From Son of Moses:
More on the theory of evolution.
I am helping a new friend write a book about the possible resolution between modern science and theology.
He begins with an account of conventional evolutionary theory, explaining that when we hear a bird sing we would be mistaken if we assumed that this is some kind of joyful or magnificent occurrence. No, it is merely an assertion of territorial rights, or maybe an attempt to attract a female for the propagation of selfish genes.
So, please comment on the following.
a) A bird utters sounds (interpreted by ourselves in our sentimental ignorance as beautiful, divine etc.) merely so as to let other birds know that they should not intrude on its territory.
b) Mozart writes a mass merely to earn cash.
Yes, I am not denying that on one level this is true. But is there any difference between these two acts?
Yes, you say (possibly), there is a difference. It is this: unlike Herr Mozart, the bird is not able consciously to express anything (which leads to interesting speculations about the special nature of the human being, but let’s leave that till later).
But I say that the joy of the Creator is expressing itself through the bird just the same, and through everything else too. That is what creation is for. It is a vast song of praise.
If this, or something like it, is so, are not the territorial and survival issues necessary only so that the play may be kept on the road so that its message may be heard by those with ears to hear?
To try to lead others into the barren and joyless outlook of evolutionary reductionism is, I believe, a spiritual crime.
Yet I do not see how this is to be avoided if the conventional evolutional doctrine is propagated.
Discuss.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Too many notes, Mr Thrush
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
18 comments:
Son of Moses,
Thank you for this question, which I've been considering over the past day or so.
I'd like to approach it from an oblique angle first of all. Let me pose a hypothetical question: if one had to choose between truth and happiness, which would it be? Never mind for the moment whether you believe that what produces happiness is also truth ...
This choice is the one that appears to face many people in modern times - that is, since the rise of science to the height it reached in the 19th Century. That is why so many early atheists were former ministers: the idealist is prepared to give up happiness for truth.
Samuel Putnam, a former minister, was ready to look at "the infinite abyss" in which humanity will ultimately vanish without a single "gleam of hope". Religion revolted him: "O the weakness, the falsehood of religion in view of this terrific destiny!" He would have no truck with this "the cry of the child against the night", this "coward's sentimentality". "The very moment man recognizes the evil of his lot, that very moment the grandeur of his being arises. For he can love; he can endure; he can perish without terror". And Victorians frequently spoke of the "manliness" required to face the bare truth.
- Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self.
I am not advocating Putnam's point of view, but merely making the point that if we have to choose between what appears a comforting untruth and what appears a terrifying or dispiriting truth, many of the best, most courageous and most spiritual people will choose the latter.
You may believe that creation is a vast song of praise, but if it is only a song of praise provided that we close our eyes to the evident facts of science, then I believe that it must be a false siren song, leading us onto the rocks of destruction.
I very much agree with you about evolutionary reductionism, of course. But I don't think that if Richard Dawkins is wrong philosophically, he is therefore a bad scientist for that. Nor do I believe that any philosophy that closes its eyes to science will prosper.
There's more to say on this, but this will do to start off.
Kevin, you seem to accuse me of ‘closing my eyes to the evident facts of science’, but I thought I had made it clear, in the example of the famous Austrian musical prodigy, that the worldly cause (I don’t want to call it the material cause, since that term has already been bagged) i.e. composing for the sake of a crust, was not invalid at its own level. Thus I see no need to contradict it, so I am not closing my eyes to it.
However, my point was that there is another level, if you like the ultimate, spiritual, operative cause, namely bliss for its own sake, praise, the glory of God, call it what you like, in relation to which all the rest is merely instrumental.
To postulate the terrible and tragic choice between truth and happiness, is, I believe, to ask for a false choice to be made, which is why it must appear so excruciating. I say this in spite of your caveat (Never mind for the moment…) about setting aside the dogma of the inseparability of happiness and truth. I do not think this fact can be set aside since it is the only factor able to resolve the quandary.
In fact, we are back with epistemology, the valid sources of knowledge. Either we trust the wise who have seen the truth and given report (‘All things work for the good’, ‘blessed are thy who are persecuted…’ etc.) or we flail in relativity and doubt, facing false choices, however heroic we might think ourselves to be.
Jesus said, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits’, and the fruit of reductive materialism is misery, nihilism, dullness and suicide. These are surely signs of a false turning. Having come up through that landscape myself, and felt its terror keenly in my youth, I would like to offer something better to the next generations.
However, I do not think this would be at the expense of truth, since I believe that the truth (admittedly not the scientific truth, since this has no competence to say yea or nay to such questions as these) supports me. My lower mind may entertain the possibility of materialistic reductionism, but my spiritual part is with Paul, placing my faith in, ‘the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen’. This, I submit, is the true heroism.
SOM
I don't accuse you of anything, as you will see if you re-read.
I thought in your original post that you were going to face head-on the issue of the bird's territorial rights vs. 'song of praise' ... which was why I was so interested! It is a really tough question. Somehow we have to be able to reconcile the two.
But now it seems that we are back to the 'vanity of vanities' approach to reason - why not just believe what the wise have said, instead of worrying?
I have to say that if trusting the wise is enough for you, end of story, then good luck. It's not enough for me. If you look at any one 'wise' individual, they faced up to the doubts and fears of their time, and found things out for themselves. I think we must do the same. We can trust the wise ... but we still have to learn for ourselves, here and now. They don't get us off the hook.
I read an interview recently with a Sufi who related the saying that "it's better to have a dead teacher than a living one", which is a humorous way to say that a living teacher is a lot more awkward. I think there is something unique about the present, and we would be wrong to imagine that the teachers of the past can take us all the way. The present is a harder teacher.
Maybe I have read you wrong - but I must say that your original question interested me more than anything I've read for a while. I would be sorry to discover that you didn't want to pursue it any further?
Dear Kevin,
Thankyou for your reply, which I shall consider and try to answer.
Meanwhile, what is 'SOM'?
You put this at the head of your last reply to me and I assumed it was some sort of typo, having dismissed the thought that you had moved into a building belonging to the School of Meditation.
I am FLBAP (feeling left behind and puzzled).
Am I the only one? Is it generational or simply techiebabble failure?
Apologies, Son of Moses - this is not a comment on your question, interesting though it is. I just want to draw people's attention to my comment, posted today, January 2nd, on the December 7th topic page. Having only just found this blog, I didn't quite know how to get it right.
Greetings to all... Happy New Year.
SOM - just my affectionate term for "Son of Moses"
I'd like to push this question a bit further.
Presently 25,000 species, on average, become extinct each YEAR. This rate of decline in biodiversity is comparable to the last great extinction event, when the planet was hit by a huge asteroid 65 million years ago. This time it's not a mindless rock, but humanity (the pinnacle of creation, so far as we are aware) that is destroying life.
It is pretty obvious that we are going to have to wake up to what is happening, as a species.
We could blame science for what is happening, but equally we could say that without science we would have no idea of the true significance of what we are doing. We are a planet-wide species and we can no longer live like slash-and-burn hunter-gatherers. If we don't take note of what science is now telling us, we will suffer the fate of the Easter Islanders, who destroyed their ecosystem, and themselves, by their traditional way of life.
How does this stack up with the "hymn" idea? I am not asking this sarcastically - I am quite serious about it. Maybe it's time for a new (musical) movement?
Dear Kevin,
How stupid of me, I didn’t recognize my own initials! In fact Son of Moses is a translation from the Hebrew, so if you had written it in Hebrew…
Before your latest post about extinction, I had written a reply to your previous post.
(And then Katherine dropped in. May I be the first to welcome her - as long as she doesn’t start correcting our English!)
So, in respect of your latest post, I am grateful to science and the concerted endeavour of so many in that realm, except that, as far as I can see, most of the extinction is the result of mishandled science anyway.
Referring, then to your previous post, I don’t disagree with much of what you say. However, to take stock, the issue being discussed seems to me to be one of whether the universe may be explained using solely the resources of physical science, i.e. evolution, evolutionary psychology, etc. such as is increasingly the endeavour.
And, even if this were possible, and scientists did not change their stories at regular intervals, whether it would be desirable or even ethically allowable (according to universal law) to represent the universe as an entirely physical phenomenon.
To put it a different way, is modern science equipped, on its own, to discern anything deeper than, or in any way beyond, its own physical sphere?
I doubt whether it is so equipped, but it would be important, all the same, to demonstrate that at least its findings in no way negate the possibility of the existence of subtler realms beyond its competence to discern.
Given that modern science has no competence to make lasting and authoritative statements as to the origin and ultimate nature of the universe, I believe that those who know even an inkling of anything beyond the physical sphere have a duty to witness to this knowledge and, as far as possible, to communicate it in order to keep the channels open in society.
This is because a society that cannot see beyond the physical has lost touch with its roots and becomes necessarily barren, dull and narrow, and, furthermore, will have an unavoidable tendency to become nihilistic, cruel and corrupt.
So, if science cannot show us the higher worlds, or account for their existence, how can we know about them? This is where a system of epistemology becomes relevant and needs to be established and agreed, at least, perhaps, to begin with, among ourselves.
I suggest that we can know of the subtler worlds beyond the sphere of physical science only through personal experience or through the reliable report of others’ such personal experience, i.e. the experience of those whom I have been terming ‘the wise’. Thus, by ‘wise’, I simply mean those who have known the truth at first hand.
Until then, Plato recommends us to follow their opinions.
I certainly agree with you that at that point, as we attempt to actively follow their advice and example, it is largely up to us.
Such an approach is just as scientific and experiment-based as what we call science today, only it is spiritual science.
I am, of course feeling my way here, and I am grateful to have this forum within which to try to sort out what I believe.
Let me know where you stand on all this so far.
I suppose that I would make less of a strong separation between physical and subtle. For me, the important distinction is between objective and subjective. Conventional science works objectively (looks from the outside), spiritual science (to borrow your term) works subjectively (from the inside). There is communication between the two realms, of course. The scientist in fact perceives and interprets everything subjectively ... the yogi makes us of objective or empirical observation just as other people do.
But I don't think we ought to condemn or prefer one over the other. There is no doubt that each has its own strength. I think that you overstate the 'scientific' nature of 'spiritual science' - science makes predictions, eg that there will be a solar eclipse on such and such a date; certain spiritually oriented practices like astrology attempt this, but they generally fail (Sept 11 anyone ... although apparently David Icke mentioned something about it!).
The cosmology of Aristotle, adapted by the church in the middle ages, was another attempt to "make lasting and authoritative statements as to the origin and ultimate nature of the universe" and - let's face it - they got it completely wrong. The earth is not the centre of the universe. It has not been around forever (as Aristotle said, I think); nor was it created 8000 years ago (as the Bible claims.
Etc etc. So theologians 'change their story' pretty nimbly as well - the difference is that they speak not of theory but of truth. We can change a theory; but to change 'truth' and learn nothing is ridiculous.
Maybe I tell you a bit more about the background to this, though.
This whole thread of conversation started a couple of weeks ago because I am following up Teilhard de Chardin who says that the discovery of evolution is the most significant moment since the rise of consciousness. For the first time a created being is dimly aware of its history and can therefore contemplate its destiny.
This really does make a difference to us. The universe is static (Aristotle) in one sense; it may be cyclical (Vedas) in another; but that it has a beginning and end, with development in between (Christianity) seems to be now proved by science to be the most useful idea. I believe this question cannot be left to conventional science, as we do if we ignore it.
So maybe the thrush's excess of notes and its suffering have a purpose and a meaning, after all?
I once heard someone on a residential (in the Autumn) give an observation to the effect of:
“I was lying under a tree watching the leaves blowing in the breeze. They seemed to be joyfully waving, ‘Goodbye, see you in the spring!’ “
It would seem obvious that the leaves were not literally waving and that the experience was a subjective one; but is this not at the heart of the question?
The ‘subjective’, ‘poetic’ experience with its attendant emotions is real to the experiencer, whether the leaves waving or the joy of hearing the bird singing. But this kind of experience is seen as ‘interference’ by someone striving to be ‘objective’.
But isn’t the ‘subjective’ the Self? Or surely in the direction of the Self? Bliss is experienced in your own self, not through knowing some objective fact?
So through insistence on observable, predictable phenomena we end up describing a corpse devoid of the spirit that animates it. Like describing a Shakespeare e-text by the pixels on the screen. Precise but meaningless.
Kapila
I think this question is addressed in the first few pages of the 1965 Conversations.
Essentially, the devotional person is not interested in establishing the truth (HH's words!), and the intellectual person is indifferent to devotional issues. His real point is that each has to learn about the other.
So I don't agree with your assessment, because it is too extreme. No, the leaves weren't literally speaking. Does it matter? No. This individual was having an insightful and devotional experience.
Who is this objective observer who you say finds the devotional perspective 'interference'? Just an extremist intellectual. Why go to the extreme? There are plenty of people who like to think but can also feel.
Kevin said:
"There are plenty of people who like to think but can also feel."
Point taken, though I feel my response was to your own rather extreme positions with regard to:
-choosing between 'truth' and happiness
-insisting on the 'predictable' which, if you examine it, is merely a way of reducing 'valid' knowledge to include only relatively mechanical processes
HH (paraphrased by Kevin):
the devotional person is not interested in establishing the truth (HH's words!), and the intellectual person is indifferent to devotional issues.
It is a continuing bone of contention here as to what sort of knowledge we are talking about. Jnana is described by teachers as the knowledge "I am That". From this perspective the knower isn't concerned with devotion because he considers it dualistic (me being devoted to something else). The devotee isn't interested in 'the Truth' (of non-duality) because he wishes to retain the attitude of love of the 'other'. None of this has anything to do with worldly, scientific, academic, scholarly 'knowledge'. The latter is just a modern western misconception.
[Apologies for the theoretical exposition: see Aug 31 post & read Sri Ramakrishna rather than this idiot]
Gosh, you lot do make things complicated!
Devotion is ultimately to the one. There may be lesser - and attached - stages of devotion but, in truth, there's only devotion to unity. The truth of devotion is in that unity.
Laura
I am sure you are wanting to come from your experience on this but you don't make reference to the Shankaracarya's words posted by Kevin? My intention was to determine the correct frame of reference for his words. I confessed that this was a somewhat theoretical exposition but I nonetheless believe it is the correct interpretation.
Perhaps this is just be 'logic chopping', perhaps not; but when you say, "Devotion is ultimately to the one." that inherently implies two. "Me" over here devoted to "The One" over there. It is still dualistic. The experience described by the Jnani is of absorption, where there is no other. They see all as their own self.
I take your point made elsewhere about people becoming adept at the theory and dominating from this position, but I think there two polar opposite positions we can take:
- expound the theoretical ideal by quoting the authority and forget the reality of our own experience
- trust entirely in our current level of understanding and thereby deny the possibility that someone has seen further/deeper than ourselves
Do we not need to somehow retain the balance (or even the tension) between these two until it is fully, unquestionably resolved?
“Ideals are like stars: you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the ocean desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny.”
~ Carl Schurz
Kapila - I've no doubt you are right - I was just getting fuddled with all the words.
Sometimes I feel so lonely - why are there no more gurls on this site?
Kapila, I agree with what you say there about the tension. Good one.
On the earlier point about Jnana, I think HH's view is broader than just discriminating between real and unreal - eg the story about Ganesha and his mouse. The jeweller is an intellectual type who can't understand the devotee's perspective; and vice versa.
Laura, you're right. There have been just about as many GURLS, but they don't tend to hang around so much. I can see why though - it is a bit masculine in style.
Maybe some of the people who visit this site regularly are female and will contribute?
Sorry Laura & Kevin
I thought this thread had dried up and hadn't seen the last two comments.
Laura, I hope my intention is not just to 'be right' or to prove you wrong... I take Kevin's point that it can be a bit masculine, the 'duelling' in these debates. I suppose it's a constant practise to see that it is the ideas that are duelling, not the people? How do we dis-identify with our positions enough to argue a point and 'win' or 'lose' without taking it personally? Tricky. I have certainly felt the emotions in either case. It's educational to watch how they arise.
What you say elsewhere about making it easy to be wrong - I think we've all got to just endeavour to speak from best intention and see what arises. We have no guarantee that someone else will agree, do we? But I take the point - I have experienced being constantly 'shot down' such that I never want to speak or feel that who or what I am is inherently 'wrong'. Please don't feel this. I don't want you to feel this. My intention is not to attack you personally.
K
x
Post a Comment