Beauty At Work
Beauty at Work expands our understanding of beauty: what it is, how it works, and why it matters. Sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan interviews scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders across diverse fields to reveal new insights into how beauty shapes our brains, behaviors, organizations, and societies--for good and for ill. Learn how to harness the power of beauty in your life and work, while avoiding its pitfalls.
Beauty At Work
Yearning for Transcendence with Dr. Alan Lightman (Part 2 of 2)
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In this episode, sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan interviews MIT Physicist Dr. Alan Lightman about his spiritual materialism.
Alan Lightman is an American physicist, writer, and social entrepreneur. He holds a PhD in physics from Caltech. He has served on the faculties of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the first person at MIT to receive dual faculty appointments in science and in the humanities. He is currently professor of the practice of the humanities at MIT. Lightman is the recipient of six honorary doctoral degrees. He is the author of numerous books, both nonfiction and fiction, including Einstein’s Dreams, an international bestseller, and The Diagnosis, a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. His essays concern the intersection of science, culture, philosophy, and theology. Lightman is the host of the public television series “SEARCHING: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science,” funded by the John Templeton Foundation. In 2005, Lightman founded Harpswell, a nonprofit organization devoted to empowering young women leaders in Southeast Asia, and he has served as chair of its board. In August 2023, Lightman was appointed a member of the United Nations’ Scientific Advisory Board. His latest book is The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science (2023).
In this second part of our conversation, we talk about:
- The limits of scientific inquiry
- How to interpret spiritual experiences
- The concept of creative transcendence
- Why spirituality matters for us all
- Alan's humanitarian work
To learn more about Alan and his work:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-lightman-6bb7191b6
- Website: https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/
- Email: lightman@mit.edu
- Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APY6Q4
- Scientific Publications: https://cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/#SCIENTIFIC%20PUBLICATIONS
- Harpswell Organization: https://harpswell.org/
This episode is sponsored by:
- John Templeton Foundation (https://www.templeton.org/) and
- Templeton Religion Trust (https://templetonreligiontrust.org/)
Just the awareness that these transcendent moments or these spiritual experiences, that they're important, they're important to being human, they're important to our creative life, they're I would say they're important to our intellectual life as well. The realization that we need to make time for them. We need to make space in our life for these experiences. I would you know offer that suggestion to both religious people and non-religious people. Um, religious people already have a strong foundation for their spirituality, that is their belief in God. But I I think you could believe in God and still not be open to these experiences. I mean, part of it is an understanding that the world is moving too fast these days, and that we really need to make time, make space for these experiences.
SPEAKER_01I'm Brandon Vidinathan, and this is Beauty at Work, the podcast that seeks to expand our understanding of beauty, what it is, how it works, and why it matters for the work we do. This season of the podcast is sponsored by John Templeton Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust. Hey everyone, this is the second half of my conversation with MIT physicist and writer Alan Leitman. Please check out the first half if you haven't already. In the first part of our conversation, we talked about Alan's views on the role of beauty in science and why he called himself a spiritual materialist. In this episode, we'll hear more about the questions that science cannot answer and why spirituality should matter to us, whether we're religious or not. Let's get started.
SPEAKER_00Well, you mentioned the word gratitude. And I know that that's very important in Buddhism, and it may be important in Hinduism as well. I'm more familiar with Buddhism. But I think that we don't show enough gratitude. And somehow I think Darshan is connected to gratitude. That we're just we're thankful for being alive at all. I mean, we're very privileged to be alive at all in the universe. The fraction of matter in the universe that's in living form is one billionth of one billionth. That's like a few grains of sand on the Gobi Desert. Right. So we we have a particular arrangement of atoms in our bodies that that make us alive, and we're very privileged for that position. And and conscious and intelligent life is even more rare. We we living beings, and especially we intelligent living beings, are the only way that the universe can comment on itself. We are the observers, the spectators, and so there's both an obligation there and a sense of gratitude. And somehow I think that that sense of gratitude is connected to being open to the world around us and being open to other people. Um I don't think we show enough gratitude to other people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think that's that's that's true. It's just another yeah, another practice I think that's that's it's it's traditionally a spiritual practice to cultivate, right, is gratitude. I want to share uh, you know, a story. I mean, I sent you I sent you this little quote from another uh biologist we interviewed, and and her story reminded me a bit of uh your experience on the boat. She says this is a UK biologist who we talked to. So I was on a boat and there was bioluminescence across the whole ocean, and then when you were swimming in the water, your whole body glowed, and the fish around you would also glow the moment they moved. And then there were dolphins at one point and they crossed and you could just see everything through light, and that sense of understanding that all of these little glowing lights are individual organisms that are glowing for their own reasons, and actually that connects us all of us, and that was a profound experience of real emotional connection. It was very touching. Then there's that sense of I'm just this swirling part of this glowing tapestry. And that's where I would say I felt spiritual. I wouldn't say it felt that way because I felt a stronger sense of connection to a higher power or God or gods. I think for me, I suppose it felt spiritual just in that sense of being connected and being part of that whole tapestry of being, and being small in that moment, and an insignificant part of that tapestry of being, right? So these experiences of awe, of the sublime, of vastness, of being pulled out of yourself, but also of being connected, of being united. And the philosopher Charles Taylor argues that this is a universal human need. He says that this kind of cosmic connection is not simply any mode of awareness of the surrounding world, but one shot through with joy and significance and inspiration. And this is a human constant felt at least by some people in all ages across human history. I'd like to believe it's a human constant, and then that's human universal, but we talked to a number of scientists who said, look, I I don't even know what you mean by connection. I don't think I've experienced anything like it. And I'm curious to know what you think of that. Are are are some people incapable of it or just don't know how to attend to it, or or does it need practice? Or why would some people say, like that none of this makes sense to me? We would share some vignettes and examples with them. We shared your example of being on the boat, and they're like, I've never experienced anything like that. I don't even know what it would feel like to have that experience. So I'm just curious to know what you think.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think that all of us have experiences of connection, but we may not name it that. I think there are other transcendent experiences that that are common, like uh being present at the birth of a of a baby, especially if it's your baby. That that is a profound feeling, and uh you can call it connection or you you might call it something else, but it's certainly a a very profound emotional feeling of being s part of something larger than yourself. I think that that people that that all of us have gone out on a clear night and looked up at the sky, at the stars. And I would guess that most people feel something when they do that, whether they describe it as a connection or not, I think they're feeling something large there. These people that you talked to that said they didn't know they didn't experience anything like what I felt being on the boat or like the biologists felt with the bioluminescence. I think that if you if you had a a longer conversation with them and probe more deeply, you might find that they did have experiences that were were not unlike those. And they may not have have labeled them that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I suppose yeah, it's part of the the limits of a you know one hour or hour and a half long interview, there's only so much. And without without the you know, some people are much more comfortable being open with other with you know strange sociologists intervening in their lives, and you know, others others are not, or have the language. What about falling in love?
SPEAKER_00I mean, almost all of us have fallen in love, and we know that feeling of becoming part of someone else, where for a while your ego dissolves and you and you just feel like that other person is is your world or part of your world. You know, that also is not unrelated to what we're talking about. So I do think that if you had talked longer with these people and your guests and brought up other kinds of of situations, like falling in love or watching the birth of a baby or something, or or going outside and look up at the sky that that you might have found a resonance somewhere.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. No, you're I think you're right. Yeah, it's hard to know what that would be. And even with falling in love, I know some people like to reduce it just to, well, that's just a chemical, you know, feelings and you trivialize it, right? But there's got to be something that people find significant.
SPEAKER_00I'd like to talk to one of those people who says there's just a chemical.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we were surprised at some of the people we talked to, and then I don't know if they were just being ornery or defensive or you know. So the other piece of pushback we got was like, why spirituality, right? And which perhaps I could ask you, because there are there are both scientists and even some social scientists we talk to who think we're trying to be too expansive in extending the scope of spirituality to this this sort of secular spirituality, right? So it's got part of the problem is okay, it's got some baggage. If you say spirituality, people think it's all woo-woo, mysticism. Well, that's that's the problem.
SPEAKER_00The word spirituality has a bad rep. But in terms of why spirituality, I mean, look at a lot of our art that is inspired by something, it might not be by a divine being, but it's certainly inspired. Look at the the Crow Magnon paintings in the in the caves of of France that that are 30,000 years old, that have a very strong aesthetic to them. Look at some of the buildings that we build, our cathedrals. I think that that whatever you call it, that there's something there that is operating at an emotional level that is part of being human, it's part of our achievements, it's it's part of us. You know, we're not just all rational beings, we're emotional beings as well. I think it would be hard for you to find a guest to interview on your program who didn't have an emotional life of some kind or other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01So I suppose that you know, so so some of the social scientists we would talk to would say, why not just call it emotions or call it awe or call it um, you know, human desires for things of higher value?
SPEAKER_00Why use the word spirit, spiritual or spirituality, which is associated with uh ontological I've used the word spirituality myself, and you have, and many other people have, but it's not the word itself. I I do understand that some people have a negative reaction to that word because they associate it with organized religion and with required belief in God and and all of that. So I I think that that we have that's why we have to define what we mean by that word. In other words, I mean I've I've given a lot of lectures, public lectures, during the Q ⁇ A. People ask me, do you believe in God? And the first thing I say is, tell me what you mean by God. Right. You know, we use these words, uh, but some of them, you know, are very complicated and have many layers of meaning, and you really have to t to define what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I wanted to ask you whether spirituality in the sense in which you mean it is always positive. It I I was I was reading a largely positive valence, but can it ever be negative? Because certainly in the context of religion, there's there's spiritual abuse or or you know, spirituality for the sake of dominating others, spiritual cults, right? And can this kind of spiritual materialism have a dark side in any way?
SPEAKER_00Well, I suppose it could. I mean I've all of the experiences that that I personally have had that I associate with spirituality are positive. But I suppose that if a person had a concept of spirituality that included indoctrination or something equivalent to the the crusades um certainly a you know forced religion. I don't know exactly how you would say that. And I I do respect religious beliefs of all kinds, but religion has done a lot of good things and also a lot of bad things in the history of of humans, and so has science. So it depends it depends how you use it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And because I suppose there are spiritual cults that are, you know, maybe not not theistic, but but they certainly have once you have a charismatic leader and once you have people who follow that leader and you know a str a structure around it, or even beliefs that could be misleading, perhaps, right?
SPEAKER_00That maybe Yeah. I mean, I I think that cults in general uh they probably have more potential for darkness than light. I'm wary of cults of all kinds.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Which I define as just sort of a a blind commitment to a person or an idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um I really enjoyed your your PBS documentary, and and there was um a section there where you know you you you go into the fmri machine with your colleague there in his lab, and once you look at the neural correlates of your of your experience on the boat, perhaps you're not satisfied. You know, there's something there's something that's dissatisfying around it. And then you ask your rabbi what are questions that science cannot answer for you, and I'd like to ask you that question. Why you were dissatisfied with the explanation that neuroscience can offer, and then are there questions that science can't answer for you?
SPEAKER_00Well, I was dissatisfied with the explanation of the neuroscientist, whose name is Robert Decimon. Of course, he was speaking for neuroscience in general. I was dissatisfied because I didn't think that the that all of the factual information about how much electrical current was flowing through different parts of my brain, I didn't think that that captured the feeling that I had. And um that gets you know to the question of consciousness, because consciousness is the fundamental mental sensation, and we still don't understand exactly how consciousness arises from the material brain. And being a materialist, I don't think there's any supernatural element of consciousness. I think that it somehow arises from the chemical and electrical behavior of of neurons in the brain. But how we get from that material basis to the sensation of consciousness, the feeling that we're separate entities in the world, that we have a self-awareness and that we can plan for the future and all the other attributes of consciousness. I don't think that we we don't yet know how to get from the material neurons to that uh experience that we call consciousness. So I don't know whether science will be able to explain the feeling the feelings that we have or the experience of consciousness, even though I think almost all scientists agree that the mind and the brain are the same thing. That everything that we think and feel and experience is is rooted in the material neurons of the brain. But it may be that the tools of science are not appropriate for capturing or describing that sensation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I suppose they're also inappropriate for questions of of meaning, right? And and the a lot of the kinds of things that you describe as spiritual, even my say your relationship with your spouse. I mean, that there's it would be kind of absurd to describe that in scientific terms.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah. I I I mean there are plenty of interesting questions that lie outside the domain of science. Um, as you say, meaning there are ethical questions like is it ethical to kill an enemy soldier in time of war? Is it ethical to to kill someone who is entering your house with a gun is threatening your family? There are lots of ethical questions of that nature. Also, I I'm not sure that science is the appropriate tool for questions of aesthetics. You know, why is this Rembrandt painting so beautiful? Or why does this symphony haunt me? So again, I think that the the aesthetic experience that that we have is is rooted in the brain, but I don't think that that science is the right tool for for trying to understand it or describe it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean one one of the other ways in which you know it seems that science is maybe inappropriately used is in trying to render accounts of the non-existence of God, right? Or or to dismiss the the God question. And some might argue that if a certain kind of God exists that is a presence that has a personality, uh, then the appropriate mode of encounter or of knowledge would be to attempt an encounter, right? To attempt something like a conversation. I'm curious to know what what you think of that.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I think you're what you said is absolutely right, that science cannot disprove the existence of God. And of course, there's some prominent scientists who have attempted to to do that. But on the other hand, I I believe that religion or theology cannot prove the existence of God. That we have to take the existence of God as a matter of faith.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I'm curious to know what you think about experience and particularly, you know, the kind of the idea that that if there is some some kind of entity that one could have a relationship with, then the right way of engaging or gaining knowledge about that entity is to attempt, you know, some kind of conversation. I wonder if that's that's something you've ever tried, or I don't know if you've ever tried, you know, childhood or well, there are many people who believe they have had those conversations. Yeah. Yeah, I have myself, I think, you know, and that's that because I came I came back to some kind of faith in God uh in my my teenage years, and and it was partly through a surprising response to an experiment of this sort, which I didn't, you know, I didn't expect.
SPEAKER_00I respect that. But of course, you know, having a conversation with a being that you believe exists, uh I think is perfectly fine. I mean, it's it makes sense. It's it's reasonable. But I I do know that it's not only the prophets that have had these conversations with God, that there are many people living today, maybe including yourself, who have had such conversations and feel that there was some being on the other end that was holding up their end of the conversation.
SPEAKER_01Right. Yeah. And I suppose it's always a challenge to know, like, it was this, you know, are you are you fooling yourself? Or are you, you know, like how do you know this is a legitimate interpretation of what's going on, right? And I wanted to ask you to share your encounter with the ospreys, because I I have a question around interpretation that comes out of that. Would you mind sharing that that encounter?
SPEAKER_00Yes. Well, this also takes place in Maine. For many years, there has been an osprey nest a couple hundred feet from our house on the island. And uh my wife and I watch the life cycles of the ospreys, you know, from the laying of the eggs to the hatching to the growing up of the babies. And one summer I had been very carefully watching the two baby ospreys as they were growing up over the summer. I was watching from a second story circular deck on my house, and I was about eye level with the nest. The adolescent ospreys were looking at me as I was looking at them all summer long before they took their first flight. And uh an osprey has to be a couple of months old before it's strong enough to take its first flight. And I imagine that to those ospreys, it looked like I was standing in my nest because it was a circular deck, so that we had been looking at each other all summer long. And then finally the the moment came in early to mid-August when they when these two baby ospreys took their first maiden flight. So this is the first time that they left the nest since they were born. And they did this very large loop out over the ocean, and then turned around and swooped around and came right at me. And I was s standing on this deck looking at them, and they were coming at me out. Now an adolescent osprey is a fearsome beast, right? They're large birds and they have very powerful claws, and these birds could have ripped my face off if they'd wanted to. So my my first instinct was to to run back into the house and protect myself. Instead I just stood there and the birds came at me at great speed, and when they were about twenty feet away, very close, they suddenly did my high G acceleration upward and went up and over the roof of the house. But for about one second before they did that high acceleration maneuver, we looked each other in the eye. They looked at me in the eye, and I looked at them in the eye, and there was a mountain of information that was exchanged between us, a mountain of feeling in that second. I I felt like they were talking to me and they were saying something like, We're brothers, we've we've shared this land together, we've had the same experience, we know each other, and it was a friendly look. And uh after they flew over the house, I realized that I was in tears and I was shaking because it was it was such a a profound experience. I've had dogs and cats as pets, and I've I've never had that kind of communion with an animal, let alone a wild animal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's extraordinary. Um and I I mean I'm I'm convinced that's the right uh way to to interpret it, but if someone were to come along and say, Well, you know, maybe those birds just had poor eyesight and they realized you're not just a a bald squirrel, and they're like, Oh, we can't eat them. Right. Well, because I I I didn't feel that.
SPEAKER_00I mean, of course, I don't know what was in the osprey's brains. And actually birds have much more advanced brains than we think. You know, we call people bird brains to diminish them, but actually the neurons and in the brains of birds are packed very closely together, and so they have a lot of neurons there. So I don't know what's in the birds' brains, but I know what I felt. And no matter what anyone says to me, or whatever alternative explanations they offer, they cannot deny the feeling that I had.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh. But it's but it seems to, yeah, it's it's more than just a feeling because there's also an interpretation there, and it seems like there's an adequacy to that interpretation. There's some some kind of correspondence between between what happened and what you felt, as well as a narrative, an account that actually can render that meaningful and true. No, it seems like there's some kind of a truth claim underlying that.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's an interesting way that you speak of it. I wouldn't make a truth claim. What I would say is that I definitely felt a connection to these birds. I felt that they were talking to me, and I felt that I was connected not only to them, but to nature. That we were together part of nature. I don't know whether one could extend that to a truth claim, but it is a feeling that I have that was hyper-emphasized by that encounter with the Ospreys, a feeling that we're all connected and we are connected not only to other human beings, but connected to nature.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I think that that's a crucial thing for us to recover in an alienated, disenchanted world that we're living in, right? Is is how to build that. Could you talk a little bit about creative transcendent, the concept of the creative transcendent and how how that experience plays itself out in your in your science as well as in your in your writing?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, what I mean by the creative transcendent is that when we are creating something, and it could be writing a poem, it could be, you know, making up a recipe for a new meal that you're cooking in the kitchen, a wide variety of things, we do get into a certain mental state where we lose track of our ego. We lose track of our self and we rise above ourself in some way. And that's what I mean by the creative transcendent, and very briefly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um you made a really compelling argument for for why we should take spirituality seriously. Do you think that the kind of spiritual materialism that you're offering can be helpful in any way to religious believers to perhaps enrich their spiritual quests or journeys? Is there something that it could help enhance in their own practices or pursuits?
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't know. I think just the awareness of these transcendent moments or these spiritual experiences that they're important, they're important to being human, they're important to our creative life, they're I would say they're important to our intellectual life as well. The realization that we need to make time for them. We need to make space in our life for these experiences. I would you know offer that suggestion to both religious people and and non-religious people. Um religious people already have a strong foundation for their spirituality, that is their their belief in God. But I I think you could believe in God and still not be open to these experiences. I mean, part of it is an understanding that the world is moving too fast these days, and that we really need to make time, make space for these experiences. We have to honor them and recognize their importance.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Alan, the season of our podcast is on yearning or longing, and so as we close, I just wanted to ask if there's something that you would say has been a a profound longing or yearning that has driven your work and continues to drive the work you're doing these days.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's an easy one for me to answer, and that is the desire to, in my small way, to make the world a better place. I've led a very privileged, advantaged life. I grew up in an upper middle class family. We had enough money, I had opportunities, and I look around the world and I've traveled a lot, especially to Southeast Asia, and I see many people who have not had those advantages. And I think that all of us who have some kind of privilege have some responsibility to help those who did not have those privileges and those advantages. And that's for me, that's part of doing my bit to make the world a better place.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And and you've you've done a tremendous amount. Um we'll direct our listeners and viewers to your books as well as your PPS series. And is there um anything on the the humanitarian work you're doing in in Cambodia that that uh you'd like to share and we could direct our our audience to?
SPEAKER_00Well, we have a we have a website which is www.harpswell.org. That's H-A-R-P-S-W-E-L-L. And our organization works to help empower young women in Southeast Asia. So we have we have a center in Cambodia and one in Malaysia where we have participants, young women from all the countries of Southeast Asia. And uh that's been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. Yeah. No, it's been it's been great to learn about your work. Um, that's it for my questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add on the themes that we are discussing that we haven't touched on?
SPEAKER_00Well, you've had a great conversation with me, Brandon, and part of that is due to to your own smarts and also a lot of preparation you did for this, which I I thank you for.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh your work is such a delight. It's been it's been so refreshing for me.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, um, let me know when this is broadcast, when it's live.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. We'll do. Thanks again, Alan. It's been such a pleasure. Okay, thanks right then. All right, folks, that's a wrap for this episode. If you enjoyed the episode, please share it with someone who would find it of interest. Also, please subscribe and leave us a review if you haven't already. Thanks and see you next time.