This is a question I've asked numerous times in my Lenten series of blog posts over the years. Today, while walking through the forest to Rososz, the answer came to me.
"I need at least enough spirituality to inoculate myself against the doubts that materialist reductionism tries to cast upon my belief in the primacy of consciousness."
The doubts that creep in, creating anxiety and that mind is no more than the product of matter, rather than matter being a product of mind.
Consciousness, I would posit, is fundamental. It is non-local; it is everywhere - a substrate of the Universe, upon which awareness of life pops up here and there. Consciousness is the cause of space and time, not an emergent property of evolution, to be found only in warm-blooded creatures, as some neurologists would argue.
So how can we inoculate ourselves against doubt? Meditation, seeking intuitions, listening to other seekers who have trod this path, who have asked the same questions we ask - and who can answer them to our satisfaction. Thinkers who have had similar intuitions.
Spirituality should not be reserved for a certain day of the week, nor a certain time of that day - positive thoughts are needed to keep doubt and the attendant anxiety and fear creep up on us and overturn those positive intuitions that make us feel joy and gratitude for the conscious life.
Sceptics try to prove that there's nothing more to the Universe than matter, demanding empirical answers to the question "how does consciousness explain matter", while being unable to provide empirical answers to the question "how does matter explain consciousness".
There is nothing wrong with empirical enquiry, testing a hypothesis rigorously. But there is also intuition, a powerful and under-appreciated human ability to understand something before we have run the calculations.
Intuitions can the thought of the cosmic non-local consciousness speaking directly to you - but only if you are open to it - but how to you square that with empirical evidence, and quash that nagging doubt that this is nothing more than the cognitive bias named wishful thinking?
Doubts that are ultimately destructive, leading to a downward spiral of hopelessness. So - how much spirituality do we need? The bare minimum is "enough to keep us from slipping into negative thought." More than that, and spirituality begins to bring joy and purpose to life.
Below: as I set out for my walk this morning.
Beautiful weather, though it began to cloud over in the early afternoon and then the rain came. But around lunchtime, the top temperature hit 24C. On the działka, I still haven't had cause to switch on the heating - last year I already started heating on 19 September. [UPDATE 22 October 2023: I switch on the heating as the temperature inside falls below 19C.]
By a serendipitous synchronicity, just after publishing this post, the YouTube algorithm recommended me this debate, which beautifully illustrates my point. Panpsychist Philip Goff vs physicalist Sean Carroll. I must say, Prof Carroll won this debate, though for me personally, he won it by superior debating skill rather than by strength of argument. I am not swayed by his conviction that the core theory of physics ("which you can put on a T-shirt") settles the argument. He himself knows that dark matter and dark energy might fit that theory, but cannot be explained or described in terms that make sense. But at the end of the day, limiting consciousness to neuronal firings in the brain simply feels wrong to me. My intuition kicks out against it. Carroll has no access to my experience of consciousness and his attempt to describe what's going on within my consciousness just doesn't square with what I feel.
This time five years ago:
Whoops! Clumsy
This time seven years ago:
Mystical experiences at 37,000ft
This time eight years ago:
The staggeringly high cost of tax collection in Poland
This time 12 years ago
One stop beyond
This time 13 years ago:
Who am I? (Kim ja jestem?)
This time 14 years ago:
First snow, 2009. Ghastly!
This time 15 years ago:
Train links to town improving
This time 16 years ago:
A beautiful Sunday, south of Warsaw
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