knowing and being: new prospects for integrating science and spirituality chris clarke university of...
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Knowing and Being:
New Prospects for Integrating Science and Spirituality
Chris Clarke
University of Southampton(www.scispirit.com)
Science
Spirituality
Faith Traditions
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Knowing-about• rational
• verbal
• abstract
• public
Knowing-by-being• paradoxical
• non-verbal
• concrete
• private
Knowing, Being and Reality
Two realities - which do we trust?
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Some proposed realities (the quest for certainty)
• Platonism: there is an eternal reality of Forms; appearances are illusory
• Kant: there is a boss-reality (the thing-in-itself) but it is unknowable; however there are laws of thinking which ensure that the reality we perceive is law-like
• Reductionism: everything can be explained from physics (=ultimate reality)
• Penrose: reality is threefold: Physical-Mental-Platonic/Math
(The dominant view in our society – June Boyce-Tillman in Ways of Knowing)
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock
Peter Atkins Richard Dawkins
“there is absolutely no reason to suppose that telepathy is anything more than a charlatan’s fantasy” (Peter Atkins, The Times, Sept 6, 2006)
“When religious people just have a feeling inside themselves that something must be true, even though there is no evidence that it is true, they call their feeling ‘revelation.’” (Richard Dawkins, A Devil’s Chaplain)
The charge: bringing science into disrepute
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Principal Witness: Gary L Drescher Good and Real
• The universe is mechanical and determinate
• Quantum theory can describe the universe without any reference to consciousness, observers etc
• Consciousness is completely accounted for by current science
• Ethics can be rationally based on science
Second Witnesses: H Dieter Zeh et al. Decoherence and the appearance of a classical world in quantum theory
• The role that used to be played by “the observer” in quantum theory is in fact filled by a universal mechanism called “decoherence”
Reductionism in the Dock: the case for the defence
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock: the case for the prosecution
First witnesses: Fay Dowker and Adrian Kent, On the Consistent Histories Approach to Quantum Mechanics
• Quantum theory is compatible with the Classical world, but many other worlds are equally possible
Second witness: David J. Chalmers Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness
• It is logically impossible to reduce the subjectivity of consciousness to any combination of objective functions of the brain
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock
Peter Atkins Richard Dawkins
Not Proven
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Key proposal:
There is no Boss-Reality!
... but some realities are flakier than others.
There is no ultimate certainty- discrimination is essential, based on:
• degree of consensuality
• degree of coherence
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Knowing-about• rational
• verbal
• abstract
• objective (public)
Knowing-by-being• paradoxical
• non-verbal
• concrete
• private
Propositional
Knowing and Being
Implicational(relational)
John Teasdale and Phil Barnard, Affect, Cognition and Change
(the numinous transliminal)
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
Science(Knowing-about,
Propositional)
Spirituality
(Being,Implicational)
Enabling framework
Meaning & Substance
Spirituality is itself pluralistic:Jorge Ferrer, Neil Douglas-Klotz
(in Ways of Knowing)
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
The World is not a Machine ...
...but a conversation
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
The Future ...
• Teach the path of peace
• Recognise and work with the numinosity of being
• Affirm the good in the faith traditions
Overcoming the Fundamentalisms -
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future
The Future ...
Moving to the new society
The need: to develop the sustainability of all our stocks of “capital” - natural, human, social, manufactured.
The method:
• Changing progressively more firms, communities and governmental institutions to a new concept of capital
• Bringing spirituality into the mainstream
Jonathan Porritt, Capitalism as if the World Matters
Chris Clarke, Ed., Ways of Knowing: Science and Mysticism Today
Introduction Reality Knowing/Being The Future