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Scientists as philosophers

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Jonathan Morgan

SpaceThe end of summer is rapidly approaching, which means I’ve been catching up on my Internet movie watching (a luxury that classes and lab work don’t afford!). The last piece I watched was the most recent Issac Asimov Memorial debate. Asimov is best known for his science fiction novels- remember I, Robot, the 2004 Will Smith movie? That film was based on an Asimov story. But he was also an incredible scientist and thinker. A true polymath, Asimov wrote on everything from astronomy to Shakespeare, from chemistry to the Bible. If that wasn’t cool enough, he even has an asteroid named after him. Okay, that ends my Asimov shout-out.

The Memorial debate is hosted by the American Museum of Natural History in honor of Asimov.* The purpose is to debate pressing questions at the scientific frontier. This year the debate was about the concept of nothing. Neil deGrasse Tyson** lead a panel of physicists, philosophers, and other thinkers in a discussion about the beginnings of the universe and how to think about nothing.

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The Frequencies Project

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Jonathan Morgan

monitoring wavesLast week I wrote about the challenges of categorizing spirituality or religiosity. Part of the difficulty lies in the porous nature of the two concepts; each seeps into and encroaches on the other. But another difficulty, one I didn’t touch on last week, is that both concepts are alive – metaphorically of course. They’re dynamic; the ways people and communities use the terms is constantly changing. They aren’t scientific categories, like mammal or friction, with precise definitions. Instead, they’re fluid. This makes the task of studying spirituality or religion challenging and exciting.

A prime example of the nebulous nature of spirituality is the Frequencies Project. This experiment, produced by the people at The Immanent Frame and Killing the Buddha (both worth checking out), aims to be a “collaborative genealogy of spirituality.” They collected reflections from scholars, writers, and artists on what they think of when they think about spirituality. Where a social scientist attempts to be precise and hone in on the concept, this experiment blows open the category and accepts the dynamic and fluid nature of people’s lived spirituality. And the result is fascinating.

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Is Religion Beyond the Brain?

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gears and headThe field of neuroscience is booming.  New discoveries emerge daily, and given the overwhelming complexity of the brain, many profound and important discoveries surely await.  This creates a furor of research, but it also encourages over-reaching generalizations.  People are quick to offer up interpretations about what all these new discoveries mean for our daily lives, for our religiosity, our relationships, our work, our health…  The brain and the mind are so intrinsic to who we are, and the research is so fascinating, that it’s hard to resist making these leaps of interpretation.  As a result, we see a slew of books and articles describing religion in terms of the brain, or vice-versa.  But, all too often, these works are philosophical speculation with a scientific façade.

Last week the New York Times columnist David Brooks critiqued the tendency to overextend these discoveries, by describing the difficulties faced in exploring the brain.  But in the end, he just returned to his philosophical camp by proclaiming, in opposition to most neuroscientists, that “The brain is not the mind.”  Okay, that’s fine to say and true to what most of us feel, but it does little to unearth the real richness of the problem: if the brain is not the mind, then how are the two interacting?  For a deep and quick overview of the mind-brain problem, see this lecture (if you’re worried about time, the relevant section is only six minutes long, starting at 9:27).

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The Divide over Prayer in Schools

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Regardless of your position, the very mention of school prayer probably makes you feel a little angry.  It’s emotionally charged, and perhaps that’s why, fifty years after the Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer  was unconstitutional, the debate still rages on.  But frankly, the debate is stale. The Pew Stats, highlighted in this recent article  by Jaweed Kaleem, show that 57% of Americans still disapprove of the ruling.  Positions haven’t changed in half a century: each side knows their position and everyone toes the line.

I’m not going to join the legions of bloggers weighing in on one side or the other, because after 50 years of debate, what can anyone on either side say that would change the other’s mind?  Instead, I’m curious whether there’s anything fresh to say about the debate.  Perhaps a fresh perspective is needed, not about which side is right, but on why the whole debate has been stalled out for fifty years.

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