Scientific Spiritual Language of Richard Dawkins

Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality.
-​Carl Sagan

Like Christopher Hitchens (in this post), Richard Dawkins also uses the poetic language of spirituality; of course, he is not referring to religious definitions of these words. This type of language is very evident in his earlier book unweaving the rainbow, where he addresses the misperception that science and art are at odds. Art is the proper task of life – as Nietzsche has proclaimed – Richard Dawkins can be seen as a bridge between art and science. Nietzsche also said, “the spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it represents a great triumph over Christianity (Twilight of the Idols). With a sensuality concerning the mechanism of life, perhaps the endeavor of Richard Dawkins may be in line with Carl Sagan’s assertion that making science and spirituality mutually exclusive would do a disservice to both.

Clip From a BBC Horizon Science Documentary:

The Son of the Self-Aware Universe | Myspace Video

Hitchens Hijacking the Language of Spirituality

It’s time we realized that traditional religion is far from the only source of meaning, values, and a sense of the transcendent. – Julian Baggini in Psychologies

There seems to be a popular belief among atheists that ‘spiritual’ words are unnecessary, obscuring, and should be avoided at all costs. I beg to differ for two reasons. First, the use of ‘spiritual’ language in science will further make the statement that ‘spiritual’ contemplation should not be limited to the fenced in realm of spiritual leaders who claim to be the masters of morals. Secondly, scientific language does not go far enough to convey the emotional affect science can evoke. With these two points in mind (the hijacking and the enriching), I propose that science should be viewed by as a poetics of life. As Richard Dawkins says; “Science is the poetry of reality”. Christopher Hitchens illustrates ‘spiritual’ contemplation of the natural world in an interview with retired Unitarian minister (and self-professed “liberal Christian”) Marilyn Sewell. Hitchens hijacks the word ‘numinous’ when referring to a sense of awe:

It’s innate in us to be overawed by certain moments, say, at evening on a mountaintop or sunset on the boundaries of the ocean. Or, in my case, looking through the Hubble telescope at those extraordinary pictures. We have a sense of awe and wonder at something beyond ourselves, and so we should, because our own lives are very transient and insignificant. That’s the numinous, and there’s enough wonder in the natural world without any resort to the supernatural being required.

Hitchens goes on to describe his classification of ‘soul’ in referring to affective literature:

It’s what you might call “the x-factor”—I don’t have a satisfactory term for it—it’s what I mean by the element of us that isn’t entirely materialistic: the numinous, the transcendent, the innocence of children (even though we know from Freud that childhood isn’t as innocent as all that), the existence of love (which is, likewise, unquantifiable but that anyone would be a fool who said it wasn’t a powerful force), and so forth. I don’t think the soul is immortal, or at least not immortal in individuals, but it may be immortal as an aspect of the human personality because when I talk about what literature nourishes, it would be silly of me or reductionist to say that it nourishes the brain.

Referring to the ‘transcendent’ does not necessarily require a dualistic framework. Referring to the transcendent as an experience – rather than an existing magical reality –  is completely possible within an imminent philosophy. Hijacking the topics and language of spiritualists should not be resisted, but rather, it should be used carefully to enrich the scientific discourses.

Symphony of Science - 'We Are All Connected'

Featuring Sagan, Feynman, deGrasse Tyson & Bill Nye, this auto tuned mash up will not disappoint. It is a delightful piece of scientific poetry.

Book Review: Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life – Gilles Deleuze

This is a book review by Ellen E. Berry from the online ‘Reconstruction Journal’ on the astonishingly deep philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze in his book Pure Immanence: Essays on A Life.

Three brief essays make up Pure Immanence -- one on Hume, one on Nietzsche, and one -- "Immanence: A Life" -- that functions as a Deleuzian last testament of sorts, written as it was "in a strange interval [immediately] before his death" (20) as John Rajchman informs us in his very useful introduction to the volume. In this essay, which appears first in the book, Deleuze defines what he calls a "transcendental empiricism," an a-subjective, impersonal, wild and powerful state, existing "in contrast to everything that makes up the world of the subject and the object" (25).

Unlike a notion of the transcendent, the plane of the transcendental is an absolute immanence, complete in itself, neither "in something" nor belonging to someone (say some notion of a universal subject). "It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence" (27). Pure or absolute immanence is what Deleuze calls "A LIFE," defined as a paradoxical experience/duration in which individuality fades and becomes "a singular essence," an empty time of singularities or virtualities existing in between what we take to be the defining moments of an individual's life. A LIFE unfolds according to a different logic than the life of an individual. It can never be grasped fully; it is always yet "in the making," in potentia, and flashes into conscious existence only occasionally. Deleuze gives two striking examples to illustrate this enigmatic state/space/time, the first from Dickens's Our Mutual Friend:

A disreputable man, a rogue, held in contempt by everyone, is found as he lies dying. Suddenly, those taking care of him manifest an eagerness, respect, even love, for his slightest sign of life. Everybody bustles about to save him, to the point where, in his deepest coma, this wicked man himself senses something soft and sweet penetrating him. But to the degree that he comes back to life, his saviors turn colder, and he becomes once again mean and crude. Between his life and his death, there is a moment that is only that of a life playing with death (28).

In another example, Deleuze calls attention to very small children, as yet unformed as individuals, who all tend to resemble one another except in their singularities -- a smile, a gesture. "Through all their sufferings and weakness, [they] are infused with an immanent life that is pure power and even bliss" (30).

As Rajchman points out, one would need a new conception of society in order to understand Deleuze's notion of a life. It would be one in which we recognize that what we share is our singularities and not our individualities, that "what is common is impersonal and what is impersonal is common" (14). From this perspective, society is viewed not as a social contract between individuals but as an experiment with what in life precedes both individuals and collectivities. Relations with others would be based not in identification or recognition but in encounter and new compositions formed by saying "yes" to what is singular yet impersonal in living.

This all too brief summary cannot do justice to what is a complex set of musings. While Pure Immanence is not the place to start if one is unfamiliar with Deleuze's thought, it is a rich, rewarding, and not inaccessible read.

Here is a hyperlink to this book online: ‘Scribd’
Here is a hyperlink to buy a hardcopy on Amazon for $12.89: ‘Pure Imminence: Essays on A Life’