A philosopher and a monk's journey is a journey inside... to explore the self,..... and a scientist's journey is a journey outside... to explore the Nature.... To me, to be really yourself means, to travel like a wave, to go outside now, and to be inside then...and keep going...
It is really interesting (even funny), that how definitions create limits, which doesn't fit with "reality". For example, Noam Chomsky in his interview, Science, Religion and Human Nature, defines "irrationality" as, " The ability to have two contradictory ideas in mind, at same time and live by it. This is the peak of irrationality". Well, with this definition, I don't see any rational person as to me, irrespective of what people say about what they believe in, and what they don't, practically, they live by "utilitarian rationality".
In practice, people don't care about the duality of mind/body or trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, but instead are concerned with what works best. Just take example of physical well being, modern medicine is popular among atheist and theist. The same is true about yoga. Despite of increasing popularity of evolutionary biology, we don't see the popularity of paleolithic diet on other hand. To further the case for living with multiples ideas at same time, people still turn to religion and philosophy for meaning of life. Although, Philosophy has lost its central place in the quest for truth, but it is still looked upon as source guide for meaning of life, beside religion. And, psychology has still a fear-factor attached to it, though positive psychology is appealing for bright side of psychological studies.
It is really interesting (even funny), that how definitions create limits, which doesn't fit with "reality". For example, Noam Chomsky in his interview, Science, Religion and Human Nature, defines "irrationality" as, " The ability to have two contradictory ideas in mind, at same time and live by it. This is the peak of irrationality". Well, with this definition, I don't see any rational person as to me, irrespective of what people say about what they believe in, and what they don't, practically, they live by "utilitarian rationality".
In practice, people don't care about the duality of mind/body or trichotomy of body, soul and spirit, but instead are concerned with what works best. Just take example of physical well being, modern medicine is popular among atheist and theist. The same is true about yoga. Despite of increasing popularity of evolutionary biology, we don't see the popularity of paleolithic diet on other hand. To further the case for living with multiples ideas at same time, people still turn to religion and philosophy for meaning of life. Although, Philosophy has lost its central place in the quest for truth, but it is still looked upon as source guide for meaning of life, beside religion. And, psychology has still a fear-factor attached to it, though positive psychology is appealing for bright side of psychological studies.
In fact, just like duality of mind and body, we now have duality of perspectives on what it means to be human. For several thousands of years, it was human perspective in the form of the religion and philosophy to look and understand humans through. So, it was all about human contemplation on condition. Humankind was the ultimate purpose of universe. But, by coming of evolutionary biology, we got "Nature's Perspective" on what it means to be human. Humans are just another species of primates, "Homo sapiens sapiens", not the purpose of universe. The appearance of Man is just the result of chances that were favored by Natural Selection. And, this is the extrospective perspective of Humans. Now, if we have an introspective and extrospective perspectives of Humans at same time, and live by it both for practical reasons and as our shared culture, does it mean, we are highly irrational?
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