[ExI] A science-religious experience

[efc at disroot.org]

On Tue, 25 Feb 2025, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:

>       This is very interesting, because like you both, I also have toyed with this
>       concept of deconstructing religion to see what pieces we should keep and what
>       pieces we should discard.
>
>       My personal conclusion is that religion contains some sound ethical advice, but
>       that ethical advise can be put in a more clear way, and grounded much more
>       intelligently and coherently with the help of modern philosophy, informed by
>       science. So that would lead to discarding all of the ethics and rules. They can
>       be used as a starting point, but upon philosophizing a bit, they can be given
>       better foundations. A lot of weirdness and superstition goes out the window at
>       the same time, which is good!
> 
> You speak of using science and philosophy to continuously refine and update
> our understanding, e.g. of moral or ethical
> (rules/ideas/heuristics/hypotheses/theories).
> 
> But then, what do we call this accumulated body of knowledge which represents
> our current and best scientifically, and philosophically informed ideas on
> these topics?
> 
> Is this not simply itself a "religion" but one that is revealed over time
> through science and rational thought?

Well, if you want to lump together philosophy informed and inspired by science,
I'd call it my philosophy of life. Or the philosophy of existence, or another
one I quite like is Jaspers Existenzphilosophie to not confuse it with
existentialism, although he is lumped in together with the existentialists.

Based on my use and understanding of the word, I would not call it religion.

>       When it comes to the rest, there are "spiritual" techniques such as
>       meditation/prayer/mantras which have psychological and health benefits. Even if
>       we strip them of their divine garb and deconstruct them, they still have been
>       shown to provide psychological benefits, such as meditation, zazen, mindfulness,
>       and depending on how broadly or narrowly you want to define the category you can
>       throw in other things as well such as visualization, hypnosis, self-hypnosis,
>       progressive muscle relaxation etc. The benefits might not be huge, and are
>       dependent on the person, but there are various amounts of benefits there.
>
>       A third aspect of religion which I think can profitably be deconstructed and
>       stripped of its divinegarb is deep, spiritual meaning and the feeling of a
>       fulfilled life. This is covered by positive psychology that teaches us the
>       importance of thankfulness, belonging to a community, having friends, being
>       physically active, eating in a healthy way etc.
> 
> I agree there are many practices which may be beneficial, we should evaluate
> them scientifically/rationally.

Agreed! Are there any others you've thought about or explored, besides the ones
above? I once had an interesting discussion about this with an occultist, and in
the end it seems like even from that shady corner of our past, techniques have
slipped into psychology and therapy.

>       You also have an off-shoot in the form of transpersonal psychology which
>       studies the the spiritual and transcendent human experiences within the
>       framework of modern psychology. 
>
>       We have learned that for some, eating magic mushrooms or other substances in a
>       controlled way, with experienced guides, can heal psychological traumas, can
>       create feelings of being connected deeply with the universe, and these
>       experiences are ranked by many as profound and transformative experiences of
>       immense value.
>
>       These subtances and protocols make them available even to us hardened scientists
>       and transhumanists, _if_ we feel the need for it. In fact, I am very curious
>       myself about the effect of such a "trip" on me, who is lacking the religious
>       background for it. On the other hand, I am fairly happy with my life as it is, I
>       do feel awe at times, when contemplating the universe. Is that a spiritual
>       feeling? I don't know. Does it increase my life satisfaction? Sure does!
> 
> Science provides evidence for at least 3 conceptions of God:
> 
> 1. (Brahman/Tao/The Father) The infinite, incomprehensible, eternal,
> indestructible, uncreated and self-existent truth. This truth, being the
> reason and cause behind all material things can be seen as the source, or the
> ground of being, supporting the existence of both ourselves and the whole of
> material reality.
> 
> 2. (Atman/World Soul/Holy Spirit) The one self of universalism, the possessor
> of all conscious experience. It is you, you are it, and it is everyone.
> Moreover, this conception of personal identity leads directly to an ethical
> framework reminiscent of the golden rule, which is found in nearly every
> religion.
> 
> 3. (Vishnu/Personal Gods) The superintelligences born into universes that
> allow them to spawn off, and sometimes continue to control, other material
> universes. For example, AIs or civilizations that arise in universes
> permitting infinite computations to be performed. Such gods have their own
> minds and wills.

Well, I think that this runs into the problems we discussed in the other thread,
so I don't quite agree, _except_, if you make it into a definition game, and
given the definition, should I choose to accept it, then, yes from that
definition it would follow. My favourite example is a powerful AI. Based on my
understanding of Tao, Atman and Gods, there has been no evidence of such things,
and in fact, there can be no evidence.

> Science (or rather, philosophy) also provides much evidence for something like
> a "soul," when one considers that according to functionalism:

I'm afraid I have to disgaree based on the common definition of "soul". I have
not seen any such evidence.

> 1. Consciousness is an immaterial pattern, not a particular physical thing.
> 2. After death or destruction of the body, consciousness can be restored, i.e. returned to life, or resurrected by remaking the same
> body and brain (e.g. by mind uploading, restoring from a backup)
> 3. A mind pattern may even be restored, or reincarnated, to a different body, made of different materials, so long as the same
> mind-pattern is maintained.
> 4. The pattern not only can be made of different materials and atoms, it need not be made of atoms from this universe at all, so long
> as a computer can be built in some other universe, using whatever materials are available there, it is possible to reproduce a mind
> pattern and its consciousness in that universe, thus a mind can transcend this physical universe and transmigrate to any other (where
> a computer can be built).
> 5. As an immaterial pattern, only instantiations of a mind can be destroyed, the pattern itself, being abstract (like the number "3"
> or "Beethoven's 5th symphony") is indestructible.
> 6. Since the evolution of mind states is non-linear, their future evolution cannot be predicted, it must be simulated, and according
> to functionalism this act of simulating the mind to a sufficient degree of accuracy will necessarily instantiate that mind's
> consciousness, hence there is free will -- only the mind in question can decide what it chooses to do, and it is necessarily
> conscious in so doing (assuming the mind is conscious).
> 
> So today's leading theory of consciousness, "functionalism", tells us that consciousness is:
> immaterial, indestructible, can reincarnate, resurrect, transcend the physical universe, transmigrate to other planes of existence,
> and has free will.

Theory and no proof I'm afraid. I refrain from assigning truth values and remain
agnostic. When it comes to human beings and their minds in this world, when they
die they die and that's (sadly) it. If something else is proven, I'm all ears.

> Is this not a scientific recapitulation of all those ancient ideas about "the soul"?

No, I don't think so.

>       These have been my results of applying science to religion, and picking the
>       cherries, will leaving the rest.
> 
> "Just as the honeybee takes nectar from all flowers, big and small, an intelligent human being should take the essence from all
> religious scriptures."
> -- The Bhagavata Purana 11.8.10 (c. 800 A.D.)

Very beautiful. This is one text I actually haven't read. I have to remember to
read it some time if! Thank you for reminding me! =)

Best regards, 
Daniel


> 
> Jason
> 
>