↪Fooloso4 It is not a subjective state if it has correspondences with things that exist outside of one's head. — Ilya B Shambat

That is a very peculiar notion of a subjective state.

Has anyone even clearly explained what a "spiritual" experience is, and why we should call them that? Is it just a coincidence? Then why not just say so? A funny feeling? It seems to amount to either something uncontroversial but obscured with religious language, or indeed, something pretty crazy. Is God talking to you? Then perhaps you should get your head checked. Had a funny feeling? Experienced something coincidental or romantic? Yeah, that happens. It's quite normal, not miraculous. It wound be miraculous if God really did talk to you, or you really did have a supernatural experience, but there's no reasonable grounds for reaching that conclusion.

Has anyone even clearly explained what a "spiritual" experience is, and why we should call them that? — S

https://www.aiprinc.org/mystical/

The only controversial part of the first sentence is the last part, about a sensed presence of a personal God. That's unwarranted. Why should I believe that part?

You don't have to believe anything.

It makes some sense that when a religious person has a mystical experience, they link that experience to their religion. I think what the sentence is supposed to stipulate is that sometimes people link their mystical experience(s) to (a) God.

It's not really a choice. If I'm reasonable, then I need a good reason. I can't force myself to believe in something like that, without good reason, even if I wanted to. I don't think that I could deceive myself. Others aren't as reasonable as me. They have a funny feeling and jump to conclusions about it.

Boy, your experience is different from mine. I think maybe your term "external world" is the give away. For most of the scientifically inclined, the external world is the only real world. The internal world is just an artifact of the material world and is given a dismissive wave of the hand. As the prime example, in their way of thinking, the mind is the brain. — T Clark

I can prove to you that the brain is the mind; there's no escaping that conclusion, but that's another discussion.

But just take a look at how @Janus reacted to my suggestion that science ostensibly presumes an external world of noumena. IIRC, he is a defender of science, but he won't bite the materialist hook even a little.

Well, most obviously, the scientific approach emphasizes the physical world to the exclusion of anything else. That's a decision based on a particular set of human values. It's not based on some sort of objective necessity. That emphasis is a reflection of a belief in the encompassing importance of the control of nature for the benefit of humankind. — T Clark

It's not the physical world per se (though ostensibly it appears to be), it's the observable world. Science focuses on the observable and the measurable. "Physical" normally means "of the body, as opposed to the mind", but in this case it actually means everything we can perceive through our senses, which includes other minds. (we may only be at a stage of understanding where we say "philosophy of mind" rather than "science of mind", but we seem to be getting there).

I've never been talking about the existence of god. I've always talked about the experience of a phenomenon we, some of us, call god. Human experience vs. so called objective truth. It's ridiculous to say "Based on my system of values and methods, which denies anything which is not included in the external world, I deny the existence of something which is not included in the external world." — T Clark

You've misstated the typical atheist/scientist position a little bit.

Science is not in the business of denying the existence of immeasurable phenomenon, nor are most atheists in the business of denying the existence of god. Like science, atheists typically reject the affirmation of god's existence (rejecting a positive claim), rather than asserting a positive claim of their own (that zero gods exist).

Science simply cannot comment on the immeasurable and the unobservable. It's not that science presumes we should focus on controlling nature as morally important, it's that science is the practice of modelling the observable to begin with.

They have a funny feeling and jump to conclusions about it. — S

These experiences are often called profound, or even life-changing.

It's not really a choice. — S

It's not a choice, because you seem to have made up your mind in advance. I understand that before one believes something, they demand some explanation, but statements like this:

Others aren't as reasonable as me. — S

And the one I quoted earlier, indicate to me that you have no intention of taking people who share their experiences seriously, so why would they?

But just take a look at how Janus reacted to my suggestion that science ostensibly presumes an external world of noumena. IIRC, he is a defender of science, but he won't bite the materialist hook even a little. — VagabondSpectre

I'm not sure what you mean by "defender of science". If you tell me what materialism consists in according to you, I'll tell you whether I am a materialist or not. Also, I think you are incorrect or at least exaggerating if you mean to suggest that my "reaction" was emotionally motivated.

I was merely pointing out that science as such has no need of noumena, and therefore that, in itself considered as a methodology, it does not "presume an external world of noumena". It may be said to presume an external world of independent phenomena, but that is not the same thing. Whether individual scientists presume such a thing would be different in each case I imagine.

That they're called profound or even life-changing makes them a funny feeling. We don't have those everyday. And I don't care whether they want to share or not. Not sharing doesn't help their case if that want to be considered reasonable. And I take seriously what warrants being taken seriously.

I can prove to you that the brain is the mind; there's no escaping that conclusion, but that's another discussion. — VagabondSpectre

I'm sure you can prove it to your own satisfaction, but I'm even surer that you won't be able to prove it to mine. I'd be happy to give you a shot. We'll have to take that up at a later time.

It's not the physical world per se (though ostensibly it appears to be), it's the observable world. Science focuses on the observable and the measurable. "Physical" normally means "of the body, as opposed to the mind", but in this case it actually means everything we can perceive through our senses, which includes other minds. (we may only be at a stage of understanding where we say "philosophy of mind" rather than "science of mind", but we seem to be getting there). — VagabondSpectre

Isn't this just a restatement of what I said:

The internal world is just an artifact of the material world and is given a dismissive wave of the hand. As the prime example, in their way of thinking, the mind is the brain. — T Clark

You've misstated the typical atheist/scientist position a little bit.

Science is not in the business of denying the existence of immeasurable phenomenon, nor are most atheists in the business of denying the existence of god. Like science, atheists typically reject the affirmation of god's existence (rejecting a positive claim), rather than asserting a positive claim of their own (that zero gods exist). — VagabondSpectre

I don't think I've misstated it at all. It all goes back to something I said earlier - many (most?) scientists think that science provides the only valid path to understanding reality. If something is not allowed for within the boundaries of science, it doesn't exist. It's the same circular argument.

Has anyone even clearly explained what a "spiritual" experience is, and why we should call them that? Is it just a coincidence? Then why not just say so? A funny feeling? It seems to amount to either something uncontroversial but obscured with religious language, or indeed, something pretty crazy. — S

Spiritual simply because it deals with matters of the spirit, rather than physical, practical, social, or even religious matters. Religious matters involve other people, beliefs, rituals, and some assortment of goofy trinkets.

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides.

I get that spiritual deals with matters of the spirit, but that still doesn't explain it properly, just as shmlefflual dealing with matters of the shmleff, doesn't really explain it properly. What's a shmleff? What are matters relating to it?

If it's just a particular brain state, then, okay, I guess. Personally I still find it all rather odd and unnecessary.

I don't think I've misstated it at all. It all goes back to something I said earlier - many (most?) scientists think that science provides the only valid path to understanding reality. If something is not allowed for within the boundaries of science, it doesn't exist. It's the same circular argument. — T Clark

Science doesn't deny the existence of minds though, nor does it deny the existence of god. It actually makes no statement about the existence or non-existence of gods whatsoever. You're confusing "is observable" with "exists". No respectable scientist goes around saying that X, Y, and Z unobserved phenomenon don't exist purely because we have not yet observed them.

I'm not sure what you mean by "defender of science". If you tell me what materialism consists in according to you, I'll tell you whether I am a materialist or not. Also, I think you are incorrect or at least exaggerating if you mean to suggest that my "reaction" was emotionally motivated. — Janus

Do you think that the "phenomena" you perceive are consistent, or otherwise correlate, with "things" that are external from your own mind?. In other words, do you believe that your perceptions relate to a certain way of things that holds true regardless of whether or not you happen to perceive them?

It's basically the assumption that there's some kind of "real" component to the things our senses perceive.

P.S. I was pointing to you as an example to show T-Clark that those who embrace science do not necessarily deny everything else in order to do so. It would not be rational to be offended by this.

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides. — praxis

Is that a neurochemical state?

Is science wrong? No, it isn't. Materialist fundamentalism however is completely wrong. I seek an explanation that will be consistent with both scientific fact and the facts of my and other people's spiritual experiences; and I am continuing to look for this explanation in any number of paths. — Ilya B Shambat

The extreme materialist philosophy or point of view is quite naive and simply silly.

The issue isn't at all that if you would consider something else than material to exist, you are a proponent of the supernatural. Nonsense: you can make quite valid points about for example mathematical entities and surely those entities don't exist in the material form. Yet they can be absolutely important to solve 'real world' problems. And so is the thing with questions of spirituality, morality and aesthetics. There is a pragmatic need for these kind of questions, hence you do need them to understand and operate in the material world around you.

Science doesn't deny the existence of minds though, nor does it deny the existence of god. It actually makes no statement about the existence or non-existence of gods whatsoever. You're confusing "is observable" with "exists". No respectable scientist goes around saying that X, Y, and Z unobserved phenomenon don't exist purely because we have not yet observed them. — VagabondSpectre

Agree - science is very much in the business of looking for stuff that does not exist, and very much not in the business of denying anything with out evidence.

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides. — praxis

Or without any evidence to refute them other than a different world view, we could just believe otherwise honest and unmotivated to misinform people that they believe what they believe to be true. Does your qualia of a sunset equal my qualia of a sunset. Does your attempt to inform me of the refraction of light waves through the atmosphere and the way my optic nerve relays that to my brain in any way effect my unique exeriance?

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides. — praxis

Not argument, just explanation. A tenet of Ignatian spirituality is to see God in all things. When one goes through the Spiritual Exercises, a large part of that process is the ability to become more aware of the presence of God in our every day lives. To those with a predisposition to feel so, this will sound very hokey. But to hundreds of thousands of jesuits that have done the exercises it is very real. They would say all of life is a spiritual experience if you train yourself to be aware of it. Who is to say that they are wrong, or deluded, or anything else, simply because though a different frame a reference one can not understand how such a thing could be.

A tenet of Ignatian spirituality is to see God in all things. — Rank Amateur

Perhaps you could expand on this aspect of Catholic philosophy? It's interesting to me that Catholic doctrine (if i understand it) claims that God is ever present in everything everywhere and that "God is in all things" but God is still seen as something separate. I'm not arguing the point so much as I am interested in exploring that last step to... God IS everything.

From my perspective there is a single unified reality. Some people call this God, some call it nature or reality, and from my perspective this competitive naming process is of little importance. Space serves as a good example of a single unified reality for those who are allergic to religious language.

From my perspective what some call God is not something separate from us, and it only appears that way because we are observing reality through a mechanism which operates by a process of conceptual division. It's not that we are separate from (enter your preferred term here) it's that we FEEL separate. That feeling is an illusion generated by thought, by the way it works.

And so when we create names, labels, ideologies, religions, philosophies, explanations, and my posts too, what we're actually doing is fueling the mechanism which is the source of the illusion.

Philosophy is like a bunch of hungry people standing around a table full of food arguing over what to name the food instead of sitting down to eat the food. On the surface the competing arguments may sound rational, but the process itself is not.

not sure i am up to this task. And a warning I can't do this without getting pretty religious. Not evangelising here just answering a question.

Firstly, there is an inherent problem in any discussion like this. In some way we need to anthropomorphize God to try to understand. This is necessary to some degree but always in error.

In my view all of your options are true. Catholicism allows for many interpretations of this, and many are needed to accommodate the various receivers of the message. A 12 year old boy, an un educated working man in Nigeria, a poor woman in South America a high school graduate in Vermont, a phd physicist, me, a bishop, the pope, and a Jesuit theologian. All have a different level of how to interpret abstraction. Some may need a more anthropomorphic God than others. And there is often some disagreement among factions. I think Karl Rahner was a brilliant man, and I relate well to his theology, some in the church thought he was near heretical. He didn't even like the word God very much, he like Mystery better.

In Ignatian spirituality God is in all things, He is active in our lives and in His creation. And if one pays attention one can develop a greater awareness of His presence. We develop this through discernment, where we pay attention to our feelings and emotions and discern if our choices are ordered or not. If we are authentically ourselves, and honest in our evaluations we can feel God's presents in this process. Also daily we pray the examen, this is a process of reviewing your day with the specific goal of in hindsight looking for where we felt Gods presence. When we do this we try to stay quiet in our mind and allow it to go where it wants, and focus on those things it lands on.

Science doesn't deny the existence of minds though, nor does it deny the existence of god. — VagabondSpectre

This is not correct. Science and scientists try to discredit the idea of the mind in a number of ways:

• There is a school of psychology, behaviorism, which claims that there is no need to hypothesize the existence of a mind. We can deal scientifically with human behavior just by observing the behavior. It's not very popular these days.
• Its mantle has been taken up to some extent these days by cognitive science. Personally, I think CS is the best thing to happen to psychology since Oedipus, but there are lots of claims that it eliminates the need to think about minds at all.
• Related to that, lots of scientists, and lots of people here on the forum, think that the mind is the brain. I took two philosophy courses in college in the early 1970s. One was called "The Mind-Brain Identify Problem." The idea had been around for hundreds of years before then.
• It is very common for scientists to claim that psychology, the study of mind and behavior, is not a legitimate science at all. This claim has been made on the forum many times.
• The bullshit/bologna No Overlapping Magesteria flapdoodle.

This is fun. I may start a new thread so I can think of more examples. All of these are signs of the same disorder - those who think of themselves as so-called "hard" scientists and their intellectual cohort believe that the only important aspects of our world are what they call "external reality." Here's a great example:

Do you think that the "phenomena" you perceive are consistent, or otherwise correlate, with "things" that are external from your own mind?. In other words, do you believe that your perceptions relate to a certain way of things that holds true regardless of whether or not you happen to perceive them? — VagabondSpectre

thought you might find this quote but Rahner interesting.

"What is made intelligible is grounded ultimately in the one thing that is self-evident, in mystery. Mystery is something with which we are always familiar, something which we love, even when we are terrified by it or perhaps even annoyed or angered, and want to be done with it.

For the person who has touched his [or her] own spiritual depths, what is more familiar, thematically or unthematically, and what is more self-evident than the silent question which goes beyond everything which has already been mastered and controlled, than the unanswered question accepted in humble love, which along brings wisdom?

In the ultimate depths of his [or her] being, [the human person] knows nothing more surely than that his [or her] knowledge, that is, what is called knowledge in everyday parlance, is only a small island in a vast sea that has not been traveled. It is a floating island, and it might be more familiar to us than the sea, but ultimately it is borne by the sea and only because it is can we be borne by it.

Hence the existentiell question for the knower is this: Which does he [or she] love more, the small island of his[/her] so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery? "

On a larger scale, it's a deactivation of the DMN (default mode network).

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides.
— praxis

Not argument, just explanation. A tenet of Ignatian spirituality is to see God in all things. When one goes through the Spiritual Exercises, a large part of that process is the ability to become more aware of the presence of God in our every day lives. To those with a predisposition to feel so, this will sound very hokey. But to hundreds of thousands of jesuits that have done the exercises it is very real. They would say all of life is a spiritual experience if you train yourself to be aware of it. Who is to say that they are wrong, or deluded, or anything else, simply because though a different frame a reference one can not understand how such a thing could be. — Rank Amateur

We could just as well train ourselves to see aesthetically, for instance, and then we could say that all of life is an aesthetic experience. Not sure what your point is.

If it's just a particular brain state, then, okay, I guess. Personally I still find it all rather odd and unnecessary. — S

It's certainly not necessary, but I believe that it's beneficial in a couple of important ways, namely that it relieves existential anxiety and also has a depatterning effect on the mind.

This is not correct. Science and scientists try to discredit the idea of the mind in a number of ways:

There is a school of psychology, behaviorism, which claims that there is no need to hypothesize the existence of a mind. We can deal scientifically with human behavior just by observing the behavior. It's not very popular these days. — T Clark

Behaviorism seeks to gain predictive power about human behavior, not to comment on the existence or non-existence of minds. It's an approach to predicting behavior based on inputs and outputs. You're mistaking the point and implications of behaviorism as some kind of definitive statement about the underlying nature of minds, but it's just the opposite.

Its mantle has been taken up to some extent these days by cognitive science. Personally, I think CS is the best thing to happen to psychology since Oedipus, but there are lots of claims that it eliminates the need to think about minds at all. — T Clark

Cognitive science is broadly "the study of minds", so you must be conceiving of "mind" as something other than the thing cognitive science seeks to study. Are you talking about the hard problem of consciousness?

Related to that, lots of scientists, and lots of people here on the forum, think that the mind is the brain. I took two philosophy courses in college in the early 1970s. One was called "The Mind-Brain Identify Problem." The idea had been around for hundreds of years before then. — T Clark

The processes of the mind reflect the processes of the brain. There's so much evidence for this that I can't fathom what you're trying to say.

It is very common for scientists to claim that psychology, the study of mind and behavior, is not a legitimate science at all. This claim has been made on the forum many times. — T Clark

If the study of mind or behavior cannot be scientific, why are you trying to say that science denies the existence of minds?

The bullshit/bologna No Overlapping Magesteria flapdoodle. — T Clark

Insisting that science is like religion isn't accurate or useful.

This is fun. I may start a new thread so I can think of more examples. All of these are signs of the same disorder - those who think of themselves as so-called "hard" scientists and their intellectual cohort believe that the only important aspects of our world are what they call "external reality." Here's a great example: — T Clark

My belief that an external world exists should not imply that I think science is "the only important thing".

How and why do you make this irrational leap on my behalf?

the point was in the post above the one you highlighted, which is why not just believe them.

And a warning I can't do this without getting pretty religious. Not evangelising here just answering a question. — Rank Amateur

Speaking for myself, I'm not at all concerned about getting pretty religious or evangelizing. Everybody on the forum is evangelizing all the time, me included.

Firstly, there is an inherent problem in any discussion like this. In some way we need to anthropomorphize God to try to understand. This is necessary to some degree but always in error. — Rank Amateur

Ok, agreed.

In my view all of your options are true. Catholicism allows for many interpretations of this, and many are needed to accommodate the various receivers of the message. A 12 year old boy, an un educated working man in Nigeria, a poor woman in South America a high school graduate in Vermont, a phd physicist, me, a bishop, the pope, and a Jesuit theologian. All have a different level of how to interpret abstraction. Some may need a more anthropomorphic God than others. — Rank Amateur

Yes, more agreement. And may I say, very well put. I like this vision of Catholicism, a "radio station" transmitting on many different frequencies at once.

And there is often some disagreement among factions. I think Karl Rahner was a brilliant man, and I relate well to his theology, some in the church thought he was near heretical. He didn't even like the word God very much, he like Mystery better. — Rank Amateur

Yes, this is what happens within all ideologies and philosophies, the inevitable emergence of competing internal subdivisions. To me, this is a huge clue that the divisions and resulting conflicts are not a property of any particular philosophy, but rather a property of that which all philosophies are made of. I will admit however that I appear to be utterly inept at interesting anyone else in such an idea.

And if one pays attention one can develop a greater awareness of His presence. We develop this through discernment, where we pay attention to our feelings and emotions and discern if our choices are ordered or not. If we are authentically ourselves, and honest in our evaluations we can feel God's presents in this process. — Rank Amateur

I seem to be on an agreement rampage this morning, cuz here I go again. :smile:

I'm very much interested in this sentence...

And if one pays attention one can develop a greater awareness of His presence. — Rank Amateur

Paying attention and developing a greater awareness seems very important. What interests me as a wanna be writer and imitation theologian is developing this concept outside of the context of religion. Not because religion is wrong or bad etc, but because as you said above in regards to Catholic descriptions of God, different folks can hear on different channels. For some religion can be a great aid, for others it triggers a distracting allergy.

What many people have learned, myself included, is that one can deliberately develop an ever deeper relationship with nature/reality outside of any religious context. It's just like developing a relationship with a person, one has to put in the time and open oneself emotionally to the relationship.

To me, it seem far less important what one labels WHATEVER IT IS than whether one is developing that relationship. It's not the explanations that matter, but the experience.

If we can stop focusing so much on the explanations and shift some focus to the experience itself we create a more universal conversation because then everybody can define WHATEVER IT IS in whatever manner one can relate to, just as you described above in regards to a range of Catholic explanations of God.

So if one simply can't bear the idea of labeling WHATEVER IT IS with religious terminology, fine, great, let that go, get over it, move on to....

The experience.

However it must be admitted that such a way of looking at these things has never had wide acceptance so this too is a narrow channel capable of serving a limited number of people.

thought you might find this quote but Rahner interesting. — Rank Amateur

I do, I do! Thanks for that.

Hence the existentiell question for the knower is this: Which does he [or she] love more, the small island of his[/her] so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery? " — Rank Amateur

For one thing, it's interesting to me to find myself channeling Catholicism theologians I've never heard of and know nothing about from the perspective of not having been to Mass in 50 years. Genetics?

In any case, let's translate this out of religious language for the benefit of those who don't operate on those channels.

The vast overwhelming majority of reality at every scale is space, a "sea of infinite mystery" which is all pervasive. So for an atheist whose methodology revolves around observation of reality, that is what reality really is, space, nothing, the void. Space is a really big deal.

The truly rational act for the atheist is not so much how one might define reality, but rather what one's relationship with reality is. Emotional relationship. That's where human beings primarily live. As example, philosophy forums are supposed to be about razor sharp reason etc, but as we all know they are actually primarily about the male ego, ie. emotions.

What the God debate should have taught us is that we are fundamentally ignorant, and all our opinions on such matters are basically a thin wallpaper veneer attempting to hide that ignorance, mostly from ourselves. This vast sea of our ignorance aligns with the nature of reality. Our internal knowings are mostly nothing, a void, just as the external reality is.

A serious hard nosed realist will squarely face that both internally and externally reality is primarily nothing. A practical hard nosed realist will then move on to developing their relationship with the nothing, because that's basically all we can control.

Philosophy can talk about all this at a safe distance. But we can't really explore the nothing with philosophy because philosophy, like thought itself, is all about the creation of conceptual somethings.

The truly rational act for the atheist is not so much how one might define reality, but rather what one's relationship with reality is. Emotional relationship. That's where human beings primarily live. As example, philosophy forums are supposed to be about razor sharp reason etc, but as we all know they are actually primarily about the male ego, ie. emotions. — Jake

this is very much in line with what Rahner would call - "Anonymous Christianity"
worth looking into if you are interested.

What the God debate should have taught us is that we are fundamentally ignorant, and all our opinions on such matters are basically a thin wallpaper veneer attempting to hide that ignorance, mostly from ourselves. This vast sea of our ignorance aligns with the nature of reality. Our internal knowings are mostly nothing, a void, just as the external reality is. — Jake

what Rahner would say is we are incapable of knowing such a thing as God, other than what He reveals. Yet we all have an inherent knowledge, a pre apprehension that something is there - even if we do not recognize it, or even if we deny it.

I think Rahner would say the reason for the continual God debate, and the part of the human condition that seems to make us seek meaning - both stem from this pre apprehension. Without being to identify or even understand what it is, we are all aware something is there.