Dan Dennett on Spirituality and Science
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- Published on Monday, 17 January 2011 05:33
- Written by John Draper
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Our mind (or soul) is not immaterial, it's just an organization of the cells of our brain. Dan Dennett was asked by an interviewer about the spirituality of the brain and its mystical properties. Although Dan says that although the "trappings, the rituals, the music and the art of religion" have played a big role in his life, the doctrines have not. In fact he says that the doctrines are "incredible and preposterous". In exploring the connection between science and spirituality, he said: "Spiritual people approach life with a certain awe and a certain humility and a certain readiness that they don't understand it all yet; that there are things whether they are strictly speaking incomprehensible, at least they don't comprehend them yet and they may never. If that is what you mean by spirituality, then science at its best is very spiritual."
Dan is a philosopher but he welcomes a scientific approach to understanding how people think and why they think as they do. His way of thinking is quite close to the way theologians think yet he clearly embraces science and rejects faith as a way of "knowing". See this article for more on this: Why is religion bad.
More on Dan Dennett articles here.
The clip was taken from a National Film Board of Canada Documentary about research done on the human brain in 2006 at the University of Montreal. They focus on what they call "mystical ecstasy" and how it "could contribute to people's psychic and physical health, treat depression and speed up the healing process when combined with conventional medicine." See the full 52 min film here.