Is Science Compatible with Mysticism?

[godnotgod]

Cool. I'm not sure where it was going, but glad I could be nailing things.

We'll call you 'Der Nailer'.

"I pick things up and put them down"?.."I pick things up and put them down"?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Does it matter whether the background is concept or not, even when figure and background alternate, as in this example?

Of course. Because if one doesn't have a concept of "vase", then there is no alternate. And if one isn't able to recognize profiles (the side view of faces), or is otherwise incapable of seeing the "faces" as a profile view of an unrealistic looking face, then there is neither figure nor background.

Another way to illustrate this is to think about how you and I are able to see this image. We have computers with internet access and web browsers. The computer processes this image, and humans process this image. However, for the process involves a mathematically based set of protocols or instructions. At the end of processing, the computer is able to interpret the data make-up the image such that it may be displayed. But it's just a bunch of pixels arranged according to a specific compression algorithm, a specific "input" using this compression system, a specific program which processes the image data and displays it (firefox, internet explorer, etc.). There are no faces, there are no lines, there is no "black", no "white", nor anything like figure/ground.

Of course, computers can't understand anything. They are entirely mechanistic, reductionist, syntactical manipulation devices.

But dogs can. My dog has a concept of "food". However, if I showed her the image there would be no faces and no vase and sense that an image was actually there, because for her a static monitor with a bunch different colors and shapes has no meaning. It's as if I asked you to tell me what a line from a book means, but when you look at the page you find the book is written in ancient Greek using the Linear B characters. And as there are no spaces between words, if I asked you next to tell me how many words there are, you wouldn't be able to because for you there is just a string of symbols and no meaning.

Background is essential to discerning figure in either case.

"figure" is a concept. What is the "figure" that a computer processes? Or a dog who looks at my computer screen and has no reason to see that image as an image at all, rather than as part of the shapes and colors on some flat surface. There is no image for the dog.

The reason that optical illusions exist for us at all is because we can't help but perceive depth if a 2D image is rendered in a certain way, or see gray spots appear when black and white squares are drawn a particular way. The entire point of figure/ground approaches comes from trying to understand how that process of seeing something as a "whole" vs. parts or whatever works.

If you look at a bookshelf filled with books, you don't see one object. Your mind automatically distinguishes the visual input and breaks it down into books and into shelf. But it doesn't break it down into a ceries of pieces of wood, lots of sheets of paper, and various colors, symbols, etc. You neither see it as one, holistic entity nor do can you prevent yourself from seeing "books" instead of sheets encased in some rectangular-shaped material sitting.

You see "books". You see this because you have the concept "book" in a way that is so fundamental that even though you know the books are made of paper and other material, even if you took one out and flipped through it you'd still think of yourself as holding a book. But what you are holding are a bunch of molecules configured in a particular way.



Or, compare the following:

sdlknemk sdne.z-0erh, fheinfiln.han z,htefle moigeli^R&^$
weonlehiv0oenlzy/// fhindfhlspq320u
fnienlns

and

I was much too far out all my life
And not waving, but drowning.

In the first example, you can identify characters, numbers, symbols, etc. And you might even "chunck" them into units based on spacing (simply because, as a literature person, you are used to spacing between letters to seperate "words").

However, have to work very, very, very hard to not read the next example, because when you see something like

"God does not play dice with the universe"

you automatically see words. You do not seee "G o ddo es n otpl a y d i cewithth euni ve rse" or some other configuration of symbols.

That's what figure/ground distinctions relate to. How the visual system integrates with the brain in order to see this: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" or this: "''twas brillig and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe
all mimsy were the borogroves, and the momraths, out grabe" as composed of words, even though one is nonesense because of the way the words are combined, and the other because most words are made-up.

In order to have formed a concept of any figure and retain it in memory for future reference, it initially would have been seen against a background.

Blind people have no concept of "figure"?

As you said earlier: "...if you say that the stone, page, paper, wall, or whatever is used to make the figure is still background, then it is impossible to have a figure without a background.",

That's because it's impossible for a figure to exist, not because the background is what enables you to determine that it is there.

footnote: if no previous concept of 'vase' were present, can we say that, for that viewer, the white area is formless?

Depends. Those awful Rorschach tests (awful because they were used as if they were actually good tools) are all about this. They are images, and have forms which are suggestive, but not definitive. So people who are forced to say what they see will force themselves to see "something". They literally construct internally figure/ground- type distinctions.

 

[atanu]

For those who are reading this thread I will like to summarise two points:

1. Regarding figure/ground

The discussion on this (in this thread) seems lost. But why this point is important?

Most only know the changing figures as the only truth as these are graspable and measurable. These are the focus of science also. But spiritual focus is more on the unchanging ground. For example, Buddha teaches that everything is impermanent and clinging to these impermanent objects is the cause of pain and that to overcome pain one should seek Nirvana. Some then questioned that if everything was impermanent then how would Nirvan provide lasting freedom from pain? Then the Buddha explained that Nirvan was the formless, uncreated, unborn ground that is the discerning power.

So, the main difference in science and spirituality (at least of the eastern variety) is the understanding on locus of intelligence. The eastern dharmic philosophies teach the intelligence to be the formless substratum (ground) of all movinfg/changing forms.

Science is concerned with objects of space but rarely sees the infinite space. Similarly, science is concerned with objects of thoughts but cannot see the gap between two thoughts. One who has consciously experienced the gap between two thoughts will vouch that that mind-space is boundless and pure unattached joy. In Hinduism, this mind space is called chid akAsha, which is said to be the store house of all particular information also. Shruti, revelation, happens when a mind gets in touch with this silent mind-space.

2. Focus of Science and Spirituality

As noted, the focus of science and spirituality are not same. Science will solve problems yet it cannot help a mind in real trouble. It cannot dispel the gloom and sadness. It cannot dispel fear. OTOH, with all its glorious achievements, the mental problems will increase with ever increasing speed. New diseaes will crop up. Surely, science is not a solution for ills of the mind.

Spirituality needs not know much. A spiritual person just needs to know that he only has to bring back the wandering mind to the silent substratum and all the problems vanish. In such condition, the man becomes boundless. He is not the body-mind. Hint of this is available to every one in form of deep sleep. Attaining the deep sleep like condition in waking state is the goal
.....................

The above is my view. YMMV.

 

[YmirGF]

As noted, the focus of science and spirituality are not same. Science will solve problems yet it cannot help a mind in real trouble. It cannot dispel the gloom and sadness. It cannot dispel fear. OTOH, with all its glorious achievements, the mental problems will increase with ever increasing speed. New diseaes will crop up. Surely, science is not a solution for ills of the mind.

In my view, this paragraph qualifies for the :drool: Monumental Codswallop Award :drool:

Take a bow, Atanu.

 

[atanu]

In my view, this paragraph qualifies for the :drool: Monumental Codswallop Award :drool:

Take a bow, Atanu.

OOPs. I, OTOH, respect your views as having unsurpassable codswallop value. :slap: So have a frubals.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

For those who are reading this thread I will like to summarise two points:

1. Regarding figure/ground

The discussion on this (in this thread) seems lost. But why this point is important?

Most only know the changing figures as the only truth as these are graspable and measurable.

I defer to your knowledge of "mysticism" (I apologize for reducing, marginalizing, or otherwise distorting your viewpoint using that term, and I do so only because it relates to the thread title, not to actually describe any views expressed in the thread). However, I have another reason for thinking this important: communication & (mis)information.

The figure/ground discussion may be totally off topic and useless, but my issue is not whether it is useful per se, but rather whether or not conflating terms and concepts used in one area of discourse have (or have the potential to) distort both the ideas of those who have perhaps misunderstood how they were used and those who might come across them in this thread (or elsewhere).

Additionally, while those coming from a scientific perspective may not have much in common when it comes to perception, epistemology, mind, consciousness, and related topics, there is a fair amount of overlap. The fact that terms have been used here which originated in a particular scientific context is, I think, an indication of this.

It may be that the overlap between certain scientific or philosophical topics and metaphysical/theological/spiritual topics is merely subject mattter. But the use of technical terminology, and more importantly the ideas one might have based on exposure to some version of this technical terminology, is I believe a reason to make sure that whatever overlap there may be is not due to a misunderstanding (by anyone).

What I have addressed isn't just because jargon may have been misused or adopted from some field and used to describe something else (as that in particular is common just within the sciences). It is because the entire frame of reference, from images, video clips, terms, etc., seems to have come only from a particular exposure to topics that have a technical nature but which were communicated or imparted without including many importanat aspects of these topics.

Science is concerned with objects of space but rarely sees the infinite space.

I am fortunate enough to have a bit of a diverse background, in that while my primary focus and my career has to do with science (and the brain), other degrees and fields I've studied concern ancient texts, religion, history, and so forth. A great many mathematicians can tell you what this or that individual from ancient Greece or India or China or the Middle East said about some math topic. For the Greeks, it's almost always geometry. Very few have actually read the texts they refer to. I have. And while I can barely read sanskrit and I cannot read Japanese, Chinese, or most eastern languages, I can read Latin, Greek, Hebrew (Hebrew not as well as I'd like) and have read texts in other ancient languages. So I do have some idea what people were talking about a few thousand of years ago. And infinitity in general was a serious problem cross-culturally.

On the other hand, high school calculus gets into infinity, and undergraduate mathematics gets into different kinds of infinite spaces. Most of the discussion about infinities and infinite space has been within the past few centuries and in the West. Perhaps the notion of infinite space means something else entirely elsewhere, but infinite space is essential to multiple branches of science. Basic quantum mechanics would be impossible without it, as would probability.

It cannot dispel fear.

But it can certainly create it. If ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. Science is a set of methods and tools. So are military weapons and strategies. It is in metaphysics, philosophy, etc., that issues of the soul and spirit can be addressed, as here science has less than no answers.

 

[godnotgod]

1. Regarding figure/ground

The discussion on this (in this thread) seems lost. But why this point is important?

Most only know the changing figures as the only truth as these are graspable and measurable. These are the focus of science also. But spiritual focus is more on the unchanging ground. For example, Buddha teaches that everything is impermanent and clinging to these impermanent objects is the cause of pain and that to overcome pain one should seek Nirvana. Some then questioned that if everything was impermanent then how would Nirvan provide lasting freedom from pain? Then the Buddha explained that Nirvan was the formless, uncreated, unborn ground that is the discerning power.

So, the main difference in science and spirituality (at least of the eastern variety) is the understanding on locus of intelligence. The eastern dharmic philosophies teach the intelligence to be the formless substratum (ground) of all movinfg/changing forms.

Science is concerned with objects of space but rarely sees the infinite space. Similarly, science is concerned with objects of thoughts but cannot see the gap between two thoughts. One who has consciously experienced the gap between two thoughts will vouch that that mind-space is boundless and pure unattached joy. In Hinduism, this mind space is called chid akAsha, which is said to be the store house of all particular information also. Shruti, revelation, happens when a mind gets in touch with this silent mind-space.

Well, atanu, your intuitive understanding has broached the subject I was leading to in presenting the image of 'figure/ground'. Maybe it is that only a mystic can have made this connection quite so easily as you have. Hopefully, others might also be able to make the connection using the visual metaphor.Thank you.

 

[godnotgod]

Focus of Science and Spirituality

As noted, the focus of science and spirituality are not same. Science will solve problems yet it cannot help a mind in real trouble. It cannot dispel the gloom and sadness. It cannot dispel fear. OTOH, with all its glorious achievements, the mental problems will increase with ever increasing speed. New diseaes will crop up. Surely, science is not a solution for ills of the mind.

This was exactly the Buddha's message in the parable of the man fatally shot with an arrow, which is a metaphor for man's perennial predicament of ignorance and suffering.


"He [the Buddha] was not interested in theories which had no real importance for living. He looked for practical answers. He saw a problem in the shape of the suffering of life and offered a solution to it based on His experiences. He used the following parable to illustrate the attitude of those who cannot distinguish between what is useful and what is not:

"Suppose someone was hit by a poisoned arrow and his friends and relatives found a doctor able to remove the arrow. If this man were to say, 'I will not have this arrow taken out until I know whether the person who had shot it was a priest, a prince or a merchant, his name and his family. I will not have it taken out until I know what kind of bow was used and whether the arrowhead was an ordinary one or an iron one.' That person would die before all these things are ever known to him."

In the same way, those who say they will not practise the Dharma until they know whether the world is eternal or not, infinite or not, will die before these questions are ever answered.

The Buddha did not answer these questions because they are not relevant to the problems of suffering, nor do they lead to happiness, peace and Enlightenment. Whether one believes that the world is eternal or not, or that it is infinite or not, one has to face the reality of birth, old age, sickness, death and suffering. The Buddha explained suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering and the path leading to the end of suffering here and now. The Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths because He knew that they lead to happiness, peace and Enlightenment."

Buddhist Studies (Secondary) The Buddha's Wisdom and Compassion

 

[Open_Minded]

For those who are reading this thread I will like to summarise two points:

1. Regarding figure/ground .....

........

Spirituality needs not know much. A spiritual person just needs to know that he only has to bring back the wandering mind to the silent substratum and all the problems vanish. In such condition, the man becomes boundless. He is not the body-mind. Hint of this is available to every one in form of deep sleep. Attaining the deep sleep like condition in waking state is the goal
.....................

The above is my view. YMMV.

Fantastic synopsis - and goes directly to a point I made earlier:

if one can set the competition aside implied in Is Science Compatible with Mysticism one might just see that there is no competition at all.

 

[Aamer]

For those of you who bash Quran verses saying they don't really back science... I'll say either you haven't seen all the evidence yet or perhaps you've already made up your mind and no logic will change it. God gave enough clues in the verses and then mountains of evidence for those who are genuinely seeking the truth and possess the ability to reason. You will not find any verses that contradict scientific discoveries. They only support them. But when you get into deeper codes like the mathematical code of 19, the ratio of land to sea, word repetitions and the periodic table of elements, etc. the truth becomes undeniable. This book is from a supreme creator. That doesn't mean Muslims are right. Most of them follow man made teachings more than Quran. But Quran itself is from a higher power. Chapter 57, titled the Iron, has a code for the periodic table of elements. This discovery obviously meant nothing 1400 years ago. God coded many signs for us living in the science age. The age of reason and discovery. This is a blessing. Here's how our creator coded the table of elements in Quran for later generations to have proof that he is real. One of many secret codes in a book authored by God himself. May all of us pass the test...

Miracles of the Qur'an - Modern Science Reveals New Miracles of the Qur'an

 

[godnotgod]

Here's how our creator coded the table of elements in Quran for later generations to have proof that he is real.

This makes little sense to me. It would be far better that God plant himself right inside of his creation, right inside you and I. That way, there is no need of any 'proof'. No intelligent God would create such a book, knowing that it would be the cause of discord and suffering amongst men due to belief or unbelief. The mystical experience of divine union avoids all that. It's teachers have means of directing others along the path so they can see for themselves, via their own direct experience what the true nature of Reality is. The divine nature never coerces, never threatens, never needs to prove itself to anyone. Those approaches are clearly understood as coming from man, not God, by those who have awakened.

 

[Windwalker]

There is a difference between perspective and awareness. A perspective codifies experience with symbols and beliefs. Awareness involves suspending all judgment to accept things as they are while concentrating to illuminate and appreciate individual forms as they arise.

Very well stated.

Whether one claims to hold a scientific or mystical perspective is seperate from how expansive their awareness is.

True, but not independent from it entirely. If someone has an expanded awareness, their perspective changes and the ability to be perspective increases as well, whether examining nature through science, or examining metaphysical models of transcendent truths. A small degree of awareness is unable to penetrate what is there nearly to the degree someone who's mind has been expanded can. This is why challenging conventional wisdom leads to greater insights, whether you are talking religion or science. They are different domains of knowledge, but how well one perceives, how expanded their mind is, leads to greater insights into those domains.

That is why, IMHO, the greatest physicists were also mystics. Their mystical experiences did not give them insight directly through them, most likely not, but how the mind becomes expanded allows greater insight to be seen. They literally altar the brain and how you think. That's the line I see. Mysticism does not replace doing science, of course. But having mystic experiences and/or practices changes how one sees things. Cool how these insights often bear out in confirmation.

Wisdom arises naturally more from mindfulness and concentration than it does from any properly codified experience.

I agree with this for sure. The practices of such help clear awareness. But I also see that transcendent experience plays the role of helping clear the blockage that being embedded within a system of consensus consciousness creates. These mental models of reality we create through conventional thought create barriers in thought beyond them. This is where mystical experience shatters them, blows a hole right through the ceiling and allows that sharpened mind to escape into a new vista of understanding. This is a pattern repeated through the ages, with leaps, and not just modification within the same plane of understanding.

 

[Windwalker]

Ah, the irony of such certainty. Fascinating, to be sure. From my perspective, in making the giant leap of apprehending the true nature of a given form, making the short leap to physical descriptions of said form should be, in theory, child's play.

That's an interesting perspective. I think that is what we have always done as a species. I mentioned before that mystical experience is not something you attain by climbing some ladder of knowledge and understanding. It can happen at any point in human experience, no matter if we are magical thinkers, mythic believers, rationalists, etc. What happens is that the mystical experience is the same to everyone (following certain general characteristics; subtle, causal, nondual experiences), but the understanding of these are then translated into someone's general worldview; magic, mythic, rational, transrational, etc.

When people comment that mystics disagree with each other, that is partly true due to this, not in the description of experience itself. What is different is the mental frameworks within which we create models of reality. Just a hundred years ago we have no idea we were adrift within a galaxy among billions and billions of galaxies in the universe! So that scientific knowledge itself changes how we translate our life experiences within that context. Mystical experience is no different that way, as we experience ourselves beyond all definitions, to then take that after the fact and put that into our mental framework of understanding that we are in a vastly expansive universe, that we can actually, literally peer into with the Hubble telescope and other "eyes" of science, makes that mystical experience fuller, richer, wider as a result!

As I mentioned in my post previous to this, likewise mystical experience itself can break conventional thought which restricts our 'seeing' the natural world because those mental models do not allow certain concept to enter into the thought process. This is not speculative at all, but has been demonstrated in science how language itself alone shapes the minds ability conceptual certain things. It honestly goes both ways, in opening the mind to higher, more expansive, more inclusive understandings. Rationality breaks mythic-literal dogma allowing a more expansive view of reality, which then aides the mystical experience in its approach to inner knowledge. Then accessing that inner knowledge itself, helps break even those developed conventions of thought that naturally form within a rationalist mental worldspace.

So is it child's play to take mystical experience and then do science? No, I don't believe so. But there is definitely interaction between them because it affects the world of the researchers - us who live in a world of many kinds of knowledge.

BTW, I think I know why you like to call me Windy!

I get that, Windy, but it almost sounds like you are putting limitations on apprehending the nature of reality. To me, it almost sounds, well - pointless.

I really am not sure what you mean here. Can you clarify this?

I'd agree with one small caveat. "You realize that stepping beyond words" into the realm of the inner senses that allow for a whole new approach to the apprehension of reality.

Agreed.

I do like the sentiment expressed here. In some ways, we really are on the same page. However... I tend not to beat too hard on the drum of so-called "truth" as "truth" is relative to understanding.

I hope I don't come off as saying this is truth and that is not in a dogmatic way. When I say Truth, with a capital T, I've mentioned a thousand times that is not a propositional truth, something understood with the mind as a "thing". It is best to say it as the nature of Truth itself, not itself "a" truth. I see it as the Light of understanding itself, not an understanding in the pack of other understandings. It is not an object, but rather the subject of all truths.

Secondly, I no longer have much use for amusing notions rooted in the human animal's primitive concepts of "god".

Well, as I mentioned above, mystical experience always is then translated into the worldview of the individual in the context of his cultural mentalities. If the person lives in a world who seeings things in a mythical sense, that the world is controlled by a magical entity outside themselves, an old white-bearded man in the sky, then that is how they will interpret that experience. The experience is still the same no matter if it is in a prerational context, a rational context, or a transrational context. What is called God at an earlier level of development is suddenly not God because a rational mind blows away mythological notions as the literal truth of reality!

Personally, I like the word God a great deal, though I understand that at a certain point God itself gives way to what is beyond even that word. God beyond God, as Meister Eckhart called it.

 

[Sunstone]

Sorry, that should be 'tat tvam asi', and not 'tas atvam asi', which I have now corrected in the original post.

I assume you mean it cannot be reliably verified via rational means, such as logic, analysis, or reason.

It cannot be reliably verified by empirical means.

 

[Windwalker]

It cannot be reliably verified by empirical means.

How could it? You'd have to be outside it to see it as an object for critical examination. I think you need a different set of eyes. The ones doing the seeing itself. Right? (eye of flesh, eye of mind, eye of spirit)

 

[Windwalker]

Say, this is a beautiful quote I just read from this neuroscientist, Robert Burton who wrote a new book called A Skeptics Guide to the Mind, in which he goes after reductionist approaches to mind and consciousness. Actually there are several great quotes in this interview with him on Salon: Neuroscience needs its Einstein - Salon.com

I like these quotes and how they pertain to what I just said,

"The texture of consciousness is the language of literature, not the data of science."
​

And,

"To use another analogy: Believing that knowledge of brain wiring can tell us the nature of consciousness is like predicting what sound will come out of a set of speakers by looking at wiring diagram of the component parts."​

You can't penetrate mind looking at brain through empiric science, let alone entering beyond mind through mystical experience into unmeditated conscious awareness itself. How is it we presume empiric sciences are the validator of all truth and understanding? That sounds religious to me.

 

[Open_Minded]

Say, this is a beautiful quote I just read from this neuroscientist, Robert Burton who wrote a new book called A Skeptics Guide to the Mind, in which he goes after reductionist approaches to mind and consciousness. Actually there are several great quotes in this interview with him on Salon: Neuroscience needs its Einstein - Salon.com.

Excellent Link Windwalker:

Here's another quote from the same link:

In your book, you even open up the possibility that the mind might extend beyond the individual. Can you explain?

Nature provides us with innumerable demonstrations of organisms with a collective “mind” exhibiting group behaviors (from ants directing traffic to termites building complex edifices). These are not individual behaviors arising from individual brains. Even organisms without nervous systems, such as slime mold, can collectively solve complex mazes in order to obtain food. If a mind is considered to be that “entity” which controls our thoughts and actions, and we accept that humans are members of the animal kingdom, we should at least entertain the possibility that there are aspects of our minds that extend beyond the individual brain. However, this concept goes contrary to our felt experience of a unique mind under our individual control.

 

[Willamena]

How is it we presume empiric sciences are the validator of all truth and understanding? That sounds religious to me.

Perhaps you just need to leave truth out of the picture.

 

[Windwalker]

Perhaps you just need to leave truth out of the picture.

Why? He raised it in his question. I assume you did read what I wrote earlier today regarding truth? If not, I'll paste it in here:

"When I say Truth, with a capital T, I've mentioned a thousand times that is not a propositional truth, something understood with the mind as a "thing". It is best to say it as the nature of Truth itself, not itself "a" truth. I see it as the Light of understanding itself, not an understanding in the pack of other understandings. It is not an object, but rather the subject of all truths."​

What exactly is the point you're trying to make?

 

[Sunstone]

How is it we presume empiric sciences are the validator of all truth and understanding?

You're missing the point. Things that are empirically verifiable must be dealt with. Things that are not empirically verifiable can be safely ignored. That's just the way it is.