The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God

CS: Einstein was explicit that it was different. For example, in his first visit to the United States, he was sent an anguished telegram by the archbishop of Boston wanting to know what exactly were his religious views. And he spelled them out very explicitly and very courageously, and there was no question that it was not the traditional religious view of God. I mean, it doesn't matter, because Einstein is just one man. But since we all admire him, it's good to know what he actually said.

Questioner: Yes.

CS: And it was not the traditional view at all.

Questioner: Yes, well, yes. I accept that. Talking about proofs for the existence of God, I'd like to put it in perspective that there's no completely satisfactory proof that everyone in this room exists. I don't know if you know of one. I think it comes down in the end to belief of one sort or another that people in this room exist, and putting the proofs about God's existence in that context, we're demanding a lot more in proving God's existence than we are in proving our own existence.

CS: But the burden… the burden of proof is on those who claim that God exists. Or do you think not?

Questioner: I think you say that. I don't think that, in fact. CS: You think the burden of proof is on those who say that God does not exist?

Questioner: An equal burden of proof, I would say. I don't see why it should be put to those who say that He exists.

CS: But would you say that, no matter what contention is made, that the burden of proving or disproving it falls equally on those who agree and those who disagree?

Questioner: I would say that.

CS: Have you thought of the political applications of this?

Questioner: Well, it's not a political issue, I don't think. CS: No, but I thought it was a general proposition you were proposing.

Questioner: If you take a physical proposition, would you say you know that in every case the burden of proof rests to prove one type of case or the other type of case?

CS: The burden of proof always falls on those who make the contention.

Questioner: Well, all right. Yes. But only in the sense that it's disproving the other contention.

CS: No, no. It can be in an area where no one has any other contentions.

Questioner: Yes, well…

CS: It is-and it seems to me quite proper. Because otherwise opinions would be launched very casually if those who proposed them did not have the burden of demonstrating their truth. Here is a set of thirty-one proposals that I make, and good-bye. I mean, you would be left with a chaotic circumstance.

Questioner: Yes, all right. Yes, I see. I see your point. Yes.

CS: The audience is laughing. May I say I think these are… some of these are very good points, and this sense of dialogue I welcome and find delightful.

Questioner: I didn't agree with the way you presented some of the proofs for the existence of God. There was one other proof that I would like to give. I wouldn't call it a proof. I'd call it an argument, because I don't believe that you can prove in absolute logical terms the existence of God.

CS: So we are in agreement.

Questioner: There was an eminent scientist called Sir James Jeans, a Fellow of our Boyal Society in the 1930s, who published a book called The Mysterious Universe, in which he went into great detail discussing the new discoveries of physics. And he presented a rather elegant argument concerning the existence of God, which was based on a very simple, almost unspoken law, the law being that if any two things interact, they must be in some way like. He then went on to say that it's quite possible for somebody who looks at the Sun at sunrise on a nice morning to have a beautiful, poetic thought about it. He looked at the chain of events, which went to producing that poetic thought. It started off in the Sun, with light being emitted, traveling across space, coming through the upper atmosphere, being refracted, and then eventually reaching the lens of the eye, being focused on the retina, and traveling as a nerve impulse to the brain, and then producing a thought.

Now, he said that there are two ways of looking at this. Either you can say that thought is a form of energy in some way, for its ability to interact with energy, or energy is a form of thought in some way.

CS: Those are two of a larger number of possible ways of looking at it.

Questioner: Two of a larger number. Yes. Now, scientists who restrict themselves to the purely rational view of man would say that, well, it's obvious, then, that thoughts are a form of energy.

CS: No, this is not a good argument. This is a 1950s premodern-neurology argument. 'Thoughts are a form of energy.'

Questioner: Well, it's equally valid to say that, you know, maybe the energy that's in the universe is in some way related to thought.

CS: They may be, perhaps, in some way related.

Questioner: If it is, for there to be one universe that everyone observes as being the same, there must be one being producing the thought.

CS: Why? Why? Why can't natural selection accommodate large numbers of unrelated organisms to the same laws of nature?

CHAPTER SEVEN

CS: I have a letter that I was sent that concluded by saying, 'I have at times found your views somewhat naive and immature but hope for better things this week.' I hope I have not disappointed. Let me read one remark of this deeply concerned person, who requested anonymity. He says, 'On several occasions it has seemed to me that you try to quantify what is a qualitative experience. There is a spiritual and psychical world superimposed, as it were, on the physical. Worlds within worlds. Man is not just a physical being but a spiritual and a psychic entity, too.'

Well, my only response is that this is a claim that, from my point of view, remains to be proved. I would have to ask, 'What is the evidence that we are more than material beings?' I don't think anyone would doubt that matter is a part of our makeup. And the question is, what is the compelling evidence that it is not all?

Questioner: Sir, I have a feeling that we have a lot of growing to do. The scientist doesn't perhaps know yet how to bring a greater being into the picture, and suddenly there are psychic things that are spiritual. You're taking the wrong set of faculties to disprove the psychic element. You must use the similar faculty. So it will be hundreds of years before scientists can ever prove the psychic part of life.

CS: Would you grant the possibility that there is no psychic part of life?

Questioner: No.

CS: Not a possibility? Not a smidgen of doubt in your mind?

Questioner: I'm one of those who lives with one foot on each side of life. One foot on the psychic and a very practical other foot, as a businesswoman, on the world. I've proved it.

CS: What in general should we do in a dialogue like this? Here I am. I say that my mind is open. I am happy to see the evidence, and the response I sometimes get is, 'I've had this experience. It's compelling to me. But I can't give it over to you.' Now, doesn't that prevent any dialogue whatever? How are we to communicate?

Questioner: Well, you see, I think you're stopping with the mental faculties you have and saying, 'This is me. This is wrong.' Now, there are faculties that one could certainly not create, because they're already in the mind, spiritual faculties.

CS: Well, you see, I say they're not-that's not demonstrated- that there's no evidence that they exist. First you have to show that they exist before you can have a major program to encourage them.

Questioner: I don't know that you have to play the piano to know that you can.

CS: No. But I can require, at least, before I start practicing the piano that I see that a piano