The straightjacket of scientific thought
Jeroen
Luminous beings are we, not this crude matterNetherlands Veteran
This morning I came across a post I made on another forum, from three years ago, and I realised that something significant for me had changed. Over the last three years I have let go of my belief in scientific truth, in believing more in proven science than in my own experience. That has been a shift very much to do with religion, and with acknowledging my own experiences.
In religion you come across all kinds of thoughts that are not compatible with either scientific truth or your own experience. For example the gods of Hinduism, or the devas of Buddhism. These things don’t need to be taken literally, you can take them as otherworldly, or astral, or other dimensional. They are mythical truths, that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.
If you think of the world as purely scientific, just what is proven, you don’t give yourself much room for manoeuvre. Just because you can’t repeat an experience, does that mean it is untrue? I remember one extraordinary experience I had on the edge of sleep, of an encounter with a shaman dressed in bright green and yellow and feathers and a golden mask. In the end he blew a powder on me and I fell asleep.
In the end, this experience and many others made me think, the world is much more than only the material, and I decided to let go of science. In the end, all of our beliefs, conditionings, look to me now like limitations, things to ultimately be let go of. For me this was a big one, next to games perhaps the single biggest influence in my life.
Comments
The thing is, scientific thought is given to you at school at an early age, maybe 15 years old in my case. It is a method to figure out who to believe, to be a scientist becomes a goal. But it is a seed of a much greater pattern which is ultimately not beneficial if you are intelligent because you reject everything that cannot be repeated.
It’s only now that I am starting to realise how limiting science is on a spiritual level if you cling to it. It is a good tool, but if you are reasonable you can achieve much the same results. Reason is useful, one of a number of directions, and basic to the mind. Science is like a stricter approach to reason.
If I were to list other major influences on my life, I might come up with fantasy fiction, science fiction, computing, games, languages, history, nationalities. Some of these things I have already dealt with as conditionings a long time ago… it’s funny I can recall certain periods of the last three years when some of these were unwinding.
I can relate to this. I’ve had a similar journey although I still have respect for science and its place in the world.
There’s just so much it hasn’t and cannot answer
Science has its place and offers the answers it can. But to consider it the only way and the sole ultimate way to access all the mysteries of reality is as arrogant as someone that denies this field's advancements and benefits.
That’s a fair statement @Kotishka and I’m not denying that science has a place.
What I’m trying to make clear is that if you respect it so much that you depend on it to tell you what is true (which is after all it’s purpose for being) then it subconsciously determines much of your inner spiritual layout. You become rather dry and limited. It becomes difficult to take flight… The dimensions of the spirit are wide and vast, but science, reproduceability and a mechanistic view limit you to being of small scope.
I understood! I think.. !
I didn't suggest that you rejected science, but more like what you said, making it your only tool makes everything "dry and limited".
Just like the other way round...
This tendency of taking something and praising to the point of rejecting and establishing an absolute surrounding whatever methodology this might entail can be quite limiting and end up becoming a huge obstacle, as thinking beyond this frame can become very difficult as time goes by. Your mind becomes rigid, you do not wish to challenge these ideas...which is a "skillful aspect" that science should promote. Anyway, not limited to science, I think we should all challenge our views and be humble about what we can, and we cannot get.
Once I was chatting with someone about this topic. We talked about shamanism, mystical experiences, plants. All of them he disregarded as "false experiences".
It was a drunken chat to be honest (but what a great night we had!!!), but I will always remember how this young mexican guy was yelling quite loudly while hitting the table with his fist:
"One day, science will be able to reveal to us how and why we are here....!"
Scientific thinking is the process of reviewing ideas using science, observations, investigational processes, and testing them to gain knowledge.
Ehipassiko seeing for oneself
When I look around I see many beneficial/practical things we use everyday which have come about thanks to scientific thought (AKA Natural philosophy in bygone days)...
Some sciences for example neuroscience seem to work well with Buddhism
Mind & Life Institute
The video by Thupten Jinpa is interesting...
As far as I can see....
When either attached to the laws of science or the laws of the Dharma,
dissatisfaction, uneasiness, disquiet, a separation between self & others, an underlying sense of one's own inadequacy, an inability to fully accept who you are, endless manipulations of all our sense data as a justification of our identity's storyline, or just a continued slumbering within the human condition, are all the unavoidable fruitions of our maintenance of that attachment.
The mind can become rigid and absolutist about just about anything. In reality the scientific method never actually proves anything, it either rules certain possible explanations out or simply can't address things because they aren't empirical to begin with. But people still cling to its "truths" as if they are hard and definitive.
My current thinking is that there is a ton of stuff that science doesn't understand and maybe never can understand. But its our best tool for understanding the world. Lived experience gets promoted quite a bit these days, and it has been undervalued as a means to understand people's experience of the world and how that impacts us all. But our personal point of view is full of bias and heavily skewed towards our own limited experience of the world. Its like my avatar, reality is the cylinder, personal experience is the square or circle.
I interpret dreams and experiences as the power of our unconscious minds trying to tell us something. It can be important spiritual information guiding us in our development. My inclination is to feel that these things are guidance or knowledge from outside, but my skeptical mind demands proof. I've seen too many people go off the deep end of what is real, very much including myself. But I've also seen people of faith be able to take strength and the energy to go deep from such an attitude.
I guess I think its an unknowable crapshoot whether untested and unprovable beliefs you hold are actually true and beneficial or fruitless and potentially dangerous. I think life needs some degree of boundaries and direction just as a cell needs walls to function.
If you're letting go of an absolutist view of science, outright rejecting anything not proven by science, then in my view you're on the right path.
If you're believing your personal experience as fact rather than possibility or psychological and spiritual information, then in my view you're on the wrong path.
I get this POV. I share a similar one. Science, being composed of people with certain biases, agendas, and assumptions. And oftentimes, the scientific community discounts certain possibilities and experiences while promoting others. And memebers of that community can also be quite antagonistic to certain ideas that fall outside of the mainstream, as well as attack certain religious communities. Many of the New Atheists, for example, are very harsh on Islam and Muslims and single them out. Part of this is Western chauvinism, but they carry that into their worldview and work. In addition, some take such extreme views as they discount the reality of conscious experience itself. Anything immaterial is generally discounted as well because they can't as of yet test for it, so their methodology is based purely within the realm of the physical. It's possible that the physical is all there is and nothing immaterial involved or underlying matter. But to even posit the possibility is a faux pas and tossed into the realm of 'woo woo.' On top of that, science is often directed by the market forces of capitalism, and money is allocated to areas that benefit a certain outlook or outcome, so areas that may offer a glimpse into alternatives aren't given the funding or administrative ok to pursue. And one can certainly find themselves straight-jacketed by any kind of view or way of thinking, scientific or otherwise, which is its own danger.
All of that said, science at least has ways of testing theories and expanding knowledge that no other field or discipline has. And one must acknowledge these discoveries while seeing how they impact our current perception of reality. One must not become a zealot of science and cling to the lastest theories as infallible dogmas, but one can also not ignore them and be willing to adjust their viewss of reality and truth. But science doesn't have a monopoly on our conscious experience and spiritual development, and contemplativism is itself its own science, exploring consciousness and conscious experience from the subjective POV, because ultimately, that's the only way we can delve into our inner universe and transform our unique selves.
A couple things reading your post brought to mind @Jason. A quote from someone saying that 90% of the science in journals is probably wrong or incomplete in some form and 90% of the science in textbooks is probably right. I'm sure those percentages are off to some degree, but the takeaway is the notion that not everything that gets labeled as science has the same degree of validity to it.
And something B. Alan Wallace says about the methodology of contemplativism. That in the untrained mind introspection is like looking through a telescope on the back of a camel in a sand storm and trying to study astronomy. His, and I assume other's, claim is that a trained and disciplined mind can in fact discover real truths about the inner world that the average mind can't.
I'd agree.
Many of us mentioning no names except my own, are like the Mexican Thumper mentioned. People have made some wonderful points about our dharma/science and self worn straight jacket potatoes.
We are all mashup Mx Potato headings BUT through slicing, frying, peeling and other extreme forms of potato manipulation we may sprout new potatoes … 😋
As you may be aware I do not trust words, mind, science, dharma, the fish gods, fish and computer chips, exclusively.
Luckily straight jackets are not always in fashion. At the moment, the lunatics seem to have taken over the asylum seekers.
I take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha until the next lock up or down …
Very wise, because words are always just placeholders for a concept.
Did you know that there is no such thing as a tree? There are leaves, branches, trunks, roots. Similarly there is no such thing as a human being. Hmmm?
The bridge I drive over
The medication I take for a chronic condition
The municipal water I drink, cook with
The computer that connects me to the rest of the planet (and to people who have rejected scientific thought)
I hope all THESE people have not rejected scientific thought.
Scientifically or conceptually speaking things are interdependent. In that sense, they don't exist independently. Useful names which point to no thing.
The cell is composed of a cell wall, cytoplasm, nucleus etc.
The 'eye' is composed of cornea, lens, iris, retina, optic nerve, etc.
The 'face' has eyes, nose, cheeks, lips, brows, etc.
'Atoms' are composed of nucleus, protons, neutrons, electrons etc.
Computer must at least have CPU, input/output devices.
Ultimately all names point to no thing, because one branch is not the same as another. They are different in shape, length, the leaves they bear, the colours, the textures of the bark… names are all empty of real meaning.
Maybe a little nit picky but I think a better word than real is ultimate. The words left and right, arm and leg feel pretty real when talking about which limb the surgeon needs to amputate.
Kind of related.
Not sure why but this thought was coming up strongly for me in meditation this morning.
My intent is I worry about following false beliefs. When done in a wholesome way they do have the power to lead us to the good. My concern is that when adhering to that way of thinking and an unwholesome or corrupt feeling sneaks in and we've developed the habit of blindly following thoughts that can lead us down bad paths.
So I too get the occasional strong voice when I wake in the morning. A few years ago, one such voice said, "go see a doctor" as if there was a health concern that needed addressing. So I did make an appointment, and there was nothing wrong with me. I've mentioned before that I tend to take on the energies of those around me. At the time I was working for a family where the husband, had recently had a battle with cancer where he lost a leg at the hip. My take away is that the voice I heard wasn't some divine entity reaching out, it was my own subconscious wisdom. But it was influenced at the time by someone else's emotions that I had taken on.
I still think these intuitions and experiences can be powerful. I think it is tapping into the wisdom of our subconscious. But our subconscious can only process and spit out material from what we feed it. If our information diet is only K-pop and vapid Tik Tok influencers then any insight we gleam won't be very wise. What you get out is a matter of what you put in, not some extra worldly knowledge.
Well, we don’t know whether such voices represent the subconscious, the superconscious or perhaps some astral entity. I believe certainly that there is such a thing as a collective unconscious, which you may make contact with. We don’t really know where the knowledge comes from, in the end.
But it’s not always straightforward, what if in a slightly different context the voice had meant for you to go see a shaman, or medicine man? In some cultures that would have been a standard interpretation. Often the spiritual speaks to the spiritual.
I used to be more concerned about false beliefs than I am these days. Having seen and heard a bit more in these hypnagogic experiences, I think there is more danger in having a mind that is misshapen by science than there is in following some paths that may be wrong and also some paths that may be right.
Mainly I'm saying, if the voices start telling you to do harmful things for spiritual reasons, like try to fly or harm people who are possessed or something. Think twice, because they can be persuasive, especially if your used to believing them.
I think with voices on the edges of sleep there is little danger of trying to fly or such things. You’re in more danger of trying to drink your morning coffee while it is still too hot and burning your mouth. It’s more a contemplative thing.
If you start hearing voices during the day, well, it’s up to you, a doctor would no doubt be happy to prescribe you medication against hallucinations, but you might end up taking that for quite a while and you may not be happy with the side-effects.
Here is my poorly worded, addled stab at it.
Science is the study of the physiological phemomia. Even psychology is within the measurable relm. it deals with our reaction to stimuli and what synaps are associated with X Y or Z. it deals with how we may change our reactiond based upon a measurable and identifiable input.
Spirituality including religion, deals with the immeasurable.
in terms of religion, there is the story:
A man approached a leader/mentor within a particular school of Buddhism.
He stated that he had been studying and observing this school for 20 years.
He knew it's history and it's positive effects, philosophy, etc.
He knew all about it, but was at a loss as to how or what actually made it work.
To this, the leader/mentor replied that, with that study, there was one element missing.
The man was encouraged to apply all that knowledge by doing the practice.
Upon doing so, the man quickly, and with great appreciation, understood.
The scientific study of the theory, and other aspects, from a third person perspective, gave the man a theoretical undertanding of the philosophy and mechanics of the practice. But only when he actually crossed the line to open the spiritual application, actions, did he truely undertand. We can study all there is about riding a bicycle. But, if we never actually ride a bike, we will never know the actuality of riding a bike.
All this, of course means Science is the observation, study and measurement of ideas and things. Engineering is manifesting these concepts, theories, in a material form.
Spirituality is going into the immeasurable. The study of life itself, rather than just the physical, observable, measurable manifestations of life.
Peace to all
That I think is closer to the truth. Jiddu Krishnamurti once said, “truth is a pathless land” and he indicated that in a spiritual search one could not follow any man or doctrine. But the conditioning which we pick up from toys, clothes, parents, teachers, schools, the government, they all limit the paths we walk.
In order to walk and pursue the truth freely, we have to perceive and let go of the conditionings. It’s a slow process. Science is a good tool for examining the physical world, and it even says some things about spirituality and the origins of life. But once you start looking at the self, at consciousness, at the immaterial realms, it is a serious constraint.
The thing is, many of the things you encounter in an Ayahuasca experience are not physical, but our spirit is profoundly affected by them. Things like magical chants, song, myths and legends all acquire a kind of meaning that renders them significant as the mind expands.
Cool! Have you used Ayahuasca?
No I haven’t, just been reading a lot about it.
@Jeroen
Um... so you fell asleep, had a dream, and because of it you throw out centuries of evidence-based science?
This kind of thinking is why the world is doomed.
Ok.
I've had some "profound" experiences with Psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and Cannabis. My meditative experiences were with Cannabis (the other 3 seem a bit too intense for that). I don't have any firsthand experience with Ayahuasca, but I am curious, and your post made it sound like you had. That's all.
Hahaha
well, I wasn’t so much suggesting throwing it out, as ditching the immediate habit of that kind of thinking, and relegating the process itself to a more secondary position. But you know, even the phrasing of that sentence betrays an ordered, scientific perspective.
It all goes back to my training as an engineer and my career in software development, which was also quite scientific. These things made it seem like whenever there was a problem, one would reach for science as a solution, and that got to be a pattern for me.
But in the realm of the mind, there are many modalities, experiences, which go beyond the straight-line rationality of science, and I have been experiencing some of them. Science is not a good tool for searching for spiritual truth.
And the reason the world is doomed is because of the profit motive, unfortunately. Capitalism is why mankind is exploiting the natural world.
No, I’m very much a newbie as far as psychedelics are concerned, I had cannabis maybe twice in my uni days and that didn’t do much for me. But I got interested in Terence McKenna a few years ago and since then have been doing a lot of research into psychedelics, especially ayahuasca.
I just find it fascinating — like a lot of people — that you can explore these different facets of your mind with just a substance. A lot of these magical and mythological ways of relating are so much richer than the mechanic’s approach of science.
I will admit to being a bit hidebound, these things have been in the public eye for a few years now, and I so far have been sitting on the fence. But something changed for me recently… the Gabor Maté interview gave me a bit of an insight.
What were your experiences like with psilocybin and LSD? In the Netflix docu series How to Change Your Mind they cite a study which says that out of 250 participants no less than 70% said that the psilocybin experience they had was in the top five most significant experiences of their life, next to things like the birth of their children.
Psilocybin is a STRANGE drug. And mushrooms in general!
When I moved to Germany, I went out to pick up mushrooms (edibles ones) and found a few amanitas. I took them back, cooked them, and ate them. My stomach hurt a bit, then I felt really sleepy...and I went to sleep. In my dream, I was a wolf running through the woods, following a white light or source. The surroundings were a bit ominious, don't know: it seemed a filter with a dark green hue had taken over the entire environment, a thick forest with a path that the wolf followed. I woke up feeling confused.
Now psilocybin...because the amanita's active ingredient was muscimol. I had taken mushrooms a few times, but my friends were quite stingy and always took mini doses to avoid "too much to handle" situations: they were DAMN right. One day a friend of mine, tired of my "mushrooms don't do shit" teenage-speech, decided to give me between 3.5 - 4 grams of dried homegrown.
I can only say that the idea of "interconnectedness" became clear. I saw everything tied with these invisible white strings, like spider silk. I could see light becoming fractuals, and writings in strange unknown scripts emerging from them. Then I heard my mother speaking to me in a way that it seemed I was back in the womb. I thought to myself: "What a shit life I'm having right now, I feel really alone". When I asked my friend how I was during the trip, he told me I was quiet for around 5hours and staring at the sky.
So...ayahuasca seems really intense. For me handling 1 hour zazen is already daunting enough!
Yes it does seem intense. But from what I’ve read it has a habit of revealing trauma’s in a new light, working with life resolutions, revealing where your authenticity lies, that kind of thing. Not surprising that a lot of people are choosing to explore it.
I’ve been thinking about why this is so, and I’ve come to think that in the first instance it is because of the tendency towards criticism, repeatability and proof. A scientific approach is basically invasive, and tends towards wanting to take things apart to core principles. But if you disassemble a song or a beautiful painting, you lose a lot of the whole thing together. The sum of the parts is not equal to the whole, you see.
The thing is, I’ve always held scientific thought as the highest form of intelligence, but I am starting to realise this is not the case. There are many other forms; emotional, literary, mythological, philosophical. Science is not much more than an approach to the truth, and it doesn’t get you that far if you are interested in wholeness, integration and unity.
I came across an interesting author, William A. Richards, who early in his life studied theology and psychiatry. He combines these two fields, to give insight which borders on both. But without the theology and the interest in the spiritual he wouldn’t be nearly as worth reading.
Someone who studies spirituality scientifically. Seems very helpful and grounded to me.
I think the topic of the thread has more to do with the way we hold our view of science or spirituality rather than the rigidity being in the thing itself. Or at least, our views of science and spirituality are subject to the way we approach them mentally. We can hold either science or spirituality rigidly or loosely. The straightjacket or lack thereof exists in us more than it does out there.
@Jeroen
There are many reasons why the world might be doomed, but at the bottom of all of them is irrational thinking. This is why I'm not keen on "letting go" of science, of all things. In an age where climate change science is denied, flat-earthers and other conspiracy theories are on the rise, and truth is a matter of "whatever is good for my politics/tribe," I believe we need the scientific mode of thinking more than ever.
But I do think the problem is with science itself. The fact that science always tries to reduce things to a model means you lose sight of the larger whole, you lose the composition of the parts that make a harmonious whole.
It’s like making a scientific description of a painting, “it is this list of elements mixed to form pigments on a canvas” but it is wholly inadequate to capture the feeling of the painting. The process of critical analysis removes the human element.
What you are talking about is the morally bankrupt attitude of materialist thinking. Science is not the right tool to tackle that either, it is philosophy that is needed. Science itself can be twisted, look at Big Oil and climate science, if the core issue of principles and morals is not addressed.
I guess if you're a scientist and your whole world is consumed by that way of thinking. But even science itself is acknowledging the importance of inter disciplinary work and holistic thinking.
If you're just a regular person and you aren't drilling down into scientific detail, there's no need to be so reductionistic. Is the individual thinking about things in a reductionist or a holistic way? Besides, they each have their value and downside, it shouldn't be about one vs the other as much as it is about integration.
It's not the attitude of "materialist thinking," it's the attitude of irrational thinking. Whether it's materialist or non-materialist doesn't enter into it. Sure, science can be twisted to suit a personal agenda - so can spirituality, by the way - but then it's not really "science," it's pseudoscience. Philosophy, especially moral philosophy, is indeed important, yet philosophy also has to be tethered to reality, and we can only know what what is real through science. Without it, everyone's just flying away into their own fantasties.
Part of the beginning of Spiritual Awakening is the realization that, while we are each individual, sitting in a room, or wherever we we may be, are interconnected with everyone else, with our environment. We gain the freedom of responsibility to create, to generate our own happiness. With this permission to be, to seek, we are able to give ourselves permission to live. Only then does the spiritual journey truly begin.
Through science, we learn the "about". Through spirituality we learn/grow to be - the "what is".
Stirred the glass - time to wander off somewhere.
Peace to all