Today’s Post

Last week we returned to the idea of a ‘Terrain of Synergy’ in our continuing search for the ground of happiness. We looked this time from the perspective of John Haught, who compares and contrasts the legacy religious and scientific ‘Cosmic Stories’, but opens the door for an overlap. In his perspective, what is warranted as we participate in the flow of human evolution, is a spirit of ‘anticipation’: less a hand-wringing, indignant demand for faster progress than a realization of the progress that is being made and a recognition that such progress is in fact underway in our lives as well as our societies.

This week we will begin a search for nuggets of such overlap in our traditional Western religious lore, referred to by Haught as ‘analogy’, to sift its ore for the jewels of insight that it offers.

The Three Virtues Model

In the series of posts ((March, 2018) in which we looked at reinterpreting the concepts of Western theology, we addressed the idea of the ‘Theological Virtues’. Although they were first presented as such by Paul, in Teilhard’s spiral model they can be seen to offer much more relevance.

Just as we addressed the unique quality of the energy of human evolution as ‘spirituality’ in the context of secular phenomenon, we saw these three familiar ‘virtues’ as three ‘stances’ or ‘attitudes’ that we can take as we go about trying to live our lives in cooperation with Teilhard’s “winds of the Earth.”  And in the same way that Teilhard’s model of the convergent spiral can be applied to better understand universal evolution, the so called ‘theological’ virtues can be seen as fitting into this model as a secular guide to applying it to human life

As we have seen, the ‘spiral’ model applies equally throughout the process of universal evolution.  It works at the level of the atom just as it does at the level of the human, and as Teilhard insists, it can be trusted to be active in human evolution as it continues to unfold.

The ‘virtues Model’, however, works uniquely at the level of the human, but is nonetheless an example of how universal processes can be seen to continue to work in the ‘noosphere’.  These three ‘virtues’ are the equivalent of the three universal attributes of the spiral as active in the human person:  unity, response to evolutional energy and the resultant rise in complexity.

The first of the three human components of this converging spiral is ‘Love’, the component of unity.  As we have addressed in many places in this Blog, Teilhard’s assertion that the idea of love must be freed from its popular understanding as a strong emotion and allowed to flower as the energy of evolution which unites its products in ways that increase their complexity and thus completes them.  Love is less an act of emotion or instinct that encourages our relationships and more one of uniting us in such a way that we become more what it is possible for us to become.  To Teilhard, love is ‘ontological’: to love is to become.  It is the energy which unites us in such a way as to move us forward on the spiral.

The second component is that of ‘Faith’.   Faith is the pull of our lives toward the axis of evolution and hence the human response to the universal evolutional principle of complexification.

As we become more adept at ‘articulating the noosphere’, we begin to better understand the structure and the workings of the reality in which we are enmeshed.  Such articulations of the universe will be undermined, however, if they are not preceded by a ‘faith’ that they exist at all.

While this might sound religious, let me offer a secular example. Imagine if Newton had not begun his inquiry into the workings of matter with the belief that there was some objective, measurable and most of all ‘intelligible’ force which moved material objects from their static state before he formulated his theory of gravitational attraction. His extrapolation to the belief that nature itself was ‘intelligible’ was an essential step towards the ‘Prinicpia’.

Faith therefore is the first step toward increasing our grasp of reality and enhancing our response to the energy of evolution.

The third of these three components is ‘Hope’, which encourages us on our journey toward our potential for increased complexity as we move forward on the spiral.  One of the gifts of evolution in the human is the ability to look into the future, as murky and risky as that might be, based on our understanding of the past.  If our look into the future is pessimistic and without hope, such negativity saps our energy and inhibits our movement up the spiral, toward a future in which we perceive the results of our growth as bleak, the fruit of our love as rejection, and sees us as hopelessly inadequate to build a full life.  Without hope, the evolutionary power of love, itself guaranteed over the fourteen or so billion years of universal becoming, is diminished.   Hope is that component of evolution by which we ‘rise’ as we move forward on the spiral.

John Haught’s concept of ‘anticipation’ as the most fruitful ground of belief addresses all three of these ‘virtues’, but Love and Hope resound the clearest. If we are to face the future with ‘anticipation’ we must first have faith that there is something to indeed anticipate and hope that it will live up to our anticipation.

The Next Post

This week we saw how Teilhard’s three ‘vectors’ of evolution: Forward, Inward and Upward, present in every stage of evolution, can be seen to be at work in the human person. Further, we saw how the ‘humanization’ of these three vectors can be seen in Paul’s idea of the “Theological Virtues”. As seen by Paul and stressed by Teilhard, forward, inward and upward manifest themselves in human life as Love, Faith and Hope.

This, of course, is another example of Blondel’s approach to religion: in the light of evolution, religious tenets can be reinterpreted in terms of human life. Or, as John Haught puts it

“…every aspect of religion gains new meaning and importance once we link it to the new scientific story of an unfinished universe.”

   This permits us to move, as John Haught suggests, from the “nonnatural mode of causation” fostered by traditional religion to one which not only is “linked..to the scientific story” but retains traditional religion’s emphasis on the human person (as understood by Thomas Jefferson). This emphasis can, in turn, soften the vagueness with which the human person is treated by traditional science.

Next week we will continue our search for nuggets of noospheric insight among the teachings of religion.

Today’s Post

Last week we went a little deeper on the possibility of synergy between science and religion; one which would enhance and enrich both bodies of thought and contribute to the continuation of our evolution.

However, while Davies and Teilhard offer two very clear examples of thinking about synergy between science and religion, the question can be asked, “what areas of focus could be common to science and religion?”  Aren’t they, as claimed by Stephen Jay Gould (and echoed by Richard Dawkins), “two completely different and non-overlapping magisteria?”

Mapping the ‘Terrain of Synergy’

While science’s search for the agency by which the universe becomes more complex will go on for some time, as predicted by Paul Davies, humankind cannot afford the luxury of waiting for an empirical closure on the subject if it’s going to continue its evolution.  Our evolution is not only proceeding ‘under our feet’ whether or not we understand it, the rate rate is increasing.  Each day that passes seems to demand more choices with the mounting of the pressure of our advancement from instinct to volition.

The list of evolutionary threats seems to grow every day, and each individual risk gives rise to the prediction, “if this trend continues… (fill in your favorite evil)”.  Malthus may have been wrong in his prediction, but how do we know that eventually he will be proven right and the curtain of humanity will finally fall?

Therefore it is imperative that we build on those intuitions which have carried us thus far, but with the caveat that they must stay in coherence with the findings of science.  The source of these intuitions is religion, properly divested of Richard Dawkins’ “baggage that the word ‘God’ carries in the minds of most religious believers.”

Jonathan Sacks agrees, and goes a little further by identifying some of the many subjects that when addressed would light the way towards a synthesis suitable for mapping a route to the future.

“There may be, in other words, a new synthesis in the making.  It will be very unlike the Greek thought-world of the medieval scholastics with its emphasis on changelessness and harmony.  Instead it will speak about:

– the emergence of order

– the distribution of intelligence

–  information processing

– the nature of self-organizing complexity

– the way individuals display a collective intelligence that is a property of groups, not just the individuals that comprise them,

– the dynamic of evolving systems and what leads some to equilibrium, others to chaos.

   Out of this will emerge new metaphors of nature and humanity; flourishing and completeness.  Right brain (religious, intuitive) thinking may reappear, even in the world of science, after its eclipse since the seventeenth century.”

   This list is echoed, with much more articulation, by Davies.  Also note that many of these subjects have long been the object of study and debate by religion.  Effectively, Sacks and Davies have begun mapping the territory that, when explored, offer the terrain of ‘synergy’ between science and religion.

Teilhard elaborates on traditional religion as rich ore to be refined into an elixir which enriches human evolution.

   “After allowing itself to be captivated in excess by the charms of analysis to the extent of falling into illusion, modern thought is at last getting used once more to the idea of the creative value of synthesis in evolution.  It is beginning to see that there is definitely more in the molecule than in the atom, more in the cell than in the molecule, more in society than in the individual, and more in mathematical construction than in calculations and theorems.  We are now inclined to admit that at each further degree of combination something which is irreducible to isolated elements emerges in a new order.”

    Davies, from the scientific perspective, echoes the insights of Teilhard and predates those of Sacks toward the need for science to expand its reach to include this underlying principle by which the universe unfolds:

“The general trend towards increasing richness and diversity of form found in evolutionary biology is surely a fact of nature, yet it can only be crudely identified, if at all. There is not the remotest evidence that this trend can be derived from the fundamental laws of mechanics, so it deserves to be called a fundamental law in its own right.

   The behavior of large and complex aggregates of elementary particles, so it turns out, is not to be understood as a simple extrapolation of the properties of a few particles. Rather, at each level of complexity entirely new properties appear, and the understanding of these new pieces of behavior requires research which is as fundamental as, or perhaps more fundamental than, anything undertaken by the elementary particle physicists.”

   Thus both Davies and Teilhard can be clearly seen to “assail the real from different angles and on different planes”.  Such an approach as Davies is suggesting would act as an agent which can help religion to “..divest the word ‘God’ of all the baggage that it carries in the minds of most religious believers” from one angle while Teilhard offers the translation of science’s universal insight to the lives of human persons from another.

The Next Post 

This week we took a deeper look at the skill of using the ‘whole brain’ to assess the ‘noosphere’, focusing on the different thinking modes of science and religion, as represented by Paul Davies and Teilhard, and how they illustrate the potential to envision them as Teilhard did, as global “meridians as they approach the poles…,(which) are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the pole”.

While Davies and Teilhard offer two very clear examples of thinking about synergy between science and religion, there is another voice that contributes to this dialog, and that is Jonathan Sacks.   Next week we will take a look at his insights to move us along in understanding how ‘thinking with the whole brain’ can be understood.

Today’s Post

We have decomposed Teilhard’s convergent spiral model down from its universal configuration to that of the human person, to the three ‘virtues’ by which we make our personal way up the spiral, to the thinking functions that differentiate us from previous products of evolution, and by which we are equipped to make the transition from ‘instinctual’ to ‘volitional’ evolution.

Last week we addressed the model of the ‘whole brain’, by which we perform these thinking functions that power us up the convergent spiral of human evolution.

This week we will look at this model in a little more detail, and see how it manifests itself in our most common concepts.

The Coherent Brain

We have looked at length at ‘dualities’ in human thought, and how most of them can be moved from divergence to coherence once the subject begins to be addressed ‘holisticly’.  This is especially true for the historical approach to ‘right’ vs ‘left’ brain modes of thought.  As we have seen from the perspective of Jonathan Sacks, while these modes are understood as active in the right and left lobes of the brain, they are more psychological than physiological in the way they work.

Further, the popular concept of this dichotomy suggests that those who are left brain dominant are more quantitative, logical, and analytical (eg engineers and mathematicians), while right-brained individuals are more emotional, intuitive, and creative free spirits (eg artists, dancers, musicians).  Thus we have the common concept of left brained individuals more tending to the ‘empirical’ approach to making sense of things and the right brained individuals more ‘intuitional’.

This simplistic treatment overlooks the fact that neither art nor mathematics are firmly set in their ‘brain-ness’.  Even the simplest of mathematical expressions requires an initial conceptualization (intuition) of what is being expressed before the factual (empirical) task of formulation.  And of what value is a melody if it is not subject to be quantified into a series of objective notes?  And if we take both these examples into their ‘life cycle’, they will possibly go through several manifestations as the math model is used or the melody played, with each cycle repeating the intuition-empirical dance that iteratively matures the model.

So, at the very base of our evolution, both at the level of the person and of society, these two modes of thinking come into play not as opposites, but as facets of a single, coherent, uniquely human action.

The ‘Golden Rule’ As the Earliest Example of Thinking with the ‘Whole Brain’

One of the earliest examples of pragmatism in human relations was Confucius’ principle of the ‘Golden Rule’, as recorded in ‘The Analects’:

“Zi gong (a disciple of Confucius) asked: “Is there any one word that could guide a person throughout life?”  The Master replied: “How about ‘shu’ [reciprocity]: never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself?”

   Variations of the golden rule of Confucius appear in nearly every major world religion and in most other belief systems as well, as it is frequently believed that this one rule not only underlies the fullness of personal life, but insures the success of society.

This ‘rule’ is based on ‘reciprocity’, which in turn is based on the sense of our ‘universality’.  In universality, what we believe about ourselves is a valid hermeneutic for what we should believe about others.  Very simply, our desire to be well treated can be understood in others to reflect their own such desire.

In terms of ‘thinking with the whole brain’, this simple principle can be seen to have several facets.

The First step is an employment of the ‘right’ brain mode of thinking.  It is necessary to have the intuition that ‘others’ have the same sort of feelings that we do.  “If I want to be well treated, it is likely that others would as well’.  This is intuitive because there is no way to objectively prove such; it must be believed and acted upon without empirical data.

Secondly, the ‘left’ brain hemisphere kicks in as we look into ourselves to establish what constitutes ‘good treatment’.  What sorts of actions towards ourselves would be described as ‘good treatment’?  Further, if we can quantify these actions, we can come to a decision on how they should be ‘reciprocated’ towards another.

Thirdly, this whole process is done while the lower brains continue their never-ending stimuli.  What sort of risks are being taken by following through with these actions?  Is the ‘other’ deserving of such treatment?  If the situation were reversed, would I receive such good treatment?  Will others consider me ‘weak’ because of my thoughtfulness?

So, ‘whole brain’ thinking requires the intuition that all humans persons are sufficiently alike to warrant the treatment we ourselves prefer, the empiricism to determine what that treatment would consist of and the decision to overcome the fears introduced by the ‘lower’ brains.

(It is not coincidence that these three facets reflect the three ‘virtues’ (16 May) which themselves map our journey ‘up’ the convergent spiral of evolution towards increased complexity.  ‘Faith’ is necessary for belief that others are ‘like us’, ‘Hope’ reflects our expectations for outcome of reciprocity and ‘Love’ is simply the energy which effects the unity that results from reciprocity.)

Note that the ‘Golden Rule’ is itself the result of ‘intuition’.  As Jonathan Sacks notes, ‘empiricism’, as found in ‘left brained thinking’, did not arise in the historical record until the Greek era, and finds its way into Western history via the Greek translation of Christian scripture and its subsequent influence on Western religious thought.  In his terms:

“… Christianity was a right-brain religion … translated into a left-brain language [Greek]. So for many centuries you had this view that science and religion are essentially part of the same thing.”

   Sacks’ assertion that the “view of science and religion as essentially part of the same thing”, however, has never been a mainstay in Western thinking, as the emergence of scientific empirical thinking was initially seen as a threat to Western religious concepts, as well as to the established and strongly entrenched Christian hierarchy of the time.

Nonetheless, Sacks, as Teilhard before him, was adamant that these two classical modes of thought were somehow connected at their root.  Further, they believed that recognition of this connection would lead to a clearer understanding of what it meant to be human as a necessary step toward continuing our evolution.  As Sacks sees it:

“It is not incidental that Homo sapiens has been gifted with a bicameral brain that allows us to experience the world in two fundamentally different ways, as subject and object, ‘I’ and ‘Me’, capable of standing both within and outside our subjective experience.  In that fact lies our moral and intellectual freedom, our ability to mix emotion and reflection, our capacity for both love and justice, attachment and detachment, in short, our humanity.”

The Next Post

This week we took a deeper look at the skill of using the ‘whole brain’ to assess the ‘noosphere’, further understand our place in it and how we can develop the skill necessary to cooperate with the flow of evolutional energy as it rises through the human species.

   Next week we will extend this theme of ‘coherence’ to the great human paradigms of understanding and the ‘hermeneutics’ which we employ in them as we further our attempts to ‘make sense of things’.