The Scientist and the Temple
A Toothbrush Epiphany
[ How can a person of science go to a temple to ask for blessings for the success of their project? Isn’t that the antithesis of the scientific temper? ]
Why do we knock on wood when we say something good?
[ That’s different. That’s just an innocent cultural thing. People don’t really believe it. ]
And yet they do it, why?
[ Everyone doesn’t and it’s really not the same thing. Going to a temple and asking for divine help, and a meaningless cultural gesture are poles apart. ]
Or perhaps not. They are just two different cultural expressions. The scientist is also a product of a culture. Just being different from someone else’s does not give one license to judge them. Plus, not all scientists go to temples either.
[ Granted, but there is a difference in the level of belief between both these examples and you are wrongly conflating them. ]
Belief can be a subconscious thing. The person knocking on wood is subconsciously worried that stating something aloud might cause some imaginary gremlin to sabotage things. They know consciously and rationally that it is an irrational worry. The scientist going to the temple is doing the exact same thing, regardless of whether the scientist is also, additionally, a devout believer or not.
[ Fair enough. Benefit of doubt. ]
Benefit? That’s a bit condescending, don’t you think? One culture giving benefit of doubt to another.
[ Sorry, I don’t think I meant it that way, but thank you for pointing out how it looks from your perspective. ]
You are most welcome. Now, ready to dive in one level deeper on this topic?
[ There is more? ]
There absolutely is.
[ Okay. Let’s do it. ]
Okay. So what could be a possible rationale for our subconscious mind wanting to believe in superstitions, like we just talked about? By the way, by saying superstition, I have already value judged it, so let’s use a more neutral term — tradition. It is correct that knocking on wood is definitely not as weighty a tradition as going to temples; and perhaps going to a church or mosque or synagogue or any place of worship might be a better comparison. But let’s go with this for now, in the spirit of tradition being on a spectrum from light seemingly irrational gestures all the way to entire belief systems like religions.
Let’s try what I hope is a first principles approach -
The human mind has always pondered two really fundamental questions -
- Why do I (and the world) exist?
- What happens to me after I die?
The first one seeks meaning and purpose, but also indirectly questions what existence is or is made up of. That is, what is the true nature of reality?
The second asks whether this reality is really everything, or does the answer to the meaning and purpose of existence imply or point to an alternate existence outside of the current one — something or someplace transcendental where we continue to exist. Transcendental — meaning something that is not of and from the here and now space and time, ie. not from the physical world.
I would like to posit (based on everything I’ve “studied”) that the attempt to answer these two fundamental questions is in some ways connected to the birth of all culture, including all religions, right from the dawn of humanity to this day.
So by definition, being separate from the physical, the transcendental is inherently not realizable, and can only be postulated. However, once postulated, it automatically gives meaning and purpose to existence and, let us assume, provides satisfactory answers for what happens after death.
The most important point here is not whether the transcendental realm actually exists or not. It is, as we said by definition, impossible to know from the perspective of physical existence.
Instead, the important lesson to take away from this is — the imperative to live life “as if” the transcendental reality were true, and to make every moment of life an act towards reaching that realization after death (or before death if that is at all possible).
(Note that “realization” is more than just knowing. We’ll leave it at that for now.)
So in this way, all science can be seen as an attempt to understand merely the physical world that we live in. And all religion and associated culture is an attempt to live as if a transcendental realm exists, that we posit and must continually refine (just as we do with science).
Now, let us attempt, however feebly, to connect the two.
To do this, we will use (1) a bit of what we know about the limits of science today and (2) what may be an obscure term from, what could be called, the limits of psychology.
Lets start with science.
The latest inquiries into the nature of the physical world has reached limits where we realize that we only understand a fraction of the true nature of reality and much lies hidden and unexplained, and is somehow weirdly connected with the subjective observer of reality. For instance, quantum entanglement is a good example of weird connections in the physical world that are as yet unexplainable.
Note that the suggestion here is not that the transcendental is that hidden portion of the physical world, since that would be a contradiction, given that the transcendental is outside or somehow separate from the physical world.
However, let us posit that “True Reality” is something that somehow encompasses both the transcendental and physical world (whether the true reality contains both, or one subsumes the other, we will leave aside for now).
Next, coming to psychology.
The renowned psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung postulated a concept called Synchronicity that can be thought of as relating to this “True Reality” in the way Causality relates to the physical world. That is, that there are possible causal (or non-causal) connections between things in the physical world and the transcendental world that we simply cannot understand from a purely physical world context (or frame of reference, if you will).
I hope I have interpreted Synchronicity right, but you can now perhaps see where I’m going with this.
The idea, that there could be a physical world and a transcendental world and that synchronicity hints at the connections between the two, opens the door wide open to a whole range of possibilities.
From this comes, the human concepts of heaven and mythology and temples and rituals and ultimately God.
Heavens are a human cultural reference to a transcendental reality.
Mythology is the narrative that connects the transcendental and physical worlds. (They are perhaps derived from kernels of potentially real physical world events and/or persons, which are then poetically and symbolically embellished and memorialized for the sole purpose of teaching lessons. The lesson being the truth message underlying the myth and not the factual accuracy of the event or person itself.)
Temples (or any sacred place anywhere) are locations in space and time that functions as a mental(?) portal between the physical world and the transcendental world.
Rituals are the enactments in life as if the transcendental world exists alongside the physical world.
Rituals are, therefore, either the overt actions of a scientist visiting a temple as if they are invoking synchronicity between the action of worshiping at a temple to invoke divine intervention from the transcendental world upon their scientific project in the physical world, in order to impact the success of the project; all the way to the simple subconscious act of knocking on wood to invoke synchronicity between the action of knocking on wood in the physical world to, in turn, invoke transcendental intervention to ensure that the thing spoken in the physical world does not become untrue.
Phew! That was it. “A” potential worldview as it stands today.
No doubt this worldview will continue to evolve, as it should; ’cause remember , clichéd as it sounds —
It is the search for the truth that is the true purpose of life.
[ Ooooookay! I think I need a drink. ]
You and me both!
© Unni Nambiar (July 16th, 2023)
Note: None of the above is really original thought. But merely a synthesis of everything I’ve read and studied so far. No claim is made to the originality of the above thoughts (unless there are any ;-) ).
Acknowledgements: Most of this is derived from readings and listenings from various authors and thinkers. The mythology, anthropology, psychology and sociology portions are from fragments of Carl Gustav Jung, Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, Claude Levi-Straus, Emile Durkheim, Paul Radin and, A.K. Saran. The “as if” posture and some of the bridging between mythology and psychology is from Jordan Peterson. A lot of the impulse to synthesize worldviews comes from the works of Jon Vervaeke, Gregg Henriques, Iain McGilchrist, Bernardo Kastrup, Swami Sarvapriyananda and, Brett Andersen among others (supported, of course, by a whole cast of enabling thinkers and podcasters who would be impossible to list, but equally unfair to not acknowledge here).
