W sąsiednim wątku próbowałem propagować idee przedstawione w książce Fridjof’a Capra i Pier Luigi Luisi pt.:
The system view of life [ www.amazon.com/Systems-View-Life-Unifying-Vision-book/dp/B00I0UNCES/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 ]
Książkę to sprowadziłem i przeczytałem już jest najciekawsze rozdziały. Pragnę się podzielić wrażeniami na temat rozdziału pt.: {
13.1 Science and spirituality: a dialectic relationship }
W P.S. i kilku dodatkowych postach zamieszczę znaczne fragmenty tego rozdziału. Trochę to potrwa.. dzisiaj nie skończę zrealizowania tego zadania.
No, ale dla zachęty przytoczę już na wstępie jeden z cytatów jakim posłużył się F. Capra.:
“Knowledge is like a sphere; the greater its volume, the larger its contact with the unknown ”.
Autor posługuje się w swoim wywodzie bardzo znanym obrazkiem, a mianowicie średniowieczną wizja świata wyrażoną poprzez grafikę
Uwidoczniony na niej wędrowiec dotarł do krańca świata „namacalnego" i zagląda w jego niewidoczne uwarunkowania, które nazywano terminem „empyrean”.
Główną tezą F. Capry i P.L. Luisi jest to, że niewątpliwie „empyrean” istnieje – i próbują to uwzględniać twórcy istotnych osiągnięć nauki. F. Capra przytacza tu przekonanie A. Einstaina, który ponoć powiedział .:
“ The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. . . the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavor to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature”.
Aby wytworzyć atmosferę sprzyjającą rozważaniom nad { związkami nauki z duchowością i mistycyzmem } może dobrze byłoby oglądnąć film, który był nadany wczoraj na Canal+
{ Mike Cahill "Początek", film produckcji USA, 2014 } . Sądzę, że zachwalanie tego filmu zostanie natychmiast skrytykowane przez osoby :”wysoce racjonalne”, tym nie mniej zaręczam, że jest to film nie nudny (historyjka bardzo oryginalna i "naukowa”), który „wciąga” i który jest na temat „Nauka a duchowość”.
~ Andrew Wader
P.S.
[ Fragmenty rozdziału książki Fridjof’a Capra i Pier Luigi Luisi.: „The system view of life” – część I]
13.1 Science and spirituality: a dialectic relationship
During its long evolutionary history, humanity has developed various pathways and methods
for obtaining and expressing knowledge about the self and the world, including philosophy,
science, religion, art, and literature. Among these, science and spirituality have been two
major driving forces of civilization.
The power of science (and its applications in technology) is responsible for material and
technological progress. Since the information technology revolution in the last century, in
particular, we have been witnessing an incredible expansion of our capabilities of global
communication and of our transport and travel facilities (even in outer space), while in
medicine we have enjoyed the discovery of unimaginable surgical devices and techniques,
which have had many beneficial impacts on our health. Spirituality (and its codification in
religion), on the other hand, is responsible for the internal growth of individuals, as well as
for ethical constraints on excessive consumption of the planet’s resources.
Since the turn of the century, it has become abundantly evident that, even though the
power of science and technology has brought us benefits never experienced before, the
ways in which these benefits have been achieved, and how they have been distributed
between and within countries, are now threatening the future well-being, and indeed the
very existence of humanity. We only need to mention the continuing threat of nuclear
weapons and the dangers of nuclear radiation; the many wars that seem to rage continually
around the world; the dramatic crises of global climate collapse, resource depletion, and
species extinction; and the severely unequal distribution of wealth and increase of poverty
in so many countries — all of which contribute to an existential crisis of humanity (to be
discussed in more detail in Chapter 17).
We have argued in Section 11.3 that these threatening aspects may be rooted in some
basic genetic features of humanity — and in particular of the male gender — such as aggres-
siveness and the desire for power, which are manifest in today’s predatory capitalism.
However, we have seen that humans also have positive, contrasting features, which we may
broadly associate with spirituality — the tendency to become a better human being, which
encompasses the inner elevation toward the numinous and the mysteries of the cosmos;
as well as love and respect for our fellow human beings. Religion and, more generally,
religiosity are expressions of this second important force of humanity. Just as technical
progress is the pragmatic side of science, so religion can be seen as the pragmatic side of
spirituality.
It is evident from this brief, introductory overview that the fate and well-being of
modem civilization will be shaped significantly by the balance (or lack thereof) between
the two opposing developments of technological progress and spiritual wisdom. Clearly, a
science “without a soul” would lead to disaster. Conversely, we cannot manage our complex
modem world with a purely spiritual approach. In this chapter, we shall analyze the basis
and implications of this dialectic relationship between science and spirituality.
13.2 Spirituality and religion
The view of science and religion as a dichotomy has a long history, especially in the
Christian tradition, and has recently been revived in several books written by scientists
(e.g., Dawkins, 2006; Gould, 1999; Hawking and Mlodinow, 2010), as we discuss briefly
in Section 13.3 below. On the other hand, there are many scientists who see no intrinsic
opposition between science and religion, or science and spirituality. At the very core of this
confusing situation, in our opinion, lies the failure of many authors to distinguish clearly
between spirituality and religion. In order to resolve the confusion, we shall carefully
examine the meaning of both of these terms, as well as the relationship between religion
and spirituality. We also want to remind our readers that we have discussed the meaning
and nature of science in some detail in the Introduction, at the very outset of this book.
In particular, we shall examine whether spiritual and religious worldviews are compatible
with the systems view of life that we have been discussing.
13.2.1 Spirit and spirituality
Spirituality is a much broader and more basic human experience than religion. It has two
dimensions: one going inward, or “upward,” as it were; and the other going outward,
embracing the world and our fellow human beings. Either of the two manifestations of
spirituality may or may not be accompanied by religion. Thus, when we say that scientists
like Einstein or Bohr were spiritual souls, we mean that they had a strong desire to come
closer to, or perhaps even identify with, the mysteries of the cosmos.
On the other hand, when we see people like Gandhi or Martin Luther King as spiritual
