Letters to the Editor
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The invisible hand of Science makes God possible
Science has made it possible for us to believe anything, even the literal interpretation of Genesis. The invisibile hand of science supports us, nurtures us, protects us. We no longer hold the tools in our own hands which are needed to extract a living from the soil, it is all done for us. This is the first benefit of the age of luxury, meaning relief from the everyday struggle for existence.
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@aveutter
But most of the people in the world are struggling.
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smallpkgs: here's your answer
"What is it about systematic, patient exploration and testing that brings out such passive-aggressive vitriol?"
Another poster said it : exploration and testing is WORK. It takes training to do it well. So much easier to invent phrases and use big words for which you can make up your own context and dazzle the uninitiated! But you have to also discredit the explorers and testers, or someone might notice that your have no clothes.
Exploration and testing (or the scientific method) also requires a large dose of humility -- we have to admit that we don't know and want to find out, no matter how much work and patience is involved. Religionists and New Agers may efface themselves before their God/ mystic reality/whatever, but as part of the human race, they aren't noted for their humility.
Carl Sagan said that the will to believe is fundamentally different from the wish to understand. I would add that belief is easy, understanding is hard.
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trite
"Blank might be the most important living blank you've never heard of."
Steve Paulson,
That one's been done to death. It even smells a bit. Like a mummy.
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science is mysticism
i'm an uberscientific type; i also believe that what we perceive as reality is only a distant shadow of what reality actually is. (study quantum physics and tell me differently). as such, i don't see that religion and science are obviously not intrinsically going to converge towards the same "ultimate truth". that question of 'how many angels can fit on the head of a pin' we laugh at now was the string theory of its day.
the problem is we teach dumb religion now like we teach dumb science. not that the masses haven't always enjoyed both, but nowadays we think everybody's getting a "good education". in fact, great religious thinkers of the past weren't any more believers in the old man with a beard peevishly jotting down demerits in a big book than chris hitchens is. just because folks lived a long time ago doesn't make them stupid.
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zzz05 - who are these "great religious thinkers" of whom you speak?
I believe the phrase is a nice example of an oxymoron. I'm not saying that the thinkers of the old days were "stupid." Many of them were simply wrong.
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Two kinds of people in the world
The basic dichotomy I find in the Letters about the Ken Wilber interview is between people who seek to know the nature of reality and people who seek to experience reality.
There are a lot of really bright people in the world, but they'll never understand the essence of life, or the nature of God. But as Ken Wilber says, you can eventually experience God, if you're willing to put in a lot of dedicated effort for the greater part of your life.
And if you're not willing to put in all that effort......
There's always gin. Or television.
Or science.
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@bonerici - salon's interviewing him 'cuz Eckhart Tolle's getting all the play these days
Ken needs to sell some books.
and I agree, I read one of his books... it's all big words explaining obvious minutia.
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GW in Ohio
Interesting dichotomy described in your post. I have to take issue with these lines, though -
"There are a lot of really bright people in the world, but they'll never understand the essence of life, or the nature of God. But as Ken Wilber says, you can eventually experience God,..."
You seem to be say that the essence of life or the nature of god is an altered mental state attainable through meditation. Is a feeling of "oneness" or "big-self" really what most people are looking for in religion? Why assume that such an altered mental state tells a person anything about anything? Why posit the existence of god based on such an altered mental state?
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THANKS KEN! THE SYNTHESIS OF ABSOLUTE REASON
Thanks Ken! Great thoughts you've shared! As an environmental soul-based psychology practitioner (L.P.C.), I would to applaud your continual work in establishing a union of science and with spirit. You have done alot in verifying the Natural Laws of Intelligent Universe.( ex. The Universal Laws of Correspondences, Cause and Effect, Economy, Laws of Magnetism and Repulsion,Law of Active-Intelligence, Laws of Harmony and even Beauty and Be-ness.
Absolute Reason is the higher-absract mind transcending, yet working in cooperation with the lower-concrete rational mind, throat, and the heart center of pure love...and direct straight-knowledge.
The Higher Abstract Mind is the evidence of integral interiority and the registering of the Higher-Rational Mind of THe Absolute Reason..
The Higher Intelligent Laws of the Universe seem to currently synthesizing spirit and mattter: Thus,
creating an enlightened epoch of the manifestation of love and wisdom, the marriage of the union of spirit with science.
In Will-to-good, kunndunn@Yahoo.com
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Everything you need to know...
...about this guy can be summed up in two of his answers. First he says:
An integral approach maintains that an increase in the complexity of matter is accompanied by an increase in the degree of consciousness. The greater the one, the greater the other. So if we look at complexity in evolution, it goes from atoms to molecules to cells to early organisms to organisms with a reptilian brain stem to organisms with a mammalian limbic system to organisms with a triune brain. We find major leaps in consciousness with each of those levels of complexity.
OK. He just made a testable, scientific hypothesis regarding the correlation between complexity of matter and complexity of consciousness. This is countered by the interviewer noting that plants and bacteria don't have consciousness. How does Ken respond? Does he back up his claim with evidence? Does he defend his hypothesis at all?
I don't talk about consciousness. I talk about interiority.
No! He denies having ever even talked about consciousness, despite having done so in the immediately preceding sentence, and changes the subject to some other ill-defined science-y word. He will then continue to talk about interiority until he gets cornered, at which point he will deny ever talking about interiority. Wash, rinse, repeat. Nice job if you can get it.