Author Topic: Science and spirituality  (Read 46591 times)

jeremyp

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #575 on: November 22, 2022, 08:23:08 AM »
He can't be a mere prophet but he can be a prophet too. And it would be easier and seem more convenient in certain contexts to believe he was a mere prophet.
So Islam is wrong in your opinion. But here it is not dying out.
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Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #576 on: December 18, 2022, 06:43:11 AM »


it is essential for spirituality and science to co-exist and get integrated....

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/about/

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #577 on: December 18, 2022, 02:10:23 PM »
So Islam is wrong in your opinion. But here it is not dying out.
Aren’t you making an argumentum ad populum?

jeremyp

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #578 on: December 18, 2022, 03:40:02 PM »
Aren’t you making an argumentum ad populum?
No.

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Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #579 on: December 19, 2022, 05:38:06 AM »


Please avoid discussing religions on this thread.

I am trying to discuss spirituality rather than religion. Spirituality is secular and is relevant to all humans (even atheists).....all life in fact. It is about the purpose of life and death and the development of consciousness.

jeremyp

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #580 on: December 19, 2022, 06:44:51 AM »

Please avoid discussing religions on this thread.

I am trying to discuss spirituality rather than religion. Spirituality is secular and is relevant to all humans (even atheists).....all life in fact. It is about the purpose of life and death and the development of consciousness.

But it’s no more science than religion is.
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Gordon

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #581 on: December 19, 2022, 07:10:07 AM »

Please avoid discussing religions on this thread.

I am trying to discuss spirituality rather than religion. Spirituality is secular and is relevant to all humans (even atheists).....all life in fact. It is about the purpose of life and death and the development of consciousness.

You say that spirituality is about 'purpose', and presumably you don't mean our individual hopes and aspirations for ourselves and our families. If so, then 'purpose', on a grander scale, seems to me like a quasi-religious term and not one that an atheist like me could ever identify with.

For me 'spirituality', though the term is imprecise, seems to be no more than certain thoughts and feelings that produce a sense of profound awe and wonder to which some people ascribe significance beyond themselves - in other words, 'spiritualiy' is a product of our biology, as is consciousness.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 07:47:48 AM by Gordon »

Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #582 on: December 19, 2022, 08:22:30 AM »


Difference between spirituality and religion.....

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/spirituality-and-religion/

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #583 on: December 19, 2022, 09:30:35 AM »

Difference between spirituality and religion.....

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/spirituality-and-religion/
Surely both 'spirituality' and 'religion' tend to operate in the world of trying to address the 'why' question - we will come back to that later. I suppose there are also aspects of things that people ascribe to spirituality that have nothing to do with the 'why' question, but are entirely about personal well-being and development. For example meditative practices or yoga, which are well know to have physiological effects that can be beneficial - similar to other practices such as other types of exercise, singing etc. Many people will engage in meditation or yoga with no consideration of the 'why' question.

I would have thought that the key difference is that religions tend to be organised and collective, involving communities of people coming together. In that respect religions also often add a layer of social control, as you mention.

So, to an extent religions are a subset of spirituality approach.

But back to the 'why' - before spending time and energy on this question you need to be sure there is a 'why' - in other words some sense of human-like intention, design or purpose to the universe. I, and many others here, are not convinced that there is - there is certainly no evidence for this. And while it is understandable that humans tend to see the world through the lens of human-like approaches, that is highly anthropocentric thinking. And the universe does not revolve around humans.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 09:39:43 AM by ProfessorDavey »

Enki

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #584 on: December 19, 2022, 10:18:47 AM »

Please avoid discussing religions on this thread.

I am trying to discuss spirituality rather than religion. Spirituality is secular and is relevant to all humans (even atheists).....all life in fact. It is about the purpose of life and death and the development of consciousness.

I'm afraid you don't get to define spirituality as a general term, Sriram, only your own sense of spirituality. There are numerous interpretations of spirituality which may or may not include the religious person. My own spirituality, I would suggest, is far removed from your own take on it and doesn't involve any ideas of some sort of unifying consciousness or even purposes of life and death. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in these subjects, indeed, for me, they are the subject of intense curiosity but spirituality, for me, is much more associated with connection with nature and reflection.
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ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #585 on: December 19, 2022, 02:34:10 PM »
I'm afraid you don't get to define spirituality as a general term, Sriram, only your own sense of spirituality. There are numerous interpretations of spirituality which may or may not include the religious person. My own spirituality, I would suggest, is far removed from your own take on it and doesn't involve any ideas of some sort of unifying consciousness or even purposes of life and death. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in these subjects, indeed, for me, they are the subject of intense curiosity but spirituality, for me, is much more associated with connection with nature and reflection.
I think that is correct - there is no clear and broadly accepted definition of spirituality, which leads individuals to define in a manner which they feel appropriate and then to determine whether they consider themselves to be spiritual or not.

Now I suspect there will be differences across differing societies, but certainly in the UK spirituality is seen as a sub-set of religious, rather than the other way around. The reason being that very few people who self-define as spiritual don't also self define as religious.

Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #586 on: December 19, 2022, 04:37:44 PM »
You say that spirituality is about 'purpose', and presumably you don't mean our individual hopes and aspirations for ourselves and our families. If so, then 'purpose', on a grander scale, seems to me like a quasi-religious term and not one that an atheist like me could ever identify with.

For me 'spirituality', though the term is imprecise, seems to be no more than certain thoughts and feelings that produce a sense of profound awe and wonder to which some people ascribe significance beyond themselves - in other words, 'spiritualiy' is a product of our biology, as is consciousness.

'Purpose' means the reason why Life exists, evolution takes place, complexity increases and so on.  You could of course attribute all this to chance and randomness. But  I and many others in the world believe that there is an inner intelligence that guides and directs life and evolution.

The purpose and direction that  we attribute can be based on local culture and religion (Jehovah decides, Vishnu decides etc) or it can be open ended without any specific God. This attributes the wisdom and direction to our own inner consciousness. This is spirituality without religion. It can be about ones inner development rather than about the teachings of any one person or any scripture.

The reason atheists also can identify with this is because there is no specific God or mythology (as in Samkhya, Jainism and Buddhism) involved. Many secular techniques like Yoga and meditations are available for undertaking such inner development.

Gordon

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #587 on: December 19, 2022, 04:52:56 PM »
'Purpose' means the reason why Life exists, evolution takes place, complexity increases and so on.

Which is begging the question.

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You could of course attribute all this to chance and randomness. But  I and many others in the world believe that there is an inner intelligence that guides and directs life and evolution.

Which to my mind is quasi-religious.

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The purpose and direction that  we attribute can be based on local culture and religion (Jehovah decides, Vishnu decides etc) or it can be open ended without any specific God. This attributes the wisdom and direction to our own inner consciousness. This is spirituality without religion. It can be about ones inner development rather than about the teachings of any one person or any scripture.

Which arises from people being people in different times and cultures.

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The reason atheists also can identify with this is because there is no specific God or mythology (as in Samkhya, Jainism and Buddhism) involved. Many secular techniques like Yoga and meditations are available for undertaking such inner development.

Again this is just people being people: no doubt some people find medidation and yoga useful irrespective of their take on theism, though neither interests me personally.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #588 on: December 19, 2022, 05:20:55 PM »
'Purpose' means the reason why Life exists, evolution takes place, complexity increases and so on.
But your terminology demonstrates bias - purpose implies intention, objective or aim, which presupposed some direction that isn't purely mechanistic. If you want a neutral starting point the term you should use is mechanism, not purpose. A mechanism can be random, purely driven by physics etc. or can be by design. Both are in play. Using purpose implies that there is something beyond the basic mechanism and until or unless you have demonstrated that considering purpose is moot.

You could of course attribute all this to chance and randomness.
Indeed you could and there is a wealth of evidence to demonstrate this to be the case in all sorts of circumstances. 

But  I and many others in the world believe that there is an inner intelligence that guides and directs life and evolution.
We know you do, but you don't have a shred of credible evidence to back up your claim in contrast to those who ascribed mechanisms based on sound principles of physics, chemistry and biology.

The purpose and direction that  we attribute can be based on local culture and religion (Jehovah decides, Vishnu decides etc) or it can be open ended without any specific God. This attributes the wisdom and direction to our own inner consciousness. This is spirituality without religion. It can be about ones inner development rather than about the teachings of any one person or any scripture.
Oh dear, Sriram folds back into anthropocentricity yet again. Why on earth would a cosmic 'purpose' or mechanism involve something as obscure and parochial as religions followed by a single species on one tiny planet in the blink of an eye in cosmic terms.

The reason atheists also can identify with this is because there is no specific God or mythology (as in Samkhya, Jainism and Buddhism) involved. Many secular techniques like Yoga and meditations are available for undertaking such inner development.
You are confusing cosmic 'purpose' with individual purpose and/or well being. I've no issue with the notion that meditation or yoga etc may be hugely individually purposeful to people and promote individual well being etc, but that doesn't mean they have any meaning or purpose whatsoever in cosmic terms.
« Last Edit: December 19, 2022, 05:59:10 PM by ProfessorDavey »

Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #589 on: December 20, 2022, 09:28:50 AM »


The laws of physics, chemistry and biology.... and an inner intelligence driving these mechanisms, are not mutually exclusive. 

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #590 on: December 20, 2022, 09:34:21 AM »
The laws of physics, chemistry and biology.... and an inner intelligence driving these mechanisms, are not mutually exclusive.
True - but also not necessary. Therefore if you are going to posit an inner intelligence driving these mechanisms then the onus is on you to provide the evidence. You, of course, have none.

Meanwhile science trundles on generating more and more evidence to explain the universe at its largest scale, at its smallest scale including life using those laws of physics, chemistry and biology without needing to resort to claims of inner intelligence.

We once used to explain thunder by reference to the actions of some intelligent god - now we are able to explain these phenomena satisfactorily on the basis of physics, without needing to resort to claims of some god.

Outrider

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #591 on: December 20, 2022, 11:33:36 AM »
it is essential for spirituality and science to co-exist and get integrated....

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/about/

Only if you can show that spirituality (and, I suppose, science) are themselves essential, and I think that's difficult.

Quote from: Sriram
The laws of physics, chemistry and biology.... and an inner intelligence driving these mechanisms, are not mutually exclusive.

No, but neither are they all demonstrably real. Vlad, I'm sure, could be all over whether materialist notions like physical laws can ever be absolutely validated (and he'd be right, but science is technically always provision no matter how much we might act as though it's settled fact), but the notion of an underlying intelligence and intent to reality is far from even vaguely supported by anything more than wishful thinking.

O.
« Last Edit: December 20, 2022, 11:36:40 AM by Outrider »
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

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Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #592 on: December 21, 2022, 05:05:46 AM »

OF course they are necessary.  Mere mechanisms don't explain anything. How and why these mechanisms and laws came about are very important questions. Wishing away the questions is like wearing blinkers.

I agree that 'God did it' could be a simplistic answer. But spirituality does not just say that. It provides us an avenue to see for ourselves the possibilities of our inner consciousness. You can see it too.

About happiness...happiness is of two kinds. First kind of happiness can be experienced through gratification of needs and desires. The second kind can be experienced through elimination of needs and desires. The second is a more permanent and stable kind of happiness. Once we achieve this, our vision and view of the world automatically changes. 

Spirituality is hardly anthropocentric. It includes all life forms through the idea of spiritual evolution or consciousness evolution. It views the huge cosmos as just an illusion. Like a Virtual Reality world. Real enough when we are experiencing it, but disappears as soon as we remove the headset and see reality.

https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2019/11/04/reality/






« Last Edit: December 21, 2022, 05:13:24 AM by Sriram »

Outrider

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #593 on: December 21, 2022, 09:56:42 AM »
OF course they are necessary.

It might appear self-evident to you, but given the number of people claiming otherwise just here on this board then, at the very least, it's not self-evident to everyone. You therefore need to explain WHY you think they are necessary, not just claim it as a given.

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Mere mechanisms don't explain anything.

They are sufficient to explain the phenomena, generally. They are not definitively complete explanations, there might be something more - and in some of the cases of what's currently at the fringes of scientific understanding they are, of course, incomplete - but your incredulity does not invalidate those explanations nor mean that something more is required from them.

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How and why these mechanisms and laws came about are very important questions.

How they emerged is an interesting, and arguably important, question, yes. Why, though - what makes you think there's a why?

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Wishing away the questions is like wearing blinkers.

Begging the question is a logical fallacy. No-one is wishing away the question, people are asking you to justify the assumptions that would make the question relevant.

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I agree that 'God did it' could be a simplistic answer. But spirituality does not just say that. It provides us an avenue to see for ourselves the possibilities of our inner consciousness. You can see it too.

Except that you've failed to justify the need to go looking for something that's unnecessary.

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About happiness...happiness is of two kinds. First kind of happiness can be experienced through gratification of needs and desires. The second kind can be experienced through elimination of needs and desires.

Elimination of needs and desires is not happiness, I'd suggest, it's apathy. You're not unhappy, but happiness is not merely the absence of unhappiness.

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The second is a more permanent and stable kind of happiness.

But it's forgoing so much of what makes being human so potentially wonderful.

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Once we achieve this, our vision and view of the world automatically changes.

Post hoc ergo procter hoc? Surely the change in world view is what leads to accepting this state? 

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Spirituality is hardly anthropocentric.

I've not seen any foxes opining on spirituality.

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It includes all life forms through the idea of spiritual evolution or consciousness evolution.

So people, once they've presumed something about humanity, then imprints that on other animals - that's pretty much the definition of anthropocentrism.

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It views the huge cosmos as just an illusion. Like a Virtual Reality world.

We have the ability to interact with and interpret exactly one life, as things currently stand, and you advocate dismissing that and ignoring its potential in a wild goose chase for some unevidenced 'other'?

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Real enough when we are experiencing it, but disappears as soon as we remove the headset and see reality.

When we 'remove the headset' - die - it does seem as though we no longer experience this world, but that doesn't automatically mean that something of us goes to some other place. You've neither demonstrated that 'soul' that might move on, nor demonstrated that there's anywhere to move on to.

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https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2019/11/04/reality/

You fundamentally fail when you try to parallel 'subjective' and 'objective' realities as somehow separate and equally 'valid'. Our subjective reality is dependent upon the objective reality, it is a particular viewpoint. If objective reality is a multi-coloured sphere, every subjective view is going to have a different colour spread, but they're all going to be round.

We can miss things, we can misinterpret things, but given that we are part of the reality, our understanding is a part of objective reality as well.

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We use these faculties to see and interact with the world at a certain level and scale. We don’t actually experience ‘reality’.

Yes, we do. We interpret it imperfectly, although we can improve that with rigorous methodology, but we do actually experience reality - we have no other option.

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Instruments and photographs are merely extensions of our senses and are made in line with our sensory requirements. They are designed to see ‘reality’ the way we perceive it.

Initially this was the case - microscopes and telescopes simply changed the scale we could look at, microphones transferred sounds that we couldn't get close to. As we have progressed, though, we have developed instruments to expand into areas that we don't have direct sense of - gravitometry, radio telescopes, magnetometers and others.

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Without our senses and without our brain, would the world look the same, sound the same, feel the same? This is something that is impossible to know.

Without our senses the world would be exactly the same, we just would have an even less clear understanding of it. Without our brains there wouldn't be us to even consider it.

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Tons of Dark Matter could be sitting on your table right now, but we don’t see it or feel it or experience its presence in any way whatsoever!! This is because Dark Matter does not interact with normal matter. It cannot therefore be seen, heard, smelt, tasted or even felt.

Dark matter does interact with the rest of reality, that's why we need any hypothesis as to what it might be, because we have observed phenomena that require an explanation. In particular we see significant gravitational effects which require an explanation - if we had 'tons' of dark matter, that mass would still be having an effect on the world around us. Would we appreciate that it was there? Perhaps - we don't notice the tons of air that's on top of our table, but it would suddenly be a lot darker than usual.

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We think that reality ends with small elementary particles on one side and with large galaxies on the other.  Actually, there are no dead ends on either side.

So far as I can tell we don't claim to know the upper and lower limits of reality - we have a scale for which we have reasonable amounts of evidence or testable hypotheses; beyond that we have musings, but we don't have many firm reasons to think that there's an absolute limit that we've reached.

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It is also true that according to Quantum Field Theory, what we perceive as discrete particles are actually just points or waves or excitations in various Fields that exist like fluids across the universe.

No. What we think of as quanta are just that, they are neither particles nor waves. In certain circumstances it can be easier for us to consider them as such as they exhibit common behaviours, but that's - to refer back - a facet of our limitations of understanding. We have no direct experience which approximates quantum behaviour, which means we can't easily frame it in its entirety in anything but detached mathematics.

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There is probably a Biofield that connects all biological matter and constitutes a subtle part of our biology. Our Mind and Consciousness are also probably fields of some kind.

That just drops in out of nowhere. You have a citation chaser to go with that? That's a massive leap that not only have you completely failed to substantiate, but which conventional science - which you've otherwise been obliquely referencing - does not back up. You could suggest that it's a possibility that requires investigation, and I'd respond that there are probably more promising avenues of exploration but whatever floats your boat, but to suggest that it's settled fact is just plain wrong.

O.
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ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #594 on: December 21, 2022, 11:22:14 AM »
Spirituality is hardly anthropocentric. It includes all life forms through the idea of spiritual evolution or consciousness evolution. It views the huge cosmos as just an illusion. Like a Virtual Reality world. Real enough when we are experiencing it, but disappears as soon as we remove the headset and see reality.
Are you for real Sriram.

You claim that your version of spirituality isn't anthropocentric, and then literally claim that the cosmos is somehow something that only exists in the minds of people.

I mean, really!!!

Sriram

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #595 on: December 22, 2022, 09:28:25 AM »


It is not anthropocentric because it does not apply only to humans. It applies to all life. The fact that humans come up with this philosophy and animals don't, does not make it anthropocentric.....for heavens sake!

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #596 on: December 22, 2022, 10:12:08 AM »
It is not anthropocentric because it does not apply only to humans. It applies to all life. The fact that humans come up with this philosophy and animals don't, does not make it anthropocentric.....for heavens sake!
Anthropocentricity doesn't mean that something is only applied to humans - it means that it is centred on humans. And everything you describe is achingly anthropocentric - perhaps the most obvious being that you feel the need to ascribe something that is a particularly important human characteristic (consciousness) to other elements within the cosmos where the notion of consciousness is a complete anathema and totally irrelevant.

Your whole philosophy is seen through the lens of human shaped goggles - hence it is anthropocentric.

And in doing so it cannot give any meaningful understanding of the cosmos as for all but the blink of an eye humans didn't exist within that cosmos. Any understanding of the cosmos needs to still have as much relevance on the basis that humans do not exist, did not exist and might never exist. Human existence is a mere chance happening - there is no necessity for humans to exist for the cosmos to exist and to function.

ekim

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #597 on: December 22, 2022, 11:03:05 AM »
I suspect that Sriram meant to say that 'Spirit' is not anthropocentric.  'Spirit' is probably his best fit word for 'prana' which symbolises a life force believed to be present in all life forms.

ProfessorDavey

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #598 on: December 22, 2022, 11:08:59 AM »
I suspect that Sriram meant to say that 'Spirit' is not anthropocentric.  'Spirit' is probably his best fit word for 'prana' which symbolises a life force believed to be present in all life forms.
But when the 'spirit' have clearly human-like properties, e.g. consciousness, which is of course not present in all living things, then it is anthropocentric.

But even if you are linking it to life forms it remains, if not anthropocentric, but viviocentric (if that is a word), in other words centred on the importance of living things. Now from a cosmological perspective this is still non-sense as there is no requirement whatsoever for life to exist in the cosmos. The cosmos does not need life and the cosmos can, and almost certainly did, exist comfortably without life.

Bramble

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Re: Science and spirituality
« Reply #599 on: December 22, 2022, 01:59:18 PM »
As I understand Sriram's position, the human form is like a gate through which all life forms must eventually pass to realise their cosmic purpose. I'd call that pretty anthropocentric, yet another spin on the familiar 'all about us' narrative. It's more than a little ironic that loss of ego is taken to be crucial to the whole project. If we really want to deflate our bubble there are probably better ways we could learn to relate to the 'lower' animals.