Neuroscience meets spirituality: cross over from third-person descriptions to first-person encounters

I suspect we will see more and more thinking individuals cross over from third-person descriptions to first-person encounters, especially if the therapeutic and cognitively enhancing character of these experiences holds true over time. In other words, despite and because of our neuroscientific bias, anomalous religious experiences are on track to become ever more recognised dimensions of human experience. They are rightfully taking their place as ‘poetic facts’ — experiential claims that the living of life itself makes on us, and whose very persistence constrains the totalising aspirations of purely meat-based science. One sign of this development is the fascinating scientific and philosophical discourse surrounding meditation and contemplative practices, some of which was sparked by the Dalai Lama’s sustained conversations with neuroscientists in recent decades. While some intriguing brain-based explanations for traditional Buddhist claims have been offered up, these explanations are ultimately less important than the zone opened up between neuroscience and traditional spiritual philosophy and practice. Meetings, conferences, texts, trials — these are the spaces where poetic facts collide with scientific ones. A similarly robust space of possibility and dialogue might lie ahead for psychedelics.

Saved 5 November 2015

#claims #religious-experience