Science is a product of human thought. Can science come to the basis of existence without understanding thought itself?
Dan Kilpatrick facilitated Coming to the Ultimate: Science and the Ground of Being, a program that run on September 9-13, 2019 at the Krishnamurti Center. The program explored how science tends to perceive the universe and its underlying nature, and what it might reveal about ourselves. Dan Kilpatrick recently retired from his position as Associate Professor in the Program of Neurosciences and the Department of Microbiology, Physiological Systems at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He is also the author of the following article, entitled Science and Ourselves:
A Reflection of Ourselves
Science has provided invaluable advances in the quality of our lives. While it appears to be an endeavor unique to itself, having worked as a scientist, it seems to me that it shares much in common with us. In exploring how science looks at things, we may also see ourselves reflected in it.
In its purest form, science seeks to discover what is true. In this search, there may be an indelible sense that there is “something” actual and unknown that underlies the nature of everything. In exploring this question, though, is it possible that we might be overlooking something? Are our and science’s view of existence and our place in it wholly accurate and untainted, or is what we see somehow a reflection of our very way of perceiving?
Science is generally based on the notion that existence is made up of matter (and energy), with matter consisting of separate things. This view is seemingly taken for granted, and why not? It works exceedingly well, and it is how we tend to experience our world — it is “how things are”. However, science has found that at fundamental levels, physical existence behaves in unexpected ways, requiring the formulation of unknown new components to account for these apparent aberrations from our day-to-day experience.
Clearly, science is a product of human thought, which naturally raises the question: Can science come to the basis of existence without understanding thought itself, through which it perceives?
A man who is addicted to the acquiring of knowledge cannot find truth because he is concerned with knowledge and not with truth. The man who accepts division, will he find truth? Obviously not, because he has chosen a particular path and not the whole. Will the man of action find reality? Obviously not, for the simple reason that by following a part we cannot find the whole. That means knowledge, division and action separately cannot lead anywhere but to destruction, to illusion, to restlessness. That is what has happened. The man who has pursued knowledge for the sake of knowledge, believing that it would lead him to reality, becomes a scientist, yet what has marvellous science done to the world? I am not decrying science. The scientist is like you and me; only in his laboratory he differs from us. He is like you and me with his narrowness, with his fears and nationalism.
– Krishnamurti
Our Own Virtual Reality
In my mind, thought describes, identifies, and puts together a picture of “reality” in order to know, understand, and remember. This is essential for our daily living and is an integral part of who we are. In doing this, thought naturally separates what it perceives in order to label and work with it in a manageable way.
But going deeper, this separating into parts tends to be experienced implicitly, and unconsciously, within thought as factual. Is separateness a framework that conditions and colors what thought perceives, arising out of its very activity? Is separateness not just another concept, but instead a fundamental assumption underlying thought’s movement? Is thought creating its own “virtual reality” of separateness as an experience within itself?
In turn, might this impact how science formulates its picture of existence as being made of separate components? And is our sense of a separate self an experience arising within thought, in real-time?
Can science come to the nature of actuality using thought, meaning through concepts and measurement? Can the non-conceptual be captured in this way? And can a movement that separates perceive anything other than separateness?
Can the mind observe the whole movement of life as one, as a whole? Because if one can look at it as a whole then there is no problem, then death is love, and love is death, and living is the dying and the loving. But the mind, that is, our own idiosyncrasies, our conditioning, our constant endeavour to change the conditioning, and the movement within that conditioning, is our life. And can our minds see the whole of life, not one fragment of it opposed to another fragment, one thought opposed to another thought, the intellect opposed to the emotion, the organism has its own desires and pursuits, and denied and controlled. But to treat, to live life as a whole.
I do not know if you have ever thought about it, and what it means. The word ‘whole’ means sane, healthy, holy, that is what that word means, to be whole, non broken up. And can one lead such a life in the modern world – in a polluted world of a town, or in the country filled with smog, with all the competition, ambition, the wars, the violence, the bestiality of competition, can we live a life that is totally, completely, absolutely whole?
– J. Krishnamurti
The Nature of Everything
Krishnamurti suggested that by observing thought’s movement within ourselves instead of avoiding it, we might come to that which is not of thought: truth or actuality. Does this seeming paradox have something to do with coming to the nature of everything? And what does it mean?
What is it like to awaken to thought’s movement, to its hidden assumptions as they are moving in us, without words or naming intervening? Is this movement of separation apparent in the very way we tend to perceive, in any moment? Does this reveal the utter falseness of this movement, one that assumes that thought’s creations and what it sees are the truth or facts?
Is this falseness thought’s underlying basis?
Is there something that reveals the truth of this falseness, which is not created and conditioned by thought? Is this revealing of thought’s true basis the actuality that science and we ourselves are seeking? And in this revelation, is actuality/truth also revealing itself, beyond conceptualization?
Most importantly, does thought have anything to do with this revealing? Can it bring it about? And yet, in the light of this revealing, is thought now free to simply move, just as it is?
We have examined the nature of thought. We said thought is a material process, matter, because it is stored up in the brain, part of the cell, which is matter. So thought is a material process in time, a movement. And whatever that movement creates is reality: both the neurotic as well as the so-called fragmentary, they are realities. The actual is a reality, like the microphone. And also nature is a reality. But what is truth? Can thought, which is fragmentary, which is caught up in time, mischievous, violent, all that, can that thought find truth? Truth being the whole, that which is sacred, holy. And if it cannot find it, then what is the relationship of thought, of reality, to that which is absolute?
– Krishnamurti
Article written by Dan Kilpatrick
DON’T MISS OUT
Get updates on new articles, videos, and online events
Subscribe here
14 Comments
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Interesting piece. One would expect the author attempting to put the pieces together having a ringside view of both, science as well as K’s approach to thought. But, he has only brought different utterances together without commenting or opining about them. That leaves it inconclusive.
To be conclusive , perception is not thru thought. Perception is when the mind perceives without the hindrance of thought.
Its good to question without expecting an answer.
Science says everything is constantly changing. That the very attempt to observe minute particles change the particles.
So science reached a fundament truth there. However it is still not insight which affects us. It is only a concept reached through observation of matter.
This has only meaning when this is directly perceived. For that thought must be silent. Otherwise it is mere conceptualization. To perceive impermanancy the mind itself must be of energy which is constantly in movement. Then only it is a truth.
Initially,science is a group of ideas that has been repeatedly verified by existing means and recognized by the scientific community. Science and technology change the world and ourselves, driven by human desires. The thought is a tool of our humanity, a very important tool. However, we are limited and bound by our own tools, relying heavily on tools and becoming less and less aware of ourselves. Just as we are bound and deceived by our own languages. Trying to find yourself, not only through thought but through deep meditation, until the mind pauses, like a cup of sediment eventually precipitates and clarifies. The mind and body as a whole finally find itself’s operation, surprised, relaxed, and unified. Human satisfaction comes from the inner vitality and does not exist in the external matter. Science is always within the perception of human beings.
Aren’t science made a Quantum leap and discovered matter does not exist including atoms and its constituents as they are vibrations and therefore everything is vibrations at different frequency’s
Lots of deep thinking here. Good luck with that!
TO DIE MUST BE A GREAT ADVENTURE…
I think the sciense is a great help to the mankind, when it is used contrutively,it help to find Peace.But I am sorry becuse the human-sciense is not in the same level as the others branches of sciense do. Personaly I think iluminism can help. Some masters say“No god, bcause there is no proof“,I am sorry because we are so late in human matters.
And to think without thought we’d have no concept of violence, it’s no wonder we’re fascinating with science and technology.
Science cannot solve existential problems although K tried to use it for help, just because it is the “proven language” humans use. As the author says that science is about material and energy which is also material. Human problems cannot be solved by understanding the material, away from the self. K’s intention was always dealing with the one’s SELF that is one has to understand the self and be comfortable, in unison ( because we are one), with the 4 fundamental questions: What am I? Who am I? Where have I come from (what made me the way I am)? Where am I going? We must go beyond science. We must realize that all humans start from the middle, and everyone thinks this “middle” as very beginning. Those who went beyond this “middle” becomes true enlightened being, as Buddha, Jesus, K
Just as we are bound and deceived by our own languages, Eileen says, and also mentions that meditate until the mind pauses. K said that the goal of meditation is self understanding so that one is not bound by the thoughts, which K said is the language we use. I find this is an extremely difficult task, like trying to catch a mirage.
An other question is: can man understand himself when basing the understanding on the results of science? From what perspective does science look at the actions and behavior of people? And of what quality are the terms from which science understands man and his actions? What effects does it have on man if he is guided in the interpretation of his actions and in his self-understanding of these concepts? I think man goes that way. And it would also be appropriate to do so when man acts and behaves out of the same position as science takes for having its perspective in the formation of abstractions. But that would have to be checked first.
The article is introduced with the Question: “Can science come to the basis of existence without understanding thought itself?”