tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post754794012797619065..comments2024-01-05T01:21:21.702-08:00Comments on <center>SPECULUM CRITICUM TRADITIONIS</center>: The sublime synapseskholiasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-17195619467904441672010-04-21T12:13:53.176-07:002010-04-21T12:13:53.176-07:00As a good anarchist (he said, pausing to see if an...As a good anarchist (he said, pausing to see if anyone would bite...), I would be only too pleased to see the "monopolies" you mention undermined. The "One True" truth game has been crying out to have its rules renegotiated for a good long while, rather than just sort of fudged. While I am dubious that traditions will have only aesthetics left to differ on, I tend in my optimistic moments to agree with you that no matter how science winds up construing the neural and physiological substrata of spirituality, it will leave spirituality itself untouched (in its human significance). Likewise for ethics. (I have my pessimistic moments, too, though, and these tend to fuel my writing; knowing what one is against is maybe not half of self-knowledge, but it's sometimes half of self-presentation).<br /><br />I recall making a suggestion (to Fred Hagen) similar to yours about the possibility of a natural faculty in the human being that "senses" something about The Way Things Are. Hagen, not surprisingly, did not think my analogy was well-founded. Unfortunately, just then his cigarette was finished and smoke break was over, and we never picked up the conversation again.skholiasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05410057905377189336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1651908162607091292.post-35190827633938886642010-04-21T11:02:03.989-07:002010-04-21T11:02:03.989-07:00I'm still reading the many useful links you...I'm still reading the many useful links you've supplied on this topic. But let me briefly say that my hopes for the field of cognitive science in terms of spirituality differ a bit from others.<br /><br />I don't expect for a rational description of the processes at play--I'm more optimistic than you on this as I expect to see conscious machines in my lifetime--to in any way undermine spirituality. What I hope to see undermined is the privilege associated with spirituality. It is the rule of priests, the hierarchy, that I would like to see affected. When we discover that there are many paths by which one may achieve similar (if not the same) psychological states that are present when people are being 'spiritual' how will they continue to claim a monopoly on the experience? At that point I would expect spiritual traditions to compete on aesthetics. We now know, it will be argued, that one doesn't have to fillet a virgin and wear her skin to please the gods, one may just as well sit quietly in a room of friends with tea and doughnuts. And when we have real choice about these matters, how long will we tolerate ugly wrong doing by the spiritual leaders? If a church is associated with child molestation then crush the infamous thing! I guess what I would like to see is a pope who is no longer dominus but doula of the spiritual births he is to aid.<br /><br />Another possibility that intrigues me is that when we see a well structured spiritual part of the brain we may, far from reducing it to meaninglessness, have to wonder if it isn't an organ that perceives something about reality. Sharks "see" electromagnetic waves, perhaps humans are perceiving something about reality or about what it means to be humans.dy0geneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12265699357881251867noreply@blogger.com