| |
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).
|
