The underlying concept here is that religious-like faith/belief has a utilitarian value regardless of the actual truth or verifiability of religious claims, and that this utilitarian value can be ported over the non-religious secular society by introducing 'faith in science' and in particular 'awe of science'.
I think this a profoundly misguided notion that is highly detrimental to the actual practice of scientific investigation and discovery, and it's a bit telling that none of the promoters of this concept, characteristic of the 'New Atheism' are working scientists in any active field.
The problem is that our scientific understanding of the world is continually evolving and developing as new discoveries are made and old concepts are overturned. Clearly, developing a sense of faith in some scientific paradigm as the basis of some utilitarian 'psychological benefits of belief' project will lead to grief if that scientific view is upset by new data. The notion that one's cherished views of reality may be overturned by new knowledge (particularly if that leads to things like a loss of funding in some field) is already hard enough for working scientists to come to grips with (e.g. plate tectonics etc.) without adding in the fact that psychological despair may be induced by such new revelations.
Furthermore, science has very little to say about morality or justice, other than providing factual forensic data which people may use in a legal context. For example, all science has to say about cannibalism is that eating brain tissue from one's own species may lead to degenerative prion diseases. Genocide of human populations, well, scientifically there's nothing wrong with that, it's just natural selection and competition for resources. Religion, regardless of the factual reality of it or not, is probably a somewhat better guide to the kinds of moral behavior, although in modern society it's all codified in legal structures.
I suppose the secular view is that science and law are the twin pillars of modern civilization, but the notion that 'faith' in such structures has some necessary psychological benefit smells of a manipulative controlling approach to human relations. If people really want something supportive to believe in, they're better off sticking to their favorite literary/religious texts, even if they're just products of human imagination.
> The underlying concept here is that religious-like faith/belief has a utilitarian value regardless of the actual truth or verifiability of religious claims
As far as I can tell, this is not what the paper is claiming at all.
It draws a clear distinction between religious belief and a different kind of spirituality emerging from scientific thinking.
The point seems closer to: the utilitarian benefits that religious people gain from their beliefs can also be gained from a spiritual outlook on science, which requires no religious beliefs or blind faith in anything.
This view is completely compatible with scientific progress, and is not rooted in anything other than a kind of recognition that regardless of the progress that science makes towards labeling things, awe and wonder are always on tap, available, and benefit the scientific endeavor itself.
Put more simply: getting excited about the work that you do tends to make you better at doing that work, and leads to a happier life in general.
Their first point is that saying the values are already there. The most obvious value of science is truth, which can be reached by the scientific method, which allows paradigms to change. Giving so much importance to truth is a matter of faith, you don't derive that from somewhere. It's interesting that they're going further than that and apparently find awe and meaning even just from the scientific method. Awe and meaning are in short supply in this world, so it's worth asking if we can get more of it from science, instead of pretending it's not there.
There are a great many questions of interest to humans that science cannot provide any truth value for. Science cannot answer metaphysical questions like "are we all living in a perfect simulation" (in this case, no experiment or observation could reveal the simulation, barring something like simulation glitches) or "why does the universe even exist - why is there something when there could be nothing?". Hence science is quite limited in scope.
One might argue that mathematics gives us an unambiguous definition of truth, but that's only in the context of a given set of axiomatic basis, and if you introduce you other favorite choice of axioms, well, where's the truth of which are the 'right' axioms?
More fantastically, one could argue that supernatural beings are constantly intervening in the physical universe, but only when they're sure nobody is watching them. This all leads to a notion that science will always leave room in the world for mysticism of various kinds, which is fine.
This seems like a no-brainer to me. Every book I've read on popular scientists showed their spiritual side. Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World" goes through this in-depth. One of my favorite quotes in it is:
“Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.”
- Carl Sagan
Surprised this quote wasn't included but another quote was.
If our current scientific understanding of cosmology, quantum mechanics, biology, etc. doesn't fill you with awe and humility, I don't know what will.
If it doesn't fill you with gratitude that we have even the slightest ability to exist, and to experience and understand any of this, I don't know what will.
I think talk of spirituality is just as asinine when scientists do it as when anyone else does. I can respect the demented insights of the true believer or zealot, but when most scientists (or even regular people) talk about spirituality its usually just performative word salad.
Frankly, I've never even understood what people are talking about when they talk about spirituality except some vaguely soothing bullshit only tenuously connected with any kind of actionable or knowable reality. The defining trait of "spiritual" people, in my experience, is the capacity to be satisfied with vague and sloppy thinking, at least in the realms they want to be "spiritual" about.
> Like "spiritual" stuff. The perspective is so uncommon that any perspective under discussion may as well be fiction.
This highlights the range of interpretations of “spirituality”. There is the explicitly religious kind. The “woo woo” non-religious but still metaphysical kind.
As far as I can tell, this paper is focused more on the kind of spirituality that has nothing to do with either of those. The kind that comes from the realization that for all of the scientific progress we’ve made, none of it actually explains what anything is. I think it was Roger Penrose who said something like “I’m a materialist, but dislike the word because we have no idea what material actually is”.
False dichotomies between science and spirituality are common in pop culture, probably because of the massive amount of baggage brought by untenable religious and metaphysical beliefs.
But for many scientifically minded people, “spirituality” is both an outcome of their growing depth of knowledge, and the force driving them to dig deeper.
To me, spirituality is about pausing the labeling and interpreting part of my brain, and realizing how intrinsically connected I am to the first moments of the universe. Appreciating the absolutely ridiculous improbability of my existence. In essence, leaning in to the awe and wonder experience that’s available and magnified by a growing scientific understanding.
Reducing existence to a series of increasingly more granular labels that still barely scratch the surface of what’s going on is its own form of fiction. It’s incredibly useful fiction that helps us understand and navigate ever more complex aspects of reality, but is still fundamentally just a simplified map of an indescribably complex territory.
> Scientists often refer to spiritual experiences with science. This research addresses this unique component of science attitudes — spirituality of science: feelings of meaning, awe, and connection derived through scientific ideas. Three studies (N = 1,197) examined individual differences in Spirituality of Science (SoS) and its benefits for well-being, meaning, and learning.
The point is that what comes before the “and” is what leads to what comes after the and.
Music has existed for far longer than we’ve had the ability to scientifically describe the acoustic properties of music.
If I described Beethoven’s 9th symphony to someone who’d never heard it in terms of frequencies/pitches and durations, or handed them a piece of sheet music (assuming they don’t have the training/ability to read music and hear it in their head), they might conclude that music is fundamentally boring.
If that same person sits in a concert hall and hears the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform the piece, only then would they understand the impact of the music. The emotion, the resonance, the beauty, and all of the feelings that come with that as a listener.
This doesn’t mean that the musical notation or a more technical analysis of the sound has no place. Just that they provide a fundamentally incomplete understanding of the phenomena of music.
My point is that labeling and interpreting reduces reality to something less than it actually is. And when you stop limiting your experience of a thing to a low resolution description of it, it tends to inspire a sense of awe and wonder (at least for me).
And much like music tends to inspire people to create their own, or to play the music conceived by others, and much like musical notation enables the transfer of musical knowledge between humans, I think a scientific mindset and some kind of “spirituality” go hand in hand.
They’re not mutually exclusive, and each enhances the other.
To take all of this one step further, the awe and wonder increases when I contemplate my ability to contemplate all of this. There’s a time for labels, and a time for raw experience, and a time for appreciating the fact that I can label raw experience.
> And when you stop limiting your experience of a thing to a low resolution description of it, it tends to inspire a sense of awe and wonder (at least for me).
That's interesting, because to me awe and wonder are a low-resolution description of a thing. Yes, the world is immense, indescribably complex, it largely cannot be labelled or interpreted, but that is not surprising, profound or interesting. Awe fetishizes the unknown: upon realizing that the universe is not fully intelligible to the human mind, we immediately put that realization in a box and make it into an experience.
The truth is, the world is what it is, and what it is is too large to fit in any mind. In that sense, your statement that "you stop limiting your experience of a thing to a low resolution description of it" is actually impossible. No human mind can possibly do this. Anything we think or feel about the world is a flawed and limited interpretation, including awe and wonder.
> but that is not surprising, profound or interesting
This is your opinion based on your knowledge (or possibly lack thereof) of the world, and these are fundamentally subjective states. Used here, they instruct the brain to limit itself and humorously illustrate the broader point nicely I think. Plenty of people find these things interesting, which is again a subjective state. It's unclear what point you're trying to make here.
> Anything we think or feel about the world is a flawed and limited interpretation, including awe and wonder.
This misses the point. There are many concepts/ideas/labels that actively oversimplify the world and create misconceptions about it. Even just calling a tree a tree limits the perspective of the observer.
The point is not that we can ever fully experience or comprehend existence. The point is that there are many ways that we actively limit our experience of it, and that we can broaden our experience when we stop doing so.
This is not a claim that doing so allows us to experience all of existence in some perfect/pristine way. That's beside the point. Language filters experience when our understanding of the language used leads us to draw conclusions about experience that are less complete than they could be. Removing the filter can increase what we experience, but we're still fundamentally limited by our sense organs, brains, etc.
> Anything we think or feel about the world is a flawed and limited interpretation, including awe and wonder.
This is also beside the point. From a purely utilitarian perspective, awe and wonder are useful and enjoyable to experience, and inspire people to do things. More awe and wonder can be a good thing if it leads to outcomes that benefit the person experiencing them. If changing the way we engage with the world by removing the conceptual and linguistic filters we apply by default leads to more awe and wonder, that's a net benefit.
I'm not sure what it means for awe and wonder to be "flawed", unless you expect those feelings/emotions to somehow be a perfect reflection of reality, and I don't think anyone is saying that is the case. They're a tiny subset of a larger spectrum of emotional states we experience, but it seems like a non-sequitur to say they're flawed. As far as I can tell, humans can only experience a subset of reality, and I think this is what you're getting at, but by arguing against a point that was never made.
Simply put: less interpretation can lead to more awe and wonder. More awe and wonder feels good, and we like feeling good. Perfection is unrelated to the point.
And of course it's worth mentioning that "awe and wonder" are words tied to concepts that map to emotional states. Yet another linguistic filter on top of a much broader set of experiences/emotions/feelings. So in that sense, a description of awe and wonder is insufficient to communicate the phenomena. But this has no bearing on the actual experience itself, and again, they're just feelings, not some grand theory that explains existence.
> I think a scientific mindset and some kind of “spirituality” go hand in hand.
> They’re not mutually exclusive, and each enhances the other.
Did you know that what we call "science" the Greeks and the Scholastics used to call "natural philosophy"? And that there are churchmen to this day studying the universe so they can come to understand God better?
This comment is a beautiful example of just that - if I read this correctly, you're already judging them for their take on spirituality .
Please correct me if I'm wrong - but personally, approaching new ideas with an open mind, instead of a mind that has already come to a judgement, has served me very well .
Not judging, just pointing out it's possible to go further and just hang out in the present moment. That can bring the experience to daily activities, which can bring about surprising changes.
In fact, it's not even necessary to switch off thinking. The key is to give no value to thoughts that come up (unless you're actually engaged in focussed thinking, eg intentional planning, problem solving, etc), or emotions. It changes everything.
An example: I've been suffering from melancholic thoughts for some months, carrying a heaviness with me I couldn't shed. I recently decided I'd had enough and I didn't want them any more. I decided they were nothing to do with me, much in the same way as I'd treat a fart - some process that occurs but which passes and I forget about. This has resulted in a subtle but significant transformation. The melancholy has been replaced by something difficult to describe but no longer heavy and depressing, and at times elating.
As someone who practices meditation regularly, I’m in agreement that coming in direct contact with the present moment without judging is incredibly useful.
But I think that in the context of science, a deepening understanding of the complexity of existence or interconnectedness brings with it a kind of awe and wonder in and of itself which further enhances the impact of such practices.
I think there’s a certain irony in trying to put the notion of spirituality into a box, when I think the notion is about worrying less about the existence of boxes.
A mix of Vipassana and Zen with a side of Dzogchen philosophy. I’ve found that exploring a few paths has had a kind of triangulation effect that has helped me better understand the core ideas.
Science is already very spiritual in principle. GR teaches how pure energy without shape or form on its own appears as material objects. QM teaches that all things evolve as one mysterious wave function and what we see is small local parts of it. Finally, each thing or force, no matter how big or small, is governed by the same law that the science is trying to learn. In spiritual lingo, it's the "all is in one and one is in all" concept. The above even shows the threefold nature: action (GM), perception (QM) and will (the law).
What's non spiritual, and frankly non scientific, is the religion of materialism: that all things are made of small mechanistic particles, and consciousness somehow arises from interactions of those particles. The idea of a mechanistic universe, in other words.
It is quite amazing how far we’ve got. Bell’s theorem, the free will theorem, local or non local universe, real or non real, coobservers, superdeterminism. We’ve gone from modeling results of our observations to trying to figure out what exactly observation is.
Neuroscience with its split brain experiment, showing how the brain deludes itself, how there is no self, no central spot. How the nonspeaking part that controls one side of the body never rebels hearing the delusions of the speaking part.
So many mysteries that were fully uncovered and many more waiting to be uncovered. What a ride being conscious is.
You do realize that the "spiritual in principle" science you describe is "materialism", right? The "small mechanistic particles" are the quantum wave function; they're the same thing. And according to the sciences you refer to, consciousness does arise from the same things you describe as part of GR and QM.
An electron may localise in any of the points as described by the wave equation, but it may also exist in its non local form. It may also transform into something else, like a photon, or vanish entirely by giving a bit of kinetic energy to a bigger object. The lowest common denominator isn't those localised particles, but the energy they are made of. There is really no reason why consciousness needs to be based on this particular level of abstraction that we call particles.
Science is, by definition, based on observation and proving hypotheses through that observation. That's literally what the scientific method is all about and how a hypothesis, supported by evidence, becomes a theory, and thereafter a law, based on observable and measurable phenomena.
We all have our pet theories (read: ideas and biases) on the distant past, where we have an infinite number of possibilities; in this universe of possibilities, there is only one possible truth. Some of these observations and theories we might not have even tripped over yet as we literally stumble around in the dark.
Anything beyond that, even to a large extent cosmological theories such as the existence of a multiverse, let alone observations of the distant past, is, by definition, less about science and more about philosophy or even religion.
This knife cuts both ways and we should remember our own biases. In what way would you live your life differently if you believed the opposite of what you believe right now?
>Science is, by definition, based on observation and proving hypotheses through that observation.
Just one thing to note with science. You cannot in actuality prove anything with science. It's a fundamental and logical consequence of the scientific method itself. Nothing can be proven. Science can only disprove things.
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." -Einstein
This occurs because of the following reason: If I make a hypothesis and I make 10,000 observations that are inline with my hypothesis I still haven't proven my hypothesis correct... because at any point in time in the future, I can make an observation that contradicts all my previous observations. Thus no amount of observation can prove something, but one contradictory observation can disprove something.
I get where you're coming from but this property of science is literally what makes all these arguments of "spirituality" more attractive because science is indeed fundamentally crippled with reliability issues.
That is a fundamental statement about reality in itself. We don't definitively know if anything is true. We only know certain statements are false. Anything we think is true is literally in your words: "a bias"
Proof is the domain of math and other logical games we make up to play. Proof doesn't actually exist in reality.
Also, defining something as <X> doesn't necessarily cause it to be that, but with adequate ~training[1] (basically, cultural beliefs and behavioral norms) it can make it appear as such. This phenomenon surrounds us constantly, and is filtered out from our experience.
> Science is, by definition, based on observation and proving hypotheses through that observation. That's literally what the scientific method is all about and how a hypothesis, supported by evidence, becomes a theory, and thereafter a law, based on observable and measurable phenomena
And yet these laws, for all of their increasing accuracy at labeling and predicting phenomena, emerge from subjective human understanding, which itself we have no ability to explain. The maps we build are ever more intricate, but I think we tend to overestimate the role of those maps in getting closer to truly understanding what’s going on.
This is not in any way an endorsement of metaphysical beliefs, but points at why “spirituality” (not the religious or woo woo kind) emerges from and drives science forward. I think of it as a kind of humility and willingness to embrace awe and wonder, and a recognition that science is only one pillar of understanding, and is ultimately just an increasingly intricate map of the territory. This isn’t to say that we won’t eventually find bigger answers, but we’re certainly not close.
> In what way would you live your life differently if you believed the opposite of what you believe right now?
I do think this is an interesting thought experiment, but I don’t think there needs to be any opposition here. Believing in science has sometimes become synonymous with believing that science somehow is the stuff of base reality. While it’s certainly closer than older beliefs about spirits and gods, there is still underneath it all a primordial and mysterious quality to everything that science has no answers for.
To me, this points not at the need to adopt a specific belief, but to hold space for the fact that we still understand so little.
> Anything beyond that…is, by definition, less about science and more about philosophy or even religion.
Philosophy and religion are just other language games that explore other aspects of the same territory. Over time, religion has proven to be less useful, and certainly isn’t backed by empirical evidence. Philosophy points to the unknowability of things, but even a scientific stance is in some sense a philosophical stance.
Often these approaches are pitted against each other, but with the exception of religion, I think they are all necessary pillars of a broader understanding.
Science without a philosophical understanding of science is arguably just another form of religion. This is not to say that science is invalid or not useful, but rather that it is not sufficient. Maybe that will change as our scientific knowledge grows.
Patently untrue. We've made great strides understanding how human minds work in the world, both at the psychological and the fundamental physical level. To suggest otherwise is prevarication at the very least.
The Hard Problem of Consciousness remains as hard as ever. The “Understanding” aspect of our cognition is still very poorly understood.
Our growing understanding of psychology and the mechanisms of the brain have not gotten us much closer to understanding understanding or consciousness itself. This is not to say that progress thus far is not meaningful, or that we won’t get there. The point is that we have barely scratched the surface, but often behave like we know much more than we do.
It isn't as if our process of understanding the world is even remotely mysterious, nor is the basic mechanisms underlying neural computation. Thus, to me, it seems like saying that we haven't begun to understand this stuff is ridiculous.
We do not have a single working model that explains consciousness itself.
And until we do, all formulations from this context of consciousness still reduce to a fundamental mystery. Similarly, our ability to make increasingly accurate observations has not gotten us closer to understanding the context of existence itself.
It’s possible that this is just unknowable to human minds, even though I hope we’ll eventually get there, but I’d argue it’s all pretty mysterious. Most scientists working at the edges of these frontiers would, too.
I'm a scientist who has worked in these fields and I don't think there is any fundamental mystery here except the hard problem of consciousness, which has nothing to do with understanding.
I’m saying that many scientists would fundamentally disagree with you. I’m aware of the position that “science has explained” these things, but tend to agree with the response that this is a position with no foundation.
> I don't think there is any fundamental mystery here except the hard problem of consciousness
That’s an astronomically large mystery that is the cornerstone of our understanding of existence. It’s the context through which any of this matters.
e.g. if we’re brains in vats, all we’ve proven is that we’ve gotten really good at introspecting the simulation. This would obviously recontextualize everything we’ve discovered. I’m not saying I believe this hypotheses, but am pointing to the fact that the implications of understanding consciousness itself are enormous.
The hard problem of consciousness can’t just be swept under the rug because we have no answers. And that’s all I’m really getting at. We should acknowledge the degree to which we do not and currently cannot explain base reality.
I’m curious why you believe that understanding is somehow not intrinsically tied to consciousness, thereby making it just as mysterious as consciousness itself. It could be that we’re using different definitions.
The scientific method is predicated on a kind of pre-existing intuition about the validity of the methods and findings of science. Whatever science is, our brains seem intrinsically capable of navigating towards better and better approximations of reality. And consciousness seems to be critical to the process.
Counterpoint: maybe the hard problem of consciousness is a nothing burger. Roughly speaking this is sometimes called anomalous materialism. My personal sense is that the observable correlations between physical activity in the brain on the one hand and conscious perception on the other is sufficiently well documented that it is reasonable to assert that for every conscious perception there is a one to one physical correlation. If that is the case then, regardless of how one resolves the question of consciousness per se, studying the physical activity is studying the mechanics of consciousness. And thus to say we now nothing about it is simply wrong.
As to the question of why I think understanding per se isn't related to consciousness there are a few ways to think about this: 1) the philosophical zombie _understands_ without being conscious, 2) various parts of the brain are understood to participate in understanding without being critical to consciousness (eg, I used to wake up in the morning knowing how to solve a homework problem that I didn't know how to solve when I went to sleep) and 3) artificial neural networks and other machine learning approaches can reasonably be said to understand specific things without being conscious. I think that if it isn't totally obvious, it is at least reasonable to assert that very large language models understand some things but are not conscious in any way.
Recall that what I object to here is the bald assertion that we know nothing about these phenomenon. This just isn't the case operationally, philosophically, ontologically, whatever way you want to look at it.
Consciousness implements understanding...and, it can also mimic it (grant one a false impression of understanding) that is typically indistinguishable from the real thing (see also: dreams). Worse: it can often not do otherwise (than mimic understanding, such as wondering what is actually true).
Scientists who have little background in the complexity and nuances of consciousness, and language & culture (also fantastic reality simulators) frequently have errors in judgment that they simply can't detect, and typically can't even try to grapple with because of these misunderstandings.
And, with all the polarization in the world, it's interesting there's so little (if not negative) interest in these sorts of phenomena.
I think this a profoundly misguided notion that is highly detrimental to the actual practice of scientific investigation and discovery, and it's a bit telling that none of the promoters of this concept, characteristic of the 'New Atheism' are working scientists in any active field.
The problem is that our scientific understanding of the world is continually evolving and developing as new discoveries are made and old concepts are overturned. Clearly, developing a sense of faith in some scientific paradigm as the basis of some utilitarian 'psychological benefits of belief' project will lead to grief if that scientific view is upset by new data. The notion that one's cherished views of reality may be overturned by new knowledge (particularly if that leads to things like a loss of funding in some field) is already hard enough for working scientists to come to grips with (e.g. plate tectonics etc.) without adding in the fact that psychological despair may be induced by such new revelations.
Furthermore, science has very little to say about morality or justice, other than providing factual forensic data which people may use in a legal context. For example, all science has to say about cannibalism is that eating brain tissue from one's own species may lead to degenerative prion diseases. Genocide of human populations, well, scientifically there's nothing wrong with that, it's just natural selection and competition for resources. Religion, regardless of the factual reality of it or not, is probably a somewhat better guide to the kinds of moral behavior, although in modern society it's all codified in legal structures.
I suppose the secular view is that science and law are the twin pillars of modern civilization, but the notion that 'faith' in such structures has some necessary psychological benefit smells of a manipulative controlling approach to human relations. If people really want something supportive to believe in, they're better off sticking to their favorite literary/religious texts, even if they're just products of human imagination.