A small good thing has happened in the battle between rationalists and believers. And with luck it will grow into something truly grand. The new atheist neuroscientist and author, Sam Harris, one of the few real bright spots on the bleak horizon of America's culture wars, has reached out to fellow neuroscientist and author David Eagleman, one of this country's fastest rising and most promising young public Intellectuals.
Harris is looking for a dialogue with Eagleman in part to set him straight -- or at least Harris's version of straight. Harris writes:
"On the subject of religion, Eagleman appears to make a conscious effort to play the good cop to the bad cop of 'the new atheism.' This posture will win him many friends, but it is intellectually dishonest. When one reads between the lines--or even when one just reads the lines--it becomes clear that what Eagleman is saying is every bit as deflationary as anything Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens or I say about the cherished doctrines of the faithful."
And this, of course, is the moment when I feel the need to intrude and set a context for this meeting of the minds.
Those who are familiar with my book, Fringe-ology: How I Tried to Explain Away the Unexplainable--And Couldn't, know that I quote both Eagleman and Harris at length and admiringly. A brief summation of their positions runs as follows:
Eagleman advocates a new philosophy, which he dubs "possibilianism." After he went public with his idea, on NPR, thousands began calling themselves "possibilians." By definition, a possibilian enjoys considering all the different explanations of what the world holds or what the ultimate reality might be -- all the possibilities -- without committing to what Eagleman calls "any particular story." In this view, both the Bible and string theory would qualify as stories. The possibilian's stance would be to consider each of these ideas in light of scientific evidence. But, not being passionately, stridently, dogmatically committed to any particular position, including atheism, a possibilian like Eagleman would feel no need to smack believers around, rhetorically or otherwise.
Harris, on the other hand, is all for non-belief in God. So to him Eagleman probably looks like an accommodationist, seeking compromise where no such half-stepping should be countenanced. I find Harris a curious figure. He is, at a glance, one of the most polarizing thinkers in America today. He is willing to go to extremes to stop extremists: "There is, in fact, no talking to some people" he writes, arguing that it might sometimes be ethical to kill people for holding particularly "dangerous" beliefs. He even attacks moderate religious belief because it "provides cover" for the dangerous radicals. (How the scientifically minded Harris has ever quantified how moderate religion provides this cover has gone noticeably unsaid.) But I also see in Harris profound reason for hope. Nothing if not brave, Harris continually puts his considerable reputation on the line to speak up for practices long associated with mysticism, from meditation and contemplative prayer to the use of certain drugs. He speaks up for a broadly defined sort of "spirituality," in which the existence of a soul is not scientifically supportable (at the moment) but the concept of the individual spirit is already meaningful in every other important way.
In sum, the spark of the possibilian is there in Harris for all to see. And it's here where I see the possibility -- pun intended -- of a truly fruitful collaboration.
Harris has written that the universe may be "far stranger than many of us suppose" -- one of the lines I quote in Fringe-ology -- and in a recent essay titled "Drugs and the Meaning of Life" he writes the following incredible passage in his "notes" section:
"Many users of DMT [Dimethyltryptamine] report being thrust under its influence into an adjacent reality where they are met by alien beings who appear intent upon sharing information and demonstrating the use of inscrutable technologies. The convergence of hundreds of such reports, many from first-time users of the drug who have not been told what to expect, is certainly interesting. It is also worth noting these accounts are almost entirely free of religious imagery. One appears far more likely to meet extraterrestrials or elves on DMT than traditional saints or angels. As I have not tried DMT, and have not had an experience of the sort that its users describe, I don't know what to make of any of this."
That Harris remains willing to consider, however fleetingly, the possibility of elves is a note, I think, that runs surprisingly in his favor. And I hope when he meets with Eagleman -- be it in person, by email, skype or the archaic technology of telephony -- that he is open to more fully embracing this part of his nature. (I also hope he engages this part of his nature the next time he meets with a believer.) Because if we're going to get beyond the typical exchanges between new atheists and the religious, I'd argue that it's through figures like Eagleman and Harris that we will find the most productive path: men who are eager to use science while demonstrating a capacity to consider ideas from other areas of human experience and systems of thought.
In that same spirit, I will, in a later post, suggest a third man who should be present when Harris and Eagleman meet.
Michael Graziano: Is Spirituality a Byproduct of Evolution?
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Wired 14.11: The Church of the Non-Believers
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http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/whither-eagleman/
Calls possibilianism psuedo-intellectual, a performance art, and suggests that Eagleman is actually an atheist.
Side one - God's existence cannot be proved so y'all MUST believe in God.
Side two - God's existence cannot be proven, I choose not to believe in God, go away and leave me alone.
The first wholly new interpretation of the moral teachings of Christ for two thousand years is on the web. Radically different from anything else we know of from history, this new 'claim' is predicated upon a precise and predefined experience, a direct individual intervention into the natural world by omnipotent power to confirm divine will, command and covenant, "correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries." Like it of no, a new religious claim testable by faith, meeting all Enlightenment criteria now exists. Nothing short of a religious revolution appears to be getting under way. More info at http://soulgineering.com/2011/05/22/the-final-freedoms/
What horse patootey! This is representative of the type of "critical reasoning" that considers Weekly World News headlines worthy of consideration by "possibilians."
Pull yourself out of the mist of cognitive dissonance.
I loved your reply! This is a tangent here that I am going on...in a college calculus class the professor assigned a difficult problem. It took me six pages of notebook paper front and back to show the solution. The professor handed back the papers. Mine was graded A+, A+. Then in the margin the professor wrote "brilliant".
All my peers saw my grade. When I walked out of the classroom I felt ten feet tall and bullet proof. Some of my buddies came up and were bragging on me. Then, reality set in. I told them that I had done nothing special. I solved a problem that was solved by a brilliant math student who did so several hundred years ago without the aid of my calculator. Not only did he solve the problem he invented it. How's that for reality! All I really had to do was plug in the numbers.
Here's a question for you. What's beyond the mathematics we currently know today? Have we reached a stalemate and is it stagnant? Is it biometrics, and isn't that just the new fancy name they put on it now?
I know it's not real math...but, being able to read and write Greek and Hebrew I have a lot of fun with Gematria. And, yes it is just for fun - so, we don't get into a discussion on its validity.
Your Friend,
nephew
Sorry, I don't know who Fred Phelps is.
Was "Loadofcrapism" already taken?
As agnostic as I am I like 'possibilianism.' It's a bit of a big brother of 'I can't know and I don't carism' which I'vde enjoyed for a long time.
Nothing new here
But hey folks, delusion is delusion. God is myth. The popes, preachers, and deacons are ripping you off. From the snake handling preacher in Appalachia to the Pope in Rome they are using your money to maintain their fiefdoms. Refusing to take a stand whether you call it agnosticism, or possibilism is giving tacit approval to the idea that bombing abortion clinics, burning witches at the stake, or flying planes into buildings might be approved by some god somewhere.
It is time for the human race to grow up and stop giving religion the divisive power it now has to cause suffering in our world.
What is the argument that can be made that we only comprehend 99% of reality? An argument can be made that you only comprehend less than 1% of reality or even what you wrote. But, even the atheists, which I am in disagreement with concerning their opinions, have a pretty good handle on reality.
However, he's a good dog. My cat seemed totally disinterested. I guess she was pondering the string theory.
But, I ask, why not be precise? If @kv3854 finds an "inner peace" that some might equate with spirituality, why not just say "Atheists or non-believers can achieve the inner peace that 'spiritual' people achieve" or similar?