The Unbelievable
A lecture by Sam Harris, "Believing the Unbelievable". Time 1:09:42 (watch here). As always, Harris is funny enough, but rather narrow in his take on faith. His criticism brings nothing new, nothing that hasn't been going on since Western Enlightenment. (Though I can understand the despair and anxiety of some American atheists, who see in Harris a hero, given that 70% of Americans believe in literal biblical truths.)
Harris uses Isaac Newton as an example of what he says many scientists consider the most awe-inspiring accomplishment of human intelligence in the history of human intelligence ("yet no one is tempted to ascribe this to a divine agency"), though Isaac Newton was very religious, and he was deeply spiritual, probably a proto-Deist, and there's no way around it. This surely doesn't mean Newton believed in literal myths of parting the sea and walking on water and virgin birth. Allegorical method was most likely his favorite. Many scientists today, while being relatively rational in their work, may be prerational in their beliefs (there are quite a few scientists among the followers of Sai Baba, whom Harris mentions), or rational in their beliefs (as Sam Harris himself is), or even postrational in their beliefs. Specifically, in terms of altitude, they may be red believers (as most terrorists are), or amber believers, or orange believers (even if the main article of their faith is a rational questioning), or green believers, or even embrace complexity in recognizing the unfolding logic behind the whole process. But these levels of belief and interpretation are NOT contained within a text or book, whether ancient or contemporary.
Problem with Harris is he won't recognize levels of religious faith, i.e. levels of spirituality, at least basic ones such as prerational, rational and postrational. He does not criticize magical and mythical religion, but religion as such, belief as such, faith as such. While he basically attacks the magical and mythical beliefs of fundamentalist faith, he contrasts those with a scientific wordlview, as if there is no "science" on magical and mythical levels of complexity, as if there is no rational Christianity and rational Islam, and even higher. He also avoids exposing scientism, as a pathological belief in the efficiency of science to give ultimate answers. In short, Harris' arguments will resonate only with those who hold them already, consciously or unconsciously. It's true that many in United States are dissapointed with mythic religion, without ever understanding what happened, and it's equally true Harris has two bestsellers.
Harris, who practices Buddhist meditation, would eagerly kill Buddhism (see .pdf here). His interpretation of meditation is quite narrow (see interview here), typical of someone practicing vipassana or zen with a "non-conceptual" basis (as if there was such a thing) and then secretly reframing the half-step kensho in rationalistic terms, only to launch a pseudo-intellectual attack on the notion of personal God.
Ken Wilber has nailed this phenomenon, quite common among Western intellectuals, as a "level-line fallacy" (LLF) wherein a specific developmental line, in this case spiritual, is identified with a certain level of its own development, in this case literal-mythic and then attacked. At the same time, another line, in this case cognitive, is identified with a level and a framework in its own unfolding, in this case the rational-scientific paradigm, and then used to prove the other one wrong. Spirituality is not allowed to develop beyond amber/mythical, and who are we to blame for that? You can blame Pope Benedict, though Sam Harris is just as guilty. But the real culprit is called LLF, an inability to recognize the problem of arrested development in either science, ethics, art or spirituality, the four main lines of individual and collective unfolding.
For further details, see more on this important subject in his book "Integral Spirituality", starting with page 179, "The Conveyor Belt" chapter.
Harris uses Isaac Newton as an example of what he says many scientists consider the most awe-inspiring accomplishment of human intelligence in the history of human intelligence ("yet no one is tempted to ascribe this to a divine agency"), though Isaac Newton was very religious, and he was deeply spiritual, probably a proto-Deist, and there's no way around it. This surely doesn't mean Newton believed in literal myths of parting the sea and walking on water and virgin birth. Allegorical method was most likely his favorite. Many scientists today, while being relatively rational in their work, may be prerational in their beliefs (there are quite a few scientists among the followers of Sai Baba, whom Harris mentions), or rational in their beliefs (as Sam Harris himself is), or even postrational in their beliefs. Specifically, in terms of altitude, they may be red believers (as most terrorists are), or amber believers, or orange believers (even if the main article of their faith is a rational questioning), or green believers, or even embrace complexity in recognizing the unfolding logic behind the whole process. But these levels of belief and interpretation are NOT contained within a text or book, whether ancient or contemporary.
Problem with Harris is he won't recognize levels of religious faith, i.e. levels of spirituality, at least basic ones such as prerational, rational and postrational. He does not criticize magical and mythical religion, but religion as such, belief as such, faith as such. While he basically attacks the magical and mythical beliefs of fundamentalist faith, he contrasts those with a scientific wordlview, as if there is no "science" on magical and mythical levels of complexity, as if there is no rational Christianity and rational Islam, and even higher. He also avoids exposing scientism, as a pathological belief in the efficiency of science to give ultimate answers. In short, Harris' arguments will resonate only with those who hold them already, consciously or unconsciously. It's true that many in United States are dissapointed with mythic religion, without ever understanding what happened, and it's equally true Harris has two bestsellers.
Harris, who practices Buddhist meditation, would eagerly kill Buddhism (see .pdf here). His interpretation of meditation is quite narrow (see interview here), typical of someone practicing vipassana or zen with a "non-conceptual" basis (as if there was such a thing) and then secretly reframing the half-step kensho in rationalistic terms, only to launch a pseudo-intellectual attack on the notion of personal God.
Ken Wilber has nailed this phenomenon, quite common among Western intellectuals, as a "level-line fallacy" (LLF) wherein a specific developmental line, in this case spiritual, is identified with a certain level of its own development, in this case literal-mythic and then attacked. At the same time, another line, in this case cognitive, is identified with a level and a framework in its own unfolding, in this case the rational-scientific paradigm, and then used to prove the other one wrong. Spirituality is not allowed to develop beyond amber/mythical, and who are we to blame for that? You can blame Pope Benedict, though Sam Harris is just as guilty. But the real culprit is called LLF, an inability to recognize the problem of arrested development in either science, ethics, art or spirituality, the four main lines of individual and collective unfolding.
QUOTE: "The LLF need to be unfrozen on both the repression and fixation sides of the street. On the repressing side, orange rationality needs to relax its hatred of amber spirituality and begin to appreciate, or at least acknowledge, spirituality at its own orange level. This is nothing less than the de-repression of its own spiritual intelligence. And let me point out, strongly, that both atheism and agnosticism, if arrived at via formal operational cognition, are forms of orange spiritual intelligence. Spiritual intelligence is simply the line of intelligence dealing with ultimate concerns and things taken to be absolute; and if a person's considered conclusion is that, for example, you cannot decide whether there is an ultimate reality or not (agnosticism), then that is orange spiritual intelligence. (...) On the fixation side, amber spirituality needs to relax its fixation to ethnocentric myth and open itself to higher levels of its own spiritual intelligence - starting with Spirit's expression in worldcentric reason and postconventional love."
For further details, see more on this important subject in his book "Integral Spirituality", starting with page 179, "The Conveyor Belt" chapter.
4 Comments:
Hi Hokai
Recently your blog speed has taken over. I am totally lagging behind in reading all the interesting posts and cross references.
One (of the many things) I would have liked to know more detail about is the following part:
His interpretation of meditation is quite narrow (see interview here), typical of someone practicing vipassana or zen with a "non-conceptual" basis (as if there was such a thing) and then secretly reframing the half-step kensho in rationalistic terms...
What do you mean exactly by "non-conceptual" basis and how does it affect one's interpretation of meditation in comparison to any other basis? Which basis do you make reference to and what other basis is there? many more? What changes once you leave this "non-conceptual" basis?
I follow the reasoning with the level/line fallacy. I am unclear though how this is related to the above statement.
I guess the reference made to Vipassana or Zen is for example purposes, or do you want to point out that this tendency is more strong among these particular practitioners?
keep up your interesting work ! two thumbs up :-)
Hi Adrian, good to know you're there. I have refered to an interview Harris has given answering to questions by two atheist bloggers. It's an interesting interview, by the way, well worth reading.
When I say, practicing with a "non-conceptual" basis, I mean the thesis that there is perception as such, and that such perception will reveal something important in and of itself. In fact, perception is merely that which precedes conception. Sensations are not more real than thoughts, nor is attention more real than that which it attends to. Further on, when I say "non-conceptual" I mean that in the very broad sense, meaning anything reified. In Harris' case, it is the reified illusion of subject and object (see below).
In order to answer your several questions at once, let us have a look at what Harris has to tell us about his discoveries in meditation.
HARRIS: "Meditation is definitely not a matter of thinking about experience in a new way; it is a matter of witnessing the flow of experience (including the flow of thought) from the perspective of consciousness itself."
Partially right. But meditation, if pursued to its conclusion, will certainly change the way you think about experience, i.e. you will think about experience in radically new way(s). What Harris may be describing is shamatha practice, and some basic types of vipassana.
HARRIS: "The only faith required here is the faith of scientific hypothesis. The hypothesis is this: if I use my attention in a certain way, it will have a specific, reproducible effect. Needless to say, what happens (or fails to happen) must be interpreted in light of some rational scheme, and everything is open to argument."
Interpreted in light of some rational scheme - yeah exactly. I'm all for developing rationality and logic, and not only among Western Buddhists, but then one should move into the frisky territory. Post-rational thought is drenched in paradox, and "understanding consciousness" will not yield to a rational scheme. It never has. What has been offered by mystics, when it's not interpretable in light of some rational scheme, is not neccesarily mumbo-jumbo.
HARRIS: "The only claim I have made in my book about consciousness is that it must be explored, systematically, from a first-person perspective, and that such exploration can yield reproducible discoveries: one of the most interesting being that the subject/object dichotomy (the ego) is a kind of cognitive illusion."
Subject/object dichotomy still appears to one who has seen through its nature thoroughly. So, is it an illusion? Or, more properly, perhaps it is our relationship to that dichotomy that requires serious reconsideration in light of some contemplative scheme (no pun intended).
Finally, no wonder that Harris is proud to proclaim that faith itself is the enemy. In his rational scheme, which is not the only rational scheme available, reason and faith are enemies. And, in his scheme, meditation confirms that. The function of meditation is to challenge your present level of interpretation and prompt a more comprehensive perspective in which seemingly conflicting tendencies are harmonized. This in no way denies pathological forms of religion and belief systems, or pathological forms of rationality, or wacky interpretations of first-hand experience. In short, rationality is a level in development of cognition, emotion, morals etc. As any level, it can repress lower ones, and deny higher ones.
To conclude, I have mentioned Zen and Vipassana because the manner they are often taught in the West makes it much more probable that one will postulate a "non-conceptual" basis for meditation, namely the flow of experience "as it is", while there is no such thing. There's the flow of experience as it appears, whether with or without the subject/object dichotomy, and then there's the inescapable interpretation of that. The "as it is" part is a metaphysical postulation, and is what I have refered to as a "non-conceptual" basis. In truth, the "basis", if we must infer it, is neither conceptual nor non-conceptual, being fundamental to both these categories. Subject/object dichotomy is only another way of its appearance. Everything else is how we relate to that.
Does this help?
Hi Hokai :-)
Thanks for the long explanation. I have taken some time to understand what you are trying to say. Droped it, took it up again, droped it again etc. After all I do not find it so difficult, although there are still some points that I need to think about some more.
You have mentioned that perception merly precedes conception. Seems to me a logical cause-effect relationship, but... then there is still this issue with conceptuality nevertheless. So why "merly"? Something quite important seems to happen in between, isn't it? For some reason people come up with different concepts also a differnt kind of (non)conceptuality. Of course there is the LLF and subject/object dichotomy. Now where exaclty do they arise from. At what point does it go wrong? I mean at which point do people start to make useful/unuseful interpretations of their perception and hence create productive/hindering concepts?
Definitely the last paragraph of your comment tells me most clearly what you understand by "non-conceptual". That doesn't mean that I understand it yet, though. I can admit for myself that the teachings in Zen Buddhism I have received so far do have an aftertaste that is similar to what you are describing as "non-conceptual" basis for meditation.
So when I ask you about the nature of that basis, you explain that it is neither conceptual nor non-conceptual. Right?
Because as much as that is believable and making sense, I am the more stuck with how you distinguish then between a conceptual basis and a non-conceptual basis. How do you do it? How do you discern?
Is there a way for the more rationally minded? At what point, or from what angle does it become clear?
Still always looking forward to reading your posts. More and more appreciating the works of Ken Wilber (I am slowly reading through his long list of works). Besides your appearance at Buddhist Geeks together with Daniel Ingram was a real highlight. I just moved all other books to the side to get a chance to read his.
Thanks for taking the time and making the effort.
Dear Adrian, thanks for hangin' in with this one. It's a difficult question obviously, or rather a series of questions as you yourself make explicit.
Why do I say that perception "merely" precedes conception? Because most meditators give perception a much more real status than anything given to conception. But perception does not "merely" take place before conception, because perception is often colored by previous conceptions as well. So the circularity of their enactment is inescapable. In short, both must be accounted for. Yes, something important seems to happen in between. As always, the in-between thing is much more interesting, isn't it?
Most, if not all, of the LLF arises from the intersubjective domain, i.e. culture, and it has a long history. As to subject/object dichotomy, it's one of basic dualistic references, along with body/mind and outer/inner and self/other. It also arises dependent on the intersubjective mode of knowing, but based no an innate ignorance or confusion responsible for reification of what only appears as distinct, but is not fundamentally so. This doesn't mean, however, that things have gone "wrong". It's just what happens. But yes, people do make a lot of different interpretations and these may have unhappy consequences for themselves and others, obviously.
"Non-conceptual" is a trick-word, since it most often is a concept of sorts. Even when it refers to actual absence of conceptualization in a state of clear awareness, it still doesn't mean it cannot or should not be conceptualized post factum. Or that it was attained without reliance on concepts. But I do insist that the actual basis is neither conceptual nor non-conceptual, as it is the ground for both, namely, reality as such.
Your questions require some reflection.
In traditional terms, one practices on three levels of ethics, mind training, and wisdom. Clarity is released as the habitual tendency to reify appearance and avoid sheer cognition is relaxed enough to allow recognition to take place. In practice, we work with both conceptuality and non-conceptuality, as we listen/study, contemplate, and meditate. From conceptual to non-conceptual and back again, each time more transparent.
In more contemporary terms, one cultivates a broad awareness of a wide variety of perspectives and modes of enactment, integrating major streams of being, knowing, and doing into one great movement of self-liberation. From that, then, one pushes further into actual exchange with others.
I'm aware these distinctions are very general, but there are important differences in the way these issues are dealt with in different traditions, and within them in distinct lineages.
Thanks for your comments.
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