“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.” – Albert Einstein
“But in the end, science does not provide the answers most of us require. Its story of our origins and of our end is, to say the least, unsatisfactory. To the question, “How did it all begin?”, science answers, “Probably by an accident.” To the question, “How will it all end?”, science answers, “Probably by an accident.” And to many people, the accidental life is not worth living. Moreover, the science-god has no answer to the question, “Why are we here?” and, to the question, “What moral instructions do you give us?”, the science-god maintains silence.” – Neil Postman
Recently I had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine. He is a devout atheist, to the point of sometimes being militant. This is in contrast with my own beliefs: I consider myself spiritual without wishing at the moment to identify with an organized affiliation.
The subject of our discussion was purpose; specifically whether or not humanity as a whole, or individual people, had a purpose to their lives. His argument rejected any higher purpose other than survival and pleasure. I took the stance that people are able to perceive higher orders of thinking and those abstractions are a form of spirituality, even if not traditionally identified as such. Our purposes on earth – to seek out what we think is good and correct what we think is bad – is a form of spirituality that is crafted from our experiences and put into practice in our actions. Faith in that spirituality can be considered to be the belief that your knowledge of “what is good” is correct, despite a lack of concrete proof of the correctness of your perspective. Indeed, how can we have concrete proof? We are bound by our perceptions and can never know the absolutes. We can only act as best we can and do what we feel is right.
Some believe that purpose may be defined by individual perspective – we define our own purpose and act on that purpose, or fail to act and suffer regret. Others believe that our purpose comes from a higher power. While I do not practice an “official” religion, I nonetheless have a great deal of respect for people that have a faith and are aware of what that means: because their religion represents principles they value and I recognize their religion as a means for them to maintain those principles on a personal level. To use the stereotypical example: not all Christians are God fearing lambs, and not all atheists are rational and intelligent people that have outgrown “superstitions.” Clearly there are stereotypes being made here, and much misunderstanding about what spirituality and religion are and do. Spirituality is something that is intensely personal and it is very violating to have that experience casually dismissed as a silly delusion.
When my friend and I debated whether or not people had a purpose. Something suddenly disturbed me as he argued vehemently that we had no true purpose and that our lives were without consequence or meaning.
It was spiritual nihilism: any purpose we can create for ourselves is a delusion. To the spiritual nihilist, nothing has a purpose, we are just bags of meat careening randomly in a sea of nonsense, and nothing can convince him otherwise, because if we think differently, we are deluded.
However, my friend champions the glories of science, without question. But science and spirituality are not forces in opposition. On the contrary, science can be considered an organized religion in a sense. It is a belief system that rests on the principle that truth can be found in repetitious observation. For a long time, science and spirituality coexisted because they explained different things. However when the gospel of science is taken to the extreme: anything that cannot be observed ceases to exist. Anything that cannot be quantified becomes a trivial superstition or quaint notion that has no place in the worldview of the scientist. But this is ignorant and foolish. Truth does not come out of a test tube; no matter how many times the experiment is repeated. Love isn’t a collection of chemicals. Life isn’t a series of reactions. A person isn’t an organization of atoms.
We can hold principles, we have ideas, we can love, we can value, and most importantly, we can build a world around our values and beliefs and act on them to make the world a better place in our image of a brighter future. As the world does not disappear when we close our eyes, the faith that others have does not become a delusion simply because you do not agree with it. Regardless of where belief comes from, the understanding that the world and the people that wander on it have meaning brings us together. Faith in a God or Gods or Spirits or The Self or Goodness or Justice is something that lifts us out of the sea of meaningless and places our feet on something constant. We are anchored and from that point can act with purpose, because we have a purpose.
Spiritual nihilism contradicts the existence of a good or evil, even if the definitions of those terms are subjective. When the universe is devoid of meaning, and we are devoid of purpose, then there is no escape from delusion or distraction. It seems to me a bitter perspective to view the wonderful things that our consciousness allows us to perceive as mere fantasy.
Spirituality is a self expression of self-awareness and purpose. Even if some do not believe in a higher power or belong to an organized religion, we all can hold the belief or faith or understanding that there truly is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the light is there to guide us. We do the best we can with what we have.
Thank you for writing this. I’m not religious. I don’t worship any gods or go to church, but I AM spiritual. I don’t know if humans are anymore important than any other animals on earth, but every time I see something that lives–a dog, a cat, a bird, a bug, a CHILD- I see a miracle. Its a miracle that happens so often that we often take it for granted and brush it off as important, but there’s something beautiful about the fact that we could be made out of the same substance as a rock, yet we live. I know that scientifically, human beings are a collection of DNA, matter, and chemicals. But so are inanimate objects.
“Life”, the series of accidental coincidences and mishaps that allow us all to live here, is still very precious. We all have many different ways of thinking, many different ways of living. Despite human beings being genetically wired for polygamy, there are couples who choose to stay monogamous-to live with only one another for the rest of their lives- because for them there is NO other. It has nothing to do with religious influence or social stigma or genetics. People are genetically wired to do nothing but breed, but there are plenty of people that don’t want to be bothered with sex or see things that fulfill them infinitely more than physical contact ever could. If we were nothing but what our genes wanted us to be, we wouldn’t have any free will or variety. We’d all be mindless puppets.
This isn’t at all scientific, but there are times when I retreat so far into my mind, I feel like I’m seeing past all the brainwaves and chemicals and into something so beautiful and personal and wonderful that I almost KNOW that I won’t disappear after I die. Maybe the “me” who was created with all of my physical experiences and memories may cease to exist, but the me that allows the physical and chemical and matter me to exist will continue on. Oblivion hardly seems that terrifying when you think of it that way. I don’t know what to call it: a soul a consciousness, or a spark. You can’t create something out of nothing. There’s something that lets this random sequence of coincidences actually create life. Its the secret ingredient science hasn’t cracked yet and that reason being that it might lean more in favor of the metaphysical instead of the physical. Its dismissed as illogical because of it, but for some reason…something inside of me (and its not denial. I KNOW what denial feels like) knows that it exists. Believing in science and nothing but science is a cop-out , just like believing in spirituality and nothing BUT spirituality is a cop-out. The beauty of life is that there’s mystery and imagination involved. Its pretty dumb to believe that one day, science can explain every single thing in existence or that spirituality is all one needs to get through the day. There are inventions from just a few thousand years ago that modern day scientists can’t even crack. I’m supposed to believe that in just a few years you can unlock all the secrets of the universe? :P
…And if they ever do discover everything, I’m just glad it won’t be in my lifetime. Excuse my french, but life would just be fucking BORING if we knew everything. Life is about learning. What’s the point of living if you know everything?
I side with your friend, there is no inherent meaning in/to anything. That doesn’t mean you can’t create one and it doesn’t mean that the patterns we live within (society, family, business, school, whatever) don’t create them, it just means that they aren’t absolute values with intrinsic meaning.
For example: Do your parents matter?
Answer: not intrinsically, no. They’re just a smudge of dust on a vast canvass of geological history in a near infinite (to us anyway) universe, like everyone else that ever was or will be.
Do your parents matter to you?
Hell, ya! Or at least they should since you wouldn’t be here without them (weather they are a negative or positive influence depends on your familial relationship, or lack thereof).
The question is, where/how/why/when/who with is meaning created? And what are it’s limits?
There is a definite benefit to meaning, even generalized meaning like the spirituality you ascribe to. With meaning comes importance, passion, focus, connection. In some sense even though you disagree you obviously hold meaning with your friend (and he with you) to have developed a connection in the first place. But is it an absolute? No. Meaning, like Truth can differ with the perspective. Does Jesus mean anything to Muslims? Is Roman history important to the Chinese?
Is there an overarching Meaning (is there an overarching Truth)? I’m coming down on the side of no. I think they’re both cultural/personal constructs that allow us perceive Pattern in a certain way, which is chaotic construct. I offer the example of fractals, very structured and beautiful within their own bounds, but what happens when fractals intersect fractals to the power of a few quintillion or more? My conception of the universe. A Chaos with Pattern galore, and meaning and Truth within each pattern but still chaos, ultimately sturm and drang signifying nothing.
Does this make life worthless? Not to me. My life is worth something to me. Does life possess inherent worth. Not to me, but then many other lives enrich my own too so those lives may be considered to have meaning to me (my friends, parents, co-workers, etc.) and I cannot by definition eliminate others from their connection to me due to the chaotic nature of the construct we live in (for instance I don’t know when some random stranger might have a profound impact on me – like the butterfly effect) Where does it end though? Are all people on the planet connected? Maybe by 6 degrees of separation but surely ALL of them won’t play a role in my life and thus aren’t “meaningful” to me (though they remain meaningful to themselves and others in their orbit). Is everyone in history meaningful to me? Doubtful that even the big blips, like the Ceasars, Bonapartes and Washingtons have any direct connection but they have shaped the construct, whereas Joe, random 14th century villein from France probably has no real effect on me or you or the construct and thus no meaning. Did his life have meaning to him? I certainly hope so.
So…how does all this relate with Truth, God and ontology? Well, it’s still impossible to get logically further than, “I think, therefore I exist” but lets simply believe that even things that don’t think, like say flowers and sunsets, do exist. Are they connected to me? Only the ones I come in contact with or which have some effect on me (like the flowers that cause my allergies, even if I don’t see them/touch them/smell them). Are they True? Did God make them? Well, we’ve posited their reality but can we posit any other qualities to them? Can we take the concrete and give it transfinite qualities, such as a soul or meaning or purpose? I have to say no. The transfinite stands within the realm of thought alone and thus is really a province of the individual and their relationships to patterns and constructs. Do we automatically create some generalized meaning and ascribe it to things, Probably yes, for all of us, your friend included. Does that mean it’s real? No. But it may retain reality for us (your friend probably thinks some sunsets are beautiful too, despite the fact that beauty itself is simply a construct).
Last but not least is meaning required for consciousness? No, and perhaps this is the most frightening point.
Outstanding blog post, I’ve marked your website so ideally I’ll see a lot more on this topic in the foreseeable future…
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No doubt it was Sextus Propertius, Elegies who said with gusto the phrase Let each man pass his days in that wherein his skill is greatest.
The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth.
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