Because she’s a blithering space cadet.
Our conventional way of thinking about the world remains profoundly dualistic.
I don’t like dualism. Huffington sounds like she thinks it’s a problem too, but we’ll soon see she doesn’t, really.
The physical and the rational in a supposedly eternal and inexorable battle against the unseen and the spiritual.
The real versus delusion…it’s a battle alright. Which side are you going to be on?
In fact, the barriers between these two dimensions — built by the narrow rationalism of the Enlightenment — are now being dismantled by modern science and a growing chorus of personal experiences.
“Two dimensions”? I don’t think she knows what the word means. “Narrow rationalism of the enlightenment”? That’s a prelude to the usual denigration of reason and evidence by the woo-woo crowd.
And no, modern science is not making Arianna Huffington’s fantasies of a spiritual dimension become real. I find it very annoying when the anti-scientific kooks try to claim the support of science.
What we’re seeing — if we are willing to look — is that we are not alone in an indifferent universe.
The aliens are here? Show me!
As Goethe put it, “This life, gentlemen, is much too short for our souls.” If this life were sufficient for our souls, we would not go through it consumed with fear.
Wait…she’s just told us that modern science is bridging the barriers between the physical and the spiritual, and the best she can do is quote a 18th century romantic poet and philosopher? I am not impressed.
And speak for yourself, Arianna. I don’t go through life consumed with fear.
Reintegrating the spiritual and the everyday is the key to fearlessness. But ending this division is not easy when we’ve stopped even acknowledging that we live caught between these two worlds. When we’re consumed with climbing the career ladder or just making a living, the spiritual seems unreal and far away.
There aren’t two worlds. There’s one. It’s called reality. The spiritual seems unreal because it is.
She only wrote five short paragraphs, and it’s complete crap. No wonder she keeps Deepak Chopra around — it’s so someone is there to make her look sane by comparison.
whenever someone mentions “the spiritual” I get a look something like this. The word is so ubiquitous, yet so overused that it’s ceased to have any meaning (it’s like the floating signifier that’s become overfilled and exploded into meaninglessness).
If it means something like “Intensely emotional,” we might be able to have a conversation.
If it means some essential, supernatural aspect of the self, blah, blah…then begone.
Which one? “dimensions” or “two”?
Man, what Chopra does with volume of bullshit, Huffington has managed with clear and direct bullshit.
What is with the fear talk anyways? If she is talking about fear of bad things happening in reality, I’ve never met a ‘spiritual’ person who didn’t lock their doors, look both ways, and stay out of sketchy urban areas after dark.
Alternatively, if she’s talking about some kind of metaphysical fear — then more spirituality isn’t the fudging answer, its the fudging problem! You can only fear a ‘bad metaphysical post-death outcome’ if you put any stock in that BS.
When will society finally start laughing clowns who think like this off the stage? (Or maybe use that big hook…)
Arianna has somehow ended up toward the left side of the political spectrum these days, so I guess that makes her an ally of sorts on most of my issues. Nevertheless, I well remember when she was devoting all of her efforts to promoting the political career of her closeted right-wing husband, Mike Huffington. With Arianna as the brains of the team (it certainly wasn’t Mike), they spent tons of money in the state primary to oust an incumbent Republican from his congressional seat. After a single and thoroughly undistinguished term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Huffington decided (or Arianna decided for him) that it was time to move up to the U.S. Senate by taking on Dianne Feinstein. More tons of money from the Huffington fortune were poured into California media markets in an effort that just barely fell short. (In one of the funniest episodes of the campaign, the Huffingtons were embarrassed by the revelation that they had transported their children’s undocumented nanny across state lines — which Mike had tried to make a federal crime in his only attempt at legislation. Lucky for him his bill failed.)
In a book titled Life 102, poet and computer guru Peter McWilliams wrote about his connection to the Huffingtons, reporting Arianna’s deep involvement in a weird southern California cult called MSIA (pronounced “messiah”, of course). McWilliams speculated that Arianna was planning to become First Lady, whether her husband was keen on it or not. After the loss in the Senate race, the Huffingtons got divorced, Mike came out of the closet, and Arianna decided it would be more fun on the left side of the political spectrum. She seems to be as steeped in the New Age as ever but her political convictions are considerably more flexible.
Oh dear.
This is a problem with some liberals- they tend to feel that they ought to be liberal about religion and spirituality.
Arianna can be quite good on occasion. I hope she’s not going to go all Deepak on us.
Whoa. I do not recommend reading that post immediately after reading the “God’s Utility Function” chapter of River Out of Eden, as I did tonight.
Compare “Not a sparrow falls but God is behind it” with the following Dawkins passage regarding life in the wild: “During the minute it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive; others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear; others are being slowly devoured from within by rasping parasites…”
Oh yes, I’m sure God’s behind all that. Who knows? He might be. But is that a God that I would trust to take care of me, or anyone I care about? Probably not.
Huffington:
Me:
Your “fearlessness,” Dear Ms. Huffington, is the mindlessness of the delusional.
I couldn’t stand that she gives a voice to Deepak Chopra.
That is, by and large, the reason I don’t read her site unless I actually need something from there.
She needs to seek help.
Huffington has also given a home to RFK Jr’s Anti-vaccination quackery. Given this, I am somehow not surprised that she has also offered space to Deepak Chopra. Can Richard Hoagland be far behind ? Who next ? Gurus ? Maharishis ? Fakirs ? Witch Doctors ? Homeopaths ? I shake my head in resignation, and realize that some people will never take hold of rationality.
Odd how I have never thought rationality was “narrow” or “limiting”.
It’s the trust that there is meaning in our lives…
That’s it, I take back what I said in the Paul Davies thread. “Trust” is no better than “faith”, it seems.
In Finnish, we have a word which means approximately “baseless everyday belief” (luulo). That would fit…
AH has truly written an annoying pile of crap, but spare me the “science examines reality” speech, as it’s unpleasant to watch people one admires drool.
Science is a human activity (one among many) done employing human senses, with additional tools, and interpreted by human minds. It isn’t capital R “Reality” and it likely never can be. And good scientists know and revel in that very fact.
Stephen Ockham #3:
Best and pithiest comment I’ve read this month! Molly-worthy.
“…but spare me the “science examines reality” speech…”
Would you rather have the “science constructs models that ideally correspond to and predict the behavior of physically real phenomena” speech?
I think, she meant to write “domains” or “paradigms” instead of “dimensions”. Maybe she was even searching for “magisteria”, as in NOMA.
Either way, her argumentation remains to be BS.
Hey, I agree that rationality is a much more limiting viewpoint.
If you’re rational, you can only believe in the finite number of real things. Being irrational, however, means that you can choose from the infinite number of non-real things to believe in.
If she’s fearless then she can’t be a god-fearing woman.
Of course, in reality, she isn’t fearless. She’s just a liar – and a fool etc.
One of the great comforts in my life is the knowledge that I live in an indifferent universe. When a loved one dies or something else terrible happens, to me it helps to be able to think that at least it wasn’t the act of some spiteful god or vengeful spirit or anything of the kind. It was chance, and there is no magic to change what happened, and therefore no false hope or reason to blame oneself. That is very… liberating.
I have been asked how I can manage without faith, especially in difficult times. I’ve gotten the suggestion that it’s because I’m scientific and cold and unemotional. No. It is precisely my lack of faith which makes me strong. I don’t have to fear anything but that which I can see. And even then, I know that this is the one life I get, and I’d better make the best of it while I can. So I can be as emotional as you please without falling into some atheistic pit of despair.
Darn it, aren’t I the preachy one today ;)
This makes me think of Charlie Brooker: “Spirituality is what cretins have instead of imagination”
“Good on occasion”? When?
As for going all Deepak on us, she did that a long time ago.
Her New Age-y beliefs might also explain why she keeps around so many antivaccinationist columnists on HuffPo, like David Kirby, RFK, Jr., and others that I’ve skewered from time to time on my own blog. This started from the very beginning of HuffPo, back in 2005.
Wow, if you think she’s nutty (which I definitely do), you should read some of the comments on her woo woo editorial. These people are truly off the deep end and living in some sort of cartoon-like desire for wish fulfillment.
Quite depressing reads just before going off to a day of (hopefully) rational scientific work. I wonder if my clients would be better served with me telling them that their problems are not really important in this “dimension” and that they just need a better integrated spiritual and rational conceptualization of their situation and they will be fine? Would a report extolling that aspect of thinking about environmental problems make it past the regulatory agencies? Could I use Huffington as a reference? I am so sick of the irrational that it makes my brain hurt. Addressing the rational is difficult enough, without adding an infinite number of potential fantasy trajectories to it.
PZ, you don’t understand. Arianna’s fame comes not from her writings, but from the fact that, when she talks on the radio or television, she sounds like the Gabor sisters: all of them rolled into one.
/tic
Great Comment at #18 by Ted D. You are exactly right.
I think you’re all coming from a rational place to Huffington’s post. Think like a christian (if you can), filled with fear that god will punish you for thinking Arianna is like the Gabor sisters (no offense), or that because you think “bad thoughts” (translation: sex) you are going to hell.
That’s the fear she’s addressing. The fundies are full of fear, that’s why they try so hard to convert us. They fear that we’re going to hell for not being “born again”, and that they’re somehow deficient for failing to convert us.
It makes much more sense if you look at it that way.
SG
Arianna, you stuck your neck out and conducted a fearless experiment: you tried to make woo.
Unfortunately, a Goethe quote, a phrase from the Bible, and the old fearlessness/trust in God equation do not good woo make.
Call Deepak. He will explain how to do it properly.
Hrmm. ..
I could almost see where she’s coming from, but I’ve also been exposed to newage jargon and ‘spiritualities’ before. I’m not translating for her, but I could see her mention of narrowmindedness relating to something previously unexplainable and widely accepted as ‘magic’ or ‘the way god wants it’ being explained after certain other advances in science, once people got out from under the oppressive mindset of religion.
And I can also see her point about ‘spirituality,’ but I’m also interpreting it into a more ‘Know Thyself’ theme rather than having to do with anything supernatural. I think I’m doing the work that she ought to have done herself as a professional writer.
All we need now is John Tesh and some energy crystals.
One thing about this whole “science is proving spirituality” argument that bothers me is this:
Suppose someday some scientist discovered the existence of something that could be called a “soul” in human beings. Fine – now that “soul” is a describable natural phenomenon – if we can observe it it is a part of the natural world. It’s something that scientists can measure, account for and explain in their models of how life/the brain/whatever works. It ceases to be a supernatural phenomenon at all and becomes “just” another part of the natural world.
The same for “spirits” or “angels” or “ghosts” or “demons” or whatever phenomenon you want to throw out there. If someday these “supernatural” things are found to be real in any sense then they would be part of the natural world and would need to be studied, explained and accounted for by the models. They cease to be a “supernatural” or “spiritual” phenomenon and become part of the natural order.
One obvious example from history is disease. Diseases were long thought to be caused by curses from witches/God/demons/whatever – a totally supernatural phenomenon causing something horrible to occur to a person. The advancement of science explained that these “curses” were actually microbial forms of life – completely natural and not supernatural at all. So it would be with a “soul” if one were to ever be found – catalogued, explained, tested and examined just like a microbe or the ear drum or the brain.
These folks who want to reconcile supernatural beliefs with science don’t seem to quite understand what it is that they’re asking for. At least the Christian whackos understand that much – they seem to know that the more science explains things, the harder it is to hold onto the primitive supernatural explanations for the world.
Science is a human activity (one among many) done employing human senses, with additional tools, and interpreted by human minds. It isn’t capital R “Reality” and it likely never can be.
You seem to be confused.
Capital “R” Reality is what science (human activity, human sense, human tools, human minds and all) is trying to *examine*. No one claimed that science *is* “Reality”.
I recently re-graftitied a “Project Runway” subway platform ad.
Someone had scrawled, in crude black marker, earth over, welll, the earth; god over scissors cutting yarn that’s attached to the earth; and satan over the ball of yarnoating in space (if space was white seamless and had a giant Heidi Klum standing in it holding scissors)
I crossed out god and replaced it with religion, and crossed out satan and made it reailty instead.
Guess you might have to see it to understand it…
Heidi looks good though. She can be my break from reailty any day.
re-graffitied
yarn rotating
reality
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy, monday morning post. Uhg.
#25: IMO, the fundies are full of fear because they dread that they may not have the “truth” – the fact that anyone questions their beliefs is what scares them, not the possible consequences of others refusing to be “born again”.
IMX, the people I know who profess belief fall into two categories: Ones who believe sincerely, and therefore feel no need to convert others as a way of validation of those beliefs, and ones who are actually uncertain about the “truth” of their beliefs and must seek outside confirmation. The latter tend to be terrified of death, lest their place in some afterlife be full of pitchforks, rather than harps. OTOH, the atheists I know tend to be somewhat sanguine about death, seeing it as the inevitable end and not the gateway to some undefinable après vie.
“Seems unreal” and “is unreal” seem pretty much the same to me.
Knock on Arianna all you want, just don’t knock on my Goethe. He wasn’t not a scientist.
I love Goethe myself. He was also a great developmental biologist in the structuralist/theoretical line, who was very influential on D’Arcy Thompson. How could I not like him?
So Arianna is a recovering Republican? Maybe, but it looks like she is in the “dry drunk” stage of recovery.
MAJeff @ #1:
If you don’t mind listening to a conversation that’s the intellectual equivalent of a fight between Mike Tyson and a paramecium, look up Jason Gastrich’s discussion with Dan Barker (probably available at sermonaudio.com).
At one point, Dan tries to get Jason to define what “spirit” means. Jason fails, to put it mildly.
But… but… but that will give VMartin cognitive dissonance! How can you!
But… but… but that will give VMartin cognitive dissonance! How can you!
PZ Myers: Despite his platonism?
narrow rationalism of the Enlightenment
Mmmmm, narrow rationalism.
It isn’t capital R “Reality” and it likely never can be. And good scientists know and revel in that very fact.
I never wanted to be a ‘good’ scientist, because being evil gives me more opportunity to use my diabolical laugh.
I’ll grant that capital R reality is not directly accessible, but reality is, in fact, what we are after, even if we are doomed to only approach it asymptotically. We are doing something different from making stuff up, reading out of magic holy books, or aligning our chakras.
Science is about poking at reality as best we can. We can sling mud about epistemology, but with reasonable philosophical caveats taken as read, I don’t find the description “science examines reality” so far off the mark that I must be spared hearing it. Science is more than just a privileged way of knowing, no better or worse than worship of the abominable snowman, and thinking of it as just another human activity is flawed. It is a unique and demanding human activity, cursed with the limitations and flaws of humans, no doubt, but founded in principle on testing of its most cherished ideas.
Perhaps others’ philosophical sensibilities are more well-developed than mine, but I think that someone with avowed liberal political stripes (PZ) does the world a favor by stating, unvarnished, that those who share the liberal label but embrace superstition (AH) don’t get a pass by being politically in the same tent.
I blame the nuttiness on her name. I mean, if you got saddled with ‘Arianna Huffington, wouldn’t it make you a little…off? She sounds like she should be a middle aged heiress played by Margaret Dumont.
And c’mon, Faust rocks. Plus, who doesn’t love:
1. Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind.
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.
2. Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?
Siehst Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht!
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron’ und Schweif?
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.
3. Du liebes Kind, komm geh’ mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele, spiel ich mit dir,
Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.
4. Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?
Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind,
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.
5. Willst feiner Knabe du mit mir geh’n?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön,
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.
6. Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düsteren Ort?
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh’es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau.
7. Ich lieb dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt,
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt!
Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an,
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan.
8. Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in den Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not,
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.
As sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald Moore on the piano?
Speaking of which:
As sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Gerald Moore on the piano?
Perhaps Arianna’s new-age blather is a symptom of her being a Rethuglican for several years. Seems like that would HAVE to kill off a bunch of brain cells …
I have to agree that Arianna had to be somewhat whacked out by her close political association with the slimiest and thuggiest of Rethuglicans, Newt. But, somehow, that accent hits a soft spot.
#41 Dave E
I’ll grant that capital R reality is not directly accessible, but reality is, in fact, what we are after, even if we are doomed to only approach it asymptotically
What do you mean not directly accessable? I refute it thus, and all that. We, better relate directly to reality, or we are dead. This ‘mind as a distoring bias of interpretations’ of reality sure doesn’t seem to be so distorted when I jump out of the way of a car about to hit me.
We are deeply in tune with reality, innately, we are part of reality and operate by the exact same ‘laws’ that everthing does. How did our species survive if we can’t access reality?
We are far driven by our understanding of how things work, everyone makes thousands of decisions every day that are rational, from not going out naked in -40 weather to placing our feet properly and maintaing our balance every time we walk.
Tell me how building computers is not drectly relating to ‘reality’ – it is exactly relating to, and using precisely, reality!
Am I missing something? I mean, you better have a very, very deep and direct grasp on reality to build LHC and genetically modify life like chimera used in lab to study human immune system.
I don’t know how my mind arises exactly, but there is ample evidence that we do indeed have a very fundamental grip on reality. Even Fundies must perform almost 100% of their physical acts and survival efforts the same way we all do.
They understand reality on that level. They do not act like ‘god is protecting them’ even though they have faith he/she/it/squid is. They take the same precautions and suffer the same consequences as the reast of us, and they know it, the vast majority do, it is obvious.
I think so, anyways :)
You need to understand the difference of “good enough” and “perfect.” What people are saying here is that human perception of reality is not perfect (see examples here). This does not mean that it is useless (as darwinfinch’s comment could be construed as implying) that human perception is useless.
Evolutionary epistemology. The first time philosophy was founded on science rather than the other way around. Mwa ha ha ha haaaaah… B-)
That’s done by the cerebellum. It has very little to do with rational decisions.
LOL!
Evolutionary epistemology. The first time philosophy was founded on science rather than the other way around. Mwa ha ha ha haaaaah… B-)
That’s done by the cerebellum. It has very little to do with rational decisions.
LOL!
So it would be true to say that almost all of us is perfectly in contact with reality. Small portions of the stuff happening in our heads sometimes get a bit detached.
Huffington appears to be playing the usual game those moderate spiritual folks play when they want to distance themselves from the religious and atheist “extremes.” It divides (very roughly) this way:
1.) Materialistic monism — all of reality is matter in pattern and motion. Mind (and the products of mind) are what the brain does.
2.) Dualism — there is natural matter and there is supernatural non-material energy. Brain is one thing: Mind and its products is another thing, and they interact.
3.) Idealistic monism — all of reality is the non-material energy of Consciousness. Brains are only forms and manifestations of Mind.
Like Chopra, she picks door #3 — and then waxes eloquent on how the first two groups really just fight against each other, mirror-images, as the SPIRITUAL folk realize that science and religion are not at odds, the world is holistically unified, and all is good.
Of course, from our perspective, the second and third categories are pretty much alike — both of them ground the entire cosmos on the importance of Mind and Emotion, and you pretty much need a score card or cheat sheet to tell who’s in which. Only people like Huffington think it’s a real big difference.
#47
What do you mean not directly accessable?
Just that there are usually postulated actors that cannot be accessed directly. At one time atoms were thus, and now certain elementary particles might fill that bill- there is a historical aspect to science, and I don’t want to give it short shrift, nor do I think the philosophy involved is vacuous. I think that I can grant a little bit of the Kantian remove from reality in itself while still agreeing with a correspondence theory that is argued for by evolutionary theory.
That is, while I grant darwinfinch’s basic insight, that we do not see reality, or experiment on it, unmediated by theories that are without a doubt incorrect to some extent, I stop short of being convinced that this means that
without positing that there is good evolutionary reasons to think that we are endowed by natural selection with reasonably accurate and effective senses, that we are able to augment with instruments and theory-building to overcome limitations. There are limits that are palpable- we will always understand people and avoiding buses better than atomic orbitals or relativistic mechanics- but, in fact, part of the game is to overcome the limitations with tools, an ability no doubt also forged by natural selection. We recast the experience into something we can see, and thereby tentatively extend our senses, often with fantastic results.
A working hypothesis that we have a biological, synthetic, evolved, extensible, and reasonably accurate experience of reality won’t satisfy the most rigorous philosophers, who unlike scientists, have the option to work without tested working assumptions. Nor will it satisfy a certain lefty lit-crit crowd, who also is not bound by the need to get results, but rather makes great sport (and tenure-files) of lampooning science and rationality as Euro-phallo-colonial tools of oppression, adding injury to insult by often embracing unmitigated woo in the process.
I think we can answer both with results, which they may curl their noses at, but still use every day. I appreciate the link to evolutionary epistemology- it looks interesting.
In a Unitarian-Universalist class on spirituality, where we had different religious beliefs, we agreed that spirituality is the feeling of being connected to something greater than ourselves. I’m sure many scientists have this feeling about nature. And I it appears to me that many religious people are lacking in spirituality.
I feel like that a lot (and I’m just a chemist- my experience is that we are an unsentimental bunch, so maybe physicists or biologists feel this a lot more…).
The term ‘spirituality’ is hard for me to swallow, though. I feel a deep, emotional, aesthetic response to a)understanding a little bit of the world, to some degree and b)recognizing that I am not separate from the world I study. It feels like transcendence, but what exactly am I transcending? Ignorance, maybe? Not my soul resonating with the universe, whatever that might mean. It’s real, it’s profound, rewarding, and worthy, but it isn’t non-material, I’ll bet. “Spirituality” seems to me to imply that it is non-material. I don’t buy that part. I can’t think of a good, single word to encapsulate the experience, though.
Dave (#54), Maybe you’d feel more comfortable with Maslow’s terms – a peak experience, or less intense but more lasting plateau experience.
I have to agree – I don’t go through life in fear, and that’s because I *stopped* trying to buy into supernatural woo-woo bullshit that doesn’t exist and never ‘took’ for me.
I’m far more fearless now than I ever was as a member of a religion.