Can Scientists & Mystics Work Together?

[spidergoat]

That's why science should try to create life in a lab, it will teach them what it takes to do it.

OK, they are trying to.

Because science can do things in a lab, does not mean they can happen in the real world.

But wait, you said...

 

[Pipes75]

This is an assumption because science has already, tried this and failed.
Besides DNA are instruction that need correct coding for it to be useful. Not only that but we have thousands of lightning strikes all the time and they don't produce life.
This is a fallacy with scientists that a cell can evolve into what we see. They have not been able to do this in a lab or any other experiments. There is no evidence that it could happen at all or did.
The holes in evolution are major flaws in the theory, because over time they should be answered, but the the research and discoveries, do not fill those holes , but actually stall the theory altogether. It is just that some scientists what to jump the gun and claim it as a fact, before they have the evidence, solidly in place. This is to say 'WE' are right come and listen to us.
Scientists doing the experiments on the beginning of life, can only show that it took intelligence to do that ( scientists in a lab). Which is creation. They can only observe it happening on it's own to say that it did happen that way.
They can't win with this. Unless they do find it happened somewhere.
About survival , where did a cell get this from? How does a cell know it has to survive? Where did it get it's ability to copy itself? It can't just split or crush itself, it is a very amazing thing that a cell can copy itself. Also a cell can't mess around it needs to do this faster than it dies off. And it had to do this with the very first cell of life. Scientists have not answered any of this.

Actually it's been tested and proven possible.
When the right particles of hydrogen, oxogen, carbon and whatever else is used (all of which can be found in the dust of a star), a simple charge does produce microscopic DNA life outta the cluster of particles. The lab used electricity to charge the test particles, but lightening is the most logical natural way that is plausible.
Lightening doesn't produce life! And it doesn't act by itself. The right amount of particles along with water are all equally important to the charge. Lightening is just the charge that can contribute to life evolving. Life is. It is not produced, it is only converted - similuar to energy.

Now the microscopic DNA life becoming what we see today, well that's a long process that can only be proven in steps. I see no problem with evolution until it gets to human evolution. Our human evolution has unanswered questions that I refuse to ignore, so I look for anything possible.
I still think natural causes is a possible explaination to the rapid human evolution, but if all our evolution was natuiral, I need some of that 'science evidence' stuff to prove some drastic envirmental conditions during that time, and a fact laced explaination of why all 3 common ancestors (monkey, man, and ape) flourished in such different directions without an apparent threat of perishing without adapting. The 'Missing Link' would be nice too .

As for cells reproducing. All life reproduces. It's just a matter of 2 compatible cells coming together, and reproducing something that has a little of both. Opposites attract, in life we look at male and female. With microscopic life, we don't use male and female so in science we look at positives and negatives. Even atoms turn to positive and negetive Ions - regularly, which frees electrons. A positive cell finding a negative cell and reproducing a new cell and/or cells.
... and so it begins, as it always was, and always will be.

 

[Pipes75]

The example that I give for this is the loaf of bread.
I know I have said this before but you seem to not get it.
Scientists can theorizes , that a loaf of bread could happen on it's own, all the materials are on this earth for that. But if scientists want to make a loaf of bread in the lab, that does not prove that it could happen on it's own somewhere. What scientists have shown is that the loaf of bread can be created in a lab. Creation.

Actually, making the loaf in the lab would prove what kind of conditions would be neccassary for it to be possible to happen naturally.
If conditions were of a certain nature that makes something like 'making a loaf of bread' a natural thing because of materials and environment, then they can most certainly use a lab to provide evidence of the conditions needed for it to be possible.
The lab is a simultation of the different conditions, and is looking for what kind of life would exist in those conditions - and we already know many different conditions. The levels of oxygen for example, have drastically changed over a long period of time.
Lots of evidence of many different conditions that earth has been exposed to over different time periods.

 

[hay_you]

No it's not. Abiogenesis describes the very first entities with iterations and heredity, not the spontaneous generation of complete complex life forms as we would now think of them.

How do you explain that 99% of all life forms that ever existed are extinct?

The simpler the life form, the easier it is for it to form spontaneously without any "intelligent" intervention.

The earlier life forms where the ones that did the work to get the conditions on the earth and in the atmosphere ready for the conditions that we now have.
The earth would have been just rock and sand or dust, the atmosphere also had to be changed. These animals and vegetation would have worked the ground to put organic material into it.

 

[heliocentric]

To come back to the original question - i see mysticism and science as simply two approaches towards empiricism. Mysticism simply takes the objects of experience (inner and outer) and applies value to them - "this is divine, that is sacred, everything has significance".

So i think the question really is - "can science and mysticism incorporate and learn from each others approach to value?" (since they already use the same methodology, this seems to be the only real point of division)

Optimistically id say yes. I think scientists are learning more and more that value is necessary for science to work, infact its something they tacitly do in already - it's just a matter of coming out of the closet about it. As Sheldrake once put it, there really needs to be some sort of movement analogous to the 'gay pride' movement of the late c20th - scientists willing to come out and say: "this is what i value, this is what i dont value." It's just a matter of owning upto your own biases, and should if anything make the whole enterprise more credible.

For the mystics i think there needs to be more 'comparing notes' and less taking things at face-value. Mysticism suffers probably more than any other 'discipline' from people simply refusing to go out there and see if their measure of reality tallies up with anyone elses. It's often difficult to correct too since mystics by their very nature tend to be solitary creatures who dont like coming out of their shell much (i should know). Maybe we need Maslows going out there comparing mystic testimonies and then speaking up on their behalf? It's one possible solution anyway.

For the most part though, i think there needs to be a general recognition that any 'methodological dispute' between mysticism & the sciences has been entirely without founding, its just a question of value.

 

[Dywyddyr]

So i think the question really is - "can science and mysticism incorporate and learn from each others approach to value?" (since they already use the same methodology, this seems to be the only real point of division)

The same methodology?
Er...

Mysticism simply takes the objects of experience (inner and outer) and applies value to them - "this is divine, that is sacred, everything has significance".

Mysticism is little but subjective phenomena accepted as real.
Science is about objective, repeatable, reproducible, testable phenomena.

 

[hay_you]

Actually it's been tested and proven possible.
When the right particles of hydrogen, oxogen, carbon and whatever else is used (all of which can be found in the dust of a star), a simple charge does produce microscopic DNA life outta the cluster of particles. The lab used electricity to charge the test particles, but lightening is the most logical natural way that is plausible.
Lightening doesn't produce life! And it doesn't act by itself. The right amount of particles along with water are all equally important to the charge. Lightening is just the charge that can contribute to life evolving. Life is. It is not produced, it is only converted - similuar to energy.

Science can make some DNA but you still have to put the instructions in it for it to be any good. Also science is making the DNA , which is creation. It maybe that at some time science will create life in a lab. If that happens, it shows that scientists created life in the lab. It doesn't show that it happened on it's own or did.

Now the microscopic DNA life becoming what we see today, well that's a long process that can only be proven in steps. I see no problem with evolution until it gets to human evolution. Our human evolution has unanswered questions that I refuse to ignore, so I look for anything possible.
I still think natural causes is a possible explaination to the rapid human evolution, but if all our evolution was natuiral, I need some of that 'science evidence' stuff to prove some drastic envirmental conditions during that time, and a fact laced explaination of why all 3 common ancestors (monkey, man, and ape) flourished in such different directions without an apparent threat of perishing without adapting. The 'Missing Link' would be nice too .

It is nice to at least have some admit where they really stand on this. And are not just blindly believing everything science says.
So that means when some scientists are claiming it is a fact that that is not true, there are still many questions about that are not answered. Science has tries and claimed a missing link many times only to have these fall by the way side.

As for cells reproducing. All life reproduces. It's just a matter of 2 compatible cells coming together, and reproducing something that has a little of both. Opposites attract, in life we look at male and female. With microscopic life, we don't use male and female so in science we look at positives and negatives. Even atoms turn to positive and negetive Ions - regularly, which frees electrons. A positive cell finding a negative cell and reproducing a new cell and/or cells.
... and so it begins, as it always was, and always will be.

This happens now and we take it for granted that these things do this. But where did they get this ability from? If scientists make a cell, how will they get it to do that? The reasons these work is that they were planned to be like that.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Also science is making the DNA , which is creation.

No. if science makes DNA in a lab it will show how it could happen naturally.

It maybe that at some time science will create life in a lab. If that happens, it shows that scientists created life in the lab. It doesn't show that it happened on it's own or did.

Still refusing to see what "experiment" means...

And are not just blindly believing everything science says.

As opposed to, say, blindly ignoring facts and sticking with the goddidit mindless acceptance of dogma?

So that means when some scientists are claiming it is a fact that that is not true

Wrong again.
It IS a fact.

 

[heliocentric]

The same methodology?
Er...

Empricism just means understanding nature through experience rather than some pre-established doctrine or authority - whether youre a mystic or a scientist; its the same methodological principle at work.

Mysticism is little but subjective phenomena accepted as real.
Science is about objective, repeatable, reproducible, testable phenomena.

Well, without wanting to sound rude, those sound like ladybird definitions of 'science' and 'mysticism'. There's no clear demarcation between a 'subjective enterprise' and an 'objective one'.

Science is just as much about making sense of our categories of subjective experience as it is about is ontologically 'real' (and noones still sure about that one). Part of that is of course bound up in prediction, which from the mystic point of view would just be a highly efficient form of divination.

Whatever your interpretation of science is though, i think it starts to get very cumbersome when you want to hold onto this view of 'explaining the objective'. Since everything is meditated by experience in some form or another, there's no real secure way to sidestep the subjective problem. Even if you do come to some sort of pragmatic way of distinguishing the 'objective' from the 'subjective', the more evidence you collect the blurrier the line between them may eventually become. Take Locke's assertion that primary qualities are just - shape, extension, mobility, location (and that these are the real 'objective qualities that exist). On the quantum scale half of these concepts become completely meaningless: "where's the particle?" "where is it extended to?"

The more you probe reality, the more difficult it becomes to tell the secure objective properties of the universe, from the abstract, amorphous, mind-dependent ones. The notion of describing anything 'objective' atall could become a very scientifically dodgy position to hold.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Empricism just means understanding nature through experience rather than some pre-established doctrine or authority - whether youre a mystic or a scientist youre following its the same methodological principle at work.

Um no.
Mystics tend to go with "I want it to be true" and NOT empiricist.
Can you give examples?

Well, without wanting to sound rude, those sound like ladybird definitions of 'science' and 'mysticism'. There's no clear demarcation between a 'subjective enterprise' and an 'objective one'.

Er, subjective/ objective evidence.

Part of that is of course bound up in prediction, which from the mystic point of view would just be a highly efficient form of divination.

The more you probe reality, the more difficult it becomes to tell the secure objective properties of the universe, from the abstract, amorphous, mind-dependent ones. The notion of describing anything 'objective' atall could become a very dodgy position to hold.

Uh huh.
Although we do have the world we live in...

 

[heliocentric]

Um no.
Mystics tend to go with "I want it to be true" and NOT empiricist.
Can you give examples?

Listening to a few Alan Watts lectures on youtube (there's dozens of them) is usually a good place to start if you want to understand mystic experience.

More often than not, mystics arent positing anything that you dont already perceive to be there, they are simply perceiving it from a slightly different perspective. So what from a commonsense perspective are two entirely separate things 'man/nature' from the mystic perspective becomes a single process- "all this".

Uh huh.
Although we do have the world we live in...

Well yeah, there's a communal sense of something called the 'world'. No ones going to argue with that (zen Buddhists might have a go). But communal experience doesnt necessarily = objective reality. That's the entire problem at hand.

 

[hay_you]

To come back to the original question - i see mysticism and science as simply two approaches towards empiricism. Mysticism simply takes the objects of experience (inner and outer) and applies value to them - "this is divine, that is sacred, everything has significance".

So i think the question really is - "can science and mysticism incorporate and learn from each others approach to value?" (since they already use the same methodology, this seems to be the only real point of division)

Optimistically id say yes. I think scientists are learning more and more that value is necessary for science to work, infact its something they tacitly do in already - it's just a matter of coming out of the closet about it. As Sheldrake once put it, there really needs to be some sort of movement analogous to the 'gay pride' movement of the late c20th - scientists willing to come out and say: "this is what i value, this is what i dont value." It's just a matter of owning upto your own biases, and should if anything make the whole enterprise more credible.

For the mystics i think there needs to be more 'comparing notes' and less taking things at face-value. Mysticism suffers probably more than any other 'discipline' from people simply refusing to go out there and see if their measure of reality tallies up with anyone elses. It's often difficult to correct too since mystics by their very nature tend to be solitary creatures who dont like coming out of their shell much (i should know). Maybe we need Maslows going out there comparing mystic testimonies and then speaking up on their behalf? It's one possible solution anyway.

For the most part though, i think there needs to be a general recognition that any 'methodological dispute' between mysticism & the sciences has been entirely without founding, its just a question of value.

This idea science of non creation has really only been popular for the last 150 years, or so. ( not that it is totally new idea) But for the vast majority some spiritual way of life was the norm. When things started to change in the world with industry and and science started to be a bigger part of things, when this idea of no God, and scientific 'evidence' seemed to support that many people went along. After all people hadn't heard from God for awhile and all these new things were around. And science had this high ideal of logic and testing for proof. Now people like it that there is nothing really to answer to , we can get rich , we can do this or that, without answering to anyone else. WE are free. People want to believe in science. All they need is something to believe in. ( it is still a spiritual thing, )
But the the trouble with this is scientists did not think this through, even Darwin knew that. There were holes in this idea of evolution. These holes are still there. But now more insurmountable, than before. Because more is known and in fossil record at least , more damaging to evolution. Scientists because they are on this path now, are trying very hard to support evolution with their findings. But you noticed they still can't prove how life started or that evolution actually happens where one animal over many years becomes something else.
There is a problem on the religious side as well, the thinking of many creationists were not correct either, which leads to confusion also. It is not mentioned in any kind of detail about dinosaurs for example. When scientists started pulling these things out of the ground, religions didn't know how to react to this sort of thing. So religious clergy denounced scientists, so that now there are two camps. But when you get to down to this, there is really no reason that science and a spiritual thinking can not get along. Actually science and creation are the same thing.

 

[parmalee]

Um no.
Mystics tend to go with "I want it to be true" and NOT empiricist.

hmmm. you seem to be going by a more colloquial sense of the term "mystic." but neither is it this:

Originally Posted by heliocentric
Mysticism simply takes the objects of experience (inner and outer) and applies value to them - "this is divine, that is sacred, everything has significance".

rather, just the opposite: mysticism "strives" towards pure perception, without abstraction--or assignation of name or value.

in a sense, one could say the methodologies of mysticism and science are the same at the most fundamental level--perception--but i think the similarities stop there. they are radically different epistemological approaches.

that said, real mysticism is by no means anti-scientific, but it is certainly un-scientific.

 

[parmalee]

Listening to a few Alan Watts lectures on youtube (there's dozens of them) is usually a good place to start if you want to understand mystic experience.

More often than not, mystics arent positing anything that you dont already perceive to be there, they are simply perceiving it from a slightly different perspective. So what from a commonsense perspective are two entirely separate things 'man/nature' from the mystic perspective becomes a single process- "all this".

but mysticism does not necessarily resolve in monism; moreover, metaphysically it may begin from a monistic, dualistic, or pluralistic perspective.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Listening to a few Alan Watts lectures on youtube (there's dozens of them) is usually a good place to start if you want to understand mystic experience.

I'll skip that.
I don't have enough download allowance to listen to sound bites, but I'll check his books.

More often than not, mystics arent positing anything that you dont already perceive to be there, they simply perceive it from a slightly different perspective.

Really?
Just from Alan Watts Wiki page: "higher consciousness", "spirit"?

Well yeah, there's a communal sense of something called the 'world'. No ones going to argue with that (zen Buddhists might have a go). But communal experience doesnt necessarily = objective reality. That's the entire problem at hand.

Nope: that's what science investigates.

 

[Dywyddyr]

hmmm. you seem to be going by a more colloquial sense of the term "mystic."

Hence my asking for examples.

 

[hay_you]

Listening to a few Alan Watts lectures on youtube (there's dozens of them) is usually a good place to start if you want to understand mystic experience.

More often than not, mystics arent positing anything that you dont already perceive to be there, they simply perceive it from a slightly different perspective. So what from a commonsense perspective are two entirely separate things 'man/nature' from the mystic perspective become a single process 'all this'.

If you noticed by all the information people have today, with religions and science and and philosophy, people get caught up into all of this, and end up nowhere. I mentioned earlier , this is the age of misinformation, and misdirection.
The actual answer is there, there is truth. If you take the bibles point of view few will find it.

 

[parmalee]

Hence my asking for examples.

by examples do you mean some names? (you've got to learn american english!)

i would start with meister eckhart, for one. keep in mind that within many religious traditions, the "mystics" (which is a rather broad term) are often deemed the outsiders and heretics--and their employment of language is more metaphorical than the orthodoxy, with western traditions at least.

 

[Dywyddyr]

But the the trouble with this is scientists did not think this through

Pure nonsense.

even Darwin knew that.

You keep saying that: Provide evidence.

These holes are still there. But now more insurmountable, than before. Because more is known and in fossil record at least , more damaging to evolution.

Utterly wrong. You're ignoring everything that's been posted in reply to you.

But you noticed they still can't prove how life started

Specious argument. We've already stated MANY times that science freely admits this.

or that evolution actually happens where one animal over many years becomes something else.

And you've also been informed that that "viewpoint" is totally wrong.
Trolling again.

There is a problem on the religious side as well, the thinking of many creationists were not correct either

The thinking of ALL creationists is incorrect.

Actually science and creation are the same thing.

Trolling again. They are NOT the same thing except in your persistently ignorant little mind.

 

[parmalee]

Really?
Just from Alan Watts Wiki page: "higher consciousness", "spirit"?

it's that woo-woo crap that's given mysticism a bad name.

in a sense, i consider "proper" mysticism another form of skepticism.