Science touches reality. Religion only touches the human mind.

"We've got to get out of our own heads." I really liked this observation by Michael Shermer near the beginning of a podcast interview featuring him and Philip Goff.

Shermer was speaking about how Eben Alexander claimed he went to heaven while in a coma, but actually there's solid evidence that he didn't. Heaven was just a place he made up in his head.

Also, Shermer notes that Sam Harris, the noted atheist neuroscientist, writes in one of his books about taking MDMA (ecstasy) that led to a rather similar mystical experience. Except, Harris never claimed to have experienced a reality outside of his own head, which shows he's much more honest than Alexander.

What I love about science is that it is dedicated to understanding reality as it exists outside of our heads. Yes, science also studies what goes on inside the human brain, but almost always this occurs largely, or entirely, as an effort to comprehend reality as it is, not merely as the human mind considers it to be.

Religion and mysticism, on the other hand, are thoroughly mental pursuits.

Believers in religion or mysticism never get outside of their own heads. They live in a world of concepts, imagination, and other forms of subjective experience. They're never able to demonstrate that they've contacted a reality which isn't the world in which we all live, yet they claim that such exists.

Which gets me to a passage from my new favorite book (until Amazon delivers another book I like even better).

"The Order of Time" by theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli is both marvelously written and scientifically fascinating. I started reading it this morning and didn't want to put it down -- but had to so I could go to coffee with a friend, where, not surprisingly, I brought the book and talked about it with him.

Rovelli is an expert on time, which is one of the most mysterious subjects in science.

I'll write more blog posts about the book when I'm further into it. Rovelli does a better job of explaining relativity theory in a way that I can understand and remember than any other book I've read that addresses this subject. And I've read a lot of them.

Anyway, below is a passage from one of the first chapters that I liked a lot.

Rovelli speaks about how scientists often start by coming to an understanding of reality that can't yet be confirmed by observation. In other words -- Einstein is a great example of this -- an understanding begins within the scientist's own head, yet eventually is confirmed by objective reality.

He also observes how things that seem self-evident often are overturned by science. When was the last time, or heck, a first time, religion has done this? Answer: never.

Reading Rovelli's book this morning, I felt embraced by the warm glow of reality, a feeling that wasn't all due to the coffee I was drinking. I find it tough to read books about religion or mysticism these churchless days because they just seem so insubstantial. Like I said, they're all about ideas, concepts, fantasies, imagination. 

I love science because I love reality.

Science gets me out of my own head into the world that exists whether or not I do. Sure, I still meditate after I read for a while, and I enjoy the sense of exploring the nooks and crannies of my psyche. But science books like "The Order of Time" are where I find the most inspiration, mystery, and wonder -- not in so-called spiritual books.

Here's the Rovelli quotation: 

The ability to understand something before it's observed is at the heart of scientific thinking.

In antiquity, Anaximander understood that the sky continues beneath our feet long before ships had circumnavigated the Earth. At the beginning of the modern era, Copernicus understood that the Earth turns long before astronauts had seen it do so from the moon.

In a similar way, Einstein understood that time does not pass uniformly everywhere before the development of clocks accurate enough to measure the different speeds at which it passes.

In the course of making such strides, we learn that the things that seemed self-evident to us were really no more than prejudices.

It seemed obvious that the sky was above us and not below; otherwise, the Earth would fall down. It seemed self-evident that the Earth did not move; otherwise it would cause everything to crash. That time passed at the same speed everywhere seemed equally obvious to us... Children grow up and discover that the world is not as it seemed from within the four walls of their homes.

Humankind as a whole does the same.

Comments

[Spence Tepper]

Hi Brian

You wrote

"Religion and mysticism, on the other hand, are thoroughly mental pursuits."

Sadly this is a straw man. Religion and spirituality are lifestyles that involve reality testing all the time.

Meditation is actually a means of sharpening our ability to think clearly and has been shown to improve brain health and cognitive functioning; ie,
Understanding and dealing with this outer reality.

By over generalizing all religions and spirituality together in this way your argument is readily dismantled.

Further, after setting up an argument for observation and testing you then quote an author praising the opposite:

"The ability to understand something before it's observed is at the heart of scientific thinking.....

" In a similar way, Einstein understood that time does not pass uniformly everywhere before the development of clocks accurate enough to measure the different speeds at which it passes.

In the course of making such strides, we learn that the things that seemed self-evident to us were really no more than prejudices."

It is observation and testing in combination with solid theory that makes for good science. Einstein expanded upon hard scientific results in experiments with light. Those came first.

But there is, like religion and mysticism, good and bad thinking in the practice and interpretation of science.

[Appreciative Reader]

I've never really wrapped my head around the concept of relativity. Yes, apparently this paradigm is spectacularly successful in explaining past observations and making predictions, and therefore it is "true", nevertheless -- like quantum mechanics -- the actual ramifications of this theory, in terms of how one actually sees the world in light of these theroies, escape me.

I admit this frankly despite having put in my share of reading on this subject (from a layman's perspective, that is).

If this book can actually tell you how to think of relative, non-absolute time in an everyday sense, and if you can trannslate that insight for us, then I for one will be very grateful!

[Dungeness]

Believers in religion or mysticism never get outside of their own heads. They live in a world of concepts, imagination, and other forms of subjective experience. They're never able to demonstrate that they've contacted a reality which isn't the world in which we all live, yet they claim that such exists.

Brian, how do you know where they "get"? Why do you even
care?

By the way, I see there's been an "or" lumping of religion
and mysticism. They're not compatible. A shotgun wedding
in a blog church won't make it so either, Mysticism is
very much an experiential discipline; whereas religion
relies heavily on blind faith.

Mystics aren't demo'ing "moon rocks" from inner journeys
or touting scientific discoveries of the physical world.
There is no "holy dogma". No recruiting drives. No TV
evangelism.

They do describe the reality they've contacted. They do
assert their experiences are provable, repeatable, salutary.
Science has verified the benefits of a meditative practice
as well.

But announce a circus side show to perform tricks or write
scholarly articles for the curious? No. How would a reality
beyond time-space be explained. Mystics only tell stories,
spin yarns, metaphorize, offer appealing hints.

Mystics can and do report what they've experienced within
though. They do explain and instruct others in the mystic
discipline. But that's all. They never assert more than
that.

There's no conflict with science. The problems come from
conjectures without relevant experience. The psycho-babble
of zealotry. The fear and suspicion of what was never really
understood.

[Arjuna]

@ Brian - I have read that book and I’m afraid there is nothing reality about it. On time he fails.

Sorry you must snap out of this delusional belief that you will find solace in science. You won’t my friend - if you had a chance I would not be writing this.

All the best

[Brian Hines]

Arjuna, Rovelli is a theoretical physicist who specializes in understanding the nature of time. You've just an ordinary person with an ordinary sense of time. So who should we believe? I'm going with Rovelli, and so should you.

[Spence Tepper]

Several physics historians today simply ignore the influences on Einstein at the time, including the work with Crooke's Radiometer.

How can the interaction of light and matter cause the matter to move if the light has zero mass? This was a serious cause of concern at a time when physics thought they had established Huygen's theory of light as waves (and disproved Newton's theory of light as particles). But a wave with zero mass cannot cause friction or heat in matter, and from such heat differentials, push the Crooke's vane in circles, from nothing but exposure to light.

The invention and test results of Crooke's Radiometer were causing a stir all on their own. It was this existing environment of controversy which Einstein entered.

There was consideration that light might exist as particles that behave as waves, with the capacity to influence matter as though it had mass. But mathematically it made no sense.

Einstein connected the dots in his thought experiments brilliantly, but in truth simply provided the deciding theoretical evidence to a possibility hotly debated and in serious consideration at the time. His solution was the quanta, which had properties of both.

And of course he did this using his imagination as a guide, conducting "thought experiments" including imagining to precise accuracy the experience of riding along a beam of light.

His ability to have such internal experiences was crucial to understanding our world, and to bringing that Insight to the scientific world.

[Jen]

Hi guys, have you heard of Derren Brown, British mentalist and illusionist?

This short video shows how easily our subconscious mind can be manipulated...

Derren Brown Tricks Advertisers With Subliminal Messaging (7:02)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43Mw-f6vIbo

[Arjuna]

@ Brian - yes I agree I’m an ordinary person and that is all I will ever be - however an ordinary person with an open mind.

But you appear now more ordinary than most - the scientist you quote writes eloquently but they are concepts of his mind based on the foundations laid laid by other great minds who studied the inside of the container but yet knew nothing of what was outside the container.

I wish you all the best in following the dictates of the mind - I hope it helps you when you need rescue from the mind - one day. But not yet.

All the best