science providing necessary underpinning or corroboration or 'litmus testing' for spiritual metaphysics and post-metaphysics

The issues suggested in the title to this thread have been sprinkled organically and supportively throughout various threads. Yet this can be a thread where explicit studies and research can be the starting point more than incidental to areas of mind, consciousness, and human functioning that can be crucial to careful thought and exploration about "spirituality".

Some of these scientific items may be very obviously pertinent for many readers to musings on "spirit", and others may seem so minor as to bring wonder as to how they relate. My bias is that science, especially bio-neuro science, brings a lot to the inquiries of spirit, and this bias may be both a strength and a limitation of my understanding and "kosmic address(es)"

[I may bring some other items from other threads to this one.]

In this initial posting, the referred to research bit is speaking to sensation, perceptual processing, cognitive processing, interpretation at various levels of awareness, conclusions, and theory building. This one challenges some notions of what is 'hardwired' and what is more environmentally and learning dependent.

The hypotheses regard taste, and some olfaction, and are specific and small enough in scope to achieve some hard evidence in a laboratory, in this situation with mice.

How does this relate to spirituality? Almost needless to say, to understand anything integrally we need to consider all quadrants and zones, in this case, the right-sided quadrants. How does this relate to post-metaphysics? Post often, later, means having moved beyond - in this case, beyond the physical theories and metaphysical theories that find truth-support and logical coherence through science. Of course.

As I post this new thread, I think of Balder's recent entry regarding Michel Serres' and his book, The Five Senses.

http://integralpostmetaphysics.ning.com/forum/topics/michel-serres?...

Do you in reading this or these studies have any insights about the big concepts, realities, and experiences around which this forum has been created?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151118155126.htm

"Most people probably think that we perceive the five basic tastes -- sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (savory)--with our tongue, which then sends signals to our brain 'telling' us what we've tasted. However, scientists have turned this idea on its head. . ."

"These experiments formally prove that the sense of taste is completely hardwired, independent of learning or experience, said Dr. Zuker, which is different from the olfactory system. Odors don't carry innate meaning until you associate them with experiences. One smell could be great for you and horrible to me." (As humans, of course, we can eventually learn to enjoy bitters and dislike sugar).

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Haha ! that science daily sounds like an argument for Calvinism! Who would of thought ! lol I may have to alter my views on compatibilism.

Hey, A - I don't follow what you mean about science daily and Calvinism.

Did you peruse the website and its many subtopics of relevant-to-life science?




andrew said:

Haha ! that science daily sounds like an argument for Calvinism! Who would of thought ! lol I may have to alter my views on compatibilism.

No, just the one with the mice being tested and taste being hardwired in the brain. So taste according to that , is illusionary in a sense ; or preordained . Hence my comment on pre-determinism. 

Wouldn't the general trend of science from its beginnings 500 years ago to  today  suggest that spiritual hypothesis is incorrect and should be abandoned? I'm pretty sure this is what Visser asserts . To me, if that were true then the issue today wouldn't be to assert that science will prove spirituality ( I doubt science will reverse its trajectory ) , but rather the focus would be on the  issue of how to organize a post-secular civilization ( because of the return of religion ), based on the best data that science ( especially the soft sciences) can give us ?  Religion is here to stay and science could be a tool of mediation rather than being used as a hammer? If what I'm saying isn't true than why bother with spirituality at all? Just stick with Dennett et al. 

Yes, Ambo, extensive site . I get it . Human beings know a lot more about the physical universe then we did 500 years ago ( assuming that a vast majority of the knowledge is accurate) . I will bookmark the link . 

But there is another way to look at this . Human beings were around for 200,000 years or so without science and seemed to do okay . With science and within 500 years we are on the verge of annihilating life on the planet . In that sense i maintain we are are still a primitive species . 

Some more thoughts on this, Ambo . I think there are specific fields of scientific knowledge that are either lacking or have been a dismal failure . Here are a few as far as I can tell . 

- the field of economics has been a dismal failure and even if there are new theories being espoused, not being able in implement them is a failure . 

-pollution control to scale has been a dismal failure . We externalize rather than then solve  pollution . 

-morals and ethics :Today those who scream the loudest or troll the most control the ethical parameters . 

-psychology:  proper use of it has been hijacked by the Edward Bernay's of the world . 

-technology that is accurate when dealing with deception . i.e. foolproof lie detection for those in power .

Here is a link that shows science isn't as secular as it seems : 

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/04/13/are-top-s...

Many many scientists hold various religious convictions but I doubt they look to science as an avenue of proof of their faith . 

Where I side with Demski, Behe , et al, is that consensus is not unanimous . There is a long long way to go . Am not really getting this aspect along these lines : sure , 150 years away from the plough we have learned a lot , but it doesn't seem right to me to say that we are even close to knowing all there is to know . Imagine we did survive for 10's and thousands of more years ; it hardly seems likely that we, at this point, have learned very much at all. I would think an advanced civilization looking at todays world would see us as primitive .

Andrew. Ah, I now can see more clearly where you found that association of Calvinism within your mind-heart.

As I start to briefly respond to some of your comments from your ensuing posts, I want to mention that of course your arguments have plenty of merit. I find I have trouble responding simply, however, and feel I would need to address so many ideas and assumptions you make, yet I can't give quite that much time and energy. Your views, meritorious, potentially of great value, and with sincerity and honesty though they be, give me a feeling, correct or not so much, that you are rather entrenched in your fine yet idiosyncratic take on many things, that we all apparently are to some extent. How I am affected by this is I am not sure of the value of me responding in much detail.

To the extent that it feels that I have intruded or attacked way too personally or am way off base, I would not be surprised, and maybe would feel apologetic.


"Wouldn't the general trend of science from its beginnings 500 years ago to  today  suggest that spiritual hypothesis is incorrect and should be abandoned?"

Not across the board as I can feel and see - this seems like a big generalization and almost binary-choice stretch.

"Religion is here to stay and science could be a tool of mediation rather than being used as a hammer? If what I'm saying isn't true than why bother with spirituality at all? Just stick with Dennett et al."

To my ears, there is a lot in these two questions that may be more like statements. To my ears, you seem to almost cast this (as with given "hammer" like metaphor), in a reduced straw man like fashion and then dispose of it, as with the lump of Dennett et al.

"Human beings were around for 200,000 years or so without science and seemed to do okay."

In a way of looking at it, ok - and in another way, maybe not so much. At least this is a big question.
Agreed, in some ways we are a primitive species.


I think your reference to Discover's article does broaden and pluralize the general thrust, as it seems to me, even thereby including a sort of critique and answer to your first questions. I can feel plenty sympatico with what the author is saying.

Your introducing the phrase, "proof of faith", feels a little straw manish - among fairly educated modern and especially integrally aware people, I think there is a lot of agreement that one can't prove faith in any reliable and maybe valid way. In most moments, I certainly wouldn't try, except maybe to evoke some questioning in a monolithic thinker and forceful expresser. Also, it is doubtful that I would be nudged much by most overt efforts towards, "proof of faith."


Where I probably most resonate with your argumentations, evidences, and tones, is that I often feel worried for the human race, for the existing and potential losses of beauty of earth and man, and even for myself. In some ways I feel quite afraid of this life, yet fear may have been here all along and may be ongoing until 'we' transcend some persistent, seemingly inherited currents within ourselves. I have various personal strategies and psychological defenses to deal with these complexly worrisome-for-me circumstances, inner and outer, individual and collective, one of which is something like resignation and being more succeptible to fundamental nihilistic dynamics. Wow, that was a mouthful. What'd I say? :) Ok, something like that.

From a brief and more proactive angle, I'll say that in some people and contexts I think that spirituality and apprehensions of the sacred could be awakened by and fostered by science. Science might in those situations seem even as, "proof of faith." Of course, truly, I don't know much about this, but it seems quite possible and sort of logical from where I often reside.

Well, ehem, alright then, thanks, A - ambo


andrew said:

No, just the one with the mice being tested and taste being hardwired in the brain. So taste according to that , is illusionary in a sense ; or preordained . Hence my comment on pre-determinism. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160303094320.htm

In the ongoing insightful, sophisticated and increasingly nuancing conversations and debates in the philoso-spiritual world, which can be held in the polarity between mind as matter (i.e. nervous system) and mind as beyond matter, this article helps, I think, define the case for matter being more than just implicit or tangential to massless mind. That's probably a cautious statement :)

Beyond that first paragraph's extravagant framing, the fact that a monkey can begin to learn to direct a wheelchair with brainwave implants implies to me that more than we might have suspected, action, will, and maybe affect/attraction/value (?) pivots through subtle/gross material-energetic (& of course field) conditions.

Without having contemplated deeply into this, I get a quick inkling-frame that maybe as the interface between material and proposed/articulated/perhaps abstracted or implicit involved spirit seems to get thinner and thinner until maybe it is not distinguishable, I think perhaps that is a reasonable way to hold the abstract tension for now.

What'd I say?

In reply to myself, maybe this scientific accomplishment doesn't really advance or thin the line between "spirit" and "matter". From one reading of this, this is all in the gross realm.

I suppose I am just playin with concepts. Erghkhah.

Ambo Suno said:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160303094320.htm

In the ongoing insightful, sophisticated and increasingly nuancing conversations and debates in the philoso-spiritual world, which can be held in the polarity between mind as matter (i.e. nervous system) and mind as beyond matter, this article helps, I think, define the case for matter being more than just implicit or tangential to massless mind. That's probably a cautious statement :)

Beyond that first paragraph's extravagant framing, the fact that a monkey can begin to learn to direct a wheelchair with brainwave implants implies to me that more than we might have suspected, action, will, and maybe affect/attraction/value (?) pivots through subtle/gross material-energetic (& of course field) conditions.

Without having contemplated deeply into this, I get a quick inkling-frame that maybe as the interface between material and proposed/articulated/perhaps abstracted or implicit involved spirit seems to get thinner and thinner until maybe it is not distinguishable, I think perhaps that is a reasonable way to hold the abstract tension for now.

What'd I say?

Mens Rea, Blade Runner Tech, And The Possible Future Of Devices Assisting Profiling:

These two articles seem interesting to me as brain science begins to parse altruistic appearing behavior into "motive." This may remind us that for many years the law some of us know has depended on "mens rea" or the guilty mind [I believe] to determine whether a person will be punished and how much/in what way. This study does not go directly to this topic but begins to reveal that there are identifiable differences in how the brain works, though behaviors may appear roughly equal. This by analogy reminds me of where the "pre/trans/post fallacy" [perhaps even related to metaphysics] has gotten much of its original traction as a useful idea - looks the same, but isn't.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160303145739.htm

This study and another that you can see in the margin of the linked page further investigate the neurological correlates of empathy.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711123005.htm

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What paths lie ahead for religion and spirituality in the 21st Century? How might the insights of modernity and post-modernity impact and inform humanity's ancient wisdom traditions? How are we to enact, together, new spiritual visions – independently, or within our respective traditions – that can respond adequately to the challenges of our times?

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