Introduction "Science" can be described simply as a rational,
orderly, and consistent way of investigating an
experimental question. Scientific methods can be
applied in several areas.
There are three domains of science:
1. "Hard" science employs data collection instrumentation
that yields replicatable results with the intention of being operator
independent. An example would be X-ray diffraction analysis of
crystals.
2. "Soft" science uses a rational and orderly
approach to assessing experimental questions which are inherently
less objective than "hard" sciences. It may use tools such as
questionnaires in the field of psychology, or applied kinesiology
muscle testing in the natural healing arts.
3. "Spiritual" science is an approach to orderly
thinking thoroughly explored by German philosopher, Rudolf Steiner.
Ph.D.(1861-1925), who wrote more about the subject than perhaps
anyone else.
Steiner always asserted that modern scientific methodology and spiritual
subject matter are completely compatible. He believed, however,
that material scientists should be grounded in spiritual science
to be guided in truth. He wrote:
"Individual scientists have long recognized certain
limitations - the speech [given by Du Bois-Reymond of Leipzig
ending] with the admission ‘ignorabimus', `we shall never
know', has become famous. This eminent scientist meant by this
that however much we may investigate the mysteries of nature with
the methods of [hard] science, we shall never ultimately be able
to discover what lives in the human soul as consciousness or understand
what lies at the foundation of matter. It could be said that natural
science has forced man as a spiritual being out of the picture
of the world that it is building up."
Dr. Steiner gave us fascinating insights into human "knowing" of
truth and how it relates to receiving input from a base of knowledge
that exists as part of what he called the "supersensible world"
and what we might now call our multidimensional universe.
He believed that we natively participate in a spiritual world through
the concepts we inherently know, and that those concepts are not
derived from sense experience. The idea of a straight line does
not come from the physical world. We are able to recognize straight
things because the idea, a non-physical thing, lives within us.
Concepts do not come from seeing the physical world but from an
'inner seeing.' Steiner calls this kind of perception, as distinct
from sense perception, intuition.
With concepts we are intuitively in touch with a supersensory world.
It is true that when we perceive sensible objects our senses provide
input from the sensible world, but it is the concept that allows
us to know what we are seeing. Our activity, which usually goes
unnoticed, consists in the addition of the concept. This we generally
call thinking. (Adapted and abridged from James Hindes' writing
on Rudolf Steiner.) |