# A Though Experiment on Spiritual Evolution **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 11, 2016, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825 "2016-02-11T16:04:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/61 "2016-02-12T17:02:16Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > Remember that human evolution is barely underway, given the timescale of evolution. > [@Czarcasm](#): > > You have absolutely no idea how far along human evolution is. There are species that have been here a hell of a lot longer than we have, and evolution hasn’t blessed them with any magical abilities-it just doesn’t work that way in real life. I’d go further and say the OP has a fundamental misunderstanding on what evolution is. Evolution isn’t a guideline that takes you from one place to another. No species is evolving towards a goal. Evolution is a reaction to the environment. Species evolved to detect light because light was there to be detected. If species haven’t evolved to detect spiritual forces, it’s evidence that those forces haven’t existed. There’s no reason why these spiritual forces would have waited around for millions of years until human beings came along. Primordial species would have used them, just as they used other natural phenomena like light and sound. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/62 "2016-02-12T17:34:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d go further and say the OP has a fundamental misunderstanding on what evolution is. Evolution isn’t a guideline that takes you from one place to another. No species is evolving towards a goal. > > Evolution is a reaction to the environment. Species evolved to detect light because light was there to be detected. If species haven’t evolved to detect spiritual forces, it’s evidence that those forces haven’t existed. There’s no reason why these spiritual forces would have waited around for millions of years until human beings came along. Primordial species would have used them, just as they used other natural phenomena like light and sound. Yes, and furthermore it would be very remarkable that this force is only detectable by one, and only one, biological species, but not by any instruments or other technical means. Heck, we just measured the very tiny effects of gravitational waves which originated 1.3 billion lightyears away, but we cannot detect these spiritual forces that our physiology allegedly can? I call bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/63 "2016-02-12T17:36:40Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > So that’s where Gurren Lagann got their spiral stuff from. > > More seriously, the stuff **Stoneburg** is talking about (ego death, oneness with all, etc.) is the same sort of experience you can get by dropping acid, eating shrooms or other psychedelic experiences. That’s probably seen as cheating, though a lot of people do react to it like it was a religious experience or awakening. And I believe there have been scientific studies of what goes on in the brain during these experiences - which could be the same thing that goes on during “natural” spiritual experiences. That’s real science. Saying that these experiences map into anything outside the brain is another matter. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/64 "2016-02-12T18:02:13Z")
> [@Stoneburg](#): > > This is what authentic practitioners of meditation and self-inquiry are doing, they are essentially trying to see through the illusion of a small and contracted “me” and look at reality without preconceived filters. And this is why you still have very far to travel. You’re starting out with the idea that there is an unfiltered reality to look at. But this is an error. There are only different filters, always and forever. The danger of spirituality (as with religion) is that it encourages its practitioners to define truth as that which is in accord with their unexamined filter. It is a self-congratulatory epistemological box. > [@](#): > > That is the urge of evolution to expand, grow and become more and more inclusive. Evolution has no urges. It is only your spiritual filter that is imposing that self-serving frame upon it. > [@](#): > > The point of spirituality as far as I see it is the end of suffering and the realization of ones true nature. The first step on your journey should be abandoning the notion of “true nature” either for yourself or the universe. You have no “true nature” and if you think you do it’s because you have become so committed to one particular filter that you can no longer conceive of other ways of conceiving. Run from truth! It is an epistemological trap! ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/65 "2016-02-12T18:20:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d go further and say the OP has a fundamental misunderstanding on what evolution is. Evolution isn’t a guideline that takes you from one place to another. No species is evolving towards a goal. > > Evolution is a reaction to the environment. Species evolved to detect light because light was there to be detected. If species haven’t evolved to detect spiritual forces, it’s evidence that those forces haven’t existed. There’s no reason why these spiritual forces would have waited around for millions of years until human beings came along. Primordial species would have used them, just as they used other natural phenomena like light and sound. Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn’t even notice that evolution comment by the OP. It’s total garbage. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/66 "2016-02-12T20:45:24Z")
> [@Smeghead](#): > > Oh, wow. Yeah, I didn’t even notice that evolution comment by the OP. It’s total garbage. Well, I knew already that teleological philosophy is sniffed at nowadays, but I didn’t think it was because it was _garbage_. I’m a little angry at the notion that all natural philosophy prior to…who’s your boy: Darwin, Newton, or Bacon?.._all_ of it - is simply to be heaved overboard as irrelevancy born of ignorance. Them old folks sure figured they’d got the world pretty well figured out, hadn’t they, but later, it turned out they were all wrong, bound by their prejudices and limited ability (and technology) to do proper scientific investigation. Sucks to be them. But WE, now, THAT’S a whole different matter. See, WE’VE got the tools and the talent. WE know the true score. Only a few more particles to discover, or waves to sense - just a few more - and it’ll all balance out into the Unified Theory, and science can close up shop. And I swear I can hear the scientists in 3016 laughing their asses off. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/67 "2016-02-12T20:51:25Z")
Here’s a suggestion: If you want to turn your nose up at modern science, quit using sciency terms when trying describe whatever it is you’re trying to describe. ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/68 "2016-02-12T21:11:45Z")
Missed the edit window. I’ve already said I’m not a scientist, and so I’m guessing that what I said, especially the last paragraph - will be explained to me with a pat on my poor little head. But the point is not to demonstrate my ignorance - I got it. The point is: why are we seemingly so _sure_ we are _right_, or on the _right_ track, or using the _right_ methods, simply because we are in the _now_, as opposed to the past? I’ve got news for you: we are _already_ the past; we just don’t realize it yet. I’m pretty sure that the Internet, and a cellphone to access it, would have been inconceivable to Aristotle or Aquinas (I hope I’m right about _that_, at least!). My question is, _what_ _is_ _inconceivable_ _to_ _you_, right now, in 2016? You cannot even know. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/69 "2016-02-12T21:18:55Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > Missed the edit window. I’ve already said I’m not a scientist, and so I’m guessing that what I said, especially the last paragraph - will be explained to me with a pat on my poor little head. But the point is not to demonstrate my ignorance - I got it. The point is: why are we seemingly so _sure_ we are _right_, or on the _right_ track, or using the _right_ methods, simply because we are in the _now_, as opposed to the past? I’ve got news for you: we are _already_ the past; we just don’t realize it yet. I’m pretty sure that the Internet, and a cellphone to access it, would have been inconceivable to Aristotle or Aquinas (I hope I’m right about _that_, at least!). My question is, _what_ _is_ _inconceivable_ _to_ _you_, right now, in 2016? You cannot even know. I have no idea what this paragraph is all about. Would you like to talk about your OP and our specific reactions to it, or not? ---
**Author:** ![Totenfeier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@Totenfeier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Totenfeier)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/70 "2016-02-12T21:52:17Z")
O.K. I can’t address everyone’s reactions satisfactorily for two main reasons. The first is that I don’t have time, and the second is that I _know_ I’m out of my depth. I have tried to say so, in so many words, in several posts. I never wanted to sweep away all before me in a mighty burst of intellectual brilliance; I didn’t wan’t to “win.” I _wanted_ to enjoy reading intelligent people discussing the relationship that exists between, or the antagonism that exists between, science and what we have been referring to as “spirituality.” Apparently, I was wishing for the impossible; _intelligent_ people apparently realize that “spirituality” is either a term void of content, or an ignorance to be fought, or a cancer that must be cut out of the human race to avoid the senseless bloodshed of holy war, or some grotesque combination of all three; therefore, discussing these two facets of the totality of human experience is a pointless exercise. Science rules; spirituality drools. The whole problem, I see now, was my posting in the wrong forum. This could never be a Great Debate - just some Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share. I’m just wondering why a moderator hasn’t whisked it off to there yet. You win. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/71 "2016-02-12T22:03:53Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > O.K. I can’t address everyone’s reactions satisfactorily for two main reasons. The first is that I don’t have time, and the second is that I _know_ I’m out of my depth. I have tried to say so, in so many words, in several posts. I never wanted to sweep away all before me in a mighty burst of intellectual brilliance; I didn’t wan’t to “win.” I _wanted_ to enjoy reading intelligent people discussing the relationship that exists between, or the antagonism that exists between, science and what we have been referring to as “spirituality.” Apparently, I was wishing for the impossible; _intelligent_ people apparently realize that “spirituality” is either a term void of content, or an ignorance to be fought, or a cancer that must be cut out of the human race to avoid the senseless bloodshed of holy war, or some grotesque combination of all three; therefore, discussing these two facets of the totality of human experience is a pointless exercise. Science rules; spirituality drools. > > The whole problem, I see now, was my posting in the wrong forum. This could never be a Great Debate - just some Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share. I’m just wondering why a moderator hasn’t whisked it off to there yet. You win. I don’t reject the possibility that “spirituality” is awesome – and that someone like unto the sea creature that can perceive light would be able to perceive something spiritual which I happen to be blind to. I merely note that, were someone to claim they see what I can’t, I’d put them to the test. I note this because, being color-blind, that’s what I actually _do_ when people make claims about something I happen to be blind to. To the extent that spirituality is like light, I’m like the blind sea creature: I freely grant that a claimant might be telling the truth about something wondrous and valuable; and I treat that claim like I treat every other such claim. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/72 "2016-02-12T22:05:23Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > The point is: why are we seemingly so _sure_ we are _right_, or on the _right_ track, or using the _right_ methods, simply because we are in the _now_, as opposed to the past? We’re not, and this is a specious line of argumentation. Your position is where you wind up if you start from the idea that there are **knowable absolute truths**. (It’s not uncommon for people to start out with such an idea because its been popular in the West for thousands of years, from Platonism to Scholasticism to Logical Positivism.) If you ground your epistemology in the notion that absolute truth is knowable, and then observe that it isn’t known currently, then this seems to open the window to any imaginable possibility. _OMG, maybe spiritualism is TRUE because we haven’t PROVED that it’s false!_ But the problem here isn’t with our knowledge of the universe but your conception of what constitutes knowledge. If you start with the idea that all knowledge is provisional and embodied in human brains and experience, then the window you’ve opened slams shut. Knowledge is not a matter of knowing the truth about what IS, it’s a matter of producing internally-consistent explanations for what we EXPERIENCE. So we don’t need to hypothesize a spiritual sense because such an explanation is unnecessary to account for our current lived experience. And if some future time comes where it does become necessary, then we will abandon our current provisional understanding and construct a new one to take spiritualism into account. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2016, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/73 "2016-02-12T23:35:02Z")
Let me see if I understand what’s going on here. The OP has floated the idea that “spirituality” is an external, ‘real’ force that humanity has failed to detect via science, but yet is capable of detection/interaction with by some ‘special’ people via personal magic, or something. This notion is roundly mocked because science is all about studying what humans are interacting with. Since its very origin science has been taking notes on spiritualist claims and looking to find consistency and patterns in them. And for all this time the spiritualists have utterly failed to paint a consistent picture of any otherworldly force they’re supposedly interacting with, and additionally have consistently achieved spectacular failure every time they claim to be able to use their magic do things to the physical world. Which they claim all the time. And fail all the time. Thus, any rational person would conclude that either there are no spirits, or they’re deliberately screwing with us because they’re jerks. And with the hundred years of terrible track record, the supposed spirits are way too good at consistently not existing to plausibly exist even in theory. So that’s one thing. On the other hand Stoneburg is proselytizing for something in walls of text I’m not eternal enough to spend the time reading, but is massively defensive about it to the point of not wanting to talk about it. Um, okay. Personally I suspect that he’s making a mountain out of a molehill - in my experience ‘advanced philosophical spirituality’ mostly amounts to mellowing out a lot, changing your tastes so you’re cool with not having fun things, and entertaining yourself with the mental (or pharmaceutical) equivalent of pressing on your eyeballs so you can see the funny flashes of color. Oh, and taking these supposedly enlightened practices and selling them to people for lots of money, that happens a lot too. So regarding the OP, no, I seriously don’t think there’s any real thing out there that the human body could evolve to detect that hasn’t already been detected by science. In fact if humanity did naturally develop any new senses it probably would be _because_ of science, indirectly; there was little reason for humans to sense radio waves in the past but nowadays it would sort of beneficial to evolve a way to psychically pirate wifi. Give or take the fact that anybody with that mutation would just Netflix and chill instead of breeding, which would be the end of that. Regardless physical evolution is pretty slow; science is going to cut it off at the pass by implanting receivers in our heads anyway. And regarding Stoneburg, I ask him: Suppose I’m already content playing computer games and netflix-and-chilling. Having established that your type of spiritualism is purely mental, why should I abandon my content life to pursue it? What benefits could it offer? (Note: zenning me out so much I quit my job and starve in the street is not a benefit.) ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/74 "2016-02-13T01:14:15Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > So that’s where Gurren Lagann got their spiral stuff from. > > More seriously, the stuff **Stoneburg** is talking about (ego death, oneness with all, etc.) is the same sort of experience you can get by dropping acid, eating shrooms or other psychedelic experiences. That’s probably seen as cheating, though a lot of people do react to it like it was a religious experience or awakening. They might lead to what some call “peak” experiences (if not mere addiction or mental breakdowns), but they might not lead to a new permanent plateau of understanding. Note that it isn’t just about seeing a bunch of cool patterns swirling around behind your eyeballs that make you go “Wow!”, but about finding peace and equanimity, a higher moral perspective, and a number of other things that have very little to do with psychic fireworks. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d go further and say the OP has a fundamental misunderstanding on what evolution is. Evolution isn’t a guideline that takes you from one place to another. No species is evolving towards a goal. > > Evolution is a reaction to the environment. Species evolved to detect light because light was there to be detected. If species haven’t evolved to detect spiritual forces, it’s evidence that those forces haven’t existed. There’s no reason why these spiritual forces would have waited around for millions of years until human beings came along. Primordial species would have used them, just as they used other natural phenomena like light and sound. This is brand new-we as a species now have the chance to consciously direct our own evolution, be it mental, cultural, or even physical (if you want to go into gene splicing). At that point you may no longer wish to call it “evolution,” per se, but that makes our species unique I’d say. > [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > And this is why you still have very far to travel. You’re starting out with the idea that there is an unfiltered reality to look at. But this is an error. There are only different filters, always and forever. The danger of spirituality (as with religion) is that it encourages its practitioners to define truth as that which is in accord with their unexamined filter. It is a self-congratulatory epistemological box. That’s true of ANY belief system. [And very soon someone will undoubtedly chime in with “Materialism isn’t a filter!” At that point I will likely chime out.] ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2016, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825/75 "2016-02-13T13:12:58Z")
> [@Totenfeier](#): > > Missed the edit window. I’ve already said I’m not a scientist, and so I’m guessing that what I said, especially the last paragraph - will be explained to me with a pat on my poor little head. But the point is not to demonstrate my ignorance - I got it. The point is: why are we seemingly so _sure_ we are _right_, or on the _right_ track, or using the _right_ methods, simply because we are in the _now_, as opposed to the past? I’ve got news for you: we are _already_ the past; we just don’t realize it yet. I’m pretty sure that the Internet, and a cellphone to access it, would have been inconceivable to Aristotle or Aquinas (I hope I’m right about _that_, at least!). My question is, _what_ _is_ _inconceivable_ _to_ _you_, right now, in 2016? You cannot even know. The problem with this attitude - and I see it a lot - is that it ignores the progress we’ve made. Of course we don’t know everything. Of course it’s possible that some things we think we know could turn out to be wrong. BUT WE DO KNOW SOME THINGS. We know a LOT of things, in fact, and we know a lot of things that we didn’t used to know. That’s not arrogance. It’s not closemindedness. It’s a simple fact. We haven’t just been wasting our time over the last few centuries. We can’t just hand-wave all that away with “oh, but how can we be SURE??” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-though-experiment-on-spiritual-evolution/745825.md?page=3)