At url = http://www.mwsc.edu/orgs/polan...Oct_31_submitted.pdf

and at url =
http://epsc.wustl.edu/classwor...a/pdfs/2000/UG01.pdf

you will find two essays by Ursula Goodenough.

One is titled "From Biology to Morality" and the other a lecture from a course called "Life, the Earth & the Cosmos" , and together they will take one from the first three minutes after the Big Bang, emergentistically, through the coevolution of human culture, language and brain to the very threshold of the human experience of insight and morality.

Responses to the first essay, by Nancy Howell, Saint Paul School of Theology; Phil Mullins, Missouri Western State College; and Diane Yeager, Georgetown University; can be found at url =
http://www.mwsc.edu/orgs/polanyi/meeting2002.htm

The precis for these essays is that the emergentist dynamism, of getting "something more from nothing but" , through a series of regressions beginning with that unique semiotic system of human language backwards toward the singularity of t = 0 and its quantum vaccuum fluctuation, resulted, ultimately, in this very posting here at Shalomplace.

Ursula wrote recently (on a listserv whose archives are public): Wilson is apparently still stuck with his conviction, that the natural sciences can become consilient with art and art with natural sciences, when in fact all this effort is unnecessary when it is realized that art is an emergent phenomenon. The ev psych listserv is back to free-will postings with stuff like "the self is an illusion," rather than "the self is an emergent phenomenon."

She was speaking of E.O. Wilson in response to his deism, I believe. Someone had quoted him: "We have to recognize that the most dedicated and inspired of all scientists have been the people who are entertaining, explicitly or implicitly, a mythology of their own, a belief that the world is thus and so, and that there are unchanging laws, and that they are exploring them."

Ursula had thus commented: "What confounds me is that none of these guys seem to have figured out about emergence yet. It really addresses many issues that they seem to be struggling with."

Changing direction, now, and speaking of others who go beyond Ursula's own covenant with mystery to claim they've got it all figured out.

What has confounded me, is how, when it comes to the ontological riddle that confronts one at any particular singularity or any singular particularity <wink><grin><sigh>, there are those who call it a pseudo-riddle, suggesting that for our physical system, taken in its totality, we can only model the rules but cannot explain them.

Such is their code for suggesting, that:

1) we cannot take reality, itself, to be a thing in need of justification;

2) any hypothesis that requires an unachievable metasystem outside of our most basic framework cannot "explain" our most fundamental framework;

3) we cannot bypass the uncertainty inherent in any system, including the basic framework of our existence, by setting up some inaccessable metasystem without sacrificing modeling power for a rush to closure;

4) the ontological riddle is a pseudoriddle, trying to pull itself up by its metaphorical bootstraps, not just insoluble in principle, but not even a question to which a response is possible;

5) undecidability is fundamental, but so are certain a priori presuppositions, the framework for everything else. Ergo, one can model the rules, but never explain them because, as a model, the system works, while as an explanation, the uncertainty destroys it as a consequence of the system itself;

6) by collapsing the distinction between the physical and phenomenal, or even the phenomenal and ontological (using Maritain), we have
uncertainty, and the greatest possible modeling power for hypotheses within the system, as well as a litmus test for such hypotheses as do not belong to the system.

Ironically, the above "rant" about the "ontological riddle" or "why is there something rather than nothing?" --- has some truth to it. As we consider different orders of emergence or different degrees of ontological density or different levels in the hierarchical chain of being, we recognize that, indeed, higher order systems cannot be comprehended by their respective lower orders. Lower order systems cannot even model their own rules much less attempt to explain them, lacking that novel emergent semiotic capacity found only in the human, capable of experiencing our minds themselves symbolically.

I think what happens is that, aware of how we can comprehend the lower orders, both modeling and explaining their rules, we are capable of conceiving of how our own level in the hierarchy might be comprehended by yet a higher level or order or system. Of course, any hypothesis about such a meta-system truly does not belong to the system, itself. Any ontological hypothesis that requires such an unachievable metasystem, outside of our most basic framework of existence at our own level in the hierarchy, indeed cannot "explain" our most fundamental framework of existence. Neither can we bypass the uncertainty inherent in the system at our hierarchical level.

The riddle of what level might yet comprehend ours is insoluble in principle and does require both metaphorical bootstrapping and an analogical imagination. Ontological undecidability is fundamental, is not testable by a posteriori empirical evidence, is not a priori graspable and remains, in principle, indemonstrable, insoluble. As a consequence of the system, itself, uncertainty does destroy any explanations of any inaccessible meta-system.

We can, however, contrary to an assertion above, take any given level in a hierarchical system to be a thing in need of justification and, applying an emergentist perspective, we can explain these levels and model their rules. We can symbolically represent our own level of existence and can, indeed, consider it just one more level in the system and attempt to justify it, even if we can only model this level's rules but not explain them.

Our novel emergent semiotic capacity can, indeed, construct an hypothesis of how our hierarchical level might be comprehended by yet a higher level and can attempt to explain how that higher level might unobstrusively but effectively influence our own level of existence as a tacit dimension within that existence. (Cf. Aristotle and Aquinas on formative causation and Arraj on implicate order and nonenergetic causation).

In hypothesizing a distinction between the phenomenal and ontological, we don't eliminate uncertainty, for we do acknwledge that this meta-hypothesis does not belong to the system, itself, that system being our level in the hierarchical chain of being and those it comprehends. By hypothesizing a distinction between the phenomenal and ontological, we can indeed achieve the greatest possible modeling power for hypotheses within the system, remaining open to such a tacit dimension as might directly but unobtrusively be influencing our own level in such a meta-system as transcends our limits and finitude (which are not identical to our boundaries).

We may indeed be increasingly able to draw increasingly compelling inferences from ever more rigorous statistical analyses regarding such anomalous phenomena as appear to have nonspatial, atemporal, immaterial and/or nonenergetic causes, however indemonstrable they remain in principle, without any sacrifice of modeling power, whatsoever. Christianity and the Greeks have done it before, gifting us with science as we know it today. The more things change; the more they stay the same.

pax, amor et bonum,
jb

quote:

We can, however, contrary to an assertion above, take any given level in a hierarchical system to be a thing in need of justification and, applying an emergentist perspective, we can explain these levels and model their rules. We can symbolically represent our own level of existence and can, indeed, consider it just one more level in the system and attempt to justify it, even if we can only model this level's rules but not explain them.

In a nutshell!

And so, to me, faith can be viewed as a "rational act," in some ways--an opening oneself to be guided/influenced by the Higher Power of Whom I am a part, but Whom I cannot wrap my mind around just as the intelligence of one of the cells in my body cannot grasp the machinations of my mind. It is profoundly influenced by my mind, for better or worse. In opening ourselves to God, we become welcoming of the positive influence of the Higher Level and thus come to proper balance and direction in our own level of the hierarchy of being.

I don't see how anyone can discount the reasonableness of this possibility, unless they just flat-out deny that any such Higher Level exists--i.e. atheism. I think objections about the possibility and relevance of meta-levels have been thoroughly routed in some of your comebacks, JB. Nicely done!

I don't see how anyone can discount the reasonableness of this possibility

Doesn�t this all relate back to �if all you have is a hammer then all of your problems will look like nails�? If one is totally immersed in science and does not have a background in philosophy or religion (or gives both of them short shrift) then I don�t find it hard to believe at all. I don�t find this hard to believe especially since many of these concepts I�m just becoming familiar with. These new ideas resonate with me particularly because, as SP�s self-proclaimed right-wing �truth detector�, I�m prone to digging out and exposing the unstated emotional prejudices that usually piggyback on any issue that claims to be based on reason or logic.

re: These new ideas resonate with me particularly because, as SP�s self-proclaimed right-wing �truth detector�, I�m prone to digging out and exposing the unstated emotional prejudices that usually piggyback on any issue that claims to be based on reason or logic.

And Brad, despite all of the ad hominem and bulveristic attacks on the life of faith, as made by contemporary restatements of the same old worn out arguments of Freud, Nietzsche, Marx, Feuerbach, Russell et al, one can clearly see how it is not merely infantile illusions, wishful thinking, anthropomorphic projections, the fear of death or hope for an afterlife, opiates for the people or what one imbibed at mother's knee that accounts for the tenacity of faith in human culture. Those are logical fallacies, that assuredly account for some people's faith outlooks (inviting iconoclastic deconstruction either through catechetical formation or via the snobbish and arrogant militant materialism of one's first college professor), that do not at all speak to the merits of the hypothesis of putative nonspatial, atemporal, immaterial, nonenergetic, nonphysical, non-natural and/or supernatural elements of a meta-physical framework, which can be tested, indirectly, yielding rather compelling inferences that are very consonant with not just the ontological intuitions of Christianity via its natural theology sans revelatory processes, but also with its historicity, its scriptural exegesis (with literary, form and redaction criticisms) and dogmatic assertions.

For instance, this man, Jesus, and His mother, Mary, both emulate an approach to the reality of the natural world and to other people that is gentle but powerful, unobtrusive but effective, tacit but influential, invisible but efficacious, hidden but formative, obscure but certain, Who, reportedly, though equal with God did not deem equality with God as something to be grasped at, Who, forsaking divine attributes of omniscience and omnipotence, allegedly took on human form and shared the way of omnibenevolence. This all must raise one's sneaking suspicions, to think that this radically different form of zealotry (something Judas and other political and miltant activists could not fathom), which advocated a turning of the other cheek, which admonished the cutting off of a soldier's ear, which eschewed displays of power for anything other than feeding the hungry and healing the sick, is so very consonant wth such a process theology and cosmology as predicts a God Who suffers with and in creation, immanently and transcendently, not coercively but gentlemanly, not breaking bruised reeds, not quenching smoldering wicks, not co-opting human freedom, but willing to beckon us forth, along with the multiverse, through tacit, unobtrusive, hidden, gentle, formative influences which are nonetheless powerful, efficacious, effective and accomplishes what the Word was sent to do.

This whole Gospel mission and its methods are so uncannily similar to the cosmos as we have come to know it in its putative quantum indeterminacy, superluminality, nonlocality, implicate order, tacit dimensionality, formative causation, ontological undecidability, depthful mystery and epistemological occultations, that one might reasonably wonder if the whole shebang were not artfully crafted by the same Artisan?

This cannot be empirically demonstrated, in principle, so uncertainty inheres. It is not unreasonable, however, to draw compelling inferences from such a hermeneutic as yields the most modeling power, both physically and metaphysically, for reality as measured in logical consistency, hypothetical fecundity, internal coherence, external congruence with empirically verified/falsified aspects of reality, consilience among disparate disciplines, and consonances within us, both cognitive and effective, and among it all.

Our modeling power stands on the threshold of better exploiting these hidden, tacit and unobtrusive dimensions, putting them to work, most efficaciously on behalf of a hurting world which is badly in need of advanced healing arts, utilizing them toward a better understanding of individual and global consciousness and advancing interpersonal and interideological communication, and maybe even untangling the compactified superstrings to more directly access the information embedded in the memory of the noosphere, encoded in formal causation, implicate order and morphogenetic fields, communicating info superluminally and perhaps, even, from the other side. This may sound far out (John Denver RIP) but I think it holds more promise than the a priori dismissal of all inexplicable phenomena as anomalous and is more fecund than any epistemology that a priori forecloses on alternate ontologies.

Just because one hopes Christianity is true doesn't make it, therefore, false. It makes more sense to me, pre-scientifically and scientifically, than alternate hypotheses, that some take as axiomatic. There's some evidence in all of this consonance that demands a depthful engagement of any seriously inquirng mind, one not closed due to superficial arrogance or mere snobbish caprice.

I hope G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Reid and other advocates of common sense are enjoying this unfolding of the multiverse as much as I am. I'm glad I don't have to defend my ontology against the onslaught of the anomalous and paranormal, much less experimental physics like those who are swimming in facts but drowning in truth. Relax. Our metaphysic floats! Our ontology is buoyant! Our epistemology set sail centuries ago and, like Magellan, has circumnavigated the world while the metaphysical equivalent of the flat earth society scrambles to write articles for CSICOP with every new miracle that invades their space-time plenum. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

pax,
jb

JB said: �one can clearly see how it is not merely infantile illusions, wishful thinking, anthropomorphic projections, the fear of death or hope for an afterlife, opiates for the people or what one imbibed at mother's knee that accounts for the tenacity of faith in human culture.

As I grow older, hopefully wiser, the certainties of youth are no longer so certain. And, at least in my case, it is not a fear of death, an awareness of my own mortality or any kind of dissatisfaction with science itself that has me thinking about these things. If anything it is a lessening of the need for certainty that opens the door to other possibilities.

I�m not speaking from the perspective of �proving� religion, but I find it incredibly na�ve, almost infantile, to assume that what IS can only be defined by what a billion dollar particle accelerator can show us. I love science and I love reading about all the discoveries being made. And probably the discovery that has had the most profound affect on my thinking was quantum physics. No. No. No. We�re not talking about the new-age usage of quantum physics (as delightful as some of the notions are). We�re talking about the fact that, at least in my mind, nothing shows the mystery of existence in (ironically) finer detail than quantum physics. And in my heart of hearts I too believe that God does not play dice!

Now, of course, I understand completely, JB, your remarks elsewhere that this metaphysical stuff might influence other lines of thought but that ultimately it might be (or by definition is) outside of science. But to this I have to add my own Einsteinian allusion: God does not play Ouija Boards! I believe that what IS can be discovered, perhaps using techniques that supercede the normal scientific method but do not supercede logic and reason. I believe we are capable of expanding science to include things that today would be considered quite contradictory by nature. The reason I believe this is that I have faith that the universe is orderly enough to reveal itself if we look in ever greater detail in ever new ways. We�ve had a pretty good track record of it so far although we�re stuck in the materialist stage. And if we can�t do this then we�re left to the rather (at least for me) unsatisfactory exercise of philosophy and speculation. I certainly don�t ask that we prove that God exists. But I do ask that we try.

Further musings:

Science seemingly took the mystery out of existence (although with quantum physics it has put it back nicely � at least for me). It broke it down into what appeared to be its constituent parts and, because of the success of the scientific method and the host of discoveries and technologies that arose from it, relegated all other ideas to second class citizens. Religion in particular took a big hit. In �serious� circles it was considered as substantial as the belief in Santa Claus. The pendulum has swung triumphantly from ignorant mysticism to enlightened science. But I think the pendulum has swung too far and forgotten, glossed over or plain ignored too many things that have come before it even as it attempts to monopolize all that is yet to come.

But science did more than debunk. It changed our whole way of thinking about what is true and what is to be trusted. Let�s face it - we�re all deeply embedded in this idea of progress, especially in regards to science and technology. We think in terms of knowing that what we have today will seem quite primitive in a hundred years or less. Thus the propensity of belief is that that which came before us is inherently more primitive � including knowledge. And while this may be true as far as the scientific method is concerned I�m not convinced that this is true of all other ideas and beliefs. But science has had such a huge effect on our very conception of what is believable and was it not; what is useful and what is not. It has become so ingrained in our way of thinking that we now live in a �youth� culture which values all things new and tends to discard and undervalue the old. There used to be a time when to be old was to be honored for one�s wisdom and experience. To me this shows how deeply embedded this stuff can get and how it can have such a profound effect on our thinking � and not always to our benefit.

I am no more comfortable with saying that science explains all things than I am with saying the same thing about any particular religion. But what I do think, as JB and others have said, is that religion is not an opiate of the masses. I see it as a case of the mind being formed from what IS and thus having more than just a passing affinity from whence it came. If there is a deep desire/need/longing for a spiritual side of life then, like any good scientist, one would note that this has been the way of human beings since day one of recorded history. It is only the arrogance (and success!) of the scientific method that leads many to believe that all there is to know can be discovered by our cold instruments. Well, I consider the mind and feelings to be instruments that are just as legitimate as the largest telescopes on Mona Kea. The difference, at least for now, is on how we use them and how we interpret and talk about the knowledge we obtain from them. But I probably differ with JB philosophically on the end game here. I believe that a fusion of science and the metaphysical are not only possible but logical. If I misrepresent your ideas, JB, then I�m sure you�ll let me know.

Great points all. I will seize upon two things to both affirm as well as qualify your overall thrust.

You wrote: I certainly don�t ask that we prove that God exists. But I do ask that we try. and also wrote: I believe that a fusion of science and the metaphysical are not only possible but logical.

I think the greatest philosophers of science who ever lived, Aristotle, Anselm, Aquinas and Arraj building on Maritain's Thomism, would agree that a natural theology is possible. It is a natural theology which articulates a hypothetical core commitment of at least an openness to a metaphysical ground of being and which constellates metaphysical, cosmological, ontological, moral, teleological and epistemological auxiliary hypotheses around this core metaphysical hypothesis. It is a natural theology which affirms that such hypotheses warrant verification and falsification through whatever indirect evidence might be gatherable in the space-time-matter-energy plenum, admitting that the nonspatial, atemporal, immaterial, nonenegetic nature of the meta-physical core commitment is not demonstrable, in principle, except eschatologically, when such a fusion might occur, though we have no categories to frame up and even intelligibly discuss such an event other than to use the catch-all term, eternal. Eternal, thus, does not mean a whole lot of time, a whole bunch of space, the sum total of all matter and energy, but rather every- no-thing that exists as well as the space-time plenum, that nothing being todo y nada [funny how sanjuanist and Buddhist lingo converge there].

Thus proofs for God's existence are back in vogue because they only went out of style due to strawman misconstructions [hence, I kinda like old Dawkins and Hawking and Sagan as contemporary good examples of bad examples of science doing philosophy].

At any rate, listen to Maritain:

quote:

According to Hegel and his disciples, no truth lies beyond the reach of the human mind. God is an object of experience as clearly present to our natural faculties as tables and chairs. An adequate knowledge of the Absolute is thus perfectly possible, and theology becomes a branch of philosophy.

St. Thomas and the Scholastics, on the other hand, believe that the Divine Essence cannot be known by our finite minds. Our natural faculties may lead us to the knowledge of God's existence; they may even enable us to reach a true knowledge of his nature; but, as this knowledge is not reached by direct intuition, but by the consideration of the finite world in which we live, it cannot be adequate.

As the imperfect knowledge of God our mind can attain may be supplemented by the Divine Revelation, the science of theology is evidently twofold: Natural Theology deals with the knowledge of God human reason can attain by its natural forces ; Revealed Theology deals with the knowledge of God which lies beyond the reach of our natural faculties and is attainable only by revelation. The philosopher is thus concerned with natural theology; be has nothing to do with revealed theology.

So far, so good. That is my only qualification of the fusion between science and the metaphysical. There is so much we can know but then no more, in principle. I do think that the inferences we can draw, however indirect, will become increasingly compelling as regarding the non-natural realm, with rigorous statistical calculations hinting at the otherwise indemonstrable.

Nowhere in all of my reading of philosophy has the history of the ontological proof been more succinctly and lucidly put forth as by Maritain:

quote:

The ontological argument has never enjoyed much favor among Scholastic philosophers. First proposed by Anselm of Canterbury and at once assailed by Gaunilo the monk, it has been discussed and finally rejected by Thomas Aquinas. Accepted in a slightly modified form by Descartes and Leibniz, it has been rejected again by Kant and readmitted by Hegel, who believed that since its first formulation until the time of Kant it had been unanimously accepted among philosophers.

But in a separate essay Maritain qualifies this:

quote:

It must be noted that considered in their very substance the "five ways' of Thomas Aquinas stand fast against any criticism. Modern philosophy has been in this connection the victim of a tragic misunderstanding. Descartes believed that from the sole idea of an infinitely, perfect being the existence of this being necessarily followed (the so-called "ontological argument"). Kant rightly stated that such "proof" was no proof at all. But he also stated�quite mistakenly�that all other proofs of God's existence implied the validity of the ontological argument and rested on it; as a result, no valid proof was possible. And Kant's successors followed on Kant's heels. Yet it is crystal clear that Thomas Aquinas' five ways do not start from the idea of an infinitely perfect being; they proceed in the opposite manner; they start from certain facts, quite general and quite undeniable; and from these facts they infer the necessary existence of a First Cause�which is infinitely perfect. Infinite perfection is at the end, not at the beginning of the demonstration .

The key word here is INFER and with that one qualification, I agree with Brad that:

1) we certainly don�t ask [to] prove that God exists in the classical sense of a logically coercive or scientifically demonstrable proof, but we can ask that we try as natural theologians and

2) a fusion of science and the metaphysical are not only possible but logical , but only to the extent that, if there is a non-natural realm that it would be inaccessible to such a blunt instrument as physical science and, rather, would demonstrate its influence via formal and nonenergetic causations with an unobtrusive effectiveness that is only indirectly demonstrable due to its tacit dimensionality.

Perhaps the global consciousness studies at Princeton, the after-death communication studies at the University of Arizona, and the manifold subtle energy clinical studies at hospitals across America as funded by the NIH, by way of examples, would fall into the category of quasi-mathematical constructions of nonphysical aspects of reality, analogous to other nonlocal, superluminal and nonenergetic effects of some type of implicate ordering nexus between formal and efficient causation? These have made for some rather compelling inferences, just like the Shroud of Turin or other research into the historicity of the Resurrection Event. All of this may be (better be) consonant with science but still lies outside of strict demonstrability, logical coercion and conclusive empirical proofs. No problem. We don't expect them to be otherwise, by definition. Thing is, this is just another example of how well humans get along with compelling inferences but without conclusive proof all the time . The other thing is, however, that when dealing with the most vital existential issues and the most urgent longings and insistent needs of humanity, the absence of conclusive proof and the usage of compelling inference, instead, can give us the heebie-jeebies, BIG TIME. The edge of this angst, this extreme existential anxiety, this vertigo of radical uncertainty, should be taken off, significantly, though, by one's eventual realization that things are exactly as they should be if there were a real God of proportionate cause rather than the wimpy fellow Richard Dawkins keeps propping up and shooting down .

Maritain writes:

quote:

A clear idea of the Scholastic line of reasoning may be gathered from the following three propositions in which the argument may be summed up:

1. There are changes in our world, and these changes presuppose a cause. The truth of this first proposition has been clearly shown in our chapter on metaphysics.

2. These changes presuppose a self-existing cause. If the cause of the changes is not self-existing, it must be caused by something else. This something else, if not self-existing, must also be caused, and we must finally arrive at a self-existing being; otherwise we would have an infinite process, and no change would be possible, inasmuch as a sufficient cause of the change could never be found. Thus far there is nothing in our argument which a materialist would fail to admit. A self-existing being exists, he would say, but we need not go beyond the molecule, the atom, the material world.

Thus far, in his proof , following Aquinas, he hasn't crossed even the threshold of a deism, such a metaphysic as even E.O. Wilson and all of the founding fathers found coercive. Then he writes:

quote:

The following proposition separates the Scholastic system from all materialistic hypotheses:

3. This self-existing being must be an immaterial and free being. The ultimate cause of the world must not simply be a cause; it must be a proportionate cause .

Any scientific instruments or methodology would have to be proportionate to the task at hand, hence our instruments are not only blunt but are way too small We are left with analogy and inference, which ain't that bad , once you really think about it. Quite compelling.

K?
pax,
jb

Not in the quantum fluctuation
In a vaccuum too damned hot
Nor in the heat death of the universe
In a cold space time forgot
Not in matter�s deepest structures
Nor the Big Bang�s early moments
Do well dwell in knowledge certain
Of the questions being foments

It�s in the spaces in between
In the moments in the middle
We learn to trust there is an answer
To every paradox or riddle

I once said it�s now or never
But it wasn�t really true
There�s a timeless place
Where, once, I dwelled
That I might dwell anew

My issues aren�t in black or white
Or only shades of blue
There�s a rainbow
I might gaze upon
Of multi-colored hue

I�ve talked of dreams and nightmares
Caught up in hopes and fears
Reality�s somewhere in between
Any either � or�s one hears

Life�s not a game of truth or dare
All or nothing, win or lose
It�s staying calm within the storm
Awaiting morning�s dews

The sun will rise
The clouds will clear
The rain will cease to fall
And who knows who�ll be standing there
To answer my God�s call
For call He will
It�s in His plan
He�ll take good care of me
As He�s done those times before
Just you wait and see

And maybe like those times before
The answer to my prayers
Will place you here
Within my midst
Or place me over where
The Father wants somebody else
To do what you have done
But if it�s you
I will rejoice
You really were His Son

certain enough,
I remain
jb

Well, what I see happening is a convergence of natural philosophy with traditional science, whether science likes it or not. The Copenhagen interpretation clearly shows this. As science calls for ever-greater power to see ever-smaller details it starts to run into its own sort of wall and begins to make philosophical interpretations. But, of course, they are the �legitimate� interpretations because they are the ones made by scientists. But I find this a little less than complete because, as I think you and others have shown, JB, science has its own axe to grind and often turns a blind eye to other concepts as it ironically attempts to promote science itself rather than the search for truth.

I think it�s highly possible that science will need natural philosophy and what we now call metaphysics in order to advance further. That is my main point. I can conceive of the day when the last and greatest and most powerful particle accelerator does nothing more than create more and more particles which will tell us nothing more than if you have more powerful particle accelerators you will get more exotic particles. Science, in theory at least, could reach a dead end. It wants to unite all known forces into a Grand Unified Theory and ultimately a Theory of Everything but it is entirely possible that it can never succeed � at least given the current, usually unstated, philosophical goals of science (insert your big words and proper language here, JB).

It�s in the spaces in between
In the moments in the middle
We learn to trust there is an answer
To every paradox or riddle

Ask me of creation
I�ll show you what I can
We�ll zoom into the atom
And out to the Big Bam.

I�ll talk about the quantum
And true uncertainty
It�s built into the world
Feynman wouldn�t lie to me

But as for trusting riddles
That I do not know as facts
I find them both in physics
And in the book of Acts

These questions are a wonder
And cause me to reflect
To trust in Albert Einstein
Or something less direct?

quote:

Any scientific instruments or methodology would have to be proportionate to the task at hand, hence our instruments are not only blunt but are way too small We are left with analogy and inference, which ain't that bad , once you really think about it. Quite compelling.

Exactly!

And I just love the way you guys break into ecstatic verse about all this!

-------

Where it comes out for me is that, as a Christian, I need never deny anything which science can demonstrate to be empirically true, nor which philosophy can affirm as either necessarily true or suggestively so. We have been well-equipped to investigate reality within the parameters of our manner of knowing--which parameters include the psychological, biological, chemical, and physical/quantum.

What we cannot do, however, is completely understand any higher level or dimension which transcends ours--i.e. preternatural and supernatural. Just as a cell in the brain participates in the writing of a novel, but does not really know the author or understand the plot, so it is with humans and the higher levels. The fact of a universal intuition of the existence of these higher levels is significant, I believe, as is the profound effects evidenced by people who open themselves to their influence. One might say that such experiences can still be fully explained by psychology, but it really begs the question to say that experiences which ensue from opening oneself to another dimension are really only psychological in origin and cause. Might as well say they're just a consequence of biochemical alterations!

The essential religious questions, then, have to do with the nature of these higher dimensions of which we are a part. And here we must acknowledge again the impossibility of fully comprehending them simply because of the fact that we are creatures from a lower dimension. We can know something "about" them by studying the intuitions which seem to be naturally awakened in people around the world, and even through study of the universe. But this might not tell us anything more about the essential nature of the higher than a brain cell could deduce about the self from studying the structure of the brain and its own processes. For the lower to comprehend the essence of the higher, the higher would have to take the initiative to reveal itself, and that in a manner which could be understood by the lower. This would require a certain "emptying" of the higher of its full stature to enable it to express in one of the limited forms of a lower level.

This is what traditions of Revelation--Christianity, in particular--are affirming: that the Divine has condescended to make Itself known to humans . . . to reveal something of its essential nature which we could not have guessed otherwise . . . something which also enables realizations in our humanity (theosis) which would not have been otherwise possible. And we see from this perspective how we can affirm the possibility of this revelation without denying what science and philosophy can affirm--how, in many ways, these disciplines can co-exist, even mutually enrich one another.

All of the above is, to me, irreproachable logic. Anyone who denies any possibility of higher levels, or even that such levels could reveal themselves in some manner, is simply close-minded. There is plenty of room for disagreement concerning how one could know for sure that a phenomenon or spiritual master is a special revelation of the divine, and in Christianity we have our evaluative criteria--especially when discerning miracles and the like. But I don't think there is any basis for denying that such a revelation could take place, and that some could very well be authentic.

The acceptance of revelation will, therefore, always be more a matter of faith than certainty. And necessarily so! How could it be otherwise? To be able to "prove" that a manifestation was indeed revelation would require some a priori knowledge of the higher level with which to compare it, and this is not available to us. Hence, to say that Jesus could not be revealing God because we know what God is like and what Jesus reveals is not like that is an absurdity. What Christianity affirms, rather, is that God is like Jesus, rather than the other way around. And this cannot be proved. How this revelation speaks to one's innate but obscure intuitions about God is a telling factor, along with other evidences from the life of Christ which attest to transcendent qualities, but in the end, it comes down to faith. One either believes because one consents to a truth which has almost irresistible appeal, or one withholds consent for various reasons, some of which are understandable, but none of which will ever lead one to a certainty which makes faith unnecessary.

JB has stated as much on this thread with his reflections on modeling power and so forth, but I just wanted to try to put it in my own words, using the analogical imagination which is somewhat distinctive of a Catholic approach to things.

------

See also http://shalomplace.com/res/idnst.html which articulates a few ideas about the interaction between higher and lower levels.

Science and Spirituality: Gopala Rao [with permission to Shalomplace]

"The history of science and philosophy," according to today's columnist, Gopala Rao, "has consistently been one of establishing unifying concepts to explain and thereby learn to manipulate the interconnections within specific domains of knowledge of what is around and within us."

How very true. And he goes on to add:

"It is nevertheless recognized that what we can know (Epistemology) will never be the same as the way Nature really is (Ontology). In other words, as stated beautifully by the well-known physicist Werner Heisenberg, our knowledge of Nature can never mean anything more than the perception of connections, unifying features or marks of affinity in the manifold."

And in today's essay by Rao, his own "perception of connections" and contribution to the never-ending race of epistemology with ontology, he also notes that:

"It is for this reason that each and every synthesis we make appears to be final within the domains of the connections it addresses, even the minutest ones we make every minute as individuals. Viewed in this light, even the most complex of our unifying theories such as creation, evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, genetic inheritance or what have you must all be regarded as final and complete but only within the limited domain of their relevance. Nothing can be said about their validity or otherwise beyond that domain."

Maybe not, but the discussion is often fruitful and enjoyable.

Since his retirement in 1995 from his professional career as a Medical Physicist, Dr. Gopala Rao has been writing and speaking on issues related to the Science and Religion dialogue. He received his undergraduate education and a Master's degree in Physics in India and worked as a Scientific Officer at India's Atomic research Center before immigrating to the United States in 1962. He received a Doctor of Science degree in Radiological Science from the Johns Hopkins University in 1996. He has published extensively in his professional field of the Physics of Medical Imaging and Radiation Oncology.

Coming from a background in the Hindu scriptures and Christian Theology, Dr Rao is very much involved in the study of the history and commonality of religious beliefs and the emerging fields of Experimental Theology and Neurotheology, which he believes will help towards the progress of religion more along scientific lines.

--Stacey E. Ake

Subject: Science and Spirituality From: Gopala Rao Email: <marygopala@yahoo.com>

The history of science and philosophy has consistently been one of establishing unifying concepts to explain and thereby learn to manipulate the interconnections within specific domains of knowledge of what is around and within us. It is nevertheless recognized that what we can know (Epistemology) will never be the same as the way Nature really is (Ontology). In other words, as stated beautifully by the well-known physicist Werner Heisenberg, our knowledge of Nature can never mean anything more than the perception of connections, unifying features or marks of affinity in the manifold.

A close scrutiny of the plant and animal kingdoms around us suggests that man is not unique in his ability to make associations and connections among the objects and events around him, a fundamental characteristic of what we call learning. Although it is not clear how far down the evolutionary scale this process of learning goes on, it is fair to say that the higher the species on the evolutionary ladder, the more advanced is this ability. Three basic attributes can be identified as the roots of this ability in any given species. These are awareness of its own existence as a separate entity of the species (Self awareness), awareness of other members of the same species (mutual awareness) and awareness of the surroundings (Environmental awareness). As we move up the scale of living organisms and come to plants and animals, the properties of self-awareness, mutual awareness and environmental awareness are observed in higher and higher levels of complexity. The survival instinct so commonly observed in the higher species appears to be a consequence of the increased manifestation of awareness in its three aspects. Still more complex are the properties exhibited by the higher animals such as amphibians and mammals. These include more complex entities such as feelings, social behavior and complex means of communication involving physical and chemical signals. Finally, in man, we observe the ability to experiment with the environment and manipulate it to his own advantage (or disadvantage!) in much more complex ways than any other species individually and collectively as a species. Above all, he exhibits the capacity to devise ways and means to synthesize all that he learns and to transmit that knowledge to other members of his species not only in his own generation but to future generations as well. The fact that we have been able to domesticate members of a few species other than our own suggests that future advances may lead to better channels of communication with other species as well. The most important characteristic that distinguishes man significantly from other living species is his ability to reflect on his own nature, his own birth, his own feelings, his own mortality, his own drives and his own relationship to the environment.

Man's dominion over the rest of the creation seems to stem from the uniqueness of his brain and his vocal cord. Because of these two advanced organs, he has not only been able to make associations and connections of the objects and events around him but has also learnt to assign meaning to the sounds he can make and thereby convey to his fellow man whatever he has learnt about himself or his surroundings. The progressive development of this faculty is what is responsible for the various languages of the world today. Somewhere along the line, man also learnt to translate this audio symbolism into a form of video symbolism originally in the form of pictorial representations and later in the form of what we call writing and thereby use the power of the eye as an adjunct to the power of the ear to enhance his communication skills with his fellow man. The mental activities of homo sapiens today are so intimately connected with language that to a large extent, human consciousness itself seems to be significantly structured in language. Communication through language has also been responsible for the evolution of the human species with respect to the numerous agricultural and technological innovations that have been developed since the old stone age, the fine arts and various codes of ethics and social organization. Among many non-human species also, we observe personality related traits such as aggression, jealousy, cooperation, caring and social responsibility in varying degrees. However they are by and large genetically transmitted. In man, they have reached gigantic proportions through the language vehicle.

The ability to count, namely the ability to distinguish the one from the two and the many, another characteristic responsible for human civilizations cannot also be said to be unique to man alone. Yet, because of his superiority with respect to his brain and his vocal cord and the subsequent developments in language, man gradually learnt to turn this ability to count into more and more complex ways to synthesize and communicate the associations and connections he makes of the world around him. This is how mathematics must have originated. Sophisticated counting led to the decimal system, ideas of measurement, algebra geometry, trigonometry, calculus and all the other more abstract forms of mathematical representation that we use in science today.

It is for this reason that each and every synthesis we make appears to be final within the domains of the connections it addresses, even the minutest ones we make every minute as individuals. Viewed in this light, even the most complex of our unifying theories such as creation, evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, genetic inheritance or what have you must all be regarded as final and complete but only within the limited domain of their relevance. Nothing can be said about their validity or otherwise beyond that domain. As our knowledge of ourselves and the environment around us increases, unifying laws encompassing larger and larger domains are formulated every now and then by the more gifted individuals among us.

Physics is the most basic of all sciences because it deals with the laws governing the most basic properties of all that is around and within us. As far as we know, the building blocks of all matter, namely subatomic particles do not exhibit properties other than what we refer to as physical properties. This is also believed to be the case with all the known forces of Nature as well as the building blocks of energy not associated with matter per se, namely photons of light and other types of electromagnetic radiation. The numerous types of interactions observed among sub atomic particles, forces of Nature and photons in general are also considered to be purely physical in scope. Atoms are known to combine in a variety of ways to form complex groups of atoms we call molecules. Molecules and aggregates of molecules, namely chemicals, exhibit properties that the individual atoms which they are composed of do not possess. We refer to them as their chemical properties and the interactions between them as chemical reactions. Still more complex aggregates of matter, involving molecules of certain groups of chemicals such as carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, lipids, DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (Ribonucleic acid) when present in what we refer to as the living state exhibit properties that are much more extensive in scope than those shared by inert organic and inorganic matter. While no one yet knows what exactly constitutes life, five different characteristics are commonly believed to be unique to the living. These are motility (that is the ability to move around not just mechanically but by some sort of what is loosely referred to as conscious activity), metabolism (that is the ability to feed on external matter and process it internally) irritability (that is the ability to react to changes in the environment again not just mechanically but by some sort of conscious activity), growth (that is the ability to grow in size by processing the material ingested from the environment) and finally reproduction (namely the ability to reproduce their kind either by asexual or sexual processes). Conscious activity by any organism implies a knowledge of its known existence (Self awareness) and a knowledge of the environment (Mutual and environmental awareness). Purpose driven actions are another category of characteristics that are unique to the living state. Our description of the living state in terms of these attributes is not complete because a study of the properties of crystalline formations and viruses reveals that the distinction between the living and the nonliving is quite diffuse. For example, crystals grow and reproduce in a way and viruses do not exhibit growth and irritability characteristics independent of the higher organisms they attach themselves to.

The realm of the human psyche whether it be of the elementary type involving the I feeling, emotions, prejudices and the like or the rarer variety involving claimed extra sensory perceptions, religious and mystical insights and visions of the underlying unity of it all - that realm is beyond the grasp of all current unifying physical and biological theories. This is because we really have no idea as to what life is, let alone what mind is. No one knows how atoms and molecules acquire the characteristics of what we call life and how ensembles of specific cells called neurons acquire the property of I-ness, you-ness, lt-ness, happiness, unhappiness, suffering, love, appreciation, despair, hate and the entire panorama of other attributes of the mind.

In spite of the general agreement among scientists and philosophers with regard to what has just been said, physicists have been continually striving to derive unifying laws of Nature that encompass larger and larger domains of the totality of the human experience up to any given point in time. The presumption has been that the basic assumptions of physics are sufficient in principle for the derivation of all the laws of all the sciences. It is of course recognized that the description is bound to be infinitely complex so that the other sciences encompassing smaller and smaller domains in greater and greater detail are necessary for practical and technological purposes. Nevertheless, this view pint reflects the conviction that everything in the universe has in fact evolved out of material or energy that once had only physical properties and that this evolution has taken place in accordance with laws that can be fully understood by the methods of physics.

It is only in recent years that some serious metaphysical problems have come to be recognized as being pertinent to the development of a worldview purely by the methods of science in general and physics in particular. What constitutes knowledge may itself be a relativistic phenomenon subject to species specific limitations. Besides, any observation with or without the aid of instruments, may not only be interfering with what is observed but in fact may be changing the very mechanics of the process which includes the observer, the observed and the act of observing. The development of grand unifying theories (GUT's) and theories of everything (TOE's) promises new light on these questions, though obviously there are conceptual difficulties as to how any theory can be a theory of everything if knowledge itself is relative and species specific. Besides, how can any theory be a theory of everything if it cannot explain what life is and account for the properties unique to living organisms leading to the profound complexities observed in man? Even in a limited sense, physics can master the formal syntax of the world and the universe by means of complex mathematical and experimental tools but that does not necessarily mean that the dynamics of the universe itself is a mathematical process. It only implies that our comprehension thus far has only been possible with the tools of mathematics and experimentation, which we ourselves have invented. This limitation makes it all the more necessary to consider other forms of knowledge acquisition such as through the fine arts, by mere intuition or by thought transcendence mediated by prayer, meditation and such other techniques. Whether the attributes of love, compassion and social responsibility developed and demanded of us largely through this second route will outweigh our genetically inherited tendencies towards aggression or we will eventually succumb to the power of the latter remains to be seen. How to integrate the knowledge gained by the second route with that gained through traditional modes of scientific enquiry poses an even bigger problem.

Yet, we can be optimistic. The success stories of theories like Newton's laws of motion and gravitation, Maxwell's electromagnetic equations, Einstein's theories of relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, cosmology etc. and the technological advances they have led us to continue to motivate them in their search for laws of Nature that encompass wider and wider domains of our existence including biological and mental phenomena. It is fascinating to note that the most provocative concepts in the physics of our times seem to suggest that the perceptual world is a mere illusion or shadow play just as the mystics have been saying for ages. Causality and determinism (even in a probabilistic sense) are seen to be relevant only within the framework of our own spacetime and of our own perception of it. Outside of that, past, present and future all appear to be relative, again echoing the conclusions of the mystics and saints from times remote.

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