From: Alan McGowen <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!hpindbu.cup.hp.com!alanm>
Subject: Re: Science and Spirituality
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 17:23:11 GMT

Original-Sender: Alan McGowen <hpindbu.cup.hp.com!alanm>

> Original-Sender: backbone.hsu.arknet.edu!TUMLISON
>
> > Original-Sender: Alan McGowen <hpindbu.cup.hp.com!alanm>
> >
> OK. It is just those kinds of data that obviously would make a
> scientist revise his/her view and say we are Pongids.  Thus, the
> "scientific faith" is revisable, which, of course, is just part of
> the definition of science in the first place.  Now, let me see if we
> are really using two angles to say (almost?) the same thing.  I think
> that *religion* is not testable (by definition), but that certain
> beliefs, as held by certain of the faithful, can be tested.  For
> example, you can't really design a test for the presence of God, but
> you can design a test of various understandings of how God created
> the universe.  Science could offer that the evolutionary process
> makes sense (logically), that enormous amounts of data (fossil, DNA
> hybridization, mitochondrial DNA, studies of ontogeny and phyletic
> history, the techniques and interpretations of cladistic analysis,
> etc.) support this mechanical interpretation, and, therefore, that
> the notion of "speaking" the whole thing into existence in 7 24-hour
> periods just doesn't make scientific sense.  Thus, science can be
> used to clarify understanding.  My semantics are these: *religion*
> (if it is true) cannot be revised because you can't change truth.
> You can misunderstand, and that can be revised - science can be the
> vehicle for changing and revising the understanding.  Still, we must
> stop short of saying science has proven there is no God, or that such
> a powerful deity had no hand in the orchestration of the universe.  I
> think the statement about spirituality coming from the study of
> nature is valid, at least to some extent, and perhaps we have
> differed in our understanding of what each of us has meant in the
> words passed in mail.

My view is that religion has a *function*, which is to harmonize the
individual will with the needs for long-term group survival, and that
this is accomplished through embedding the individual in a symbolic
cosmology. When we discuss God, demons, etc. we are touching on the
details of the symbology rather than on the purpose which it serves.
I think that the purpose arises from a fundamental human need, and
for this reason changes of scientific cosmology don't touch it. However,
that purpose can only be served in future by using the scientific
cosmology as the symbolic vehicle.

I've touched on these ideas in a slightly different way in a post on
"The Evolution of Religion" which I put into alt.native (via UseNet)
early Sunday morning, but it doesn't seem to have been propagated to
the NatChat list as yet.

The core of what I am suggesting is that sprituality has to do with
the harmonizing function of religion, not with its peculiar symbology.
Science can show the latter to be incorrect, but it can no more show
the former to be "incorrect" than it could show any other human adaptation,
such the capacity for language, to be "incorrect".

I fully realize that I am into heavy sociobiological weather in this
suggestion.

> > > I play off of the last line of your
> > > statement "If it has a point WHICH IS VISIBLE TO US. . ." : the
> > > question I make is whether it has a point *not* visible to us.
> >
> > I did not include that phrase casually. But let's not forget that
> > we *are* able to see that evolution *doesn't* have certain kinds of
> > points -- optimal engineering design requiring forethought, for example,
> > is clearly *not* the point of evolution. There are far, far too many cases
> > where "just good enough to survive" is very different from "best possible
> > design" and evolution has produced the former, and not the latter.
> > Evolution has no forethought: if God is pulling the strings of evolution,
> > he appears to be doing it through Fisher's theorem, and not through some
> > other visibly different means.
>
> This is what I mean.  We can use science to clarify understanding of
> the mechanistic universe, which, in my view, clarifies understanding
> of certain religious beliefs.  Maybe God is using Fisher's theorem,
> or other (yet to be discovered?) means.

Or maybe Fisher's theorem is part of a symbology which could be used as
part of sacred conciousness. That is not quite the same thing as what
you wrote, but I am simply agnostic towards that suggestion. If the Divine
Plan is indistinguishable (to us) from what would happen with no plan at
all, how could we know that it exists? Conversely, even if we could know
as a matter of physics that the universe *is* in fact an artifact [and
this is something which is not inconceivable in contemporary physics],
would it be "proof" of anything which touches spirituality? I think it
would not -- would some vast engineering civilization in another universe
which created ours for an experiment be automatically worthy of worship?

> I agree with the caution.  The thought of being part of nature can be
> attributed to native american spirituality or to a western
> environmental movement.  The consequences on the environment might be
> similar, but the consequence to people (and their attitudes and
> lifestyles) may differ.  Western environmentalism sees the
> mechanistic role (scientifically based) of the components of
> ecosystems, and notes that diversity is important but that the
> society is one of abusers, taking what they want with little regard
> for the future.  Native spiritual values (at least in some groups -
> it probably varies somewhat) might see that as greed and point to
> spiritual values that demand the continued and revered existence of
> those same ecosystems.  To a scientist, it might seem silly, but to
> someone who understands a spiritual responsibility to the land, it is
> very real.  We must be very careful to appreciate the needs and
> interests of all affected people, because, eventually, all of us are
> those people.

I'm not advocating utilitarianism as opposed to the view that ecosystems
have intrinsic value, quite the contrary. Utilitarianism, in my view,
is just anthropocentrism dressed up in economists' jargon. The "spiritual"
view that ecosystems have value in themselves is after all the view with
the most adaptive value (to humans) in the long run. The real values of
things are not created by the utilitarian's pleasure/pain principle:
that is like thinking that the eye creates light. Rather, the pleasure/
pain principle exists because there are intrinsic values in nature to which
neural responses can evolve.


------------
Alan McGowen

[My objections to Alan's postings on evolution is that I do not want
NatChat to become a forum for debates on creation versus evolution.
Those interested in this topic are referred to the Usenet newsgroup
talk.origins.  I am allowing this posting because it does have some
relevance to Native issues; I will reject followups that lose that
relevance.--mkk]

Newsgroups: alt.native