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Anab's Books
- Unveiling
- The Sufi Lighthouse
- Tales from the Sufi Path
- Sufi Teaching Stories
- Sufi Reflections
- Sufi Inspirations
- Shari'ah: A Muslim's Declaration of Independence
- Sam Harris & End of Faith Critical Response
- Reality Without A Name
- My Year Inside Radical Islam: A Critique
- Meditations of a Sufi
- Mapping Mental Spaces Volume 2
- Mapping Mental Spaces Volume 1
- Education
- Democracy Lost and Regained
- Chaco Canyon
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About Me
- Anab Whitehouse
- I was born in Denver, Colorado, but I grew up in various locations in Maine. I went to high school in Mattawamkeag, Maine where there were eleven kids in my graduating class and 44 students in the high school as a whole. Somehow, I ended up going to Harvard University. I believe a mistake was made and the Harvard Medical school wanted me for experiments they were conducting, but, mysteriously, my name showed up on the desk of someone in admissions for the Collge instead. I majored in Social Relations, which is an interdisciplinary area of study combining psychology, sociology, and anthropology. I did graduate work in educational theory at the University of Toronto. Eventually, they let me leave with a doctorate. I became interested in mysticism around 1970. After spending a little time with a Gurdjieff group, I stepped onto the Sufi Path, and, in the process became a Muslim.
3 comments:
Assalam Aleium ,
Dear Anab,
I listened with attention to the latest podcast of Sufi reflexion which is one of my favourites podcasts.
I noticed in this particular episode you touched on so many deep subjects most would probably need hours of treatment to do them justice.
While I was listening to you giving a list of currently unsolved scientific problems, I was waiting with anticipation to find out what the overall point you were making. I have to admit I was left puzzled when you got to the end conclusion which was basically saying that those questions might or might not be answered and for few of them you thought –as a matter of faith- they would not be answers without giving any reasons of that.
So I guess am not sure what your exact attitude to science is, do you think it is a valid way of gaining knowledge about the world that should be encouraged? If yes, am I wrong in sensing a hint of scepticism and distrust towards the scientific enterprise?
One could have a drawn a longer list of scientific problem few centuries ago only to find out that many of those questions were answered after all. So I guess what I am saying is that the trend seems to be that science over time tends the bridge the gaps in human understanding. Should then optimism rather than pessimism be the outlook on the remaining questions?
My other comment is with regard to the distinction between ontology of things in physical world and the scientific models that describe the physical reality. I felt this was a trivial point, and if I may, a straw man argument against scientists. I don’t know many serious scientists who claim that mathematical models of physics theories describe the ontological structure of reality.
Many maintain that the best a scientific model can do is give predication of experimental outcomes with as much generality and precision as possible. Asking what is the “real” ontology of time for example is a meaningless question as far as science goes. The only thing science can talk about is the measurement of time.
Finally with regards to evolution I felt that was also –sorry- a straw man, evolutionary biology does not affirm anything about the origins of life, rather it affirms that the notion that species evolving one from another is backed up by overwhelming scientific evidence. This has no bearing on what the initial source of life is which is acknowledged to be a mystery by most scientists.
My personal view is that there should not be a conflict between faith and science, science is simply attempting to understand God’s way of creation and continuation of the natural world. And I see it as a gift from God that he created the world to be intelligible in the first place, so that we reflect in his creation. So I guess I feel a bit strange when people of faith express suspicion of science rather than embracing it wholeheartedly.
I don’t mean to be critical, this is really in a spirit of curiosity and exchange of ideas. I might have missed to understand some nuances in your ideas, in which case I hope you’d indulge me in pointing that out.
Muhamed
Wa-alaykum as-Salaam!
Dear Muhamed,
I am sorry, but in my usual battle with brevity, I couldn't fit my response to your inquiries and concerns into the limits set by Google Bloger, so I put the whole thing (your comments plus mine) in as a separate Blog entry.
Assalam Aleikum
Dear Anab,
Thank you for taking time to reply in detail to my post. After reading your comments I feel my views are not that much distinct from yours.
I share you point that when some prominent scientists speak publicly against religion or for their atheism, a confusion is often created in the mind of the general public that it is “science” that led to their views or even that science disproves religion. This confusion is aggravated by the later scientists often making the false claim that science leads to atheism or at least imply that it does. However this reflects more on their own honesty, or intellectual rigour than on science itself –as a method-.
I have never read a scientific journal paper written by the likes of Dawkings or Hawking that showed that God or religion are false or even unlikely. Therefore their views on such matters are just that, their own faith based assumption about reality. I think you might agree with that.
However, What is true of some prominent outspoken atheist/scientists –who often have done the best of their scientific work decades ago- is not necessary true of the majority. At least in my experience, where I have the fortune of interacting with scientists in conferences and other venues, I find most of them surprisingly humble and not at all shy on pointing out how much they don’t know.
I have not read Hawkins latest book though I have read his previous ones which were more careful and humble in tone about the mysteries of universal constants, origin of the big bang etc. He often says he is a positivists in that he does not concern himself with what “ultimate reality” “true nature” “ontological structure” is, rather all he cares about is, if a theory predicts and codifies relationships between experimental outcomes. In principle, different scientific theories can be equally valid if they predict accurately physical behaviour to the same level of generality. It is possible that his later book reflects a less cautious approach to claims and an amalgam of his faith based views with established science.
May be one of the remaining points of clarification is on the issue of time. When you talk about the ontological reality of time you don’t mean that time is real in the same sense as physical object like a chair or a house?
My understanding of time is that it does not have an ontological reality in that sense. I see time as relational concept that quantifies measure of change; therefore I don’t see it as a “thing”. It is like velocity, acceleration or probabilities it does not exist except as an indirect relationship between measurements on physical phenomena. That’s why I said that talking about time outside the “measurement of time” is meaningless in my view.
Anyway I look forward to listening to part2, I concede that it was impatient of me to critic your views before listening to the whole presentation.
Many thanks for the delightful podcast.
Regards,
Muhamed
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