ON SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY
At the heart of the scientific paradigm there is a paradox. Nobel Scientist Max Planck, founder of quantum science, helps us appreciate the paradox. — [Max Planck”Where Is Science Going?,” 1932]
“There are two postulates which form the hinge of physical science.”
1. There is a real outer world which exists independently of our act of knowing, and
2. The real outer world is not directly knowable.”
As Planck points out, these are “postulates.”
Let us look into this idea of “postulates.” Science is viewed as starting with postulates or assumptions, and coming to some conclusions or“theorems” which are “statements to be proved” by deductive reason. Experiments are then run to show that the theorems are not contradicted. But this is only part of the story, and leaves out three important aspects of “science” not normally made explicit.
First, although theorems are “proved” based on some starting postulates, the postulates themselves are not proved, but assumed. As Planck and Einstein make clear, the statement of a “real outer world existing independently of our knowing” is such a Postulate—not a theorem to prove.
If you attempt to “prove” a postulate, this eventually leads to an infinite regress, because then that proof is based on some more primal postulates, and so on. This is called an infinite regress.
In fact, most of science progresses because of questioning the postulates, rather than reaching conclusions based on them. An excellent example from the 19th century is non-euclidean geometry. Russians Bolai and Lobachevshy set out to prove that the so-called “parallel postulate” of Euclid was not a postulate, but provable. They thought “ha, we will show you. Assume the parallel postulate is false, and we will show that there will be a contradiction to plane geometry.” They went on and on to develop a whole new geometry, but no contradiction. So after some years they gave up. Some years later, the non-euclidean geometry they had “discovered” or “invented” turned out to be exactly the geometry that fit the new view of the universe that emerged from Einstein’s general relativity: curved space.
Years later, Einstein got his come uppance when, with some buddies, he formulated an experiment which would show “ha ha, if quantum science is right, then run this experiment and you not get the answer that quantum must predict.” So finally, some 20 years later in 1963, technology was advanced enough that the experiment could be run (in a form called Bell’s theorem.) Sure enough, quantum predicted ¼ was correct, and the view of “things with local properties” predicted 1/3 and was wrong.
An important side point here is that experiments do NOT validate a theorem, they can only show that a previous view was wrong. And thankful to science, that when the experiment gives different result than what the theory/theorem predicts, science goes with the experiment. But what about the old theorem, which after all had been proved!? Guess what: that pushes back to the postulates, the assumptions: so quantum theory suggests that one of the old assumptions underlying the “thingness” of the universe has to go. We still don’t know exactly which one(s), or maybe all of them.
Second, science does NOT go only by theory and experiment. Else we would get nothing new. All science is driven by what Koestler writes about in The Act of Creation and sometimes is called the Archimedes “aha.” It is a moment of inspired intuitive seeing. It is usually this creative act that leads to new science: either by questioning old assumptions, or by the formulation of a new, or different postulate, about the nature of the universe. Which only then, of course, is checked by experiments to see if it is not falsified.
Third, all science is done by scientists. (duh!) Whatever results, whatever we explore, is related to and filtered by, the mind of the scientist, and the collective culture of science at the time. Can’t help that.
“what we observe is not nature itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning.” Werner Heisenberg
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” Max Planck Where is Science Going? (1932)
Now go back to the two postulates of Planck we started with.
On one hand science has changed our view of a “real outer world existing independently” tremendously in the last 100 years. Science has shown us that the Universe is not the way it seems, and has uncovered layers or aspects of the universe that are not apparent to our ordinary experience. When we look closely at the tree, we see a vast dynamic of life, inter-being, atoms, jiggling possibilities. Not only is there no thing out there, there is no out there out there. There is not much comfort in such a “Real outer world.”
On the other hand, not only our ordinary experience of the world, but also everything science tells us about, cosmology to quarks, brain and biology, is not the world as “independent of our knowing” because it is a known world.
So far, so good. Now: how can science interface with Spirituality? Let’s consider this PB para:
There are three stages on the path of world enquiry. The first yields as its fruit that the world is but an idea, and this stage has been reached from the metaphysical end by thinkers such as Bishop Berkeley, and nearly reached from the scientific end by such a man as Eddington. The second stage involves the study of the three states, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and yields as its fruit the truth that ideas are transitory emanations out of their permanent cause, consciousness. The third stage is the most difficult, for it requires analysis of the nature of time, space, and causation, plus successful practice of yoga. It yields as its fruit the sense of Reality as something eternally abiding with one. 19.0.1
I actually do think that a discerning, honest scientist, such as Eddington or Planck, can and does reach and agree with the first stage. Of course, they could do that just as rational human beings, and not necessarily even with their science. In terms of science, they would have to be open minded enough to see that the mentalist arguments of Berkeley or PB are so irrefutable, that what must next be questioned is some whole basic assumption about a real outer world of matter. Some have done that stage one, as PB points out, and here are two quotes:
I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. –Max Planck The Observer (25 January 1931) DUP
It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference.” Sir Arthur Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, 276-81
Maybe you emember when consciousness was, for science, the “ghost in the machine?”
Science becomes sacred science, and mature science, when it is not only concerned with what we can know about the world, but how we can know, and who is knowing.
The time will come, and cannot be avoided, when both the new and the accumulated facts will force scientists to regard Mind as the real thing they have to deal with, and matter as a group of states of mind. But by that time they will be something more than mere scientists alone; they will be somewhat on the way to becoming philosophical scientists. 21.4.164
Planck even goes further, to suggest something like a “world-mind” … I put the quote here only because it is so famous, but don’t want to take up the World-mind question just yet:
As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter per-se. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter. (Max Planck: “The Nature of Matter”, speech at Florence, Italy, 1944)
The quote below is ascribed to Heisenberg. Likely originally from Francis Bacon, “Of Atheism” (1601): “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion,”
Philosophy, which previously ignored science, now has many powerful examples and insights from science to help make its abstract ideas more tangible. Reason can apply to spirituality to help integrate the world-appearance.
…science, which began by repudiating mind and exalting matter, is being forced by facts to end by repudiating matter and exalting mind. This is why philosophy today must sharply emphasize and teach, alongside of ancient lore, the profounder mentalist import of vital facts of modern discovery which have not yet received their deserved reward of recognition from the world. 21.4.128
On the other hand, reductionism is still very strong in science, as voiced by advocates such as Dawkins and Hitchens, and even by such fabulously eloquent scientists as Feynman:
Certainly no subject is making more progress on so many fronts than biology, and if we were to name the most powerful assumption of all, which leads one on and on in an attempt to understand life, it is that all things are made of atoms, and that everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jiggling and wiggling of atoms.” Lectures on Physics vol.1 p. 3 1963
But now, even atoms are jigglings. So living things are the jiggling and wiggling of jigglings and wigglings! The attempt of some scientists to claim to have solved the “mysteries” of the universe in the realms of quanta, cosmology, consciousness, and biology, have been strongly dismissed (read “dissed”) by fellow scientists. Some examples.
In regard to explanations of how conscious perception happens, put forth by nobel scientist Roger Penrose:
“Pixie dust in the synapses is about as explanatorily powerful as quantum coherence in the microtubules.” —Patricia Smith Churchland on Penrose’s theories:
In a book written by David Dennet claiming that “now after thousands of years we have solved the mystery of consciousness” so if you like mysteries the reader should not read on. Fellow cognitive scientists very soon pointed out that we have solved some of the easy questions about consciousness: the correspondence between parts of the brain and emotions, actions, etc. But we have no way solved the “hard” questions of consciousness: what is it, how did it arise, and why are we conscious at all?
And in his book The God Delusion and many lectures, Richard Dawkins seeks to “prove” the non-existence of God. At one place he says that there are so many variables in the already known universe, precisely tweaked to give it the order it has, or evolve the creatures, that it is about unlikely that a “God” whould have created these (rather than them naturally arising!) as it is that a 747 jetliner would suddenly arise fully functional from a primitive. Of course, as you see, this is totally non-scientific arguing, at least, which dawkins would never use in a scientific paper. Since when does something being “unlikely” disprove it!
Many scientists would have to agree with conclusions of the Hidden Teaching, and much science supports it.
If we return even to stage 1, even Bertrand Russel did not want to accept Mentalism, even though the argument was unassailable, was because he did not have such experience. So as Anthony says: “don’t want to just read the menu, but experience.” [And: Think of it, which is more real, which is more certain.]
So we are back to the question: not “what do you know”… but “how do you know.” And here is the dilemma of all scientific reasoning approach, which starts with the postulate “ROWEIK” is not directly knowable. Or does not yet wish to look into the question: “how can we know the knower” “how can we know about knowing itself.” Clearly, theorems about that which is beneath and prior to all proof, which is “never an object, but immediately present in every act of knowing objects, whether quantum, cosmic, biological or cognitive” are not going to fit the old scientific paradigm.
Science has itself begun to recognize that it cannot proceed past a certain point without taking into account the observer, who in some views is not only a “participator” but even a “precipitator.” Nonetheless, it is quite a leap from most current science to take the observation needed in Quantum theory to be the actual consciousness of the observer and not just a detector machine. And most of the cognitive scientists still hold that consciousness is a phenomena based in neural activity. And that our current state of consciousness is a result of “evolutionary biology”… and the jiggling of atoms.
WORLD-MIND
Now let us move to the discussion about the “World-Mind.” As we see above, Planck comes to the conclusion of “this mind is the matrix of all matter.” So close to PB World-Mind. And David Bohm, a great friend of Krishnamurthi and HHDL, talks about the “implicate order” and even “super-implicate order.”
But these views are not mainstream science, nor are they, nor could they, be “proved” from any current science postulates.
And now: should we expect that even PB is going to “prove” to us in a scientific way the existence of a “world-mind” in the “Birth of the Universe.” ? The HTBY and “The Birth of the Universe” do very well to demolish the materialistic and causality view of the universe, but do not prove the existence of the World-Mind… even though PB says:
“…not merely on the basis of right reasoning alone but on the basis of ultra-mystic insight also, the hidden teaching affirms the existence of such a supreme Mind.” TWOTO Meaning of Mentalism
PB is very clear on demolishing the materialist reductionist view, and on the old views of causality… which do not explain quantum theory either (see the writings of our late great friend Vic Mansfield.) However, anything that purports to go beyond this with any kind of reasoned proof must run into a problem. As Richard PLatek pointed out years ago: the HTBY is presented in a rational methodical way, but not TWOTO. It is possible to point to, suggest, present, World-Mind rationally: yes. But how to prove that which is purported to be the underlie and vast source of all proof? Reason can show us the likelihood of such a Mind, but not take us there. Yes, reason does point to the World-Mind, the Matrix of Being, the Tathagata Gharbha, but it does not prove it. Actually, it is a Postulate! Plato: Cosmology is a likely story.
…It is unreasonable to believe that when there are a myriad different forms of life in the universe below man in the scale of evolution, there cannot also be some other forms above him, nay that there cannot also be some ultimate form of supreme intelligence which takes a cosmic view of things. It would then be impertinent indeed to foist on such a superior intelligence only the senses developed by man’s partial experience, when it could become world-conscious in its own larger way.
It must be a universally diffused mind or it could not carry the consciousness of the myriad things and beings in the world. It must be a primal, permanent and self-subsistent one or it could not take in all the changes and vicissitudes incessantly occurring within the continuous duration of the world. It must always be linked with the universe or it could not be an observer of the universe. It is such a boundless mind which would be the necessary observer of an uninhabited world or an unvisited scene. And not merely on the basis of right reasoning alone but on the basis of ultra-mystic insight also, the hidden teaching affirms the existence of such a supreme Mind. TWOTO Meaning of Mentalism
Again, reason can show us that there is no experience or existence outside of consciousness. Reason can show us the INABILITY of reason to prove what is beyond it: as Nagarjuna, Godel and Heisenberg have shown. And as Anthony puts it: “The greatest joy is to try to fathom the unfathomable. When we give up, enlightenment.,… but better try real hard at the beginning.”
Reason and experiment/experience is good for dissolving, questioning old beliefs, such as matter and separateness. And “how do you know.” Demolition of the separatist materialist view of the tree is almost already done by science. An inquiry into experience itself, the basis of all science, i.e. the presuppositions we have about experience, is possible and necessary in order to bring about a “paradigm shift” in our exploration of the universe as well. Call it mentalism, or emptiness, or maya, or creative imagination, the view is accessible to reason and proof based on experience and reason in a way that Cosmic Mentalism is not. We must trust in the inspired writings of PB and the masters to point us to God, Being, world-Mind, etc. But we can inquire for ourselves.
How can modern Western men hear or read the ancient Advaitic claim that this vast world does not really exist and understand, let alone accept, it? They are likely to receive the claim with enough incredulity to consider it not worth rebuttal. But those who are patient enough not to do so, and willing enough to look for the evidence in nuclear physics, which the Hindus of past times did not have (the Hindus of our time merely repeat their ancestors’ words like parrots), may begin to find some reasonable sense in it.
The case needs presentation in three stages. To put it quite briefly: the first reduces all material objects to their atomic elements, to electrons, ions, protons, and so on, and shows that they are composed of energies and are not at all what they seem to be. The second draws on the metaphysics of mentalism to lead into the profounder understanding that in the end all that is known of the energies is in consciousness. They are ideas. This deprives the world of reality, and presents its basic existence as immaterial and unsubstantial.
The third stage turns away from the world to the ego which experiences that world. The “I” too is a complex of thoughts and as such not a continuing identity. But as a point of consciousness it derives from universal impersonal Mind, without beginning or end: THAT is the real underlying existence of the individual ego and its world, which do not and cannot possibly exist by themselves. In this sense they are described as non-existent. 15.2.364
The highlighted parts are where we must either trust PB and follow the clue, or have the direct immediate experience for ourselves.