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Ron Shigeta

“Religion … must go hand-in-hand with science.”

The Baha’i Writings

Aug 28, 2011. Today’s guest blog is by Ron Shigeta, a bioinformation professional at a prominent Northern California biotech company. He addresses a fascinating new development in the science, religion, atheism, and agnosticism dialogue.

David Eagleman, TED, and Possibilianism

The annual TED Conference is always a great place to plug into some of the most articulate advanced thoughts coming from the collective human mind.

What is TED?

TED (http://www.ted.com) – which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design – is a nonprofit organization and conference devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading”. Since 1984, people from the three worlds of technology, entertainment, and design have been meeting at TED.  Recently, its scope has become ever broader.  Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conferences in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring – there are TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer.  TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project, TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.

Dan Dennett

After the TED conference in 2006 – featuring a talk by Dan Dennett on religion (also, see the Richard Dawkins’ 2002 TED talk), and Dawkins’ 2005 TED talk on the “Queer Universe”) – my friend and TED attendee, Pedraum Pardehpoosh remarked that there was a growing sense that the New Atheism for which Dawkins had become a central spokesman was a little too one-sided. As a result, the conference organizers determined to build a program with a more balanced viewpoint. They’ve found this inclusive approach to be quite successful.

(For a challenge to Dennett’s thinking by academics, see here in Cris Campbell’s excellent Genealogy of Religion website.)

The Issue With New Atheism

What is the issue with New Atheism?  From the viewpoint of a group whose motto is “Ideas Worth Spreading”, the New Atheist world-view promises much, but it is too focused on the negative. In the friction caused by its uncompromising hostility to other points of view, it can generate more heat than light.

Just a few years later, the claims of neuroscience is pushing people’s patience in a way that evolutionary theory never has; probing cognition in humans is far more personal than watching monkeys fight. Neuroscience maintains that the mechanics of the mind are important to attributes we call ‘spiritual’. As the tension increases, it’s natural that hyperrational people like Pinker and Hitchens will be followed by people like David Eagleman on this TED presentation.

David Eagleman

David Eagleman and Possibilianism

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and a New York Times bestselling author. He directs several programs at Baylor College of Medicine, but it is best known for his work on time perception, synesthesia, and neuro-law. His latest book is Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. He is a Guggenheim Fellow.

In his talk from the most recent conference, I think we can see a little of what will come as rationalists start to reach out more and insist on less.  Please view the talk at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LENqnjZGX0A

Possibilianism

(Eagleman’s website on Possibilianism as discussed in the video is here.  The Wikipedia article and references on Possibilianism are here.  For a challenge to Eagleman from Sam Harris – he accuses Eagleman of “intellectual dishonesty” – see here.)

I think the atheists have had a rather hard time of it; they cannot state their most important point convincingly in a positive light; what science and rationality have to offer – when we look at the physical world through the lens of science and try to find answers to life’s persistent questions.  They do not understand why some don’t consider there approach adequate, why we insist that there is more to those questions than science can address, and why find some of us find our answers in religion and/or spirituality. Why, they ask, can we not all get our answers from the same place?

Strong Agnosticism, Spirituality, and the Baha’i Faith

What appeals to me about ‘strong agnosticism‘ as opposed to the new atheism is a simple thing.  Rather than telling us about great truths that only some minds are able to grasp, it shares the deeper and more carefully guarded truth of science. This truth is that we should not accept that we know anything for certain, including what God is or is not. As a principle, science and religion can only really coexist if they will not influence each other.

David Eagleman, and those like him, encourage others to think rather than take ideas for granted, encouraging world views that are positive and collaborative rather than confrontational. This allows each of us the enjoyment of constructing our own worldview to tackle eternal existential questions. Eagleman uses the scientific experience as a meta-consciousness to explore the vast areas of philosophical and theological ignorance which we have heretofore cultivated in our world views,.

Hopefully this sort of message might start to disassociate pontification from spirituality—why shouldn’t we all just geek out, free from dogma, praising the truth of uncertainty? The joy of understanding is a sensation common to both science and religion, but is sadly confined in both. Bahá’u’lláh (Founder of the Bahá’í Faith) said in one of His most preeminent metaphysical works—The Book of Certitude (Kitab-i-Iqan) that certitude only comes from God (i.e. from a place where humans cannot stand), not from such facts as we have managed to amass. Perhaps like Eagleman, I find this a consistent truth.

How many talks have I seen where the speaker will attempt to prove (and thus compel) listeners to come to particular conclusions. The slightest flaw in the argument (and there always is one) renders the talk ineffective. New Atheists argue they have the most likely Truth, religionists respond with arguments that they know what God, the Unknowable Essence, is. It’s all too tiresome to last.

It is not a mistake but a clever insight, that Eagleman’s lecture does not really cover neuroscience. That is not what we need to talk about now. Instead, he creates a mindset of independent thought where new ideas can come in, then he steps into challenging data, allowing it to seep in without insisting that it resolves metaphysical issues. A place where we can talk first, with discussion to follow.

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This is guest blog on religion in the age of science.

http://genealogyreligion.net/