[lbo-talk] Question re: Religion vs "spirituality"

Julio Huato juliohuato at gmail.com
Fri Dec 2 14:24:26 PST 2005


Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


> I have to admit that I view pantheism i.e. its central tenet of one world
> that is both "natural" and "spiritual" as quite intellectually appealing,
> more so than positivistic scientism.

I don't think it's possible to discuss what Engels called the "fundamental philosophical problem" and completely avoid Godelian undecidabilities. To paraphrase my daughter: "You can't prove that God doesn't exist, because I can always place God's existence beyond the reach of your argument." But let me state my *opinion* anyway:

Consider the fact that, after a certain number of years, all the cells and tissues in our body are replaced by completely new ones. Or, to make it a bit more sci-fi, consider a technology that allows us to scan a rock, an apple, or a human being at -- say -- the molecular level, record the information on the relation of the molecules with respect to one another on some magnetic medium, beam the recipe at the speed of light to some other location where the necessary chemical ingredients are on stock, mix up the ingredients according to recipe, and build a clone of the rock, apple, or human being. It seems to me that, in principle, such technology is not impossible.

This possibility makes me see more clearly Plato's or Hegel's idealist point, which is -- I believe -- the philosophical basis of pantheism. It seems as if the ultimate essence of a rock, an apple, or a human were entirely separate from the chemical or physical ingredients that make them up, solely the recipe that details *what* ingredients are required and *how* they're mixed up. Come to think of it, the recipe can be reduced to zeros and ones. That may easily lead one to think of a parallel world of which the one we inhabit is only a shadow or of the Idea unfolding and realizing itself in the manifold diversity of the world.

But, IMO, it is *we* thinking beings who are capable of *mentally* differentiating between ingredients and recipe because somehow we've evolved an ability to think abstractly. The difference between ingredients and recipe is real, an objective feature of the world. But in the world ingredients and recipe are packaged together. Nowhere, but in our minds (which is also necessarily tied to some physical support medium, our brain or the products of human culture) can the zeros and ones exist outside of a physical medium. Nowhere can the Idea exist outside of the world of matter. (IMO, that excludes the Idea, God, or gods entirely.) And the world doesn't necessarily reflect (e.g., know) or care about this difference one way or another -- except through us (and possibly other thinking beings in the universe). The world is both ingredients and recipe meshed together, rocks, apples, humans, etc.

I'm not saying that mentally grasping this difference is inconsequential. Obviously, humans have been able to do amazing things (and horrible ones) by exploiting our understanding of this difference, pretty much speeding up, slowing down, controlling natural -- and to a much lesser extent social -- processes and getting results that we mentally anticipate. The problem of idealists (religious or not) is that they project on the world the difference *we* perceive as if the elements of the difference, ingredients and recipe, could be altogether divorced and the ideal element by itself were the world's driving force. That's why idealism and pantheism do not appeal to me intellectually.

Julio



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