{"id":1210,"date":"2010-03-04T12:09:45","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T17:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/03\/04\/spiritualizing-science\/"},"modified":"2010-03-04T12:09:45","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T17:09:45","slug":"spiritualizing-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/03\/04\/spiritualizing-science\/","title":{"rendered":"spiritualizing science"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>or,  <a href=\"http:\/\/aivakhiv.blog.uvm.edu\/2009\/08\/spinning_the_earth.html\">Carl Sagan<\/a> rides again, and again&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XGK84Poeynk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/santitafarella.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/02\/this-is-what-atheist-spirituality-looks-like\/\">Prometheus Unbound<\/a> raises questions about the <a href=\"http:\/\/spritzophrenia.wordpress.com\/2010\/02\/11\/atheist-spirituality\/\">atheist spirituality<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/symphonyofscience.com\/\">Symphony of Science<\/a>&#8216;s star-scientist-studded videos (pun only slightly intended &#8212; they are mostly men, yes, but drumming on djembes (!), and it&#8217;s well worth waiting to see Jane Goodall tell us about the &#8220;wuzzy&#8221; line between humans and the rest of nature in the video below, starting at about the 2&#8217;30&#8221; point).<\/p>\n<p>Spirituality is, of course, in the eye, ear, and body of its beholder. What makes this spiritual is the way it mobilizes music, movement, and poetry in the service of spreading a message, in this case the gospel of science. The use of pitch-shifting and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/arts\/critics\/musical\/2008\/06\/09\/080609crmu_music_frerejones\">pitch-correction<\/a> software to &#8220;musicalize&#8221; the spoken voices of scientists is analogous to the intended poeticization and spiritualization of science. Science in practice is, of course, dry, slow, laborious, and boring. But the results of science can be exciting. This parallels the natural process science itself describes: from the painstakingly slow and boring life of atoms, molecules, things responding to other things, what has built up over time is the world we know. Or, as Darwin famously put it:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<em>&#8220;from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed [by the Creator*] into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.&#8221; <\/em> (<em>On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, <\/em>1859)<\/p>\n<p>[*&#8221;by the Creator&#8221; was added in the 1860 edition, but even the Creator-less verb form of &#8220;having been breathed&#8221; suggests there is a breather and something been breathed into, i.e. an active force and a passive recipient.]<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hOLAGYmUQV0?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are, each of us, a multitude.&#8221; Yes, we are Walt Whitman, and Deleuze and Guattari, and Jane Goodall with her chimps, and even Carl Sagan (whose <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=q_Fp3tjPnkwC&amp;printsec=frontcover&amp;dq=sagan+carl+demon+haunted+world&amp;ei=wdyPS6ekMZ_czQS82e2LBw&amp;cd=1#v=onepage&amp;q=&amp;f=false\">demon haunted world<\/a> was a little less than poetically charitable with things he disagreed with; but policing its borders is part of what keeps science intact as an enterprise).<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all very nice to melodize these science rappers, but where&#8217;s the rap version of these videos? Why not hiphopricize these science guys?<\/p>\n<p>I suppose they take a tiny step in this direction with Sagan&#8217;s glitchy intro here:<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zSgiXGELjbc?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>See all the videos <a href=\"http:\/\/symphonyofscience.com\/\">here<\/a>, and download the videos and some remixes <a href=\"http:\/\/symphonyofscience.com\/downloads.html#remixes\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>or, Carl Sagan rides again, and again&#8230; Prometheus Unbound raises questions about the atheist spirituality of Symphony of Science&#8216;s star-scientist-studded videos (pun only slightly intended &#8212; they are mostly men, yes, but drumming on djembes (!), and it&#8217;s well worth waiting to see Jane Goodall tell us about the &#8220;wuzzy&#8221; line between humans and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4437,691847],"tags":[416,16874,16875],"class_list":["post-1210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-religion-spirituality","tag-pantheism","tag-sagan","tag-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-jw","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9559,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2018\/01\/21\/comparative-practicology-philosophy-as-a-way-of-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":1210,"position":0},"title":"Comparative &#8216;practicology&#8217;: Philosophy as a way of life","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This course (an Honors College course I'm happy to be to teaching this year) is already in progress, but I'd be curious to hear any comments on it. What would you include in a comparative overview of spiritual practices? What's missing?\u00a0 Self-Cultivation and Spiritual Practice: Comparative Perspectives This course introduces\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Philosophy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1020,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/01\/23\/heraclitean-spirituality\/","url_meta":{"origin":1210,"position":1},"title":"Heraclitean spirituality","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Patrick Lee Miller's recent posts on Heraclitean spirituality, published on the Immanent Frame blog, make a valuable contribution to theorizing the ethics and spirituality of immanence. He notes that Heraclitus' famous quote that's sunk into popular culture as \"You don't step into the same river twice\" actually means something more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Philosophy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8777,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2016\/05\/31\/interview-autobio\/","url_meta":{"origin":1210,"position":2},"title":"Interview &amp; autobio","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Interviews are funny things: you have to think on the spot, but later realize how deeply and profoundly imperfect (!) was your choice of words. The Imperfect Buddha Podcast has an interview with me in which host Matthew O'Connor (of\u00a0Post-Traditional Buddhism) and I talk at length about Buddhism, process-relational metaphysics,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Process-relational thought&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Process-relational thought","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/process-relational-thought\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5462,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/11\/23\/lynn-margulis-r-i-p\/","url_meta":{"origin":1210,"position":3},"title":"Lynn Margulis, r.i.p.","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"November 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Heard about this last night. She died peacefully at her home in Massachusetts yesterday evening, surrounded by family. (We had just seen her son Dorion Sagan, son of Carl, give a great talk at the anthropology conference last Friday, after which he and his partner had to speed back to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Spirit matter&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/11\/225px-Lynn_Margulis-183x275.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1009,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2008\/12\/08\/nice-piece-on-huxley\/","url_meta":{"origin":1210,"position":4},"title":"nice piece on Huxley","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Jeffrey Kripal's piece on Aldous Huxley in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education captures a piece of the tug of war (cultural war?) over spirituality since the 1960s. It's interesting that East Europeans are rediscovering Huxley, now that Orwell would seem less relevant. Perhaps there's a correlation between authoritarianism (as\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Spirit matter&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4814,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/06\/23\/self-help-james-ray-and-spiritual-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":1210,"position":5},"title":"&#8216;Self-help,&#8217; James Ray, and spiritual culture","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"June 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The news that self-help guru James Arthur Ray has been found guilty of three counts of negligent homicide brings to an end (of sorts) a saga that began with three deaths and numerous injuries at an October, 2009, sweat lodge ceremony outside Sedona, Arizona. Since I've written a handful of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Spirit matter&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}