(Sorry, This was first posted under the wrong topic.) My comments are interlinear...On Sunday, September 11, 2011 12:24:54 AM UTC-5, Michel Bauwens wrote:
Dear Richard,
I've
read your contributions here with great interest, and as you say, we're
really broad agreement 'in practice' despite us reacting differently to
some semantic 'hot button' words ...
I
agree, Michel. I think you will find that "spirituality" is a hot button
word to many (not all of course) in the atheist/agnostic/free-thought/skeptic/scientific community. Thats a pretty big swath of the "techies" out there, not to mention the general public.
Feel free to use my words in your blog.
Thanks. I think it will add much needed scope and nuance to my post on spirituality.
I'm about to go on a 20-day lecture tour, I will need to engage with
this much later now, however much the topic is of interest to me. THank
you so much for engaging with my ramblings and letting me see better
where you are coming from. This is the true purpose of dialogue.
Have a great trip!
Last thing: every modality has positive and negative potential, and
that includes both magical and rational thinking, both of which can be
misused, especially when not used in a integral or integrative fashion.
Michel
Agreed. I don't see any of the modalities of consciousness as independent nor as "Non-overlapping magisteria" as posited by Stephen Jay Gould.
"Magical thinking", religious experience, and many other modalities
of consciousness are being investigated by cognitive neuroscience. I
don't think about any modality of consciousness, including rational
thought, the way I used to.
When you return to the group, Michel, I hope we can continue this discussion. Perhaps others will join in the meantime.
At this juncture, I want to offer an example of a partial secular re-appropriation of certain aspects of spirituality.
This regards the so-called mystical, transcendental, or cosmic experiences (often framed as religious experiences).
Such
experiences (indistinguishable from "real" experiences) can be induced
by drugs, electrical and trans-cranial-magnetic stimulation of the
brain, epileptic seizure, oxygen deprivation, brain injury, psychosis,
hypnosis, chanting, rhythmic movement, and many other means. I have
explored many of these means myself.
All this strongly suggests
that even the "real" mystical experience might be something generated
internally within the brain, or at least that it would be impossible to
distinguish a "real" mystical experience from an artificial one without some reliable method for doing so.
One of my mentors, John C. Lilly,
(perhaps known best for his efforts to communicate with dolphins) in
speaking about mystical and transcendental experiences, suggested three
hypotheses concerning them. I recall his simple chalk diagram in my
mind's eye. Paraphrasing Lilly, the contained mind hypothesis
says all forms of consciousness, subjective experience, and "knowing"
are generated entirely by and within the brain, even if most of the
details are still a mystery. This hypothesis tends to be favored by many
scientists, especially neuroscientists. The uncontained mind
hypothesis (shared by many mystics, etc.) says that the individual mind,
at a deep level not usually obvious to our conscious mind, forms a
continuous fabric with other minds and/or with the universe itself. The leaky mind
hypothesis, to which Lilly and I subscribe, says that for the most
part, most of the time, the contained mind hypothesis is true, but that
occasionally under special circumstances, or more often in very subtle
and usually imperceptible ways, our minds interact with the cosmos
outside of the channel of our normal senses. The leaky mind leaves open
the question of whether we are dealing only with unknown senses or with
extra-cranial intelligences in such cases.
I have previously
proposed a hypothesis that DNA or other structures in a cell may act
like an antenna and allow an organism to respond to signals in various
kinds of natural and artificial radiation. There is much evidence that
even non-ionizing radiation can cause responses in cells. Many
single-celled organisms, often without any known mechanism, can
respond to light, heat, magnetic fields, and radio frequency radiation.
Natural radiation is not generally assumed to contain a "signal" as
such, but even simple amplitude variations can carry information.
Signals could come from many sources, even off-world sources. Perhaps
there is literally a cosmic "music of the spheres"
that our cells can "hear". In this way, neurons or networks of neurons
may be "connected" to extra-cranial sources of information that may
somehow get passed up to the conscious mind and there manipulated in
some form.
There is also the possibility that DNA carries embedded
information that is of a relatively cosmic or transcendental nature. An
example might be information about the "essence" or "true nature" of
the biosphere or other life forms with whom we share some genetic
history. There may be ways that such information can be transmitted
under certain conditions into the conscious mind where it may be greatly
augmented or elaborated upon by the imagination.
Science is very
limited in the extent to which it can explore such hypotheses today,
but these are the kinds of hypotheses, expressed in the kinds of
language, that science will probably eventually be able to prove or
disprove.
How do these hypotheses bear on magical thinking,
etc? It does not invalidate magical thinking or mystical experience, but
it may bear on the understanding, interpretation, and utility of such
experience, if only to shake some of our confidence in our past and
present assumptions about it. A good intro to the intersection of
spirituality and neuroscience is the work of Sam Harris. (disclaimer: I do not adhere to his warmongering positions.)
Neuroscience
should give us pause to review all our assumptions about the mind,
including what we consider to be rational thought. A very good
introduction to this topic is the work of Dan Ariely.
PR