Sad to hear of your health issues,
@Neri . Nothing demonstrates our connection to the physical like a sick body trying to power a busy brain.
I also used the word ‘paradigm’ in this thread, and have wondered at the word’s broader usages. I don’t pretend to have any authority for a definition, but maybe it would make sense if I define my own usage. Please don’t think I’m talking down to anyone, I’m efforting to be precise in my own mind.
When I am refining my paradigm, it is intended to be universal; that is my whole purpose in assembling it in the first place. Because, if lines A and B are truly parallel right in front of me, then they will still be separated by that precise distance beyond my eyes’ perception. If one’s global paradigm is correct, you can go to different vantage points along these rays and collect the same measurement. If you find a different measurement, it’s back to the drawing board.
But, as
@Neri would remind us, word meanings change over time. When I hear the word used now, it often seems a noun for a framework with only local applicability. To me, the concept of a ‘local paradigm’ is useless and self-defeating. I get that a real estate developer might find it useful to speak of the paradigm of her proposed Richie Village, upon which paradigm hangs all the architecture and layout. Sure.
But the person trying to make sense of an unimaginably complex universe has little use for a local paradigm; they need an understanding which applies to both ends of the universe. (See what I did there?). The other-minded ontologist is destined for the mires.
Back to the present conversation…
This is why I prefer the spiritually oriented approach. As such, I am free to consider and adopt any scientific data I collect, because the spiritual reasoner does not discount the validity of scientific evidence, has no reason or obligation to do so.
Meanwhile, the scientific observer is beholden to his creed to accept only scientifically validated evidence, thereby forfeiting the benefit of strictly spiritually discerned evidence. Therefore, the spiritual approach encompasses a far broader range of information than the scientific. So, the strict scientist is important and to be commended for virtuous discipline, but one wouldn’t turn to him for a full bodied understanding of a universe composed of both spiritual and scientific elements.
All of this might be profitably considered when about to betray condescending thoughts about how the spiritual person is ‘satisfied’ or willing to ‘settle’ for what might be considered an inferior dataset. Because that attitude is born of a woefully incomplete data set.
But some people don’t have whatever it takes to free themselves from the strictly scientific approach, and I don’t have a problem with that. Just as every driver must pilot their own vehicle, each seeker has to operate within their own paradigm. I, personally, have no bone to pick with the guy actually driving the speed limit on the freeway… as long as he stays in the slow lane and doesn’t flip me off for blowing by him in the fast lane.
See what I did in that last paragraph there? Maybe one single reader will read it and understand what the objective spiritual seeker endures regularly from the scientific crowd. ‘No, no; we fully respect your right to be less than you could be.’ While my pleasant sparring partner earlier in the thread betrayed a less-than attitude towards spiritual understanding, I enjoyed sharpening blades with him because I didn’t sense that sort of personal judgment.
‘Wait!’ I hear you cry. ‘Did that guy just use the words ‘objective’ and ‘spiritual’ in the same phrase? Call the logic guards and word police!’
This was the point I was trying to make to
@tazz . One can do both, and chew gum at the same time. As a Christian, I constantly hear garbage doctrine (in my personal parlance, that means there is no way it is consistent with the Bible) from some excited seeker; unfortunately, that’s part of the Protestant landscape. As a teaching elder, it sometimes fell to me to disabuse the congregant of their confusion… meaning, I have experience dealing with the breached-dam excitement often associated with ‘new’ heresies. It’s even more trying than discussing politics with a first-year polisci student. I understand that this phenomenon is Not restricted to spiritual thinkers, and one cannot currently turn on the TV without seeing people all in an ecstatic rage over something of which they demonstrate no understanding. Those people were raised in a world enamored of the scientific paradigm, overwhelmed by emotion. Many scientists, likewise, have allowed their social instincts to manhandle their reason.
All of which is to say that humans, in my estimation, do not typically strive to assemble a global paradigm, rather settle for localized understandings which help them get through the day. The spiritual investigation is by no means haphazard, and properly strives after an understanding that encompasses both the physical and spiritual realms. Because, after all, there’s only one universe and its physical and spiritual aspects are inextricably linked.
