The English physicist Paul Davies deems himself to be so rational that he’s realised that rational thought itself has its limitations. (At least this is how Davies’s views can be interpreted.) That critical position relates to Davies’s fixation on “the meaning of the universe”. He doesn’t believe that “the universe is absurd or meaningless”. Nor does he want to live in an “absurd” universe. However, Davies also believes that science and rational thought cannot show us the meaning of the universe. What can show us its meaning is what “lies outside the usual categories of rational human thought”.
Paul Davies states that the belief that “the universe exists, and exists in the form it does, reasonlessly” is no better than “many metaphysical and theistic theories”. Of course, readers will need to know exactly what Davies means by the word “reasonlessly”. (Davies does go into detail elsewhere.)
What Davies desires is for someone (perhaps himself!?) “to construct a metaphysical theory that reduces some of the arbitrariness of the world”. It seems that such a metaphysical theory must include some kind of mysticism. However, if we don’t construct this theory, then
“[w]e are barred from ultimate knowledge, from ultimate explanation, by the very rules of reasoning that prompt us to seek such an explanation in the first place”.
Davies believes that we are barred partly or even primarily because of the findings of such people as Cantor and Gödel. However, we are not barred if we “embrace a different concept of ‘understanding’ from that of rational explanation”. That different concept is supplied by some kind of mysticism.
All that said, Davies often stresses that he has
“never had a mystical experience myself, but I keep an open mind about the value of such experiences”.
In various of Davies’s books, the statement that “I have never had a mystical experience myself” has been used a few times. Readers may get the impression that it’s important to Davies that he tells his readers that he hasn’t had a mystical experience himself. Why is that? Sceptically, if Davies had mystical experiences, then he’d be one of the mystics he praises so often in his books. That would muddy the water somewhat.
For one, Davies wouldn’t be treated seriously by many of his fellow scientists, at least scientists as they’re portrayed by Davies himself. So Davies settles for simply keeping an open mind about the value of such experiences.
To be sceptical again, this may remind some readers of the believers in UFOs, astral travelling, etc. who claim that they have an “open mind”, and that their critics have closed minds. The logic of this type of stance is that the person with the most open mind is the person who believes almost everything. Of course, this is partially unfair to Davies in that he’s a physicist who also provides technical — and sometimes convincing — arguments to back up his metaphysical and mystical positions… unlike most people with open minds.
In any case, Davies believes that mystical experiences may
“provide the only route beyond the limits to which science and philosophy can take us, the only possible path to the Ultimate”.
We can ask questions about the nature of “the Ultimate”, how anyone knows that mystics have discovered it, and many more questions.
The Quick Fixes of Self-Important Mystics
Despite the self-image of many mystics (as well as the devotion they receive from their followers), there’s something self-important about them — or at least about their claims. Davies himself says that “mystics claim that they can grasp ultimate reality in a single experience”. Can they? Who says so? Well, they do. Yet even if they could grasp ultimate reality, how would anyone else know that they have done so?
Davies finished that sentence by saying
“in contrast to the long and tortuous deductive sequence (petering out in turtle trouble) of the logical-scientific method of inquiry”.
Perhaps that gets to the heart of the matter. Mystics (or at least some mystics) don’t want to do the hard work. They don’t want to spend any time on a “long and tortuous deductive sequence”. Instead, Ultimate Reality (whatever that is) is grasped in a single experience.
Of course, not all mystics claim to find Ultimate Reality. According to Davies, some simply find “an inner passionate, joyful stillness that lies beyond the activity of busy minds”.
Mystical Experience and Culture
Here’s something very interesting. Davies happily admits that
“[t]he language used to describe these experiences usually reflects the culture of the individual concerned”.
What Davies doesn’t admit is that the language of the culture may determine the actual content of these experiences too, not only the later descriptions. In other words, Davies might have assumed a languageless and concept-free experience which was only later described in the language of a specific culture. But what if the words, terms, concepts, ideas, etc. of this natural language permeated the actual experience itself? (Add to that the memories of the subject who has the experiences, which were themselves determined by the language of a specific culture.)
Davies tells his readers that “Einstein spoke of a ‘cosmic religious feeling’ that inspired his reflections on the order and harmony of nature”. He then quotes science writer David Peat. The passage goes as follows:
“‘[A] remarkable feeling of intensity that seems to flood the whole world around us with meaning. . . . We sense that we are touching something universal and perhaps eternal, so that the particular moment in time takes on a numinous character and seems to expand in time without limit. We sense that all boundaries between ourselves and the outer world vanish, for what we experiencing lies beyond all are and all attempts to be captured in logical thought.”
Note Peat’s uses of the words “seems” and “we sense”. This is an acknowledgement that Peat may not have touched something universal, and that even though he sensed that all boundaries between himself and the outer world vanished, they may not have actually done so.
The influence of language was mentioned earlier. Carrying on from that, perhaps the passage above simply reflects all the books and pieces on mysticism which Peat has read. It certainly comes across as almost cliched.
Peat’s description also reads like one under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. Yet even here it can be argued that psychedelic experiences are at least partially determined by what the tripper has previously read about other trips, mystical experiences, what “hippies” in the 1960s have said, etc. (Personally, I once noted that those trippers who had no interest in mysticism, hippy culture, Carlos Castaneda, Ken Wilber, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Rudy Rucker, etc. didn’t have experiences like the one described above.)
More specifically, take Peat’s statement that “[w]e sense that all boundaries between ourselves and the outer world vanish”. Did Peat have this precise experience because he’d previously read about other people who had experienced all boundaries between themselves and the outer world vanish?
Again, it can be conceded that experiences like this do occur when people trip. Yet that may be because they’ve read about such things. That said, there’s a chicken and egg situation here. In other words, people have read about such things because people have experienced such things. So surely there must have been a time when people experienced these things even before they could have read about such things.
This leads to the possibility that such experiences may occur in cultures without books. Yet they still have an oral culture. So pretty much the same arguments will apply in these cases too.
Davies also quotes Ken Wilber on mystical “Eastern” experiences. The passage goes as follows:
“In the mystical consciousness, Reality is apprehended directly and immediately, meaning without any mediation, any symbolic elaboration, any conceptualization, or any abstractions; subject and object become one in a timeless and spaceless act that is beyond any and all forms of mediation. Mystics universally speak of contacting reality in its ‘suchness’, its ‘isness’, its ‘thatness’, without any intermediaries; beyond words, symbols, names, thoughts, images.”
How did Wilber know all this? More specifically, how did he know that such experiences didn’t involve any symbolic elaboration, any conceptualization, or any abstractions? How did he know that the mystic moved beyond words, symbols, names, thoughts, images?
More strongly, how did Wilber know that Reality is apprehended directly and immediately?
Paul Davies vs Other Scientists
Throughout his many books, Davies often tells his readers what other scientists believe about religion, mysticism and certain metaphysical beliefs. He’s not too happy with what they believe. That said, the following passage isn’t judgemental:
“Most scientists have a deep mistrust of mysticism. This is not surprising, as mystical thought lies at the opposite extreme to rational thought, which is the basis of the scientific method.”
Apart from the first sentence (which would need a survey of some kind to be demonstrated), I couldn’t have put it better myself. In this chapter, Davies is very keen to show us the limitations of rational thought when it comes to both physics and mathematics. He writes:
“My own feeling is that the scientific method should be pursued as far as it possibly can. Mysticism is no substitute for scientific inquiry and logical reasoning so long as this approach can be consistently applied.”
Yet Davies clearly believes that it can’t be consistently applied in such cases. And that’s where he takes a dive into mysticism. Or, it should be said, he takes a dive into “espousing mysticism”.
According to Davies, scientific inquiry and logical reasoning hit a brick wall when it comes to “ultimate questions”. Then “science and logic may fail us”. (At least here Davies isn’t saying that science and logic will fail us.)
Davies relies on the work of Cantor and Gödel to show his readers that there can’t be a literal theory of everything. Gödel’s theorem “is nevertheless full of paradox and uncertainty”. In short,
“[t]here will always be truth that lies beyond, that cannot be reached from a finite collection of axioms”.
This may be a classic example of a person stretching the meaning of Gödel’s theorems beyond their proper boundaries.
Davies then put the cream on the cake when he stated the following:
“And here we encounter once more the Gödelian limits to rational thought — the mystery at the end of the universe. We cannot know Cantor’s Absolute, or any other Absolute, by rational means, for any Absolute, being a Unity and hence complete within itself, must include itself.”
… But we can experience (if not know) the Absolute through mystical means… at least according to Davies.
In terms of Davies himself, he seems to be saying that it isn’t doomed to failure if one takes the mystical route. The mystical route even trumps Stephen Hawking’s “theory of everything”, which isn’t about everything at all. It’s about all the fundamental forces and particles in the universe. The mystical experience of everything, on the other hand, really does include everything. (There are indeed broader theories of everything, and even Hawking himself went further.)
The question is whether these limitations have the consequences Davies believes they have. In addition, it doesn’t follow that even if there are a multitude of limitations to rational thought that this should lead us to mysticism. Indeed, mystics — as well as Davies himself — have it that there actually are no limits to what human persons can achieve. It’s just rational thought that has various limits. Thus, the mystic realises that rational thought has its limits, and then goes beyond it to grasp Ultimate Reality.
Yet most mystics, both today and historically, have “stretched thought to its limits” without practicing science, mathematics or even philosophy. Instead, they taken what Davies himself calls a “short cut”. That’s why Davies is keen to point out those physicists who didn’t take a short cut. He tells his readers that
“many of the world’s finest thinkers, including notable scientists such as Einstein, Pauli, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Eddington, and Jeans, have also espoused mysticism”.
These scientists were human beings. So it’s not much of surprise that some scientists embraced mysticism, just as many have embraced religion. There’s also a difference between espousing mysticism and actually indulging in mysticism. It’s not clear that all the named scientists above actually experienced any mystical states (unless those two words are interpreted very loosely). Yet they did espouse mysticism in various ways and to various degrees.
Davies Makes the How-Why Distinction
In Davies’s nutshell, science and logic can address the “how questions”, but not the “why questions”. [See note.]
This how-why binary opposition has become a bit of cliché when it comes to the critics of science, so it’s worth unpacking.
Firstly, we have Google AI mode on this subject:
“The criticism of the rigid ‘how-why’ binary opposition in the philosophy of science centers on the argument that it is a false dichotomy and an oversimplification of scientific explanation. Critics contend that ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions are deeply intertwined, with the answers to ‘how’ questions often providing the substance of ‘why’ explanations.
“[ ] Many ‘why’ questions in a scientific context (e.g., ‘Why is the sky blue?’) can be answered by providing a detailed ‘how’ explanation (e.g., how light scatters in the atmosphere). The distinction often depends on the level of analysis or the specific context of the inquiry, rather than an inherent difference in the nature of the questions themselves.”
Now let’s specifically tackle why-questions.
As the American-English philosopher Gordon Park Baker (1938–2002) put it:
“The unexamined question is not worth answering.”
Baker added:
“To accept a question as making good sense and embark on building a philosophical theory to answer it is already to make the decisive step in the whole investigation.”
Another problem is summed up by Gordon Baker:
“Questions, just as much as assertions, carry presuppositions.”
Baker’s questions about questions are partly Wittgensteinian in nature. Thus, readers can certainly note his Wittgensteinian points in the following:
“[T]o suppose that the answers to philosophical questions await discovery is to presuppose that the questions themselves make sense and stand in need of answers (not already available). Why should this not be a fit subject for philosophical scrutiny?”
Indeed, Wittgenstein did have things to say on the nature of many philosophical questions (both in his “early” and “late” periods). His position is partly summed up in this passage from Robert W. Angelo. (This ends with a quote from Wittgenstein himself.) Thus:
“[N]onsense in the form of a question is still nonsense. Which is to say that the question-sign [] can only be rejected, not answered: ‘What is undefined is without meaning; this is a grammatical remark.’ [].”
Another good way of summing up the problem with these philosophical why-questions is also cited by Gordon Baker. He wrote:
“To pose a particular question is to take things for granted, to put some things beyond question or doubt, to treat some things as matters of course.”
One obvious “presupposition” to a question is that there’s an answer to it — or at least a possible answer.
To sum up. Aren’t the askers of these types of philosophical why-questions “taking certain things for granted”? That is, aren’t they taking for granted that their questions are legitimate and that there are answers? Moreover, aren’t these questioners also “put[ting] some things beyond question or doubt”, as well as “treat[ing] some things as matters of course”?
Note:
I’ve commented on why-questions many times throughout the years. The last section, admittedly, is almost a copy-and-paste of previous uses.
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