Seeing and knowing: mysticism, science and the new frontier of scientific endeavor (1)

Anecdote:

Ibn Sina, the philosopher, met the Sufi Abu Said. When they were asked to comment on the meeting the philsopher said of the Sufi: What I know he sees, the Sufi said of the philosopher What I see, he knows.’

Saying:

“When the self weeps because it ha lost, the essesnce weeps because it has found”  -The Sufi Abu Sulaiman

When I read this  what came to mind aside from flap jacks, my mind works weird that way. While I work I think about old episodes of the cosby show, O Theo!!!! . Seriously though when i read this some things came to mind mostly about science and mysticism, or rather seeing holistically which  what mystical practice can do for the aspirant, or see things ina  fragmentary way and logically infer the missing pieces.

Dave in case u didnt know it is a scientist, and I have always felt that at soem point science nad mysticism must come together. Why you ask? How science works, si that you study a phenomena exclusively. There are many fields of scientific endeavor each lab is supposed to study on specific area of phenomena.Through publication the scientific community finally reassemble the whole. Logically this is supposedly to work but from my experience in science since 1999 – present it doesnt happen that way.

One of the greatest things, I was told a long time ago, is that lancking an objective,logical or scientific manner of analyzing our own experiences is one of the greatest deterent to progress on the mystical pathway. I dont feel that science and mysticism or even occultism are mutually exclusive.

Putting the parts together in my mind dont make a whole, why ?

1. It is hard to understand the roll of the experimentor plays in the experiment, let alone limit it .
2. Since we never see the whole its hard to understand how to put all the results of our reductionist approach.
3. There are many things we dont know that we dont know, supposedly  massive paradigm shifts in science are supposed to change this or point attention to it.
4. Personality,poltics goverment , greed avarice and megalomania actually all saturate the scientific process at every step from the observation ( you get grants to look at whas is deemed interesting) hypothesis ( your hypothesis cant be too far from mainstream if u want money or to get published) experimentation ( money factors influence this a lot just as much as who u are coborating with, the design an structure of the department, academic or private industry where you work, Interepretation of data  ( what will make me more money and more famous ) conclusions ( I think you can do this one yourself)
5. We generate a lot of data that we dont really know what to do with.

Seeing and integrating ourself with the whole is an asset like no other to bettering human life. So far scientifically we  treat symtpoms and manifestation of diseases, without knowing the true cause of why they happen. Why do we have cancer, Why do some people smoke a lifetime and get no lung cancer and some other dont. We can do many comparison of cases and see differences, but we dont know why, even saying having a genetic predisposition to cancer doesn’t explain why it exist.

Medicine ( my father is a doctor by the way and i have been working in a few medical institutions and volunteered in enough in my attempts to become a doctor myself) seeks to

1. Lessen the intensity of the symptoms experienced by those suffering
2. Putting the body in a position to heal itself. You take chemo and radiation to kill the cancerous cells and some of your own. Hopefully afterwards the body can take it from there.

Can science and medicine actually solve the root problems? I think its possible provided certain provisions are made but you will have to wait for the next installment I will talk more about the scientific experience and modus operandi.

Dave