Deep Science
A synthesis embracing scientific empiricism, rational understanding, and the mystical experience of unity
We live in a culture whose understanding of life, consciousness, and human affairs has been rooted for centuries in the worldview of classical physics, which describes the cosmos as a vast machine.
The mentality of an epoch springs from the view of the world which is, in fact, dominant in the educated sections of the communities in question. The various human interests which suggest cosmologies, and are also influenced by them, are science, aesthetics, ethics, and religion. . . . [A person’s] effective outlook will be the joint production from these sources. But each age has its dominant preoccupation, and in the last three centuries the cosmology derived from science has been asserting itself at the expense of older points of view with their origins elsewhere. Whitehead (1925)
There is increasing awareness that our society is approaching a turning point, a shift away from the mechanistic worldview of classical physics. Pitirim Sorokin, “the world’s greatest sociologist” (Zimmerman 1968), has characterized social dynamics in terms of the cyclical waxing and waning of two basic value systems that underlie all manifestations of a culture, which he calls the sensate and the ideational (Sorokin 1941; 1957). The sensate value system, characteristic of scientific materialism, views matter alone as the ultimate reality, all ethical values as relative, and sensory perception as the only source of knowledge and truth. The ideational value system holds that ultimate reality lies beyond the material world in a spiritual realm, that ethics, truth, and beauty are expressions or reflections of attributes of this transcendent reality, and that knowledge may be obtained through inner experience.
We are seemingly between two epochs: the dying sensate culture of our magnificent yesterday and the coming ideational culture of the creative tomorrow. We are living, thinking, and acting at the end of a brilliant six-hundred-year-long sensate day. . . . The present crisis represents only a disintegration of the Sensate form of Western society and culture, to be followed by a new integration as notable in its own way as was the sensate form in the days of its glory and climax. (Sorokin 1941)
Sorokin’s tremendously detailed analysis indicates that, since the dawnof history, Western culture has fluctuated between sensate and ideational phases. In each of these phases, generally lasting for several centuries, one of the two value systems dominates in most aspects of human culture. He also notes that during the transition phase between predominately sensate and predominately ideational cultures, typically a chaotic period characterized by an increase in violence and cultural upheaval, there may arise a third phase, which he calls “idealistic.” The idealistic phase represents the harmonic balance of the sensate and ideational, the blossoming of human culture in the harmonious balance of opposites — inner and outer, material and spiritual, relative and absolute.
The twentieth century saw the beginnings of the decline of sensate culture. In Sorokin’s analysis, our current cultural upheavals can be viewed as symptoms of this cultural transformation. The shift from the sensate/ materialistic to an ideational/idealist worldview is evidenced — in addition to the multitude of cultural factors analyzed by Sorokin — in the transition from classical to modern physics. In the eyes of the vast majority of the dozen or so scientific pioneers responsible for the twin revolutions of relativity and quantum theory, modern physics dealt a death blow to the sensate worldview (i.e., scientific materialism). These scientists were united in the belief that, at the most fundamental level, the basic substance of the cosmos is not material particles but a form of mind or spirit that includes consciousness as an elemental attribute (Wilber 1984). They stressed the importance of transrational experience in the formation of our preanalytic vision, the perceptual filters and conceptual constructs that largely determine our worldview. This blog examines some of the aspects of this cultural transformation that may contribute to the emergence of an ecological worldview.
The Emergence of Modern Science.
The emergence of modern physics in the twentieth century triggered a revolution in thinking that initiated a fundamental paradigm shift in our understanding of the nature of matter and its relation to the human mind (Kafatos and Nadeau 2000; Capra 1982; 1996; 2000) and heralded the transition from sensate to idealistic culture. In the face of the inscrutable mysteries of the atomic and subatomic world, physicists came to realize that their basic concepts, language, and preanalytic vision were inadequate for understanding the implications of their experimental results.
All the pictures which science now draws of nature are mathematical pictures. . . . They are nothing more than pictures, fictions if you like, if by fiction you mean that science is not yet in contact with ultimate reality. Many would hold that, from the broad philosophical standpoint, the most outstanding achievement of 20th century physics . . . is the general recognition that we are not yet in contact with ultimate reality. We are still imprisoned in our cave, with our backs to the light, and can only watch the shadows on the wall. (Physicist Sir James Jeans, quoted in Wilber 1984)
In the view of physicist and Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger, “the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives alot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us . . . we do not belong to the material world the science constructs for us” (quoted in Wilber 1984, 81). Schrödinger asserts that we lie outside of the scientific picture of the world; we only think we belong to it because our bodies are in it. Physicist and philosopher Sir Arthur Eddington asserts that the business of science is to “study the linkage of pointer readings with pointer readings” (Eddington 1929, quoted in Wilber 1984). Science has nothing to say regarding the intrinsic/essential nature of its objects of study. In the words of Ken Wilber, “the language of science is only an ‘it-language, with no conscious, no interiors, no values, no meaning, no depth, and no Divinity’” (1998, 56).
Numerous contemporary physicists and philosophers (Bohm 1982; Kafatos and Nadeau 2000; Harris 1988; Laszlo 1995; 1999), in an attempt to develop a worldview that is consistent with the modern understanding of the nature of matter and energy, have converged on a view of the universe that is fundamentally holistic. In this view the essential nature of the universe is unbroken wholeness, and “ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order.” Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau (2000) explain that “the whole whose existence is inferred in experiments testing Bell’s theorem cannot be fully disclosed or described by physical theory and that the parts exist in some sense within this whole . . . we are confronted with a fundamental reality that exists completely outside the domain of physics.” Moreover, this holism is not simply referring to a network of external relationships; the unbroken wholeness is reflected in the fundamental “internal” nature of each entity. Bohm emphasizes that “the dynamic activity — internal and external — which is fundamental to what each part is, is based on its enfoldment of all the rest, including the whole universe . . . each part is in a fundamental sense internally related in its basic activities to the whole and to all the other parts” (1987, 12). In this interpretation of quantum mechanics, each quantum of “explicate” space-time emerges from a vast, unmanifest whole, or “implicate order.”
These physicists and philosophers have suggested that life and consciousness should be viewed as grounded in the whole rather than the parts. Bohm (1982) has proposed that consciousness be viewed as a fundamental aspect of the “holomovement,” that is, the dynamics of the implicate order. In this context, individual consciousness can be viewed as a manifestation of the universal consciousness, and evolution can be seen as a creative process of progressive manifestation of the attributes of universal consciousnessin the form of life and mind. Since human consciousness is the most fully articulated expression of universal consciousness, Kafatos and Nadeau (2000), following Ed Harris (1988), have suggested that “human consciousness may fold within itself the fundamental logical principle of the conscious universe.”
These scientists observe that the fact that this whole cannot be a direct object of scientific inquiry or knowledge “does not mean that science invalidates the prospect that we can apprehend this wholeness on a level that is prior to conscious constructs,” that is, through spiritual experiences, which involve “acts of communion with the whole” (2000, 159). Although scientific knowledge allows us to infer the existence of the single significant whole, it cannot fully affirm or prove its existence. However, if these scientists are correct in asserting that “human consciousness may fold within itself the fundamental logical principle of the conscious universe,” then the attributes of this whole may be apprehended through a form of inner “knowledge-by-identity.” [1] Integrating these spiritual modes of knowing with scientific empiricism can produce a more balanced, ecological vision of the cosmos, as described in the following sections.
Epistemology of Inner Knowledge.
Saint Bonaventure taught that humans possess at least three different modes of knowing: the “eye of the flesh” (i.e., the physical senses), which discloses the material world; the “eye of the mind” (the rational faculty), which discloses the symbolic, conceptual world, and the “eye of contemplation” (the spiritual faculty), which discloses the spiritual, transcendental, transpersonal world. These three worlds are not separate — they represent three different aspects of the one cosmos, revealed by different modes of perception (Wilber 1983; 1998). Similar ideas can be found in virtually all of the major religions and schools of traditional philosophy (Wilber 1980; Smith 1976; Schuon 1975).
This teaching holds that each of these “eyes” discloses its own truths in its own realm, and none of them can be reduced to the others. The physical sciences are grounded in the observations of the eye of the flesh. Similarly, we can view the “spiritual sciences” — represented by the esoteric/ contemplative schools of the major religions — as being grounded in the perceptions of the eye of contemplation. Ian Barbour, in describing the parallels between the structure of religion and the structure of science, has asserted that both science and religion are grounded in data and that both make propositions that can be assessed on the basis of their agreement with the data. “The data for a religious community consist of the distinctive experiences of individuals” (1990, 36). Barbour labels the most common forms of spiritual experience “numenous experience of the holy” and the “mystical experience of unity.” He describes the latter as “the experience of the unity of all things, found in the depth of the individual soul and in the world of nature. Unity is achieved in the discipline of meditation and is characterized by joy, harmony, serenity, and peace. In its extreme form the unity can be described as selflessness and loss of individuality and the joy as bliss or rapture.”
According to contemplatives, spiritual awakening changes our perception of the cosmos by progressively attuning us to more profound levels of understanding (Wilber 1980), or “higher grades of significance” (Schumacher 1977). When we approach the transpersonal disciplines without the requisite contemplative training, the more subtle, profound, state-specific aspects tend to be overlooked. Roger Walsh explains that “when we cannot comprehend the higher grades of significance, we can blithely believe that we have fully understood something whose true significance we have completely missed” (1993, 225). Edward F. Schumacher describes a hierarchic structure of instruments or faculties by which the human being perceives and gains knowledge of the world. Perceiving the higher levels or grades of significance requires the higher faculties: “if we do not have the requisite organ or instrument, or fail to use it, we are not adequate to this particular part or facet of the world with the result, as far as we are concerned, it simply does not exist.” Our instruments of perception must be adequate to the level of significance of the realm of study: “all levels of significance up to the adequate level are equally factual, equally logical, equally objective, but not equally real. When the level of the knower is not adequate to the level (or the grade of significance) of the object of knowledge, the result is not factual error but something much more serious: an inadequate and impoverished view of reality” (Schumacher 1977, 42).
These transrational modes of knowing may be able to provide insight into facets of reality, or “higher levels of significance,” which are inaccessible to the measuring apparatus of science. Some physicists suggest that the all-pervasive wholeness, whose existence can be inferred empirically but which lies completely outside the domain of physics, may be accessible within the realm of human consciousness through “acts of communion with the whole,” that is, using the spiritual faculties (Kafatos and Nadeau 2000; Wilber 1984). This realization has fueled a renewed appreciation among scientists for the importance of transrational forms of knowledge. Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli, arguably one of the most insightful physicists of the twentieth century, predicted that the development of a “synthesis embracing both rational understanding and the mystical experience of unity” will prove to be one of the keystone issues of our time (Heisenberg 1974, 38; Wilber 1984).
Pauli’s proposed synthesis will require the development of a “deep science” that embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the inner knowledge of spiritual experience. It will require that, in addition to sensory experience and its empiricism and mental experience and its rationalism, we add spiritual experience and its mysticism (spiritual practice and its experiential data). In defense of this controversial third form of empiricism, physicist Sir Arthur Eddington has argued that “those who in the search for truth start from consciousness as a seat of self-knowledge with interests and responsibilities not confined to the material plane are just as much facing the hard facts of experience as those who start from consciousness as a device for discerning pointer readings” (Eddington 1929, quoted in Wilber 1984).
Wilber (1983) has pioneered the development of a “deep scientific method” that incorporates spiritual practice and its experiential data. He asserts that we can accept as valid all knowledge claims that can be verified using the following three-stage method:
1. Injunction: The “Do this!” strand of knowledge acquisition. In this stage the investigator develops the faculties that are adequate to the realm of study and then makes an observation under specified conditions.
2. Apprehension: An immediate experience of data brought forth by the injunction. In the physical sciences this would involve the perception of some aspect of the physical world with one’s physical senses, perhaps augmented by instruments. In the spiritual domain it would involve the direct perception of aspects of reality using the spiritual faculties developed in the previous stage.
3. Communal confirmation (or rejection): A checking of one’s observations with others who have adequately completed the injunctive and apprehensive strands.
This approach emphasizes the empirical grounding of spiritual knowledge in spiritual experience. It also follows that we are not qualified to challenge the truth claims of either science or spirituality until we have completed the injunctive and apprehensive stages of the appropriate validation method. In the words of Evelyn Underhill (1974), a distinguished authority on mysticism, “mystics are the pioneers of the spiritual world, and we have no right to deny validity to their discoveries, merely because we lack the opportunity or the courage necessary to those who would prosecute such explorations for themselves.” In this light mysticism reveals itself to be the spiritual science of essence, absolutes, and unity, an essential complement to the material sciences (such as physics, chemistry, and biology) of substance, relativity, and multiplicity.
Healing Fragmentation
Healing the fragmentation and alienation that is at the root of the current world crises requires an integrated epistemology that embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the inner knowledge of spiritual experience. This integrated epistemology is fostering the emergence of an integral worldview that is consistent with modern science and rooted in the perennial wisdom of the world’s spiritual traditions. This emergent ecological vision heals and rebalances our fragmented worldview by restoring the balance between the inner and the outer, the spiritual and the material, the mystical and the scientific. This vision transcends the illusion of separateness to discern the unity, the unbroken wholeness, that underlies the diverse forms of the universe. Our perception of connectedness, of our integral place in the web of life, emerges as an attribute of our connection with the eternal, beatific source of all existence. The perennial wisdom widens our “circle of understanding and compassion, to embrace all living creatures in the whole of nature” (Einstein, quoted in Goldstein [1976] 1987). Our behavior, as it emerges naturally out of our perception of the sacredness of the natural world, will naturally embody love and respect for all life forms. This awakened insight promotes the healing of our long-standing alienation from the natural world and offers hope for renewal in the midst of widespread cultural deterioration. Spiritual awakening may be the post-postmodern Enlightenment that elevates humanity above the nihilism of postmodern materialism into a renewed understanding of the purpose and meaningfulness of life. This understanding emerges from the wonder evoked by an awareness of the profound splendor of the cosmic unfolding.
Notes
[1]. As physicist Sir Arthur Eddington (1929) explains, “it is by looking into our own nature that we first discover the failure of the physical universe to be co-extensive with our experience of reality. In our own nature, or through the contact of our consciousness with a nature transcending ours, there are other things which claim the same kind of recognition — a sense of beauty, of morality, and finally, the root of all spiritual religion, an experience which we describe as the presence of God. It is the essence of religion that it presents this side of experience as a matter of everyday life. To live in it, we have to grasp it in the form of familiar recognition and not as a series of abstract scientific statements.”
References
See separate References blog post.
