Science and Spirituality: Professor Arthur Zajonc, Physicist and Contemplative
Read Time:1 Minute, 55 Second
There are those who push against the limits of human understanding with science, and those who seek growth and explanation in the spiritual pursuit of the transcendent. The person who does both is the future of humanity.
Professor Arthur Zajonc, physicist and contemplative, appeared on the June 24, 2010 episode of Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett. Below is an excerpt from the transcript of that episode wherein Prof. Zajonc explains what the word “mystery” means to him.
Ms. Tippett: This is my final question. As a practitioner of meditation do you have — and a scientist — do you have a vocabulary of mystery?
Prof. Zajonc: Yes. So here’s my take on that word. Number one, mystery can sometimes be used as a way of deflecting real inquiry. To say, well, we just have to resign ourselves to the mystery.
Ms. Tippett: It’s a mystery. OK.
Prof. Zajonc: It’s a mystery. We should leave it be. We should just let it go. Now, the scientist in me says no, that something is not right with that, that interpretation of mystery. It’s too easy. Rather, what I think we need to do is to recognize that no matter how deeply we engage the world, no matter how far we manage to penetrate into the mystery, there will always be more mystery. It’s always deeper, it’s always bigger, it’s always wider than our possible imagination at any given moment. But it’s always an invitation. Mystery is kind of an invitation in. It’s not a wall before which we have to give up, but rather, a kind of find the door. Where is that little chink that allows you to peer through and then gradually to open up and find resources and capacities in yourself to take a little step or to put the horizon a little further away?
You know, it’s like when you have a horizon around you; it’s given by how high up you are on the earth. I think the contemplative dimensions of life help us do that, to say there are capacities or points of view or places we can put ourselves that allow us to engage the world more broadly, more widely, see further. And it doesn’t take anything away from the world because there’s always another horizon. There’s always a further distance.
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Hear hear!
Number 2 starts, without saying “Number Two”: Now, the scientist in me says no, that some thing is not right with that, that interpretation of mystery. It’s too easy.
Keep in mind this is a transcript of people talking to each other, not written prose.
I can see you are being so transcendent that you are ignoring my crap metaphor.
I know, I know. I have no sophistication in discourse.
Mystery is good. Especially when it keeps people from learning how to split the atom. Oops, too late.
No, I caught it. Hope everything came out all right, with minimal splash like an olympic diver.
LOL! (You know I was kidding about the whole thing.)
Just channeling my dad for a minute there.
I’m feeling a little edgey this morning. I woke up from a nightmare that I was having my toenails yanked out by the actor that played the Mayor of Tijuana in the Showtime series Weeds. A little later I was keeping the cats away from a stunned bird that flew into our backdoor. It finally came around and flew away. More coffee, a big number 2, shower, and I’ll get my wings flapping again.
According to Zajonc: Number one, mystery can sometimes be used as a way of deflecting real inquiry. To say, well, we just have to resign ourselves to the mystery.
He never listed a number two.
Now as I retire to MY excremeditation chambers, I will contemplate what number two may be.
On second thought, it might be better if I “resign myself to the mystery” instead.