March 3, 2024
Continuing the series of Essays dealing with the choice between worldviews we each must make, it is important to consider how science might impact this choice.
Science is central to the modern world, so it is critical to examine how, or if, it might help us decide if we live in a moral world, and whether we should choose to live by the worldview of Materialism or that of the wisdom traditions.
The fascinating answer is that science does not have a position on either of these questions, and does not even provide much guidance on them. Since the dawn of modern science over 400 years ago, however, most scientists have overwhelmingly chosen for their own lives the belief that we live in a moral world, and that the worldview of the wisdom traditions is more likely to be true than that of Materialism.
The reason is simple: Although science is the cornerstone of everything we know about the material world, many of the most important things in life are outside the realm of the material. Since they cannot be measured or calculated, they cannot be dealt with using any scientific methods.
What Science Can and Cannot Do
We have learned many important things through science. In cooperation with its close ally, technology, wonderful inventions, marvelous tools, and useful objects have been developed — including medicines, airplanes, lasers, computers, agricultural innovations, magnificent buildings, rockets that travel into space, and so much more.
Science has incredible tools for accomplishing plans, goals, and ambitions. If you decide to go to the moon, science is indispensable. But it is not much help in deciding what is important in your personal life. In the public domain, when making decisions, science has little to say about which priorities should be funded among all those that require funds: Should the available money be used for going to the moon, improving highways, providing increased support for the military, or feeding those who are hungry?
In the realm of art, if you decide to create a beautiful painting, science has developed paints and painting surfaces over thousands of years that are essential — but these are of no help in deciding if you want to paint a picture, or which picture to paint.
If you are trying to decide whether to enter into a romantic relationship, trust another person, share your secrets, make a commitment, or end a close connection to another, science is not a lot of help. It cannot create healthy schools or families, or solve the problems of war, crime, or drug abuse. In the broader picture, science did not create the cultures within which we live, and it cannot fix them when they are broken.
In short, it cannot provide much guidance about moral decisions, value judgments, communal priorities, or the resolution of conflicts — so science is not much help in trying to answer the most important questions of life, either for groups of people, or for you as an individual. Think about it for a moment: Do you use science to decide who you will love, how much money you need, how hard to work versus spending time with family and friends, whether to have children (and if so, how many), where you will live, which job to take, which books to read, which sports or hobbies you will engage in, how much to help other people versus focusing on your own goals, and on and on?
Nor can science explain the profound experience of beauty, the power of music to carry us into incredible spaces, or the feelings of communion with another person that sometimes touch the core of our being. And it cannot begin to come to terms with the deep feelings of connectedness that have led many millions to sacrifice so much for others, even for those they did not know.
Making these kinds of decisions all depend on the goals you have set, the main desires in your life, and a myriad of chance factors over which you had no control, such as your birth parents, where they lived in your early life, how you were raised, and what you were taught.
Science does not even have the ability to provide guidance about how to use what it has developed — it cannot guide us toward positive versus harmful uses. Are guns good or bad? It depends on how they are used, and when, but science has nothing to say about this. The bombs and guns science and technology developed have killed millions of innocents during thousands of wars and terrorist attacks, and while the carnage was taking place, science stood mute. The internet and social media are powerful forces in the modern world — for both good and ill. In sum, science and technology cannot tell us how to maximize the good from their discoveries, or even what the “good” is.
Individual scientists can, and do, offer their opinions on all these issues, but no one individual can speak for science itself, and millions of scientists have millions of different opinions. No votes are taken among them about anything, and certainly not about values, meanings, and moral issues. Even if a vote were taken, the social and political forces that ultimately determine what actions any culture or country will take are more likely to use science to pursue their purposes, instead of what is right and good.
As we live our lives, science cannot help us discover what is meaningful to us, or the important values we will live by. It cannot explain why we should try to be good versus maximizing our own personal gain. It cannot explain why we should value truth over expediency.
Skeptico: But scientists have to be truthful for the good of science, for the advancement of knowledge.
Wisdom Seeker: Yes. But the advancement of knowledge through science is a moral idea, one that requires believing in a higher good — the abstract idea of the advancement of knowledge for the good of science, or that of others. Being truthful when it does not serve one’s own immediate interests is a higher value, and depends on a commitment to something greater than one’s own individual gain.
So if life is about our material existence alone, why be truthful? Why not, as Nietzsche suggested, try to get other people to follow the rules and be truthful, while you yourself ignore the rules? That would be the way to win, to maximize an advantage over others.
Skeptico: Because you might get caught cheating or lying, and that would hurt your career or reputation.
Wisdom Seeker: True. But if there is no commitment to values, that system would simply reward clever liars. And the more narcissistic a person is, the more they are likely to believe they are too smart or too powerful to be caught or challenged.
If you can get away with it, why not lie — if we live in a world with no higher values? All those who believe we live in such a world, even scientists, would fudge their results if that helped them get ahead and they thought they could get away with it.
But science has never operated in that way. Instead, it has always been totally dependent on a widespread steadfastness in the heart of most scientists to be truthful and honest about their findings. And this has rested on the belief by most scientists that we live in a moral world. Further, it has required a conviction by a great majority of scientists that living by higher values serves a greater good that is worth serving, beyond one’s personal self-interest.
This is where the worldview of Materialism is utterly detrimental to science, for Materialism has no explanation for why a person should be truthful rather than do whatever they think will get them ahead in the competition of life. Materialism does not inspire anyone to be truthful, even in science, except to be clever enough to get away with it — to not get caught if they fudge the results. Or to be brazen enough to keep repeating the lie until gaining enough power to enforce their lies (whether by getting control of the budget in a research lab, becoming head of a university department, or gaining control of a government).
No, values cannot be implanted in the human heart by science, nor moral issues resolved by it, because science is a process for studying the material world. Technology and science have together produced a flood of material goods, but this has not provided most people with deep happiness, a feeling of fulfillment, or a sense that they are living a meaningful life. Instead, many of us in the most prosperous countries with the best science are beset by anxiety, depression, alienation, loneliness, and addiction — more so than in settled cultures of the past.
Further, science and technology seem to be helpless in the face of the free-floating anger that is bursting forth in the United States and elsewhere as school massacres, road-rage, increasing murder rates, and violent protests.
And science will never solve these problems, for it is not a system for deciding political issues, psychological questions, or cultural priorities. It can be helpful in implementing social and political choices once they are made. But these choices, along with our individual values and moral choices, must come first. Science does not know and cannot determine the overall good for a society, a country, a family, or an individual. These are value questions, moral issues. And the worldview a person chooses to live within will be the most important factor in how each of us resolves every one of them.
At the community level, the choices we each make, combined with the choices of those around us, will decide the collective direction of our communities and our countries. These value and moral choices will determine whether we will be able to solve the most important problems we face.
Skeptico: Would you say all that more simply, please.
Wisdom Seeker: The way you live your life will be determined by what you value, what you care about, your moral commitments, and what has meaning for you. All these will be dramatically influenced by the worldview you choose to live within, either Materialism or the core ideas common to all the wisdom traditions — such as truthfulness, concern for others, and the importance of love, beauty, compassion, and kindness.
And choosing your worldview does not have much to do with science. Instead, science can only function within a culture organized to some degree around the view of the wisdom traditions that honesty, truthfulness, and integrity are important. And science is also dependent on enough of us choosing the worldview that giving some energy and effort to the pursuit of knowledge to serve a greater good — such as the advancement of science — is a worthy goal, rather than choosing to pursue our own personal self-interest with all our time and energy.
After a person has set their goals and intentions, then science can be of help in fulfilling some of them. The same is true for communities and countries. Once goals have been set and priorities established, science is invaluable in solving some problems and implementing decisions that have been made. But the collective value and moral choices a group or a society makes (from a family to the largest country) will serve as the foundation for dealing with all important issues and questions.
Scientists Speak
Most of the great scientists through history well understood everything I have said, so almost all had a spiritual life. It was, in fact, within the overall framework of their moral and spiritual beliefs that they did their amazing work. The celebrated mathematician Alfred North Whitehead points out in his book Science and the Modern World that, rather than being at odds with the wisdom traditions, modern science began in the late Middle Ages as an effort to understand the orderly laws that had been given by God.
Scientists at the time believed these laws were not random, but were fixed and consistent everywhere, so they set out to understand the order behind them. Whitehead points out that if something does not ensure that the laws of nature are fixed, consistent, and universal, science as we know it would not have begun — and would not even now be possible.
To understand why, consider that there is no way to know — scientifically — whether what used to be called the “laws of nature,” or what we know today as the 26 universal constants, are the same everywhere, all through the universe, or if they are consistent over time. Science simple assumes them to be universal in order to function as it does. Without this assumption, every scientific experiment and theory we rely on today would be put into question. But no current scientific theory can explain where they came from, prove they are consistent everywhere, or even predict how they arose (in any broadly accepted way).
Whitehead emphasizes in his book that we possess absolutely no way to discover if the fundamental “laws of nature” are fixed. We cannot know if they have changed over time. But if they have, numerous core theories and conclusions would have to be thrown out. And if they are not the same all over the universe, our estimates of time, size, and distance would be wrong.
But the towering figures who created western science (such as Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, and Galileo) did have an answer for this dilemma: They all believed that the laws of nature had been put in place by a Source that most called God. And, Whitehead points out, science continues to rely on this assumption today. It is prior to all the “laws” of science, and Whitehead emphasizes the irony of reliance on this assumption by any scientist who is not willing to acknowledge this simple fact.
For those early scientists in Europe, this assumption came from one wisdom tradition, but it has always been held by every wisdom tradition, and still is today. Every wisdom tradition teaches that a Source stands behind the world and the laws that govern it — although all do not use the word “God” for the name of this Source.
Because they held this worldview, the key figures who created modern science all had a spiritual life, and firm religious beliefs. None saw a conflict between science and religion — in fact, they felt the two supported each other. They all had conflicts with specific ideas of the religious organizations they had been raised within, but none questioned the overarching view that a Source stood behind the laws that govern the world.
Continuing in this tradition, Albert Einstein, the most respected scientist of the modern world, had this to say: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
Einstein even went so far as to assert that belief in a spiritual world is the primary driving force behind all of science: “I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.”
He is not talking about any particular religious belief system, but the underlying core ideas behind all religions. Furthermore, he recognized that these core ideas first arose in the mystical experiences of saints and sages of the various traditions, and thus equates their experiences with that of scientists and artists: “The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science.”
Because of these convictions, the greatest scientist of the modern era conveyed his belief that the universe is not random or meaningless. Einstein again:
“My religiosity consists of a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we can comprehend about the knowable world. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
“To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms — this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness.”
Having reflected deeply on these issues as both a scientist and a human being who was trying to understand life for himself, Einstein had little patience with those who could not open their minds and hearts to the larger picture:
“There are the fanatical atheists whose intolerance is the same as that of the religious fanatics, and it springs from the same source. … They are creatures who can’t hear the music of the spheres.”
Furthermore:
“It is very difficult to elucidate this cosmic religious feeling to anyone who is entirely without it. … In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.”
It is especially fascinating to understand that, through these deep reflections, Einstein came to believe that the work he was doing as a scientist was not as important as that of the great wisdom teachers:
“Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the enquiring and constructive mind.”
At the Beginning of the Scientific Revolution
Skeptico: Go back to Newton and other early scientists. Say more about their beliefs.
Wisdom Seeker: Most were deeply religious and did not see any conflict between their religious beliefs and the discoveries they were making in science. On the contrary, as explained above, they sought knowledge of the universe as a means of knowing the Divine plan more fully and completely. For instance, Isaac Newton is the only scientist who sometimes ranks ahead of Einstein as the greatest of all time, and he had a consuming interest in religious and spiritual questions, spending as much time studying and writing about those topics as he did about science.
Copernicus (often credited with beginning the scientific revolution with the publication of On the Revolutions of the Celestial Sphere in 1543) was a canon in the Catholic Church and dedicated his book to the Pope.
Johannes Kepler, who made the calculations demonstrating how the planets revolve around the Sun, was a deeply committed Christian, and his writings reveal that his chief aim as a scientist was to discover how the Divine was reflected in the harmony of the universe.
“The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”
The story of Galileo Galilei is more complicated, but the modern myth that he opposed religion or spiritual belief is utterly false. He did not question the existence of a spiritual dimension, nor did he question the truth of his own religion. He considered Pope Urban VIII a friend, and did not question the religious side of the Catholic Church, to which he belonged to the end of his life.
What he questioned were specific ideas about the material world that were the prevailing scientific views of his time. He adopted the Copernican idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun, which challenged the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic idea that had been dominant in western science for almost 2000 years (which held that the Sun revolves around the Earth). Galileo wanted to persuade his scientific colleagues to abandon the old idea in favor of Copernicus’ new theory. But most of the scientists of his day opposed him.
Further, the dominant religious organization of his time and place, the Catholic Church, had adopted the scientific consensus that had been in place since Aristotle — that the heavens move and the Earth stands still. Galileo fought fiercely to persuade everyone to change that belief. Most scientists defended the old view, and most of the Pope’s scientific advisors tried to persuade him to condemn Galileo and his ideas, while some of his religious advisors were determined to establish the supreme authority of the Church by condemning Galileo.
The Pope tried to work out a compromise. He asked Galileo to concede that his views were theories that might be useful, but that they had not been proven (which was true at the time). But Galileo was a headstrong and stubborn man, and would not concede that his view was only a theory. He insisted he knew he was right, and was brought to trial in a Catholic court for heresy (contrary to orthodox religious doctrine).
The charge was that he was questioning the Church’s authority as it related to an interpretation of the Bible, an interpretation held by some powerful religious clerics at that time, which they thought should be used to decide a scientific issue. (Interestingly, the two most respected theologians in Catholic history, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, had both rejected using interpretations of Biblical language on matters of science.)
But in Galileo’s day and time, this view of Augustine and Aquinas was being ignored (as were several others), and he lost at his trial by the Inquisitors. He was placed under house arrest, spending his remaining years comfortably in a nice villa, being cared for by servants and receiving friends and relatives freely. Interestingly, he completed some of his most famous works during this time.
It was highly unfortunate that the Catholic Church believed it had a role to play in making judgements about scientific questions. But, after far too many years, it did eventually apologize for its actions toward Galileo. This does not justify the Church’s prior actions, but does highlight the fact that, throughout history, there seems to be a movement toward righting wrongs and moving toward the truth (although this process is sometimes quite slow).
Skeptico: What is the point you are trying to make?
Wisdom Seeker: That the popular myth about Galileo’s story is false. It had nothing to do with a conflict between science and religion in general, and certainly did not suggest that science and spiritual beliefs are incompatible.
Instead, Galileo’s trial is an example of an over-reaching religious hierarchy choosing to take sides in a scientific debate, which most religious and spiritual leaders today do not advocate at all, including the Catholic Church.
The next part of the story is that those who opposed the Catholic Church’s supremacy began using the Church’s mistake with regard to Galileo to undermine its power and authority in general. Today, his trial has become a rallying cry for those who oppose religious ideas in general, using it to make the sweeping claim that there is an essential conflict between science and religion.
But this is to twist the story into a pretzel and rob it of all meaning. The Catholic Church was wrong. It should not have involved itself in a scientific issue. It later admitted its error (regrettably, after it was long overdue). As for Galileo himself, he remained a religious man, maintained his religious beliefs, and did not think his trial was about the truth of religious ideas in general. And it wasn’t.
The true lesson to be taken from this story, then, is to recognize that religious ideas and science deal with different areas of life, and when either believes it can or should decide issues in the realm of the other, it is a mistake.
For us today, this history is an opportunity to learn to resist simple-minded arguments and naïve conclusions, whoever is making them. And to recognize that, contrary to the attempt to use the story of Galileo to portray that science and the wisdom traditions as incompatible, the opposite is true. Both are grounded in the belief that the world we live in is ordered by laws arising from beyond anything we can know objectively, and both are dependent on values that assume this is a moral world — neither of which the worldview of Materialism can speak to.
This is the reason most of the great scientists throughout history have chosen the wisdom tradition worldview over that of Materialism, continuing right down through the modern era. Ken Wilber (the best-selling western philosopher of the last 40 years) points out in Quantum Questions that all the physicists who developed relativity and quantum theory in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — “the crown jewels of twentieth century science” — came to an essentially mystical view of reality.
“Individuals such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Louis de Broglie, Max Planck, Wolfgang Pauli, Sir Arthur Eddington — the vast majority of them were idealists or transcendentalists of one variety or another.”
These physicists and the great scientists before them adopted a transcendental view because they understood that science will never answer the ultimate questions we encounter as we go through life. They saw that scientific experiments and mathematical formulas will never resolve some of the basic questions about reality, and certainly will never be able to deal with many of the life issues we face. The acclaimed British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington insisted that this is even true as we attempt to understand the physical universe itself:
“We have learnt that the exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods [the methods of physics] are unadapted for penetrating.”
Max Planck, considered to be the founder of quantum theory, made the point this way:
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
This is not proof that the worldview of the wisdom traditions is correct, of course, or that we live in a moral world. But it does make vividly clear that there is nothing in science that disputes such a belief. And as discussed earlier, science itself is based on the assumption that there is an underlying Order in the universe, as taught for thousands of years by all the wisdom traditions.
The wisdom traditions also insist that this same Source is the underlying ground for the core values and meanings we all share. In the same way that the physical laws of the natural world are given by this Source, so too are a few core moral values. It is therefore far from accidental that the Golden Rule has arisen in very similar form in almost every culture for thousands of years.
Lessons for Our Lives
I have been interested in and studied scientific concepts and ideas my whole life. One thing I have come to know as a certainty: There is absolutely no evidence in science to suggest that realms beyond the material do not exist and are not part of our lives. Further, science cannot know whatever does lie beyond the material realm; it does not have the tools to study it or reach conclusions about it.
Science is incredibly fascinating and vitally important in those areas it can study with its tools. But it has little to say in relation to the aspects of our lives that arise and are connected to the higher realms — the power of true love to affect us, the central goals and intentions we will set for our lives, the deepest meanings we will feel, the moral framework we will choose to live within, and life decisions about what we will value most highly.
It would be absurd for a person to turn to science in trying to decide whether to sacrifice themselves for another, or for a cause they believed in, as millions have done. And I do not think the untold number of saints and sages throughout history who chose to give up worldly pleasures in order to pursue awakening, transcendence, or salvation turned to science for guidance in how to achieve their aims.
Guides for this part of the journey do not reside in the laboratories of science or the halls of academia — neither scientists nor scholarly classrooms are equipped to give us much help with these areas of our lives. Science can disprove a specific claim by a specific religion about how the material world works, and religions should adapt their views about these matters to accord with the best scientific ideas of the time.
But worthwhile guidance in the areas of life beyond the material realm must come from those who have discovered answers themselves — the saints, sages, and mystics who have gone beyond focusing on the material world and penetrated deeply into the mysteries of life and living.
Most of us, however, do not have direct access to an enlightened saint or sage in our lives today. Instead, we must look for hints and clues they left for us embedded in the wisdom traditions of the world. Then each of us must try to discover the final answers for ourselves.
Let me be as clear as possible. Nothing in this Essay proves what I myself have come to believe: There are a few main, shared ideas the wisest saints and sages have taught for centuries about existence that are true, and these truths are embedded in the wisdom traditions of humanity.
Certainly there are also many flaws within each tradition, accretions inserted through the centuries by unenlightened leaders. This is one primary reason each of us must sort through and decipher the truths they do contain for ourselves.
Nor do I believe science can provide these kinds of answers. Meaning and value questions have never been its intended purpose; that is not its role. Individual scientists have put forward their personal theories and beliefs about these matters, but there is no “scientific” view about meanings and values, or about what a person should choose to live for.
An inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the lives and work of great scientists through the ages, however. Science itself and most scientists have not supported Materialism as a worldview, and although science does not support the wisdom traditions either, most scientists have embraced the core elements of the worldview of wisdom traditions.
Of course, some scientists have adopted Materialism as their worldview. But to do so requires an act of faith, for it certainly is not supported by reason, or logic, or science. There is no proof for any of the explanations for how reality is constituted or how we should live — the values, meanings, and beliefs around which a person can best organize their lives. That is a personal choice, a choice you and every other person must make for yourselves.
Anyone is free, of course, to make their act of faith a belief in Materialism. But those who do so have no ground from which to criticize the act of faith of another. It is valid to insist that everyone should recognize that science takes precedence in areas that have to do strictly with the material world, but not to distort science in order to use it to justify their own act of faith.
For those who choose to believe we live in a moral world, and to center their act of faith around one of the wisdom traditions, or the core tenets they all share, you will be joining in the company of Aristotle, Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Louis de Broglie, Max Planck, Wolfgang Pauli, Alfred North Whitehead, Arthur Eddington, and countless other scientists throughout history.
Finding your own place to stand in this unknown terrain is challenging, but there are guides today who can point out a trail, give you guidance along the way, and describe some of the pitfalls you will face as you make your journey. And perhaps you, as do I, can feel comforted by the fact that the wisest of those who have travelled to the summit of life’s fulfillment have said that anyone can reach it. What is more, they have assured us that doors that once seemed closed will swing wide to those who approach it with a sincere desire, strong determination, and an open heart — and mind.
If you are open to the possibility that values and meanings arise from the deep ground of Being; that we live in a moral landscape that has been part of the fabric of reality from the beginning, or one that is emerging as the evolutionary process unfolds; that lessons for living are contained in the deepest reality of the world around and within us — you are welcome on this journey.
You do not have to hold any particular beliefs to begin this journey to the heart of existence. All you need is an unfulfilled longing, a restlessness, an intuition that there is more to life than you have yet found — and a sense that it is worth some of your time and energy to see what more you might discover.
May the coming days bring a measure of peace to you,
and to our world.
David