SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY ORICL 471 Wednesdays at 11:00, April, 2008

1. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY ORICL 471 Wednesdays at 11:00, April, 2008 Neil Greenberg Departments of Ecology, Medicine, and Psychology University of Tennessee, Knoxville ORICL April 2008

2. INTRODUCTION – PART 1 Neil Greenberg Departments of Ecology, Medicine, and Psychology University of Tennessee, Knoxville ORICL April 2008 Tiffany, “Education” (1890)

3. MAIN POINTS TO COME • The trouble with words • Biological Needs (are there any other kinds?) map on to motivational systems of brain • Novelty evokes more-or-less of the stress response • Stress “energizes” motivational systems • Motivation serves real or perceived needs and can be very intense and seemingly urgent • We resolve cognitive dissonance in order to cope with the need for stability in the face of change.

4. As far they refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. --Einstein The problem with WORDS we must communicate with discrete bits of information such as words or numbers, but … ORICL April 2008

5. The trouble with words the dào that can be spoken Is not the eternal dào. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

6. Ein Sof The Endless One Yhwh The nameless being (Zohor)

7. The trouble with words the dào that can be spoken Is not the eternal dào. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

8. We are addicted to words … there is even a word for the wordless LOGOS is the word before all words … in reality the PROLOGOS The unknowable name of God : JHVH The Hindu scriptures speak of a supreme word that emerges when the consciousness is turned upon itself as a perfect circle Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

9. That which we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence. Wittgenstein:

10. NEEDS

11. NEEDS Meeting NEEDS is the basic business of life. When real (or perceived) needs are not met, stress is created. Organisms have ancient and powerful mechanisms for relieving stress: stress energizes efforts to meet need. Needs exist in a hierarchy of urgencies. When the most urgent need is met, all the organism’s energy is focused on the next need. ORICL April 2008

12. NEED HIERARCHY Self actualization --- biological fitness Esteem --- distinctiveness, arete Sociality --- social construction, culture Safety --- shelter, nurture Health --- physiology Apologies to Abraham Maslow ORICL April 2008

13. An aside on biological fitness . Self actualization is Maslow’s term … it translates into “be all you can be” which for a biologist means “maximize your fitness” “fitness” refers to transmitting information to the next generation. Traditionally that means number of spring bearing your genes, but since the 1970’s we speak of two kinds of fitness: direct (your offspring) and indirect (offspring of near kin) And then there are “memes” (units of cultural inheritance) ORICL April 2008

14. THE NEED TO KNOW … we NEED knowledge of OURSELVES (“know thyself”) – limits, possibilities THE WORLD – in which we must meet our NEEDS, ultimately to self-actualize …to maximize our biological fitness. ORICL April 2008

15. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY • Preliminary thesis • WE are energized by a “NEED TO KNOW.” curiosity and exploration are the cutting edges of growth: • part of the process of development • It begins in the crib and continues with more or less urgency all our lives • Seeking and confronting mystery is highly adaptive … contributes to biological fitness Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

16. COGNITIVE CHANGEis energized by stress Conceptually, this also bears on the ORIGIN of BELIEFS ORICL April 2008

17. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY Preliminary thesis “spiritual” is a favorite adjective for the feeling evoked by an attempt to exercise the “need to know”at the boundaries of competence. A first experience of mystery involves a spiritual experience The mystic (in all of us) extends the daily process of discovery into a passion to solve mysteries … to go beyond the mundane. Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

18. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY Dealing with MYSTERY, the “need to know” … is a fundamental attribute of all living organisms … and this need is represented in us as a motivation of varying urgency to explore, discover, and assimilate or accommodate our experiences. Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

19. Goethe, whose scientific contributions have been unjustly overshadowed because of his colossal achievements in literature and the arts, felt upset with what he believed to be the limitations of Newtonian physics. • For Goethe, “science is as much an inner path of spiritual development as it is a discipline aimed at accumulating knowledge of the physical world.

20. For Goethe, Science “involves not only a rigorous training of our faculties of observation and thinking, but also of other human faculties which can attune us to the spiritual dimension that underlies and interpenetrates the physical: faculties such as feeling, imagination and intuition. • Science, as Goethe conceived and practiced it, has as its highest goal the arousal of the feeling of wonder through contemplative looking (Anschauung), in which the scientist would come to see God in nature and nature in God” • (Naydler, 2000).

21. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY As with all motives, when meeting this need is thwarted, a primary STRESS RESPONSE is evoked in proportion to the mystery’s perceived urgency … an affective phenomenon that is interpreted in the context in which it emerges… Among the key effects of stress is enhanced sensory and cognitive abilities Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

22. An Aside about Stress The brain structures and circuitry of the stress response -- mainly the autonomic nervous system – are always mildly in play – like muscle tone, autonomic tone keeps us ready to act and prevents atrophy … all coping with dissonance is at least a mild stress. If too great or sustained for too long, the reallocation of energy stress causes can lead to “diseases of adaptation.” ORICL April 2008

23. We must come to termsin an environment of perpetual change and apparent paradox For example, We are “wired” to seek stability "La fixité du milieu intérieur est la condition d'une vie libre et indépendante" –Claude Bernard We are “wired” to explore, to seek novelty “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”-- Little Gidding ORICL April 2008

24. After all … se hace camino al andar ORICL April 2008

25. When searching for understanding … we make the road by walking Antonio Muchado ORICL April 2008

26. MAIN POINTS SO FAR • The trouble with words • Needs map on to motivational systems of brain • We “need” stability, and also • We “need” to know, to explore, to seek novelty creates instability • Novelty evokes more-or-less of the stress response • Stress “energizes” motivational systems • Motivation serves real or perceived needs and can be very intense and seemingly urgent

27. MAIN POINTS TO COME • We “learn” to neglect stimuli that are irrelevant to survival but in certain contexts they can be huge • Curiosity leads to mysteries … leads to wonder… and a more or less urgent “need to know” • The need to know can extend to a mystery that cannot be solved • But solving the mystery can seem very urgent • the efforts expended can force an assimilation or accommodation which can be perceived as an epiphany or mystical experience

28. "Our life is an appenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens" --Ralph Waldo Emerson