When it comes to spirituality and science there are those on either side of the spectrum who will view the other side in a patronizing condescension. The spiritualist will begrudgingly think of the scientists that “they know not what I have experienced and therefore cannot know truth.” The scientist will look on the other and say, “they do not have my mechanical knowledge of the universe, therefore, their truth is irrelevant.”
Part of the problem is that it is easier for a spiritualist to become a scientist than a scientist to become a spiritualist. If one is indoctrinated before hand to give no credence to subjective experience, then there is no chance at all of a scientist ever having an experience of a greater dimension beyond their senses without the assistance of an aid such as drugs.
Let’s for a moment imagine that a friend approaches you and tells you that you can have an experience beyond your wildest dreams and you are in doubt, but upon following his advice you in fact do have the experience he defined. However, what if the experience requires you to suspend a core trait that you have adopted to interpret the world? The experience may now be impossible to obtain.
I once met a woman who told me that her grand mother was beaten every time she talked in her native tongue this result in her complete inability to now talk in her native tongue even though she could understand. What you are capable of is very influenced by the environment you are exposed to. If your wrist is slapped at the very utterance that there might be a sense beyond our current physical senses, that there is a world that is not easily described in the physical realm, it will be swept away as silliness because how can it be proven? If it can not contribute to our expansion of physical knowledge, the scientist will assert, it serves no purpose.
Spirituality in all its various forms serves to try to answer the question of purpose not necessarily behavior. Science can tell you why the sky is blue but it can’t tell you why it isn’t purple. The answer to any question in science beyond a certain point is always, “That’s how it is.” Put another way, science is trying to find the path through the maze where as spirituality is trying to ask why there is a maze at all.
There is an assertion, though, that is not really explored and that is if spirituality is some form of ultimate dimension, science will ultimately bump up against it. I believe this is already starting to occur.
A 20 year old theory regarding consciousness being a quantum process which now has over 20 testable predictions found here.
A theory starting to circulate is that the origin of life follow from the fundamental rules of the universe, read more about it here.
If life and consciousness were no accident and instead they are a core part of our universe, what is the implications of that? Only time and tell.
