Mystical experiences need testing if they become a worldview

As I've noted before, and surely will do so again, one of the pleasures I get from this blog is reading intelligent comment conversations on posts that I've written. Or in this case, on an Open Thread where the comments are the substance of the post. 

Below is a comment that Appreciative Reader left on an Open Thread in response to a comment by manjit. If you want to read manjit's comment, click on that link and scroll up to the preceding comment.

Appreciative Reader has a knack for saying things in a way that I've never come across before. I'm not saying that his ideas are totally unique, just that how he expresses those ideas often is wonderfully clear and creative.

He's correct in noting that every personal experience is subjective, so not rational, logical, or scientific. The world's greatest physicist, along with everybody else, is engaged in a totally ineffable experience when eating a strawberry. 

So mystical experiences are simply a subset of all experiences.

They can't be put into words, or pictures, or numbers, or anything else, just as any other experience can't. I make this point frequently on this blog: nobody can question someone else's personal experience, because they aren't the person having the subjective experience.

However, once someone claims that their mystical experience has a meaning beyond the personal, that's when I tend to agree with Appreciative Reader that reason, logic, and science come into play. He just has a fresh way of saying this, as you can read below.

That said, I'm not totally convinced that his thesis is correct about a worldview needing confirmation by reason, rationality, logic, or science. I put raspberries on my cereal every morning. The taste of those berries is "mystical," in the sense that no one but me knows how they taste to me.

But it seems a stretch to say that the fact that I buy raspberries whenever I do our weekly grocery shopping makes raspberries part of my worldview, and so requires confirmation by reason, rationality, logic, or science. 

Anyway, Appreciative Reader and manjit have made me ponder things that I usually take for granted. So their comment conversation has benefitted me in that regard. I guess I tend to see a dividing line between symbolic and non-symbolic sorts of experiences, which is a bit different from how Appreciative Reader sees things.

Yet maybe we're seeing similarly. So long as I simply enjoy the taste of raspberries in a subjective, non-symbolic fashion, I'm in the realm of unquestionable personal experience. However, as soon as I try to describe their taste in some way, now I'm in the realm of questionable interpersonal experience.

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Dear manjit,

As ever, pleasure to read your thought-provoking comment.

You think Brian’s approach pseudo-scientific. I’m afraid I don’t agree, at all. I’m kind of curious why you think *that*, but I’ll let it pass, because there’s way more meat in your comment, that I’d like to address, and that I’ll be glad if you’re able to answer, whenever you are able. (I’ll bookmark this thread, so that I don’t miss it, should you end up responding after awhile.)

I’ll resist the temptation of addressing much of your comment, in the interests of (relative!) brevity, and instead focus on just two things, on which your thoughts will be of great interest to me.

The first, and most important, of where we disagree is where you say this: “I think one of your incorrect understandings of mysticism is that there is anything rational, logical or scientific about it.” I’m very interested in how you can possibly have arrived at that conclusion, especially in context of how I see this, which is as follows:

I agree, the mystical experience itself is not rational or logical, in and of itself. Nothing subjective ever is. If we’re content to experience whatever mystical experience we have, and simply stop at that, then, agreed, there’s no reason for reason, rationality, logic, or science to intrude in there. But the moment we incorporate that experience into our worldview, immediately it is subject to all of these things.

And nor is this peculiar to mystical experience, I’d say this applies to any and every subjective experience. You see the sun rise in the morning. Or, say, you feel that kind-of-painful-yet-pleasant pump in your bicep after working out.

Both of those mundane, non-mystical experiences, if you’re content to register them, and simply let them be, then that’s the end of it; and there’s no call to bring in logic, reason, rationality, or science into it. However, the moment you incorporate these experiences into your worldview, even in the slightest bit, then your surest way to arriving at a worldview, a model, that comports best with reality, is by following logic, and reason, and science.

Likewise with mystical experiences, surely? If you’re content to simply have those experiences, and then leave them be, well then, sure, that’s the end to it.

But if you go worldviewing your way with those experiences, no matter how much or how little, no matter how concretely or how vaguely --- even if only negatively, in questioning the veracity or the completeness of what we know about the world --- well then, right then, right there, is when it becomes subject to rationality and to science.

(To be clear, I’m not saying mystical experiences might not occasion reason to question, maybe even revise, our worldview. They well may. My point is, the moment you do even that much, the moment you do anything other than simply register that experience, completely passively and completely without any thoughts about it at all; the moment you incorporate that experience into your worldview [no matter how much or how little, no matter how concretely or how vaguely], right then, right there, is where science becomes the surest way of ensuring that that worldview, that model, those thoughts, comport best with the actual reality.)

Which is why I cannot see how you can possibly state, as you did, that there’s nothing rational, logical or scientific about mysticism.

My other point of disagreement is where you say this (and I’ll quote that paragraph of yours in full here):

“One man's "loose-jawed goggle-eyed imbecelic dogma" is another's belief that the universe was created ex-nihilo, like a rabbit out of a hat, or that life & consciousness are the product of the random, purposeless, accidental bumping together of inert matter, as if putting some oil and pigment in a bag, giving it a good shake for 10 seconds, then throwing it at a canvas could create a perfect replica of the Mona Lisa, and assorted other credulous and magical beliefs. Humanity has a long history of conflating the cultural status quo with reality itself, and implying anyone who challenges it is a "loose-jawed goggle-eyed imbecelic" dogmatist. Very often they're more right than wrong. However, very often they're more wrong than right.”

Well said, that. I agree with much of what you’ve said there. But the essence of it, the actual point of it, that is what I disagree with completely; and, again, wonder whether you might not end up changing your mind about this on thinking a bit more about it.

Haha, agreed, things popping into existence out of nowhere does sound crazy. That goes for lots of things, and indeed most things QM [quantum mechanics], agreed, absolutely. But why do we imagine that reality must necessarily comport with our native intuition about what makes sense?

After all, our intuition itself is shaped by our evolution, and is no more than what we needed to deal to best survive while running around naked in the wilds of Africa. Whether something *sounds* reasonable to our intuition, can hardly be the touchstone for evaluating whether something is *real*.

So then, if not intuition, then how *do* we make sense of the world around us, and within us? By following the evidence. By using reason and logic. In short, science. Even if that, for the present, leads us to such apparently goggle-eyed and imbecilic --- read “counter-intutive” --- explanations, as well as non-explanations, like things popping in out of nowhere, and quantum superposition, and the rest of it.

That is, there is a huge huge huge difference between the “goggle-eyed imbecilities” that science reveals to us, and the other extravagant explanations we think up about the world by means other than scientific. And what's more, basis what I’ve said just now, perhaps you’ll agree that if there’s apparently a double standard at play here, then it’s entirely warranted, in fact it is the only thing that *is* warranted, in this context.

   -- Appreciative Reader

Comments

[um]

Strawberries ARE part of a worldview and are being "tested" etc ... because ... because there are farmers that grow them and markets that make them available ..not only to you but to all.

If eating strawberries would not have that same effect upon ALL, they simply would not be THERE for all to consume.

Unique experiences are just an "unique variation" of the same.

Growing strowberiies is an industry, with many branches, literature, test facilities etc to grow the "best tasting" etc strawberry ...it is a mysrical path or religion ... hahaha

[Jim Sutherland]

I recently encountered an interesting Gentleman on a group I have been a member of for years now. They are people interested in the late Robert Monroe’s writings. Every Group has only a few articulate contributors who post often, such as those here. But I had never followed up on a y of this poster’s links he shared, or books he authored, or Youtube interviews, until a few days ago. He is about 70, lives in Toronto, immigrated from Scotland. His writings really get a hook in me, and I have just read most of his past articles he shares on his blog. I listened to only one of his interviews so far on YT, and am impressed by his genuine sharing of his memories of having lived past lives, but what interests me the most, is his sharing how he leaves his body , and retrieves souls stuck in low earth, Astral Realms, who recently died, but still think they are alive, and in human bodies, such as those killed in the Turkey earth quake.
Here is the Link to his blog, if any one might be interested in taking a look. His Name is Gordon Phinn.
https://anotherwordofgord.wordpress.com/

Jim Sutherland

[Ron E.]

Worldview; such an interesting subject. A worldview being a view of the world, used for living in the world. A world view is a mental model of reality. I wonder if there could ever be a universal worldview? It would mean every person on Earth (I was about to use the term believing but I’ll choose seeing) seeing the world ‘as it is’, that is, devoid of the particular influences projected onto the world through the individual’s acquired conditioning.

Even if the individual keeps his/her view private, does not reveal or discuss it, that is still a world view and likely influences their behaviour and therefore, in some ways, affects the world. And, does the enlightened, the realised man or woman embody the one and only reality? It is doubtful that such an all-knowing state exists.

Science may well eventually provide a universal perspective but it would undoubtedly still be open to corruption – perhaps by itself and by humanity in general. I would say that at best, science can only continue to give us insights into ourselves, along with some of the compatible insights of Buddhism where the emphasis is on freeing ourselves from the restricted views imposed on us by the mentally conditioned structures of mind and self.

[Appreciative Reader]

Why, thank you, Brian, for your kind words! :--)

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You agree with my larger points, both of them, and in fact endorse them fully here. As for that small disagreement about that small detail, well, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t differ in some respects in how we look at things, is one way to go about it, sure. On the other hand, there’s this:

My views on this, as on everything else, are essentially a work in progress. And that “progress”, in this particular instance, draws significantly from what you’ve yourself said in the past about subjectivity, as well as comment discussions on here around that subject. Basis my understanding of how you look at things, I would imagine that on this, this incidental detail I mean to say, our views would be fully congruent. And what’s more, the overall thesis, if I may call it that, the overall scientific worldview as I see it, it does not stay fully consistent, it does not stay fully coherent, if we leave out that small detail, small and incidental though it is.

So that, Brian, I’d like to address that specific detail, a bit, if I may. I’m hoping that it will indeed turn out, even as far as that detail, that, and as you say, “Yet maybe we're seeing similarly.”

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Let me start by saying two things, two generalizations. (And bear with me, I’m only thinking my way through here. Work in process, like I said --- and fully amenable to correction!)

First: That a view admits of a scientific explanation does not mean that one must necessarily inform oneself of and follow the science on it. That isn’t how real life works! However, even when, for incidental everyday things, we don’t actually take the trouble to follow the science, it is still important to realize which things do admit of a (more precise, more accurate) understanding that is informed by science, even if we do not choose to avail of that understanding in that instance.

And secondly: To do science is to essentially follow the evidence in a consistent manner. That’s what science is after all, following the evidence in a consistent manner. Even when one does do (or refer to) science for some issue, it does not always have to take the form of full-on formal science. And even when it comes to full-on formal science, one does not really have to go nuclear every time: there’s gradations to how far one might want to go, depending on how important the issue is.

For instance, this question: How cold of a day will it be today? Will it rain, will it snow? What kind of clothing should I wear when I go out today, considering the weather? Now in considering this question, most times we won’t actually do science on this question. But we probably would, even if implicitly, follow the evidence. And, if the question becomes somewhat important --- for instance, if it’s winter time and we live in very cold climes where the temperatures dip well below zero --- then we might want to look, if only casually, at the weather forecast. And if the weather question becomes very important, like if we’re the captain of a ship at sea, well then we’d probably need to go fully nuclear on this, and get as much of the scientific information on this as is available. The point is, the question itself is a matter for science --- regardless of how much science we personally choose to avail of on it, and regardless of whether we’re at all availing of any science on it at all.

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So here then is the bit from your post, about the raspberries: “I'm not totally convinced that his thesis is correct about a worldview needing confirmation by reason, rationality, logic, or science. I put raspberries on my cereal every morning. The taste of those berries is "mystical," in the sense that no one but me knows how they taste to me. (…) But it seems a stretch to say that the fact that I buy raspberries whenever I do our weekly grocery shopping makes raspberries part of my worldview, and so requires confirmation by reason, rationality, logic, or science.”

So raspberries-on-cereal tastes a certain way to you. So far so good. Like you say in your post, that’s a subjective experience, and needs nothing beyond your having registered that experience.

But when you extrapolate from that into making that item a regular part of your grocery shopping, and of your diet, then you’re making some implicit assumptions here, even if you’re not actually thinking about it. For instance, you’re assuming that raspberries are, on the whole, good for you. Had they been carcinogenic, then you wouldn’t dream of eating them I’m sure. Even if not actually carcinogenic, but if they were found to contribute significantly to diabetes or high cholesterol or some such, in that case you would probably either eliminate or at least significantly limit your consumption of the fruit. On the flip side, if it turns out that raspberries increase telomere length in direct proportion to how many of them you eat, then you might buy, and eat, far more of the fruit than you now do.

Forget its effect on health, even when it comes to the simply appreciating the taste of it: Your views might change if you found out that your liking is predicated not simply on your taste buds but to what the thing does to your brain chemicals, like dopamine. You know, like heroin, and alcohol, and even something as innocuous as coffee. Knowing that your liking for it is partly the result of addiction --- should it turn out that raspberries are addictive --- may affect how you view your predilection for that fruit. (Not necessarily negatively. Like I keep consuming substantial quantities of coffee despite knowing it is addictive, because I believe the positives far outweigh the negatives in the case of coffee. But regardless of whether in sum negative or positive, definitely it is a thing to keep in mind, whether or not what you’re consuming is addictive.)

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Sorry, that’s lots and lots of words! To sum up, where I was going with this is, whether you should be indulging your liking for raspberries, and whether or not you should be eating it regularly, that is definitely, and without a shadow of a doubt, a scientific question. You may not yourself choose to delve into the scientific aspect of it all, sure. Or maybe you choose to go science-lite on it, and generally check out newspaper reports and magazine articles and internet articles about its health aspects (and again, not necessarily seek out those articles, but maybe you’ve happened to read them, and use the information you’ve happened to glean to inform your choice). Or maybe you’re a fitness fanatic and you go full nuclear and read up every research report you can lay hands on and talk to nutritionists and closely examine the evidence and then arrive at your conclusion that raspberries are good for you as well as taste good, and so should be a regular part of your diet.

My point is, regardless of how much science you personally avail of as far as raspberries, and regardless of whether you personally avail of any science on it at all, the fact is that the question, “Should I be incorporating raspberries into my regular diet?”, is definitely a scientific question.

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And, to tie this back to my original discussion with manjit: Our mystical experiences are, in and of themselves, subjective, and so outside the purview of science. The same as every other experience. But the moment we interpret that experience, immediately it becomes a scientific question. Should we build up a worldview around our interpretation of our mystical experiences, then that is very much a question for science.

We may ourselves choose to follow the science or not, that’s up to us. Obviously. No one’s going to put a gun on our head and demand that because the question is one for science, therefore we must necessarily abide by the science on it. That is entirely up to us. But, regardless of whether we do the science or not, regardless of whether we avail of what science has to say on the question, the question itself is one of and for science. It is a scientific question.

And, for every scientific question, when we choose to not avail of the science, then we necessarily run the risk of taking less than optimum decisions. Whether we want to take that risk is for us to decide, implicitly or otherwise. But the question itself is scientific.

Which is why it makes no sense to me when manjit claims that there is nothing rational, logical or scientific about mysticism.

[um]

>> It is doubtful that such an all-knowing state exists.<<

As all that exist is just an "unique variation" of the SAME scientists are curious about what was BEFORE the big bang and mystics want to know what is BEYOND body and mind.

Again:
Whatever exists, is an unique variation of the SAME

[Ron E.]

@Whatever exists is a unique variation of the same.

Well put Um - nice and concise.