From: kumara@well.sf.ca.us (Robert Kovsky)
Subject: Mysticism, science, freedonm: still reconciling
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:02:50 GMT


	In a previous post, I wrote:



>        I mean by "mysticism" the assertion that there exist

>	real "things", in the world, with real and important roles

>	in our lives, that are beyond the reach of experience.  Or,

>	at least, the kind of experience that is constructed by

>	"fiddling around."  I assert that freedom is such a "thing."

>	( A stronger form of "mysticism" would assert that these

>	"things" are reachable by a kind of experience different

>	from "fiddling around," but I do not address that stronger

>	form here.)





Mr. Onstott writes:



>	My question at this point is:  Why have you chosen mysticism

>	for this description when religion would be a much more

>	applicable one?  (excluding the institutional meaning).



Mr. Holmes writes:



>	Using the word "mysticism" to denote what everyone else

>	calls "realism" is very odd; you cannot claim the excuse

>	that you are free to use "mysticism" to mean what you like

>	as a technical term, because you announce your result as a

>	"reconciliation of science and mysticism", and so you are

>	obliged to mean by "mysticism" something vaguely resembling

>	what the rest of us mean.  Science does not need to be

>	reconciled with realism; it presupposes it (QM

>	notwithstanding).





Obviously, I have not made myself clear.



Let's start with what I believe to be an acceptable definition of mysticism.



"Mysticism is the proposition that there exists an 'ultimate reality' that
cannot be reach through ordinary experience but that can be reached through
a special form of experience that can be called 'mystical experience.'"



More, "science" is part of and restricted to "ordinary experience."



Stated in such terms, the two concepts are not reconcilable because
mysticism involves special experience which is excluded from science.  Or,
as Wittgenstein wrote as the conclusion of his <Tractatus>, "Whereof one
cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent."



However, my approach is somewhat different.  I am concerned only with the
first part of the definition of mysticism, namely that "there exists an
'ultimate reality' that cannot be reached through ordinary experience (or
science)" and I look for a scientific formulation and scientific evidence to
support this truncated definition.  That is the substance of my two previous
posts.



I do not see how "religion" would be a more applicable term.  "Religion," to
my mind, involves things like institutions, scriptures, teachers, creeds,
and social communities.  Obviously, religion can refer to or depend on
mystical experience (although it need not, as in the case of Unitarianism),
but the existence or not of "'ultimate reality' that cannot be reached
through ordinary experience..." is not, as I understand it, of central
importance to religion.



A more interesting question has been raised, as to whether I am really
talking about "freedom."



To summarize my position, I assert that freedom pervades daily life; that we
exercise freedom when we are engaged, for example, in work that requires a
readiness to recognize novel and happenstance features and then to adjust
our mental and material resources to deal with those features; that this
capacity for recognition and innovation is not mechanical or random, but
indeterminate and purposeful; that a "hard model" of this freedom (in the
style of mathematical physics) would be within "an 'ultimate reality' that
cannot be reached through ordinary experience", but that we can approach it
through indirect means and can devise ways to refine it and enrich our lives
with it.  (That is the "the natural science of freedom" on which I have been
working.)



This is a meaning of freedom that is more expansive than that considered as
"free will" (i.e. voluntary actions), but it is, I believe, a meaning that
accords well with our intuitive use of the word "freedom".  In brief,
"freedom" means an engagement of consciousness in work and absence of
freedom is felt as boredom or compulsion.:l