Quantum spirituality

[Edward theurj Berge]

Integral Options has a post on the above based on an article by Mark Vernon. Related to a recent IPS theme, Vernon notes the spiritual types cherry pick nice-sounding things from QM but avoid what doesn't fit. He says: "The quantum world is not just a strange place. It’s a hideously violent place too. Spiritualities are wary of celebrating that."

In Harryman's intro he also mentions a Nightline debate involving the topic, with Deepak Chopra and Jean Houston on one side and Michael Shermer and Sam Harris on the other. He thinks the latter fared much better. The link he provides doesn't work but I found it at this link where it can be viewed in its entirety.

[Edward theurj Berge]

The above link to the debate doesn't provide it. Try this link to You Tube.

[Edward theurj Berge]

After watching the first 6 installments of the 12 I'd have to side with the atheists so far, particularly Harris. Chopra to me is really woo woo, Shermer is not very good at debate, Houston I like but she extends mythology to inapplicable domains but is far from Chopra's absurdity. The more I hear from Harris the more I find a kindred spirit.

[Dawid Dahl]

I saw this Nightline debate when it first came out, and found it really enjoyable. I too thought that the "atheist-side" came out stronger than the "new age-side" by several orders of magnitude. (As you say, Theurj, especially Harris, Shermer being more the typical been-there-done-that Orange archtype.) Chopra came across to me as a textbook example of how someone with strong samsaric attachments will react in challenging contexts, and Jean Houston, while physically attending, seemed mentally to partake in some wholly other discussion, judging by her ability to mysteriously avoid answering even the most direct and basic questions in a coherent manner.

 

Yeah, most enjoyable of all is to read what the Youtube audience thinks about Jean Houston's style of argumentation, hehe.

[Dawid Dahl]

And oh, the quantum physicist - I think he says he's working with Stephen Hawkins at the moment - speaking to Chopra at the question segment of the debate is also a real treat. :P I guess Chopra wasn't expecting that, having tailored his arguments anticipating his general naïve and gullible audience. (Namely, randomly throwing out notions of mysterious quantum mechanical concepts to make his new age arguments appear profound and meaningful.)

[Edward theurj Berge]

I stayed up late last night and finished the 12 segments. What I appreciated about Houston was that she tried to return the discussion to the future of god rather than the past. Unfortunately she spoke of it in the broadest of generalities that didn't speak to any specific or particular ways forward. Except for one comment that I appreciated, something to the effect that spirituality much be democratized. Alleluiah to that sister. And unfortunately Harris didn't speak to it, instead focusing on past and present religion with its tribal and ethnocentric focus. He does have opinions on postmetaphysical spirituality like in this thread but it seems he feels he always has to defend against the "old gods" so to speak. Chopra, while dealing with this future, continued to do so only in the most new agey quantum soup language that is most irrelevant.

[Balder]

They should have had Bill O'Reilly on the panel.  As you'll see from the clip I linked, he's got a slam-dunk argument.

[Dawid Dahl]

"Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication."

Flabbergasted! That did it for me, I'm joining the nearest Catholic church first thing in the morning.

 

Theurj: "And unfortunately Harris didn't speak to it, instead focusing on past and present religion with its tribal and ethnocentric focus. He does have opinions on postmetaphysical spirituality like in this thread but it seems he feels he always has to defend against the "old gods" so to speak"

 

I guess he simply recognizes the fact that it most probably won't make any sense to speak to Amber people about an Orange/Green God or spirituality. (And from what I've heard and seen, the vast majority in America believes in an Amber God, or thinks of God in an Amber fashion.) It will, as Wilber says, go straight over their heads.

 

That said, this was at Caltech where most of the people are Orange/Green, so that would definitely have been a place to introduce the possibility of a post-Amber (i.e. "future") God or spirituality. But I think he sought to communicate to the people in the sofas watching the debate as well, many of whom were viewing the spectacle through an Amber lens.

 

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Btw, here is the O'Reilly interview with David Silverman. Prime 1st-tier entertainment.

[Edward theurj Berge]

Bill'O the Clown is ludicrous. And Sam Harris is not limited to orange/green.

[Dawid Dahl]

"And Sam Harris is not limited to orange/green."

 

Oh, sorry if I seemed to imply that. I think Sam definitely demonstrates many of the signs of integral cognition.

[Philip Wootton]

They got at  or demonstrated, but didn't answer:

The need for methodological complementarity to unite art, science, and spirit.

The separation of mind or consciousness from brain or matter.

How ones framework or viewpoint limits ones openness.  No one likes others concepts in a debate.

We need to change or  likely be extinct.

New religion or cosmology needs wider awareness to break down tribalism and separateness.