PLAN
Dedication
We start with a quotation from TS Eliot, written in the 1920s.
"And the wind shall say:
'Here were decent godless people:Their only monument the asphalt road
And a thousand lost golf balls' "
Eliot was contemptuous of modern man, who had turned away from the One God, not in order to worship others, but to worship none.
But there are of course good reasons why the influence of religion has declined. First, the great advances in medicine and hygiene have banished the ancient dread that death for self or loved ones lurked in every to-morrow: the payment of the religious insurance premiums can now be deferred until old age. Second, in former times the men of Church, Mosque and Temple could crack the whips of superstition to lash the faithful into compliant reverence; but now modern science has floodlit the dark corners of the Unknown and has thrown on the defensive the religions which have exploited it. And Science too, by claiming that God is not necessary to explain the Universe, has cast further doubt on the relevance of religion. And finally, universal education has raised the general level of intellectual inquiry: and rational men and women demand a rational God - demand a credible philosophy.
To meet that demand will be the central aim of this book: to suggest a credible philosophy.
For Eliot's contempt was misplaced: golfers still weep, and those that take the asphalt road still yearn for meaning.
Many of the scientists and intellectuals of to-day loudly proclaim that there is no meaning. That everything can be reduced to material bits operating and evolving according to material laws: A giant machine with no inventor and no operator.... But which came first, the machine or the laws which govern its performance? Science has no answer.
What we shall be searching for in this book is what Arthur Koestler called "The Ghost in the Machine" - the non-material something which governs its performance, which gives meaning to its existence.
Dualism is what some philosophers call the proposition that mind or consciousness is quite different from the material body. We shall be looking for clues in the material world pointing to the co-existence of the non-material. My own approach will be unashamedly dualist.
I shall be inviting you to take a look at science's most profound discoveries in physics, in cosmology and in evolution, but from a dualist perspective,.
After that, we shall discuss the nature of Consciousness and of the so-called Paranormal.
Faith and Reason
What we shall be trying to construct in this book is a bridge between Faith and Reason.
For I believe that there is indeed such a bridge, that there is a rational explanation for the mystery of existence, of our existence, that our existence has meaning.
I hope that we shall be able to agree that the material and the non-material co-exist and interact, that belief in the non-material is not just a matter of faith, but that it is rational and consistent.
By only a slight change in perspective, in the way we look at things, I hope to persuade you that many of Science's most profound discoveries are not just in harmony with the existence of the Non-Material, but actually arise as a consequence of its existence.
The path we shall be following up the hill of meaning will be the path of Reason. We shall be relying on no guru, no prophet, no holy book; but I hope that at the end we will be able to agree on a philosophy which is not too far removed from the ideas proclaimed by the great world religions.
The Scientific Process
"But you can't prove anything!" say the sceptics, "all theories about non-material existence are sheer wishful thinking, comforting bits of self-delusion with not a scrap of evidence to support them."
To answer that challenge is what our discussions will be about.
To meet it, we are going to use much the same procedure as scientists use in arriving at their 'proofs' of the laws of nature.
But the first thing to realise is that scientists never 'prove' anything. There are no certainties in Science, only probabilities - probabilities that can be so great that for most practical purposes they are treated as certainties, but which nonetheless remain only probabilities.
If you think about it, you can see why this must be so. Say, for example that a scientist wants to 'prove' the hypothesis that Force = Mass x Acceleration. Then he will do a series of experiments with different masses and different accelerations and measure the forces required in each case. His 'proof' will then be that the hypothesis holds good for every measurement he has made. But he cannot do an infinite number of experiments and his measurements cannot be infinitely accurate. He can demonstrate high probability, but he cannot demonstrate absolute certainty.
Incidentally, when scientists attempt to describe the ultimate building blocks of matter, particles which are sub-microscopically small, there is a further practical uncertainty involved. This is because, for the human experimenter to make observations, either he or his instruments must receive some sort of signal from the particle being observed. But the very emission of this signal is enough to change the particle, so that there is no way of being certain as to what its state now is! This uncertainty is in addition to the uncertainty which is, as we shall see, an integral part of the Quantum Theory.
The scientific process, the procedure followed by scientists, involves three stages. First, the facts to be explained are marshalled and examined. This is the investigation stage. Second, as a result of hard thinking about these facts, the theoretical scientist arrives at a tentative theory or hypothesis. Finally, he moves on to the third stage, the testing stage, the stage of verification. For the scientist, unless a hypothesis can make useful predictions which can be verified by testing, it is worthless. This is why so much of science consists of devising experiments to test the truth or falsehood of scientific hypotheses.
But increasingly these days, in branches of science (cosmology, for example), where you obviously can't carry out lab experiments, mathematics (aided by its new work-horse, the computer) is being called in to furnish the 'proofs' which experiment cannot provide. But all mathematics is ultimately based on sets of unprovable suppositions - axioms, they are called. For example, the 'self-evident' set of axioms on which Euclid based his geometry were unchallenged for two thousand years - until a nineteenth century mathematician showed that one of them was wrong!
As far as possible, we shall be trying to follow the scientific method in these discussions. First, taking into account the results of everyday observations, we'll concoct a theory or hypothesis. Then we'll explore whether it fits the observed facts of nature.
The first stage, the investigation stage, of this philosophical inquiry into the meaning of life and existence is of course open to all thoughtful men and women. It consists of marshalling and analysing the facts and problems encountered by personal experience and learned from the observations and musings of others.
So now let us move to the second stage, constructing a hypothesis.