Get real: give up religious and mystical concepts

Religious believers who make a pilgrimage to this blog often amuse me. They'll say, "Brian, you live in your head; you need to give up your concepts about reality and embrace God's truth."

Ha ha ha. What a joke. These guys and gals are deluded. They've got things completely backward.

I just rode my Burgman 650 maxi-scooter to a coffeehouse in downtown Salem. It's 45 degrees here in Oregon. I was cold, but comfortably not freezing, thanks to warm gloves/gear and a large cozy windscreen.

I didn't think about anything supernatural once on my 25 minute drive. Here and now reality was all I needed, or wanted.

So tell me, supposed concept-giver-up'ers, how often do you have thoughts about your God, divine ideal, soul, spiritual essence, heaven, paradise, other-worldly ultimate reality, or whatever else you believe in?

Much more often than I do, for sure, because I've almost entirely given up ponderings about imaginary things that are conceived as existing somewhere beyond the physical. Thus I win the Concept Game, if points are scored by living as close as possible to thoughtless reality.

In my last post about "Philosophy in the Flesh" I said that I'd share how a final chapter in this book speaks about religiosity and spirituality. Well, I already have -- in my own words.

But here's how George Lakoff and Mark Johnson put it.

Your body is not, and could not be, a mere vessel for a disembodied mind. THe concept of a mind separate from the body is a metaphorical concept... In short, our very concept of a disembodied mind arises from embodied experiences that every one of us has throughout our life.

Consider: every holy book, every holy person, every holy vision -- these all are part of someone's bodily awareness. This isn't a conjecture. It's a neurological fact. Show me one human being who has ever had an experience without a physical body.

You can't. Because it has never happened. Being human means being embodied.

Why, then, is it so easy for people to believe that they are, or have, a disembodied soul or spirit? This gets us into the roots of religious belief, a big subject that I don't have time or inclination to address here (my coffee cup is already half empty, and my writing is fueled by caffeine).

I'll simply share a cogent observation by Lakoff and Johnson that's related to a basic fact about the brain.

The bodily organ that makes it possible for us to be aware, isn't capable of being directly perceived. This is why neurosurgery can performed without anesthesia. Such makes sense, of course, from an evolutionary standpoint. If our perceptions of outer reality were mixed up with perceptions of the brain's perceiving, things would get real confusing, real fast.

In virtually all of our acts of perception, the bodily organs of perception (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin) are not what we are attending to. For example, when we walk down the street and look at a house, we are normally not attending to our eyes, much less to the visual system of our brains.

The fact that what we attend to is rarely what we perceive with gives the illusion that mental acts occur independently of the unnoticed body. In summary, we all have a metaphor system that conceptualizes our minds as disembodied.

This can't be helped. It's just the way that we've evolved to experience the world.

However, us Homo sapiens are capable of minimizing the illusion of disembodiment. We don't have to add to this conceptualizing by imagining a supernatural realm that is separate and distinct from earthly existence.

Doing that further distances us from reality. Now we've come to not only view ourselves as somehow divorced from the physical world, we've also embraced a concept of an entirely other world to which we aspire.

Again: "God," "soul," "spirit," "heaven," "paradise," and so on are concepts.

More: insofar as these notions are viewed in a supernatural sense, they are conceptualizations which don't relate to anything real -- since every human experience is embodied.

Lakoff and Johnson do not dismiss spirituality entirely, though. It is possible to live in this world and be of it.

The environment is not an "other" to us. It is not a collection of things that we encounter. Rather, it is part of our being. It is the locus of our existence and identity. We cannot and do not exist apart from it.

...An embodied spirituality requires an aesthetic attitude toward the world that is central to self-nurturance, to the nurturance of others, and to the nurturance of the world itself.

Embodied spirituality requires an understanding that nature is not inanimate and less than human, but animated and more than human.

It requires pleasure, joy in the bodily connection with earth and air, sea and sky, plants and animals -- and the recognition that they are all more than human, more than any human beings could ever achieve.

Embodied spirituality is more than spiritual experience. It is an ethical relationship to the physical world.

Comments

[Dungeness]

Consider: every holy book, every holy person, every holy vision -- these all are part of someone's bodily awareness. This isn't a conjecture. It's a neurological fact. Show me one human being who has ever had an experience without a physical body.

You can't. Because it has never happened. Being human means being embodied.

But, that's a rigid and tunnel-visioned assertion too - the flip side of religious fundamentalism. Because there's a neurological marker for every thought doesn't cinch it that the brain was causative. Or that nothing experiential could happen without a body. If our essence and thoughts are grounded in a supra-physical realm, the brain may be a secondary actor, not the director.

The endurance of a mystical tradition, the uncanny evidence of ESP, even a deep, intuitive sense that our essence isn't just physical, that thoughts aren't just artifacts of a brain... all argue against rigidity.

[jgrow2]

The endurance of a mystical tradition, the uncanny evidence of ESP, even a deep, intuitive sense that our essence isn't just physical, that thoughts aren't just artifacts of a brain... all argue against rigidity.

Everything Dungeness described here sounds like the result of an active imagination playing with concepts gathered by the brain during life like so many lego blocks. Except the part about "uncanny evidence of ESP." I don't know of any credible evidence let alone any uncanny evidence. Plus, just because we don't yet have an answer doesn't make every hypothesis equally plausible. A materialist, naturalist stance where mind arises from complexity is more likely, and would be more in line with neuroscience.

As neuroscience matures we will understand better how and why the brain does what it does. But it is interesting how people want a dualistic explanation in the absence of any evidence of dualism.

[Dungeness]

Except the part about "uncanny evidence of ESP." I don't know of any credible evidence let alone any uncanny evidence.

I don't think the large body of ESP research and the evidence uncovered can be so easily marginalized... The pioneering studies never repudiated cases of unexplained ESP. And some have been extremely compelling. They can't all be ascribed to statistical anomaly.

On the other hand, generations of mystical writing and description can certainly be dismissed out of hand since there's no "plausible scientific proof". Ditto for mankind's enduring sense of something beyond the physical. But, only the most supercilious and rigid will deny the possibility of a non-phenomenological explanation.

This is the point I hoped to make.

Plus, just because we don't yet have an answer doesn't make every hypothesis equally plausible.

Who determines plausibility? Particularly,
for the enduring existential questions: who are we? what did we come from? what happens after death? You can't assert that science, however promising, outweighs all other theories. I can't imagine anyone but a rabid materialist doing so. I have no doubt most scientists wouldn't either.

A materialist, naturalist stance where mind arises from complexity is more likely, and would be more in line with neuroscience.

But, that "likelihood" of a more plausible materialist explanation could certainly be due to individual bias too. The charge of "an active imagination" playing with concepts...like so many lego blocks" works both ways.

As neuroscience matures we will understand better how and why the brain does what it does.

Absolutely. I agree.

But it is interesting how people want a dualistic explanation in the absence of any evidence of dualism.

What "people" and what's meant by "dualism" here? Some mystical theories postulate that transcendent reality encapsulates both physical and non-physical. Are you suggesting that any hint of religion or a transcendent realm is dualistic while the scientific model isn't...?
If so, that seems like a twisty re-definition of dualism.

[jgrow2]

If there is compelling evidence of ESP, then James Randi owes someone a million bucks. Last I heard, no one's claimed it. That is the level of skeptical filtering that is missing in the belief system Dungeness espouses, though it makes for interesting reading over breakfast.

I don't dismiss the "generations of mystical writing and description" out there. Well, actually, I do dismiss a lot of it because it is ultimately repetitive and useless. Some however do contain bits of wisdom. Not a lot of it though.

If you find chakras and ESP and Jesus and the like useful for getting you through your day, then that's awesome. Shout it out loud so we know where you are and can keep an eye on you.

[Dungeness]

If there is compelling evidence of ESP, then James Randi owes someone a million bucks. Last I heard, no one's claimed it. That is the level of skeptical filtering that is missing in the belief system Dungeness espouses, though it makes for interesting reading over breakfast.

I may be wrong but my impression is Randi's really targetting chicanery and uncritical acceptance rather than making a blanket dismissal. And, the pioneering studies of Rhine and others certainly didn't repudiate ESP nor was there a hidden agenda to do so. To dismiss ESP as "just interesting reading over breakfast" for the skeptically impaired is an overreach in my opinion. They may be unrepeatable and anecdotal but there're still far too many compelling cases to characterize them all as fraud.

If you find chakras and ESP and Jesus and the like useful for getting you through your day, then that's awesome. Shout it out loud so we know where you are and can keep an eye on you.

But that's missing the point again... I don't think ridicule resonates with many either no matter how fundamentalist or delusional some views seem. This shouldn't be about lumping "chakras and ESP and Jesus" as transparently kooky bedfellows. Nor attacking charlatans professing to hold seances with the departed or other obvious frauds.

It's about an openness to possibilities, to remaining at least agnostic about that which unproven. Otherwise, your concepts may run away with you, like so many "lego blocks".

[Blogger Brian]

Dungeness, in a comment above you spoke of science being dualistic. Huh? Science posits that physical matter/energy is all there is. Or at least, all that we can know about. This is a monistic or unitary way of looking at reality.

Religion, spirituality, and mysticism, on the other hand, almost always assume that spirit/soul is separate and distinct from matter/mind -- and that consciousness can exist apart from the brain. This is dualism.

So if you're looking for oneness, science is the way to go. If you want twoness, embrace religion.

[Robert Searle]

Complex visionary imagery along with other supersonsory phenomena are not the same as the neuron nerve networks firing in the brain. It is essentially a mystery which cannot be explained away scientifically, or by "clever" semantics by "experts."

[Dungeness]

Dungeness, in a comment above you spoke of science being dualistic. Huh? Science posits that physical matter/energy is all there is. Or at least, all that we can know about. This is a monistic or unitary way of looking at reality.

Religion, spirituality, and mysticism, on the other hand, almost always assume that spirit/soul is separate and distinct from matter/mind -- and that consciousness can exist apart from the brain. This is dualism.

So if you're looking for oneness, science is the way to go. If you want twoness, embrace religion.

But that's one slant among many since dualism can be seen from various knotholes. I would agree that most religious frameworks posit a soul-vs-matter dichotomy; but some mystical paths don't. That's why I suggested in my comment there were various flavors of the witches brew:

what's meant by "dualism" here? Some mystical theories postulate that transcendent reality encapsulates both physical and non-physical...

And, looking down mystical branch of the twisty little tree of dualism, here's Wikipedia on "In Eastern Mysticism":

Alternatively, dualism can mean the tendency of humans to perceive and understand the world as being divided into two overarching categories. In this sense, it is dualistic when one perceives a tree as a thing separate from everything surrounding it, or when one perceives a "self" that is distinct from the rest of the world. In traditions such as classical Hinduism, Zen Buddhism or Islamic Sufism, a key to enlightenment is "transcending" this sort of dualistic thinking, without merely substituting dualism with monism or pluralism.

[Blogger Brian]

Dungeness, good points. There is indeed another way of looking at dualism -- not in terms of the basic "stuff" of the cosmos, but who is doing the looking (or how the looking occurs). Thanks for pointing that out.

In this regard, I agree that science is inherently dualistic, since it studies an external reality that differs from the subjectivity doing the studying. Maybe there is another way of perceiving, not totally unified, but more so than our usual state of consciousness.