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EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY of MYSTICISM ORICL 471

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY of MYSTICISM ORICL 471. Neil Greenberg Departments of Ecology, Medicine, and Psychology University of Tennessee, Knoxville. ORICL April 2009. INTRODUCTION – PART 1. EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OF MYSTICSM. ORICL April 2008. Tiffany, “Education” (1890). INTRODUCTION – PART 1.

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EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY of MYSTICISM ORICL 471

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  1. EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY of MYSTICISM ORICL 471 Neil Greenberg Departments of Ecology, Medicine, and Psychology University of Tennessee, Knoxville ORICL April 2009

  2. INTRODUCTION – PART 1 EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OF MYSTICSM ORICL April 2008 Tiffany, “Education” (1890)

  3. INTRODUCTION – PART 1 WORDS for the INEFFABLE ’ Finnigan’s Wake

  4. MAIN POINTS TO COME • THE TROUBLE WITH WORDS • RELIGION and RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCES • SPIRITUALITY and SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES • MYSTICISM and MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES • MYSTERY AND MIRACLES

  5. WORDS The best things cannot be told, the second best are misunderstood. After that comes civilized conversation . . . --Joseph Campbell (1968)

  6. “How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind's prudent folly? That is the hero's ultimate difficult task. How render back into light-world language the speech-defying pronouncements of the dark? How represent on a two-dimensional surface a three-dimensional form, or in a three-dimensional image a multi-dimensional meaning? How translate into terms of "yes" and "no" revelations that shatter into meaninglessness every attempt to define the pairs of opposites? How communicate to people who insist on the exclusive evidence of their senses the message of the all-generating void?” (Jos Campbell, THTF1949)

  7. As far they refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. The problem with WORDS we must communicate with discrete bits of information such as words or numbers, but … ORICL April 2008

  8. The trouble with words the dào that can be spoken Is not the eternal dào. The name that can be named is not the eternal name. Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

  9. Ein Sof The Endless One Yhwh The nameless being (Zohor)

  10. We are addicted to words … there is a word for what precedes all words An arcane han ho logos LOGOS is the word before all words: the PROLOGOS Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

  11. EVOLUTIONARY CONNECTION • “minimizing energetics optimizes fitness” • WORDS help the brain OPTIMIZE • They epitomize or idealize a web of related ideas • They represent the central concept as well as the boundaries of a web of ideas • There is a bias toward using words because they enable assimilation of new ideas with less effort. • Accommodation of new ideas, however, takes effort and is avoided whenever possible.

  12. EVOLUTIONARY CONNECTION • Evolutionary history is a narrative of successive CO-OPTING of adaptive traits by selectively emphasizing some aspect of it (often a collateral effect) • New functions for fragments of previous traits can be of immense importance, but begin very modestly • Example: the exhalation evoked by even mild stress may make a sound passively, but if adaptive, progressively more control may evolve (the “oof ! to proof” transformations)

  13. EVOLUTIONARY CONNECTION • WORDS arrayed in narrative are amongst the supreme accomplishments of our species. • Their roots involved motor patterns and biochemical changes that are markedly enhanced by stress. • Stress (even very modest, subclincal stress) is often manifest as EMOTION. • So language, often exalted as a potential paragon of rationality could not exist without these ancient roots in emotionality.

  14. We are addicted to words … there is even a word for the wordless The Hindu scriptures speak of a supreme word that emerges when the consciousness is turned upon itself as a perfect circle As do the Buddhists: the supreme “word” is silence Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ENSO ORICL April 2009

  15. That which we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence. Wittgenstein:

  16. Apophaticthe unknowable, ineffable essence

  17. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY Preliminary thesis “spiritual” is a favorite adjective for the feeling evoked by an attempt to exercise the “need to know”at the boundaries of competence. A first experience of mystery involves a spiritual experience The mystic (in all of us) extends the daily process of discovery into a passion to solve mysteries … to go beyond the mundane. Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

  18. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY Dealing with MYSTERY, the “need to know” … is a fundamental attribute of all living organisms … and this need is represented in us as a motivation of varying urgency to explore, discover, and assimilate or accommodate our experiences. (energy is precious to an organism seeking to maximize its fitness: assimilation is easy and accommodation is not ) Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

  19. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY We are aware of mysteries ... We become facile at dealing with these “known unknowns” (“... all we need is the time and the technology for appropriate prostheses) ORICL April 2008

  20. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY ... But when the “need to know” … contemplates the unknown unknowns, we approach the apophatic (negative theological) tradition of the Cloud of Unknowing, and the countless others that have sought ultimate reality by negating all its predicates ... removing from our minds all that we know that reality is not , bringing us beyond language, beyond conceptualization, beyond consciousness, to a place where have nothing left and have gone beyond all that is or could be known, we have entered into the unknown unknown. ORICL April 2008

  21. SCIENCE and SPIRITUALITY As with all motives, when meeting this need is thwarted, a primary STRESS RESPONSE is evoked in proportion to the mystery’s perceived urgency … an affective phenomenon that is interpreted in the context in which it emerges… Among the key effects of stress is enhanced sensory and cognitive abilities Link for DUALITIES and DICHOTOMIES ORICL April 2008

  22. An Aside about Stress The brain structures and circuitry of the stress response -- mainly the autonomic nervous system – are always mildly in play – like muscle tone, autonomic tone keeps us ready to act and prevents atrophy … all coping with dissonance is at least a mild stress. If more stressful episodes are too frequent, too great or sustained for too long, the subsequent reallocation of energy can lead to “diseases of adaptation.” ORICL April 2008

  23. The spiritual path of science Goethe, whose scientific contributions have been unjustly overshadowed because of his colossal achievements in literature and the arts, felt upset with what he believed to be the limitations of Newtonian physics. (Naydler, 2000) ORICL April 2008

  24. The spiritual path of science For Goethe, “science is as much an inner path of spiritual development as it is a discipline aimed at accumulating knowledge of the physical world. (Naydler, 2000). ORICL April 2008

  25. The spiritual path of science For Goethe, Science “involves not only a rigorous training of our faculties of observation and thinking, but also of other human faculties which can attune us to the spiritual dimension that underlies and interpenetrates the physical: faculties such as feeling, imagination and intuition. ” (Naydler, 2000). ORICL April 2008

  26. The spiritual path of science Science, as Goethe conceived and practiced it, has as its highest goal the arousal of the feeling of wonder through contemplative looking (Anschauung), in which the scientist would come to see God in nature and nature in God” (Naydler, 2000). . ORICL April 2008

  27. After all … se hace camino al andar ORICL April 2008

  28. When searching for understanding … we make the road by walking Antonio Muchado ORICL April 2008

  29. This is also CONNECTIONIST NEUROLOGY… D.O. Hebb’s vision of neuroplasticity driven by the exercise of circuits we make the road by walking Antonio Muchado ORICL April 2008

  30. MAIN POINTS SO FAR • The trouble with words • Needs map on to motivational systems of brain • We “need” stability, and also • We “need” to know, to explore, to seek novelty creates instability • Novelty evokes more-or-less of the stress response • Stress “energizes” motivational systems • Motivation serves real or perceived needs and can be very intense and seemingly urgent

  31. MAIN POINTS TO COME • We have evolved to neglect stimuli that are irrelevant to survival, but in certain contexts they can be huge • Curiosity leads to mysteries … leads to wonder… and a more-or-less urgent “need to know” • The need to know can extend to a mystery that cannot be solved • But solving the mystery can seem very urgent • the efforts expended can force an assimilation or accommodation which can be perceived as an epiphany or mystical experience

  32. "Our life is an appenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens" --Ralph Waldo Emerson

  33. So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerresTrying to use words, and every attemptIs a wholly new start, and a different kind of failureBecause one has only learnt to get the better of wordsFor the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in whichOne is no longer disposed to say it. And so each ventureIs a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulateWith shabby equipment always deterioratingIn the general mess of imprecision of feeling,Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquerBy strength and submission, has already been discoveredOnce or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hopeTo emulate—but there is no competition—There is only the fight to recover what has been lostAnd found and lost again and again: and now, under conditionsThat seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. From “East Coker,” 2nd of TS Elliot’s “Four Quartets”

  34. The problem with words words “. . . are the instruments of thought; they form the channel along which thought flows; they are the moulds in which thought is shaped.” --Aldous Huxley

  35. Are we any more able to express qi than to experience our own metabolism? Our own dynamic balance of bodily energies?How do we express the experience of harmony? Qi seems to be ineffable

  36. “Transcendent of human language, there is literally nothing we can say about Ain Sof,” the incomprensible one (The Path of the Kaballah)

  37. “the dào that can be spokenIs not the eternal dào.The name that can be namedis not the eternal name.” Dào Dé Jīng

  38. Śūnyatāvoid शून्यता

  39. Nirgunathe formless, universe-pervading attribute of Brahman निर्गुण ब्रह्म

  40. Apophaticthe unknowable, ineffable essence

  41. Ineffable:defies expression, cannot be described in words. Noetic:gives insight and knowledge into deep truths. Transient: brief and cannot be accurately remembered, though easily recognized if it recurs. Passivity:facilitated by preparation, but once begun it seems out of one’s control … as if controlled by a superior power William James 1918 mystical experienceepiphany, insight

  42. Ineffable:defies expression, cannot be described in words. Noetic, Transient, Passive experiences are hard if not impossible to communicate in linear language … this motivates every kind of artist … poet … They must “eff” the ineffable Ineffable experiences

  43. Expression: The artists problem … effing the ineffable … Authority: Gospel of Thomas … urgency to express … to share …

  44. We become accustomed to hierarchical stages, progressively ensheathed, layered with the stages that came before, pregnant with the stages within to come: we are confident that a stage will come ... But it will be ... Unlike all before ... Ineffible... We are forced to go beyond words ... To become artists ... Or mystics Koshas of Vedanta, vijnanas in Buddhism, sefirot in Kabbalah

  45. COMMUNICATE or DIE COMMUNICATION is the basis for sociality. The quality of communications – improved control and precision– enhances the fitness of the individuals and species. We make formidable efforts to communicate ... “.”

  46. THE INABILITY TO COMMUNICATE can become acutely painful, desperately urgent But organisms are are always striving for efficiency: “Artists, DeStaebler once said, “don’t get down to work until thepain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working.” As Anaïs Nin put it, “... the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” "If you bring forth that which is within you, that which you have brought forth will save you. If you do not bring forth that which is within you, that which you do not bring forth will destroy you." (Gospel of Thomas #70)

  47. "Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens" --Ralph Waldo Emerson

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