Dennett and Dawkins as irredeemably
hostile to a meeting of religion and science; Sheldrake and Mae-Wan Ho
as the 'holistic' brigade; Davies and Tippler the 'physics-as-theology'
hijackers. These represent a spectrum of approaches to the spiritual in
science, and we find in the emerging field of Studies in Consciousness
a forum in which all find a place in a common debate. In a single issue
of the Journal for Consciousness Studies, or on a single conference
platform, we can find all these approaches, and in addition the out-and-out
mystic or religionist. Wilber may be sceptical that physics supports mysticism,
but if it were not for quantum theory this meeting of minds in a common
cause would not have happened. On the face of it a quest for a real understanding
of consciousness looks rather unpromising, but as a meeting place for
the spiritual and the scientific it is highly significant.
6. The Spiritual in Art and Science
While it is clear that something is happening in the sciences with
an explicit reference to the spiritual, and that no such large-scale detectable
phenomenon is happening in the arts, it may be premature to assume that
science is more receptive to the spiritual than the arts. In that a willingness
exists for scientists to speak openly on the theme that their science
supports a spiritual world-view of one sort or another, we probably have
to account for it, in the first place at least, in terms of the developments
in quantum theory. This development has brought science up against
the brick wall of the subjective, and from there a path to the spiritual
is certainly possible, if not inevitable. We also see a continual, if
less obvious, engagement with the spiritual in the arts of this century,
starting with Kandinsky and the Bauhaus, through the American Abstract
Expressionists, and into the modern electronic arts. One might say that
the equivalent event in the arts of this century to the discovery
of quantum theory in physics has been the development of the abstract
in art. However the beginnings of abstract art coincided with an explicit
concern with the spiritual, whereas the impact of quantum theory has taken
roughly fifty years to emerge from the Copenhagen interpretation to the
popular spirituality of Capra and Zukav. We have seen also that artists
write diffusedly, if at all, about the spiritual: it has to be found directly
in their work. Modern scientists on the other hand write profusely about
the spiritual, even to the point of raising the kind of protest mentioned
at the beginning of this paper.
In both the arts and sciences there are however considerable tensions
and antagonisms to the spiritual.
Perhaps the mutual antagonism between science and religion is precisely
because of an instinct that (as Polkinghorne puts it) both can be an
inquiry into what is. To the extent that science and religion compete
to give us a rational account of the universe and its origins there will
probably be no reconciliation: the efforts of Polkinghorne, Davies, and
Tipler are not convincing in this respect at least. What they do offer
us, in different ways, is different approaches to a harmonious relationship.
I have suggested earlier that two possible ways to characterise this relationship
are through either compartmentalisation or integration (synthesis). The
first route may lead to a cessation of dialogue between the scientific
and the religious, while the second may lead to a 'flattening' of the
two cultures where only the narrowest of common ground is shared.
Compartmentalisation at best is a positive position I would argue. It
implies a mixed community of scientists and religionists that each respect
each other's territory, priorities, and goals. It implies an ease with
multiple world-views, for example a Darwinist such as Dawkins recognising
that a creation-myth from any religious tradition is an entirely valid
world view from which to base much of ones' life except the strictly
scientific ones. It implies that an Islamic or Christian creationist recognise
that Darwinism is an entirely valid view from which to base relevant technologies
and agricultural practice. In saving the whale it might be entirely relevant
that Darwinists have found evidence for its descent from the wolf [52]; on the other hand the impulse to
save it in the first place has no Darwinist foundation at all, and could
come from any number of humanist or religious contexts. In an individual
who practices both science and spirituality compartmentalisation is just
as plausible, as with Polkinghorne and Newton. Any deeply religious
person will find reasons in his or her daily activity for the greatness
of God, so there is nothing special about Newton or Polkinghorne seeing
their science as glorifying their Lord: a farmer or dress-maker can do
the same. Paul Davies, after the publication of his first book, was surprised
to find out how many fellow-scientists held both a scientific and a religious
world-view in seemingly watertight compartments, but unfortunately he
is rather scathing about this, rather than probing this interesting phenomenon
[53]. In a post-modern culture
it should come naturally that a person can move fluidly from world-view
to world-view with neither confusion or hypocrisy.
A variation on the concept of compartmentalisations is Polkinghorne's
complementarity. The term suggests the ability to hold different
world-views that also inform each other. Wilber's message in Quantum
Questions is along this line and is consistent with the picture drawn
of the early quantum scientists whose quotes make up the bulk of the book,
and fits also with his 'spectrum of consciousness' idea. The more recent
physicists such as Davies and Tipler seem however to want to take the
spiritual territory over, and on the terms of science. This is as pointless
as the converse trend: where mystics and religionists start proposing
new physical 'fields' and other bogus science. What then are the characteristics
of a genuine complementarity? It is generally considered that science
is about doubt, and that spirituality is about belief, so how can these
opposing inclinations cross-fertilise our two world-views? I would suggest
however that this dichotomy is ill-informed, from both sides. Much
of what a scientist does is an act of faith, in the sense of trusting
the unknown and committing energy and personal resources into research;
much of a scientist's work is based on the sheer love of it. Doubt is
merely one of the tools in his bag. Spirituality on the other hand often
uses doubt as a tool: the whole principle of via negativa lies
in the doubting of the physical senses over the nurturing of a nascent
new faculty faith and doubt intermingled, as in science. The faith to
take a leap into the unknown, the appropriate use of doubt, and the love
of one's allotted path: these are common to both science and religion.
However, one could argue that these are common to all human endeavour,
so what more specifically can the one activity inform the other with?
At this point in time this is not clear. My only suggestion is that in
the emerging field of the science of consciousness a science of the subjective
is badly needed. William James suggested a form of introspectionism, and
a series of laboratory experiments were begun in the hope of yielding
a scientific understanding of the psychological, but for various reasons
these gave way to the behaviourist investigations that have dominated
20th C psychology [54]. However,
many spiritual traditions can offer quite systematic contemplative practices
that may be useful in establishing a rigorous introspectionism useful
to studies in consciousness [55]. What in turn can science directly offer the spiritual,
other than a reinforcement of the common ground of most human endeavour,
as defined above? For all the writings of the scientists this century
on the spiritual, I don't believe that I have come across a single such
suggestion. Hence I am not sure at this point that complementarity can
be much more than compartmentalisation.
What of the even more extreme project, that of an integration or synthesis
between science and religion? 1,100 delegates attended the First World
Congress for the Synthesis of Science and Religion in 1986; approximately
3,000 'scientists, religious leaders, philosophers, and eminent thinkers'
are expected to attend the second event in 1997. The advisory board for
this event includes Huston Smith, and the programme includes Consciousness
Studies, Origins of Life and of the Universe, Bioethics, Ecology/Environment,
and World Peace. The programme in fact looks more like a complementarity
than a synthesis, and as such may be highly successful: there are many
practical goals outlined here where scientists and religionists can work
together. At this point, despite Bohm's work and Wilber's spectrum principle,
I cannot see where a synthesis might begin.
Le us turn now to the spiritual in art. Is Plato right that we should
be wary of art as seductive; should we sum up art as self-delusion as
Ozenfant says? Can we really be as optimistic as Lipsey in his assertion
that 20th century art would satisfy the spiritual dimension of an Eckhart
and the workshop dimension of a Leonardo? Again much more work is needed,
but the indications are more promising of a profound relationship
between the spiritual and the arts. It would be too far-fetched to talk
of a synthesis, except in the very rare Blake-like cases, but we seem
to have much more than a mere compartmentalisation or complementarity:
the spiritual really does seem to feed into the arts, however fitfully,
and however poorly artists write about the spiritual. There are however
clear antagonisms; mainly from the free-thinking artist's spirit against
the perceived tyranny of organised religion (Brancusi's 'baggage'). It
should also be remembered that both Theosophy and Anthroposophy had some
of the inevitable trappings of a cult, and despite the very high goals
and great achievements of both organisations, there was, and is, an inevitable
prescription of thought, and proscription of behaviour. Artists are instinctively
uncomfortable with this (and is not part of de Chardin's appeal the pathos
surrounding his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the latter causing
the suppression of his work during his lifetime?).
7. Conclusions
The considerable recent writings on spirituality by scientists is an important
phenomenon and deserves further study. The impulse arises from, or was
released by, quantum theory, but it is hard to see how a real synthesis
may emerge. A sympathetic complementarity would however be a great step
forward in bringing the scientific and religious communities together,
though the danger has to be recognised that some scientists are merely
trying to appropriate the territory of the spiritual with little real
sympathy for it. While contemporary artists write little about spirituality,
it seems that the spiritual is an important undercurrent of influence
in the arts. Whether this entered with abstract art, or merely changed
the nature of the influence from being main-stream religious to occult
and transcendent needs clarification.
What of the idea, stated at the beginning of this essay, that the spiritual
is antecedant to both science and art (as Whitman would have it)? The
anthropic principle allows that consciousness at least is on an
equal footing with matter, but some spiritual traditions place it as antecedent
to matter, while most of science places it as an emergent property of
matter. To say that the spiritual is antecedent to science is therefore
not easily or widely supportable. However, we find it much easier to assert
that the spiritual may be antecedent to art.
Further research is needed into the spiritual in art and science. There
may also be a fruitful line of enquiry as to whether the arts can successfully
mediate between science and the spiritual. Lipsey's quote from the Sufis
regarding 'eyes of flesh' and 'eyes of fire' may be relevant: perhaps
the artist is best attuned to move from one to the other during the course
of his or her work. One might also suggest that science needs the poetic
in order to allow a complementarity with the religious on even terms,
and that the religious needs the poetic to avoid the dogmatic and reactionary.
References for Part 3
[39] Wilber, Ken, Quantum
Questions - Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists, Boston
and London: Shambhala, 1985, p. ix
[40] Guardian, March
9th 1995
[41] Davies, Paul, The Mind
of God, London: Penguin 1993, p. 15
[42] Davies, Paul, The Mind
of God, London: Penguin 1993, p. 78
[43] Davies, Paul, The Mind
of God, London: Penguin 1993, p. 232
[44] Davies, Paul, God and
the New Physics, London: Penguin 1990, p.229
[45] Crick, Francis, The
Astonishing Hypothesis - The Scientific Search for the Soul, Simon
and Schuster, 1994, p. 258
[46] Guardian, July 29th
1995
[47] Both quotes are in the
opening pages of: Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin
1991
[48] The Times Higher Educational
Supplement, September 29th 1995, p. 19
[49] Sheldrake was the subject
of one of the BBC's recent series on science called 'Heretics,' showing
how the scientific establishment deals with scientists whose work it considers
too radical.
[50] Sheldrake, R.The Rebirth
of Nature - New Science and the Revival of Animism, Rider London,
Sidney, Aukland, Johannesburg 1993, p. xii
[51] Tipler, Frank J. The
Physics of Immortality - Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of
the Dead, London: Macmillan, 1994, p. 338
[52] A recent Islamic campaign
has focused on this (admittedly improbable) conclusion of science to question
the whole of scientific method.
[53] Davies, Paul, The Mind
of God, London: Penguin 1993, p. 15
[54] A brief account of this
is given in: Güzeldere, Güven 'Consciousness: What is it, How
to Study it, What to Learn from its History' in Journal of Consciousness
Studies - controversies in the sciences and humanities, Thorverton
UK: Imprint Academic, Volume 2, No. 1 1995, p. 30
[55] This was the theme of my
paper presentation to the 'Toward a Science of Consciousness' conference
(Tucson II).
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