• spirituality is simply
  • the process of exploring the mysteries of the self and the universe, and
  • believing that there is more to life than material survival,
  • even if we don’t know what.
  • If the material world is what we can observe with our five physical senses,
  • the spiritual world is everything else.

date: Aug. 23, 2023

comment

• Tom'w working definition is similiar to neuroscientist David Eangleman's definition of possibilian and possibilianism

• David Eagleman's Possibilian website:
  • https://hyp.is/go?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.possibilian.com%2F&group=world

• both
  • the idiosyncratic claims of traditional theism and
  • the positions of certainty in atheism
• in favor of a middle, exploratory ground.
• The term was first defined by neuroscientist David Eagleman in relation to his book of fiction Sum.
• Asked whether he was an atheist or a religious person on a National Public Radio interview in 2009, he replied
• quote
  • I call myself a Possibilian: I'm open to ideas that we don't have any way of testing right now.
• end quote
• In an interview with the New York Times, he expanded upon this:
• quote
  • Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet
  • we know too much to commit to a particular religion.
  • A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story
    • (say, a man with a beard on a cloud) is true or not true.
  • But with Possibilianism I'm hoping to define a new position
    • one that emphasizes the exploration of new, unconsidered possibilities.
  • Possibilianism is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind;
  • it is not interested in committing to any particular story.
• end quote