Knowing and Being:

1
Knowing and Being New Prospects for Integrating
Science and Spirituality Chris
Clarke University of Southampton (www.scispirit.co
m)
2
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Science
Faith Traditions
Spirituality
3
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Knowing, Being and Reality

• Knowing-about
• rational
• verbal
• abstract
• public

• Knowing-by-being
• paradoxical
• non-verbal
• concrete
• private

Two realities - which do we trust?
4
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future

• Some proposed realities (the quest for certainty)
• Platonism there is an eternal reality of Forms
  appearances are illusory
• Kant there is a boss-reality (the
  thing-in-itself) but it is unknowable however
  there are laws of thinking which ensure that the
  reality we perceive is law-like
• Reductionism everything can be explained from
  physics (ultimate reality)
• Penrose reality is threefold
  Physical-Mental-Platonic/Math

(The dominant view in our society June
Boyce-Tillman in Ways of Knowing)
5
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock
The charge bringing science into disrepute
When religious people just have a feeling inside
themselves that something must be true, even
though there is no evidence that it is true, they
call their feeling revelation. (Richard
Dawkins, A Devils Chaplain)
there is absolutely no reason to suppose that
telepathy is anything more than a charlatans
fantasy (Peter Atkins, The Times, Sept 6, 2006)
6
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock the case for the defence

• Principal Witness Gary L Drescher Good and Real
• The universe is mechanical and determinate
• Quantum theory can describe the universe without
  any reference to consciousness, observers etc
• Consciousness is completely accounted for by
  current science
• Ethics can be rationally based on science

• Second Witnesses H Dieter Zeh et al. Decoherence
  and the appearance of a classical world in
  quantum theory
• The role that used to be played by the
  observer in quantum theory is in fact filled by
  a universal mechanism called decoherence

7
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock the case for the
prosecution

• First witnesses Fay Dowker and Adrian Kent, On
  the Consistent Histories Approach to Quantum
  Mechanics
• Quantum theory is compatible with the Classical
  world, but many other worlds are equally possible

• Second witness David J. Chalmers Facing Up to
  the Problem of Consciousness
• It is logically impossible to reduce the
  subjectivity of consciousness to any combination
  of objective functions of the brain

8
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Reductionism in the Dock
Not Proven
9
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Key proposal

• ... but some realities are flakier than others.
• There is no ultimate certainty- discrimination
  is essential, based on
• degree of consensuality
• degree of coherence

10
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Knowing and Being

• Knowing-about
• rational
• verbal
• abstract
• objective (public)

• Knowing-by-being
• paradoxical
• non-verbal
• concrete
• private

(the numinous transliminal)
11
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
Enabling framework
Meaning Substance
Spirituality (Being,Implicational)
Science (Knowing-about,Propositional)
Spirituality is itself pluralisticJorge Ferrer,
Neil Douglas-Klotz(in Ways of Knowing)
12
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
The World is not a Machine ...
...but a conversation
13
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
The Future ...
Overcoming the Fundamentalisms -

• Teach the path of peace
• Recognise and work with the numinosity of
  being
• Affirm the good in the faith traditions

14
Introduction Reality
Knowing/Being The Future
The Future ...
Jonathan Porritt, Capitalism as if the World
Matters
Moving to the new society

• The need to develop the sustainability of
  all our stocks of capital - natural,
  human, social, manufactured.
• The method
• Changing progressively more firms, communities
  and governmental institutions to a new concept of
  capital
• Bringing spirituality into the mainstream

Chris Clarke, Ed., Ways of Knowing Science and
Mysticism Today