From: coonstot@quads.uchicago.edu (charles orville onstott)
Subject: Mysticism and Provability (Was: Re: MINDWALK)
Reply-To: coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:51:06 GMT

In article <C0IMw5.4q4@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.193559.27818@ariel.ec.usf.edu> mccolm@darwin.math.usf.edu. (Gregory McColm) writes:
>>In article <C09ppF.KBx@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>>In article <gaboy.725907423@well.sf.ca.us> gaboy@well.sf.ca.us (Gerald Boyack) writes:
>
>it's a lot easier to "handle" secularism (since it can at least potentially
>be understood) than mystical silliness (which is incomprehensible and 
>unprovable).  What's Fair's explanation?

  Although there exists some literature attempting to apply
"philosophic analysis" to Mysticism(such as some of the work of Griffiths,
Toulmin, etc.) that may show that some forms of meditation could not
"possibly" lead to the outcome desired; one should apply great
caution when they speak of mysticism as unprovable.  First and
foremost, of course, lies on the history of reported mystical
experience, and lest you wish to call of these reporters liars, de facto,
I think a closer examination of the issue is necessary.(The fact
remains, in any event, that they had some kind of experience
which they attributed to their meditation.)

If by science you mean some form of verifiability following some form
of "experiment" given in an intelligble fashion, there is no reason
to believe _a prior_ that mysticism is unprovable.  If, however,
by provability you mean that the experience reported by mystics
is in fact an encounter with the divine, then of course we run into
greater dificulty.(However, not yet has it been shown that an
encounter with the divine is impossible however improbable it
may seem.)  What "unprovable" usually means by scientific types
is that the experience of mysticism is not one that is
readily achieved; and this is, in fact, the case.  For mysticism
(and I speak of Christian mysticism although this is the case
for other religious as well) is a difficult road.  First and formost,
there is no "cookbook" or "emperimental guideline" provided.  What
mystics report, rather, are metaphors that enable a reader to
move along the path to the goal--not a precise step by step
instruction guide.  However, no mystic ever claimed the path
to be easy, at least not in the Christian tradition.  In short,
once you have devoted your life in honest pursuit of the mystical
experience, I can not accept your claim that it is "unprovable,"
and at the same time any claim that it is not "universally
verifiable" is meaningless as well for the fact of the matter remains
that most people do not have the inclination to practice mysticism
and as such, they never really conduct the "experiment."  I see
no reason, on the surface, to make such a de facto claim of mysticism
as it is easily rendered meaningless.  Perhaps philosophical
analysis can reveal some of the inherent difficulties and contradictions
(and I mean real contradictions, not metaphorical ones) that may
prevent _some_ forms of mysticism from being able to achieve its
goal; however, these analyses have only shown this to be the
case in a few forms of mysticism.  This means, to you young budding
scientists, that there are plenty of other forms of mysticism
out there still waiting to be practiced-- so why not devote
a lifetime to true experiementation in the purely scientific
spirit by actually practicing some form of it?  Of course,
to some of you this question will seem absurd; but if you
were simply to step back for a moment and consider the reasons
why you would not practice mysticism, you will probably realize
that it has nothing to do with an inherent "unprovability" of
mysticism; rather it lies more on what your life goals and
interests are or perhaps your beliefs or disbeliefs about God.

There is also the issue of context.  Of course the mystical
experience is a contextual one like scientific experiments.
And without proper training for several years, much like 
the scientific training I would undergo to make a complicated
chemistry experiment make sense, the practice of mysticism and
any "results" you might get possibly would be meaningless.

Furthermore, as to the incomprehensibility of mysticism:
this is simply false.  There are plenty of us who understand
what mysticism is trying to do, what it says, and what it means.
Of course, this comprehensibility requires training as well.
I assure you that a mathematical proof by, say, Tarski
is not going to make much sense to me and is, hence, incomprehensible.
Does this mean then that Tarski was a fool?
Lack of proper training in this field and lack of the actual 
practice of mysticism do not support the claims that
either mysticism is "incomprehensible" or "unprovable."  What
astounds me, however, is that these claims frequently come from scientists
even though they lack any traceable element of scientificity.

>
>--Brian

BCnya,
  Charles O. Onstott, III

-- 
Charles O. Onstott, III                         (coonstot@midway.uchicago.edu)
Graduate Student in Religion and the Human Sciences
The University of Chicago Divinity School
        "[T]he problem of history cannot be solved by avoiding it." (B. McGinn)