Science and Spirituality

In my previous post, I discussed the general outline of my world view. I'd like to discuss it further in depth. What made me want to revisit this issue is a certain picture posted on Facebook, pictured below (click to make larger, putting at the original size here causes formatting problems). 

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I read through this picture and started to reflect on what this actually means. The general idea proposed here is that one should take comfort in the law of conservation of energy, meaning energy is neither created or destroyed. It gives the impression that one lives on through some sort of afterlife as an energy, scattered throughout the cosmos. As rosy and feel-good as this may sound, I think that it is at root false. As you (hopefully) know, the universe is composed of matter and energy (which are identical, as E=MC²). There is one fundamental class of existence observable by science (I will leave aside metaphysical debates over mind-body dualism and the problem of universals, for one, science has given no reason to think the mind seperate from the brain, and secondly, issues over the nature or existence of universals is irrelevant to this discussion.), and that is matter/energy. They are like lego blocks that compose all of existence. When we die, our bodies decompose, and the thermal energy that is in our body radiates into the environment due to a physical process called entropy, which states that in a closed system, matter or energy will take on a uniform structure. To overcome entropy, there must be energy intake. This is why we need food to live. So obviously, after we die that entropy takes over because our bodies no longer are fighting against it. The "lego blocks" that make up our bodies begin to fall apart. Now, this may seem trivial, but my point is that there is nothing comforting in this because it is not the things that make up your body that matter, but the way those things are put together. Or as Carl Sagan once said, "the beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together."(from Cosmos)

The way these things are put together are information structures. Remember that the brain is composed of neurons and glial cells, with the primary unit of information processing being the neuron. A neuron has an input and output function. The inputs of a neuron are called dendrites, and the outputs are called axons. Neurons are webbed together, with axons and dendrites nearly touching (and held together by glial cells) at places called synapses, across which neurotransmitters and ionized electrolytes flow, carrying an electrical charge across the synapses. Many of these neurotransmitters function to modulate electrical activity. (For more specific information, I highly recommend The Synaptic Self by Joseph Le Doux). This is to say that the brain has a specific structure, and these neurons group into regions that carry out specific tasks throughout the brain. The synaptic connections are determined by genetic and epigenetic factors, and are altered through life experience. This determines who you are. Now, the brain's job is to process information from the world that it takes in through sensory perception and make decisions for survival. Knowing this, cognitive psychologists map cognitive function according to a theory called "The Computational Theory of Mind". The task of cognitive psychology is to model the basic cognitive machinery of every human being. Cognitive Neuroscience seeks to understand how the brain carries out this cognitive computation of information.

Keeping in mind the fact that your mind is the information processing of the brain, which is determined by your synaptic structures, and the fact that your brain is an organ which must fight entropy to stay alive and function, once you are dead, entropy takes over. The synaptic structures in your brain begin to decay. So yes, the energy and matter that you are made of does recycle. But who you are is annihilated. There is no more cognition, no more sensory perception going on. The downside to this is that there is no joyous afterlife. The upside is there's no hell to fear, either. You may ask about the soul, which there is no scientific reason to believe in, but nevertheless that is not the subject of the picture I am discussing.

My aim here is not to be a cynic or a pessimist. My goal is to show that one should be careful in how he or she interprets science. To drive home my point further, consider following scenario: Imagine that you are a child who has just completed the coolest object made out of lego bricks. Your brother or sister then comes along and smashes it to pieces, and you naturally become very upset. Then your sibling tells you, "don't worry, the legos that made your creation are still here, they're just less orderly!" Would that bring you any comfort? Of course not. The structure of your creation is now gone, even though the materials are still there. So it is with death, too.

Carl Sagan wrote in the splendid book on critical thinking, The Demon Haunted World, that “Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light‐years and in the passage of ages, when we grasp the intricacy, beauty, and subtlety of life, then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is surely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both.”

It is important to distinguish between two sorts of spirituality. The first is the mysticism variety, full of new age healing crystals, astrology, meditation (though meditation can be beneficial outside of a mystical context), and lots of talk on "quantum" and "consciousness". This sort of spirituality is typified by people like Depaak Chopra. This post is already lengthy enough, so I won't take the time to dismantle that here, but I recommend the aforementioned book by Carl Sagan, and War of the Worldview: Science vs Spirituality by Depaak Chopra & Leonard Mlodinow. The other sort of spirituality is an outlook on life. Science can be fun. There is a great joy one can feel upon learning facts about the world, or discovering something previously unknown. Science is also a social practice that can't be practiced meaningfully alone, hence the term "scientific community." One can encounter much joy out of making friends in the scientific community. One can also appreciate, as Carl Sagan said, the heroic acts of great men and women. At the same time, I think it is important not to overstate the beauty of nature. There are far more many ways to be dead than alive, and nature seems to be filled mostly with ways to be dead. Nature is morally neutral. It's not going to stop having natural disasters because it's not nice.

In conclusion, it is important to not overstate the majesty of nature, or interpret something in science to mean more than it is. Reality is morally neutral, unconscious, and does not care about you. Remember that these "spiritual feelings" that Carl Sagan speaks of are subjective experiences, not some real aspect of the world. As I said before, there are more ways to be dead than alive. I would like to end on a positive note, since this all sounds rather pessimistic. There are billions of neurons in your brain, that can be arranged in trillions upon trillions of different ways. No one will ever have the same arrangement as you, and no one will ever share the exact same life experiences. You are unique. There will never be another one of you. The probability of you having the personality that you do is unfathomable. Take joy in your improbable self*, and use those neurons to think well!

"Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in the way in which our visual field has no limits." — Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus


*Though, as it turns out, there is no single function of the brain known to correspond to a "self", but rather, the "self" is the awareness of an autiobiography, in short. Nevertheless, it's a harmless and useful illusion even if it has no "metaphysical" correlate.