A selection of the best from recent issues of the Philosopher

The Participatory Mind, by Henryk Skolimowski. Arkana. 1994, ISBN 0 14-019479-7 pp395

After all, if the multiverse theory is correct and there are an infinite number of universes in which every possibility is realised, then at least one was planned, constructed and governed by God. Of course, in another random particles collide to produce Plato. Perhaps, in a third universe, Heraclitus whiles away his days constantly paddling in the same river.

In the universe in which this article was written (I make no claims as to where it will be read) sub-atomic particles are described as having charm. Whether creation needs God may be contentious, but it appears to have good manners at least. Relativity and quantum mechanics would seem to conjure speculations to fly out from under the wet blanket of mechanistic materialism before our very eyes. But is it real magic or merely a trick? In Is There A Universe?, Stanley Jaki, Roman Catholic doctor of theology and physics, complains:

"... authors of the first major commentaries on general relativity were wont to sublimate physical reality into worldlines and other abstractions. From there it was but a short and very logical step to speak of the universe as the product of the mind and have thereby the universe disappear in the slippery world of subjectivism if not plain solipsism."

Jaki is intent upon establishing the actuality of the universe. He provides a working critique of the major twentieth century theories on which quasi-mystical speculations and pronouncements have been made. He says, "This world is one, solitary, and complete," and as a committed Catholic he is devoted to the physicality of creation.

The foundation for his world view is Thomas Aquinas, who is instrumental in establishing the principle of the material reality of the universe. Because of this, Man could acquire some understanding of it and thus develop science. It is rare to see religion and science symbiotically linked in this way. No longer must the faithful make pragmatic amendments to their tenets to accommodate the temporal powers and their works. That religious understanding can be informed by science is the expression of a natural relationship. Indeed, Jaki demonstrates how the process is by no means one way. The Thomist proofs for the existence of this universe are founded in concrete material reality, while scientists have speculate to a point where,

"...even stones degenerate into mere ideas in their evermore convoluted utterances."

Christianity in general and the Roman Catholic Church in particular, according to Jaki, established the centrality of materialism as an essential philosophical concept. After all, the Word was made flesh and God became a man in the world. Jaki does not deny the metaphysical, rather he wants a firmer foundation for it. His project is to understand the dialectical relationship between science and religion, to purge,

"...the tyranny with which a so-called scientific thinking imposes total blindness about ontology.... What is really needed is a recovery of the sense of the real from the clutches of rank idealism and blissful endorsements of Platonism as if equations and coordinated systems were the foundation of reality and therefore the creators of the universe itself."

However, the danger lies in substituting appearance for the thing-in-itself. Whereas Jaki sets out to establish a material basis common to religion and science, Henryk Skolimowski, in his book The Participatory Mind, confuses elements of both by trying to blend them. The cover of his book, which is subtitled, "A New Theory of Knowledge and of the Universe", claims a "Grand Theory" and a "new order", promising that by,

"...the end of the twentieth century... modern society will have gone... ...through a profound transformation." 

This state of affairs Skolimowski terms 'Noetic Monism', claiming Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism as its progenitors. This spiritual canon is supplemented by western metaphysicians from Pythagoras to Aquinas to de Chardin. Thus he establishes the context for discussion of Noetic Monism.

Such a broad eclecticism is self-defeating. Whilst it enables a cull of material supportive of the thesis, it is equally possible to take material from the same sources to refute it. Jaki teases out the thread from Aquinas to an argument for a material universe, whereas Skolimowski lumps him into a seemingly antithetical position. The scientific and the not so scientific are placed side by side on an equal footing.

"Different forms of knowledge...are different ways of articulating the cosmos." So, "Extrasensory perception is one form of processing, mathematical equations of quantum physics are another."

This equating actual science with pseudo-science is an consequence of a mystic fallacy, whereby the cosmos becomes a personal construct and each individual creates their own reality.

Even a materialist can appreciate the poetry in the idea that Man is made from the stuff that was once stars. This gives a wholly different slant to ancient religious concepts such as reincarnation and resurrection. However, these are concepts expressed through an actual, objective universe. Each individual may interact with that universe in a subjective way, but that does not deny the external reality of it. As Jaki's work indicates, the mystic fallacy is self-refuting. By removing the objective from Man's subjective perception of the universe, any contention is reduced to a mere fabrication of the moment. Yet, the quasi-mystical reality cannot be more real than the universe in which it is formulated.

Science, through technology, creates a worldwide interchange of ideas. No creed can any longer remain pure. But this has always been the case to some degree. Jaki's Christianity arose at the confluence of Hellenistic, Semitic and Persian philosophies. It was transmitted around the western world through the conduit of the Roman Empire, adopting its organisational forms. For religion to continue to have meaning it must interact with other bodies of knowledge and speculation. In the West, it will have to shed its reliance upon a feudal vocabulary and develop a language expressive of the times. This is not just a matter of substitution: the "King of Kings" is not adequately replaced by "President of Presidents".

There cannot be a retreat from science. Whereas Jaki is prepared to work with it on its own terms, Skolimowski represents it as infinitely malleable, to be shaped as desired.

"Participatory philosophy is the realisation that we create the universe in our own image." 

"...all is a web of dreams, but dreams so tangible and lucid that we cannot distinguish them from reality because they are reality."