Dr Jeffrey Satinover and Rav Michael Laitman |
Dr. Satinover, who represents the perspective of quantum physics, opened the discussion by disagreeing with the link made between quantum theory and spirituality in What the Bleep Do We Know!?
He immediately drew a line between the two worlds - physical and spiritual - saying that while modern quantum theory invites one to spiritual questioning, it cannot say anything about the spiritual realm.
The film encourages people to focus on one of life's fundamental questions: "What is reality?" It also stimulates people to think beyond a commonly accepted scientific worldview; one that treats everything in our world as coming from, in Satinover's words, "a dead, mechanical object." In other words, it is a worldview that considers every living thing to be unfeelingly machine-driven, as if under the control of some super-computer.
We have depended on this outlook to bring us nearly all of our technological and medical advances. Materially, it has brought us nearly everything we rely on in our modern existence. Spiritually, however, it only allows us to imagine some lifeless material-generating machines.
Life beyond the mechanistic worldview
Satinover believes that this has contributed to a common human longing to understand the nature of reality differently. Moreover, this longing, mixed with the tenets of science, can demonstrate to us that there is something to life beyond the mechanistic worldview.
In his viewpoint, quantum theory shows that there is something working beyond mere mechanism, outside the physical world. Furthermore, it is inherent in quantum physics that this "something else," as Satinover emphasized, "cannot be described at all," and it also cannot present us scientifically analyzable characteristics.
This is why Satinover calls quantum physics "a boundary science." It brings us to a boundary where, on the one hand, the material world reveals that there is something beyond it that is not just some dead machine; and on the other hand, quantum theory says that you cannot use scientific methods to decipher what that "something else" is.
The boundary of our own perception
Satinover's talk embodied a man's quest for freedom. Where we humans have freed ourselves from so many boundaries throughout our history, we now seek to free ourselves from a boundary that is inside us - the boundary of our own perception.
At the end of Satinover's talk, this is all we were left with - our perception. Although quantum theory indicates that there is something beyond the physical world, it objects to a scientific investigation into that "something."
Satinover concluded that quantum theory leaves it entirely up to us to make that judgment about what that "something" is.
Therefore, with regard to spiritual conclusions, quantum theory (as Satinover presented it) fails, since it lacks analytical approach to this "something." Quantum theory ends in one's perception, which, as Dr. Laitman went on to clarify, is the place where a Kabbalah student begins.
Dr Laitman talks about kabbalah
Dr. Laitman centered his talk on human perception. Put aside our theories, discoveries and technologies, and you are left with a person, an individual, who perceives reality through five senses.
One can only perceive as far as the senses allow. Although we have expanded the range of our senses with instruments such as microscopes and telescopes, we still feel that something is hidden from us. Whether it is science that brings us to this conclusion, as Satinover discussed, or whether it is just one?s own life; we (for the most part) feel that there is something more that is hidden, and whatever it is, its appeal is growing in our time.
Laitman cited the renowned Kabbalistic text The Zohar as stating that, from the end of the twentieth century onward, the desire to know the forces imperceptible to our five senses will evolve and "the world will begin to feel that the knowledge in the wisdom of Kabbalah is necessary for its very existence."
How does the wisdom of Kabbalah compare to other teachings?
The main difference, Laitman stated, is that while all of our teachings evolve naturally, through our five senses, Kabbalah nurtures a sixth sense. The desire to know what is hidden from the five senses is like the nucleus of the sixth sense, what Laitman defines as "a point in the heart." The wisdom of Kabbalah develops this desire into a sense that can perceive an additional reality that our five senses cannot.
Laitman made the point that this is why Kabbalah is called "the wisdom of the hidden": it discloses the part of reality that is hidden from our five senses. In such a state, one engages in a new reality, experiencing existence outside one's own body, beyond the range of our five senses, and ascends in levels of perception that Laitman called "spiritual worlds."
The Sixth Sense
One who attains the sixth sense, according to Laitman, perceives and researches different worlds - upper, spiritual worlds which complement one another. They become a reality for that person. One is said to lose sensation of time, space, and motion as he or she feels an endless stream of life, independent of the five senses. Since a Kabbalist acquires a different sensation outside the five senses, he or she lives with a different approach to life and to reality.
This view of spirituality that Laitman discussed blended two age-old disparate approaches to reality: the scientific, which relies on research to bring observable, veritable results; and the religious, which relies on the revelation of one or many individuals, and following interpretations of those revelations.
The Kabbalistic method of attaining a sixth sense promises revelation through research where the subject of research is one's own perception.
Satinover's and Laitman's discussions came into contact on the point of everything boiling down to our perception. They also agreed on a spiritual reality existing beyond a certain boundary. Whilst Satinover described quantum theory's inability to analyze beyond this boundary, Laitman first described the boundary - the five senses - then introduced Kabbalah as the area of research which delves into this hidden arena.
Quantum theory expresses something of a limit of enquiry in the five senses, while Kabbalah doesn't deal with the five senses at all, offering instead a method to develop the sixth sense.
So at the end of the discussions, Satinover and Laitman left us with two choices regarding spirituality: either make up your own mind about what it is, or develop another sense and research it.