Ask HN: Understanding spirituality for an introverted skeptic scientist

You are describing a person you are attracted to who's worldview is very different from your own. So you want to understand it. There is no book written that will explain her beliefs, you have to ask, listen and reflect, then ask some more.

In my experience labels such as spiritual or skeptical obscure more than they illuminate. They are a tool in the ongoing exercise of identity construction, itself an effort to define ourselves that is often strikingly counter factual.

Enjoy her company and observe yourself as much as you observe her. The more important question is: I have fallen for a woman who is not attracted to me and I will settle for friends. What is going on inside me that makes that ok?

>there is no book written that will explain her beliefs, you have to ask, listen and reflect, then ask some more.

I would bet money she has a bookshelf full of them. New age and pseudoscience thrive on the grift of merchandise - there's always at least a book.

Welll...yes. a mountain of books equals no book.

It equals more than one book. There not being one and only one specific book doesn't contradict my point - this person's beliefs can still be determined by reading the literature that proscribes them.

"proscribe" means forbid. I suspect you meant "prescribe".

>I would bet money she has a bookshelf full of them.

So many books. Courses. Trinkets.

>I have fallen for a woman who is not attracted to me and I will settle for friends. What is going on inside me that makes that ok?

That's the essential pull quote for me.

>Enjoy her company and observe yourself as much as you observe her. The more important question is: I have fallen for a woman who is not attracted to me and I will settle for friends. What is going on inside me that makes that ok?

Thank you, I greatly appreciate the clarity in this, very helpful to me. As to the quesiton -- I don't fully understand what's happening, and I suspect my mind is convincing me that there are too many hurdles for it to become anything more than friends…and that friends would be better than not.

I recommend books by Neville Goddard. There are some people who recommend these books in HN as well. And some of those you can listen in youtube, and in r/nevillegoddard. Here's a channel that I would like to recommend, r/edwardartsupplyhands and his youtube channel edwardart. The discussions where straight to the point in my opinion and does not monitize his work.

Although I don't believe in those as well, I find it fascinating that they claim that god is your imagination. That means, whatever you imagine in your mind, it will become a reality in your future. If you imagine that you are wealthy, then you'll be wealthy soon. But you have to feel it as if it is true and it will reflect to your reality in the future. According to them, it is most effective when you imagine before you sleep. You can prove their teachings wrong by testing it. There's nothing for you to lose. Then you can share your experience with your partner. You won't believe until you experience it yourself. That would be a great topic for both of you to talk about.

One more thing, the old hacking magazine phrack published a topic about out-of-the body-experience or astral projection[0]. For me, the article is a very intersting read. And it's kinda scary but interesting since a lot of people claim to have experienced it. Plus, there are interesting books about it. Again, you won't believe until you experience it yourself.

I hope this will help improve your relationship. Good luck.

[0] - http://www.phrack.org/archives/issues/64/16.txt

> what I currently view as pseudoscience

Are these claims trying to be scientific in the first place? If not, don't evaluate them as such.

Science (as in scientific method) and truth are orthogonal. I'd start with the problem of induction. Those who are allergic to any non-scientific claims usually consider it to be an uninteresting technicality. Those of us who aren't are more likely to consider it a fundamental limitation.

Let your friend make the case. It's okay if you don't think these beliefs can be proven. If you cannot disprove them or prove that it must be somehow stupid/wrong to entertain an unproven claim, you shouldn't imply otherwise.

I'm not sure what your friend's exact beliefs are. AFAIK new age stuff may like the scientific angle, but even if scientific character is implied, yet the claims aren't scientific in their nature, I'd still say it's more charitable to avoid the charge of pseudoscience.

Sorry; hate to be a pessimist, but you won't find what you're asking for.

You're basically looking to rationalize the irrational. This is an exercise in futility.

Spirituality is science done upside down and backwards.

Spiritual people decide to "believe" and then seek justification and confirmation from other like minded people --- all while ignoring any contradicting info.

Group enough of these folks together into a self reinforcing feedback loop and you have a "cult".

If this could be rationalized, it would be called "science" instead of "spirituality". If "spirituality" could be reasoned with, it would cease to exist. Any such attempt is often viewed as a hostile attack on the individual's self awareness and self esteem and usually ends in rejection.

I'm relieved humanity has made it this far with all those pesky spiritual people who have gone before.

And likewise, I'm relieved humanity has made it this far with all those pesky non-spiritual people who have gone before.

Most surveys done on this have shown the pesky non-spiritual to be *the* single most hated minority group in the USA. And by extension, it must at least imply that the spiritual majority are an intolerant/hateful bunch. Which certainly would tend to logically explain a lot of our history.

One of my best friends is a scientist and like yourself makes many generalisations. I find this ironic as he likes to see himself on the side of fact.

I do not hate non-spritual people. I am surrounded by spiritual people and can't think of any I would say this is true.

Having a faith is not irrational. As I get older I become more aware of all the great people who have gone before you and I and how short our own life will be. I am glad therefore that my view of the world does not only come from the echo chamber of my mind. Faith is one area where we can not control by ourselves. We lean on a power greater than our own understanding, which many brilliant people have done for thousands of years.

>You're basically looking to rationalize the irrational. This is an exercise in futility.

I think this is a broadly fair assessment at a base level, but I hadn't considered it as such until you said it.

I know one person who wrestles with the fact they and their long-term partner have adopted different world views. Faith, no faith. I know another person who broke off a new relationship based on faith, no faith. I would advise not be afraid to share your views in a kind manner. As to pursuing relationship, I think the op doth protest too much, methinks.

>As to pursuing relationship, I think the op doth protest too much, methinks.

I think it's more a pragmatic / realist stance, she has her (physical traits) type, and I'm the opposite in every way.

If you are an atheist rather than an anti-theist, which many atheists today feel they need to be, you should be OK. I have experience of this and the key is each respecting the others views, being open minded and not getting into debate.

...not getting into debate.

Pretending you don't see the elephant in the room may work on a superficial level ... but it is somewhat deceptive and dishonest.

Such pretense is not what I would call a solid basis for a deep or lasting relationship.

Only an elephant if that's how you see it. In that case I agree.

Unfortunately, a "relationship" is not just about "how you see it".

Maybe not quite what your looking for, but I found reading Simone Veil's writing on spirituality gave me a bit more ability to rationalize why other people might need it.

So there's a funny thing I've noticed as I've gotten more and more into more advanced mathematics: I've gotten a little sloppy with the actual proper definitions of things as I've become better able to mentally 'visualize' how some object transforms into something else. "Vibe"-based mental techniques, I guess.

E.g. I will be able to recognize patterns like "aha! (something) -> (something) is just the (something) of the (something)s of the set of (somethings)!" But, while the "form" of the intuition is correct, the actual 'truth' will be like the exact polar opposite. For example like let's say I mistakenly call something a "lower bound" when I really mean "the least upper bound." It's like creating a beautiful painting exactly how you envisioned it, but then after the fact, you realized you swapped all the blue with all the red. The structure is the same, but the meaning is flipped.

In some sense we are the product of our life experience. I've found that when people say something spiritual, it is best to view it like a beautiful painting where you read into the structure of it rather than the colors. Because it conveys the structure of the life that they have lived, condensed from the data of their entirety of experience.

Let's take the law of attraction as an example. Do you believe they are saying something like:

    internal mental desire for an object is like a Noetherian current that is conserved, so that the universe has no recourse but to give you what you want

?

Or is it more like,

    "Even though the full model structure of 

    p(get X|focus on X frequently, want X)

    is fully beyond my articulation, I have seen that the Bayes update of 

    p(get X|focus on X frequently, want X)

    appears far greater than just 

    p(get X|want X)

?

In general, society doesn't really train us to probe what people mean (instead we recognize out-group people we disagree with as in-group capital exacted at the time of the in-group/out-group showdown), and instead take their word at its least charitable face value, and this is the source of nearly all communication troubles. Not to say that you are doing this - and I commend you for trying to be non-judgmental.

ps:

There's a funny (and fabricated) story about Niels Bohr (turns out it wasn't about him and the origin was about the opposite conclusion..[0] :^) ):

> Above Professor Niels Bohr’s door hangs a horseshoe. The world-famous atomic expert was recently asked if he really believed that it brought him luck. “No,” said Bohr, “of course I don’t believe it—but I’ve sometimes noticed that it works even when you don’t believe in it!”

[0] https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/8387/is-the-anecdote...