Meera Nanda, an Indian skeptic and atheist, has written a rather naïve article criticizing spirituality and especially Sam Harris’ so-called ‘mystifications’. In her attempt to be an equal-opportunity skeptic, she has neglected to engage in decent philosophizing or respectable research. This post is an explanation for my disagreement with her.

In her article she has misrepresented Sam Harris’ philosophy, as well as made errors both in reasoning and in fact. Her errors are the following:

She says: ‘While he is quick to pour scorn on such childish ideas as the virgin birth, heaven and hell, the great rationalist has only winks and nods to offer when it comes to such “higher” truths as near-death experiences, ESP and the existence of disembodied souls, all of which he finds plausible.’

Sam Harris does not refer to ESP as a higher truth, but suggests that it is worth considering that people have had psychic experiences, including experiences where they remember seeing themselves during comas and while approaching death. Merely to consider something is not to accept it thoughtlessly. The rhetoric that people such as Meera Nanda and other ‘rationalists’ use of scientific rigor and skepticism derives its power from the positive connotation surrounding notions that decent, intelligent people value. When we hear ’scientific’ it sounds nice and warm, but when we hear ‘unscientific’ or ‘anti-science’ it sounds harsh and accusatory. Why is this so? Because scientific rigor is something people rightly see as good and valuable. What Meera Nanda is offering is not scientific rigor, but an anti-intellectual attitude of narrow-mindedness and rigidity, which she sells in the shiny packaging of the same enterprise that she abuses in the process.

The notion of a disembodied soul, or more palatably, the proposition that consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of our brains stands beside the proposition that it is. Science – an epistemology – cannot entail either a materialistic or non-materialistic ontology. Scienticians are prone to believing that science ‘proves’ the absence of non-material reality, simply because science is only equipped to deal with material reality. But even a rudimentary exposure to logical entailment should help anyone understand the problem with this reasoning. Supposing there was a non-material reality, knowable through a non-scientific epistemology (though prima facie I don’t see why it can’t be knowable through a scientific one, but we’ll forget that for now), and people are using that epistemology for its domain and science for the material domain. Is there any impossibility in this? The answer is ‘no’. The scenario seems odd, but it is by no means impossible.

For those who are wondering what skeptics have on the gullible who believe ghosts can cause illnesses and witches can put curses on you, the answer lies in pragmatism. The cancer patient who just puts crystals on his body is not likely to survive as long as the one who visits a hospital. There are good reasons to be skeptical, and they do not involve logically unjustified denials of anything that has not made up the subject matter of science yet, or that ever will. Sam Harris’ distinction between believing in a virgin birth and believing in a non-material consciousness can be justified pragmatically: a virgin birth is an event in the material world, and the positing of supernatural intervention has not served us well in understanding material problems (such as illnesses, how to have babies, how not to have babies, how to get from point A to point B and so on). If you’re infertile, prayer won’t help you, but fertility medication will. Thus, using pragmatism, we can designate a general area of ‘the world’ (meaning that which is relevant to us, which we interact with) to an epistemology that is most fit – that is, most useful – within that area. But to propose that no area exists other than the one designated to your favourite epistemology is quite another matter.

‘…even the most militant rationalist will have to admit that meditation does provide some benefits. (It does not follow, however, that all the claims of yoga and pranayam, must be accepted. There is very little rigorous controlled testing of the more extravagant claims of those who believe in the power of the mind to cure everything from blindness to cancers).’

Ironically she says ‘it does not follow, however, that all the claims of yoga and pranayam, must be accepted,’ which is precisely what I wanted to say to her. If one believes in a ‘higher truth’, it does not follow that all claims made by all yogis are correct. Surely one can be spiritual without believing the power of the mind can cure blindness.

‘Secondly, Harris rejects a naturalistic understanding of nature and the human mind.’
This is false. He doesn’t reject it, but considers both a physicalist and non-physicalist view of consciousness to be possible. To say that something is possible does not imply that everything else is false or not worth considering. In fact, she changes track by first claiming Sam Harris rejects a naturalistic understanding of nature, and then telling us that he believes physicalism can neither be proven nor disproven.

‘On this account, meditative practices slow down the transmission of neural information to the posterior superior parietal lobes of the brain, which controls spatial orientation, resulting in the sensation of pure awareness which is incapable of drawing boundaries between the limited personal self and the external material world. This sensation gets reified into the image of “reality of as a formless unified whole, with no limits, no substance, no beginning and no end.”‘

Oh my God this is the worst one yet. She is committing what I call the Reverse Reification fallacy, which goes something like this: if I can describe what goes on in your brain while you’re experiencing something, that thing has no significance. This is a fallacy because significance or value cannot be derived from any fact. If this were not so, one could describe what parts of the brain are used when one derives a mathematical theorem, and this would reduce the value of the theorem. To say that the theorem is true or that it has implications would be committing the reification fallacy since, after all, some clever scientists managed to tell you what neurons fired when you were figuring it out. Ultimately the practice will be self-defeating, as one can describe what parts of the brain are used in the process of figuring out what parts of the brain are being used, thus rendering the practice itself valueless, and not, at the same time.

‘Just because we can study the neuro-physiology of mysticism in a scientific manner, does not make the experience scientific or rational in any way.’

I would like to replace the second half of the sentence with ‘does not make the experience value-less or without significance’, but since I have already made that point, I’ll take this opportunity to point out that the poor author lacks, or intermittently loses, the ability to make elementary analytical distinctions. She has made a category error by implying that an experience can be unscientific or irrational. An experience cannot be unscientific; a study can be conducted unscientifically, palm-reading can be an unscientific epistemology, but it is meaningless to say that an experience is unscientific. An experience cannot even be false, let alone unscientific. To say that something is rational implies that it is an efficient means to the end it’s supposed to be for, or that it is in touch with reality. The second type of rationality fits into the sentence, but it still remains to be proven that a mystical experience is irrational.

‘One cannot help wondering, why faith in God is not just such a method of “tuning the brain differently” for those who believe in the personal God of the Bible and the Koran? Neurologically speaking, why is God a “delusion,” if mysticism is “astute”?’

I don’t know what she means by ‘neurologically speaking’ – especially since one cannot know what is a delusion and what isn’t merely by understanding the brain – but the difference between believing in the God of the Koran and being spiritual is that the former is dangerous and pragmatically useless, whereas the latter is illuminating and useful. When you pray, your prayer may or may not be answered, making prayer a useless tool for getting what you want. However, when you take a painkiller, your pain goes away most of the time, in a way that doesn’t happen when you don’t take a painkiller. If you were to bet your money on something, you wouldn’t bet your money on praying, regardless of whether or not you believe in God.

On a final note before I conclude, I am tempted to put a quote from William James here, and I will give in to that temptation. From The Varieties of Religious Experience:

‘When we speak disparagingly about “feverish fancies,” surely the fever-process as such is not the ground of our disesteem – for aught we know to the contrary, 103 or 104 [degrees] Fahrenheit might be a much more favorable temperature for truths to germinate and sprout in, than the more ordinary blood-heat of 97 or 98 degrees. It is either the disagreeableness itself of the fancies, or their inability to bear the criticisms of the convalescent hour. When we praise the thoughts which health brings, health’s peculiar chemical metabolisms have nothing to do with determining our judgment… it is the character of inner happiness in the thoughts which stamps them as good, or else their consistency with other opinions and their serviceability for our needs, which make them pass for true in our esteem.’

To conclude this rebuttal the way Meera Nanda concluded her review (look, I even started with ‘to conclude’!): Mysticism is not a rational alternative to faith, it is a rational way of knowing about things science cannot know about, and the concept of ‘faith’ as belief wthout evidence loses its meaning from within a pragmatist worldview. Dissolving our sense of individual self in a larger spiritual one-ness will improve our lives by making us more patient, calm and empathic. Those who cannot accept a personal God on faith alone do not have to reject mysticism or spiritualism as well. Reason bars the first but not the second.