When I speak of “Naturalistic Commitments,” what do I mean? What am I talking about?
“The commitments” can be loosely understood as:
…and on and on. Get the picture?
Now lets dig a little further:
A lot of people get squeamish here. People who don’t believe in the other stuff, but are still searching for meaning, divinity, a spark of the soul, are tempted by “the Quantum Out.” But there’s a lot of reasons to dismiss this; Read the page QuantumOut for details.
Scientists may persue all these ideas, but what I have found time and time again, (and what you will find, time and time again, if you repeat the investigations,) is that there are either overall null results (“but with some fascinating instances and leads!”), or just plain null results.
This is where the truth-finders and the wishful-seekers are discriminated. Wishful seekers delight in their open mindedness, and go from possibility to possibility, reciting, “It only takes one for it to be true!”
Truth finders find that the scientific method has reliably and consistently uncovered reality, and that “If one of these weird things is true, scientists will eventually find it in time.” Truth finders learn what science has discovered, (because they’re actually interested in the question of “What is Real?”), and the more they learn, especially about the brain, the more clearly they observe the delusions of their wishful seeking counterparts.
There is one consolation: “No ontological commitments required.”
The discoveries of Epistemology are quite sound.
We don’t need to know what’s really real, or say what’s really real. Things merely need to be “real enough.”
It’s possible that underneath the facade, everything is computers, the story-telling of weasels, or that it’s all just a gigantic abacus or imagined dream. We can’t know what’s “really real,” now can we. “Well, ya’ got me.”
In the meantime, computers persist functioning, philosophy continues reasoning, we drive our cars or bicycles, and so on. The world functions as the scientists describe it and understand it.
One popular claim is that “Scientists don’t know anything!”
Generally followed by, “…so I can believe anything!” ESP, telekinesis, what have you- anything, everything, you’ll see it all up for grabs, because “scientists don’t know anything!”
Well, look;
My own thought, and the thought of those who’ve made naturalistic commitments, is that scientists know an aweful lot.
It’s true that they don’t know everything. But the basic picture and frame, they have some pretty good ideas about.
Realize that when Einstein figured out relativity, it didn’t mute Newtonian physics. It’s more like it extended Newtonian physics. But the Newtonian picture still basically works. (And yes, at the level of the Brain, as well. Neurons are enormous, and operate at the scale of milliseconds, far far away from quantum scales.)
Emergence is not “magic.” New higher order simulations are approximated by new rules, but that doesn’t mean that anything came from somewhere other than what the base layer provided. If you simulate water molecules by an atomic simulation, you end up with water behavior emerging. Everything to make the higher order behavior was present in the atomic simulation, it did not appear “by magic.”
There are many popular misunderstandings.
My advice to mystics, to reality seekers, to those who want to know “what’s really real,” is to study under those who have performed the longest, most sustained, investigation into the nature of Reality.
I am speaking of Scientists.
More specifically, learn:
Statistics, Calculus, and Differential Equations will be very helpful.
Also, take classes in Psychology, Neuroscience, experimental methodology, and how science works at the social, political, and epistemological levels.
This is tough, but who said that discovering the nature of reality would be easy? You didn’t think you could just take 2 tabs, and gain insight into the fundamental workings of everything in the world, did you?
It can be tough, but it’s also real.
Another possibility is to heed the words of those who have undertaken the journey, to learn what is real. Befriend people who have studied these things, and talk with them, regularly, and often. Exonerate them, and listen carefully to what they have to say. Bring them your thoughts about UFOs, ESP, fairies, and so on, and listen to the reasoning behind their skepticism.
That’s the “easy way.” But if you can, do the hard way.
If you do it smart, it can take as little as 4 years.
This is the starting point.
We need to be fully connected with Reality, before we can really find an authentic spirituality.
A lot of people give up at this point, because they can’t see a way forward. They join / fall-into one of the NaturalisticSpiritualities, practice MaterialLiteralism, and so on.
There’s a sense of let-down, sadness, “making do with what’s available,” and something of a poverty of the spirit.
Those who don’t tend, at their best, become “Humanists,” (though secular humanist may be a better label, depending on how angry with religion,) and then social activists, striving for a better world, though not entirely sure of what that could mean.
…but, I’m growing more & more confident, that there’s a better way. A way so-far felt, but unarticulated.
This leads to my exploration of EvolutionarySpirituality.
And at the present moment, (2008-08-29,) my 31st birthday, I believe that the key to a wholly new spirituality, the answer to the quest for EuPraxOphy?, for a naturalistic spirituality that fully embraces the heart, and leads to good works and a beautiful future, lies in one single target: a NewAttitudeTowardsImagination?.