These are the standard critiques science and transcendence hurl at each other so that they may shrug and proceed with their respective projects essentially unmolested. Although transcendence is slowly declining in importance, it still has sufficient historic consciousness and will to sustain itself in the world. Because both sides of the great divide are ultimately ungrounded, neither need yield to the final arguments or conclusions of the other. However, over time, history does tend to will out. Thus if the underlying premises remain the same, transcendence will continue to yield more ground to science until it finally withers away.
Transcendents have an ambiguous attitude toward the transcendence they evoke. Those among them of an intellectual inclination talk of spirituality, oneness with nature, god as love, and radical mystery. In art shamans are portrayed as real and able to literally transform themselves into animals or perform other acts of magic.
On closer examination such things seem more like revolts against modernism. They are metaphoric reactions to alienation and the banality of societies obsessed with material consumption. Ultimately, however, transcendent intellectuals are quite modern or perhaps post-modern in outlook. While yearning for and espousing a genuine or literal transcendent spirituality, in the final analysis they seem not to really believe in it. In many cases it is a barely disguised willful solipsism. Rather than subjecting oneself to the eternal law of a transcendent and personal God, they become historic gods onto themselves. I am the maker of my own trans-personel reality; I am God onto myself. I am a mortal , bio-chemical god in a material universe. Spirit is metaphorical, historical, and Hegelian.
Transcendents of a literal or fundamentalist bent seem to have a more unusual notion of transcendence. To be sure they proclaim it as most assuredly "real". There is nothing metaphoric, historic, human, or mythical about it. The world of the spirit exists and it has a direct and personal relationship to humans and the objective world.
But one detects the strong hand of Thales and his water even among the fundamentalists. At their most vulgar, God and the transcendent become too objective and real. For example, a recent super market tabloid had a front page picture of heaven. It was a giant space ship photographed by one of our Mars probes. If memory is properly served, cable tv bible thumpers continue to insist that such ships can be found hovering above the north and soulth poles. Presumably the only thing keeping this fact from being universally known is a Satanic secular humanist conspiracy.
The hand of Thales and the historic movement of rational science is also strongly felt among the more sophisticated clock makers and first sparkers. They look at the world in the same way as the scientists and infer that there must be ... something ... "more" than mere self-animating matter at work. Where is this ... something ... ? Nobody knows. It just seems as though it ought to be there for the world to make any sense. It's all such a radical mystery.
Despite the tone of mockery, there are those who do express genuine feelings for a transcendent reality. Even though they do not know what it is or where it is, they maintain a faith that something transcendent is real rather than mythical or metaphorical. But if we press such people, and we cut off their escape into radical mystery, self-justified bible quoting, ad hominem attacks on the secular humanist questioner, etc., then do we get any sense of what they are thinking or meaning when they say the transcendent is real in the normal sense of the way we use this word? If the transcendent is real in some sense beyond our imaginations, yearnings, and fears of being alone in a meaningless, random universe, then it must exist somewhere. If it exists in the 14th dimension, down some black whole, inside a piece of super string or quasar then fine. But if so, then should we not ultimately be able to understand it, and even at some future time, access it? Is it possible that we as human beings, wrapped in our mortal coils, can hope some day to storm the gates of heaven?
The answer given would most likely be no. But, then, why not if transcendence is indeed real and exists outside of our imaginations? Despite post-modernist epistemological pessimism, we ought to be able to at least hope that we can ultimately penetrate and understand all the basic components of reality and their interactions. Whether it be via technology, prayer, or mushrooms, we ought to be able to move beyond the material and into this nether world, if it truly exists. If not, then what is it about transcendent reality that makes it so fundamentally impervious to accessed by humans while at the same time having such a profound impact on objective material reality? Perhaps because we are all the conscious descendents of Thales, the best that even the most religious can yearn for is faith in a hoped for rather than real transcendence. At some basic level, and within the confines of our current historic consciousness, even such people may not believe in the literal reality of the transcendent. That ultimately the transcendent is made real by a willful act of our spiritual imaginations.
Fundamentally rational materialists fare no better. A few of them realize that there is no firm grounding for their world view. They know that they are probing the darkness of being with an artificial light. They feel emboldened and courageous enough to look at the darkness above, but the darkness below is a darkness unseen and apparently impenetrable. Thus they dare not look where they cannot see.
But why should they look? The world incessantly tells us that it is material or the forces which constitute the material. We are of the world, thus we too are material. If anyone of a serious nature still wants to bother, they will find no hint of transcendence: no consciousness, mind, spirit, soul, or god. They will not find it because it does not exist. It may be frightening to dwell in the meaningless and chaotic flux of the universe, but our spiritual imaginations can not will into existence things which can not be a part of that universe.
Why then should modern Thalians be grouped at any level with the transcendents? What can they possibly be denying? What act of willfulness can they be imposing on reality? Epistemologically it has become somewhat accepted since Kuhn that at a fundamental level we can not really know very much about reality. We can not easily untangle ourselves from our historically grounded perspectives. Thus, what we know of reality we consciously or unconsciously impose upon it. Fine. Then the universe is radically mysterious and knowledge is myth. But there are still no ghosts in or anywhere near the machine. Thus the moderns shrug and return to their labs.
History is replete with stories of ghosts, miracles, bleeding Madonnas, near death experiences, extra-sensory events, etc. How would we even begin to rigorously examine such events? Afterall, no Madonna has ever agreed to bleed in a lab under controlled conditions. So we chalk up belief in such events to wishful thinking, mass hysteria, projection, seritonin surges, and unresolvable anomalies. There is still no hard, repeatable evidence for things of a transcendent nature.
Where is the transcendence? Where is this dark ground below that we dare not look at? Is it life? No. That can still be explained in terms of chemistry. The brain and what it does? ...nnn... chemistry again. Are we sure? ... Do we have a choice in not being sure? Presumably, if we are talking epistemological and metaphysical fundamentals and foundations.
Well then, when we examine an event loop - an object in the world - the stimulation of a sense organ - the transmission of electrical activity to the brain - processing by the brain - and the response of the organism back into the world, then each stage of the loop can be isolated, examined, and explained in terms of normal physical processes.
In the way science looks at reality this is true. However, when we take a closer look things become less certain. Look closely at the brain and its electrical activity. Look at experience. In experience there is the reality of sensed monitors, thoughts, dreams, and feelings. Paradoxically experienced reality must be the brain and its electrical activity while at the same time it is not.
Not so since we can isolate chemicals, brain functions and centers that produce such things. What are we saying here? We are not saying the chemicals are the experiences, but only that they produce the experiences. If this is the case, can we then isolate chemicals and electrical activities that are feelings themselves? Can we put them in a jar so that we have a jar full of experiences? If consciousness is electro-chemistry then is that jar full of experiences conscious of that at any level whatsoever? If we look at the molecules jumping across the synapses we do not find even the slightest hint of what we experience. Thus in the same way we can not find transcendence in the material we can not find what we are in mere material explanations of reality.
Despite this tone of mockery, there are those who do express genuine feelings for a material existence. They are confident that they do know what and where it is. They know or have faith that things material are real rather than mythical or metaphorical. But if we press such people, and we cut off their escape into radical mystery, self-justifying neuro-biology text books, ad hominem attacks upon the new age or religious questioner, etc., then do we get any sense of what they are thinking or meaning when they say matter is the only thing that is real in the normal sense of the way we use this word? If material is real in some way beyond our imaginations, yearnings, and fears of being alone with a vengeful God in a meaningful, planned universe, then it must exist "somewhere" in a self- animating, self-contained form.
Transcendents have inferred transcendence in material reality. However, to date they have yet to create a new science incorporating transcendence nor have they offered compelling reasons or methodologies for science to look deeper beyond its material roots. By the same token materialist claims are not sufficient explanations of what we experience as reality. Yet, because we are the descendents of Thales and Kant, our science willfully imposes its inadequate sufficiency upon reality. What is it about the way we look at reality that so inhibits our epistemological and metaphysical progress? The rest of this page is devoted to an explanation of this central problem.
