I recently had a chance for an interesting discussion with two people working at the intersection of science and spirituality: Fr. Robert Marsland III, representing Catholicism, and Pavel Chvykov, representing a number of Eastern approaches he summarizes as Tantra.
Fr. Robert Marsland III is a doctoral candidate in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Italy. Having completed a PhD in Physics (MIT, 2017 with Jeremy England), with subsequent postdoctoral research analyzing complex ecosystems (with Pankaj Mehta at Boston University), he is currently interested in new developments in theoretical biology that shed light on fundamental issues in the theology of creation. See here for more details on his scientific research.
Pavel Chvykov did his Ph.D. in physics at MIT (with Jeremy England) on the theoretical foundations behind origins of life, and worked as an AI Scientist at GM on the econophysics and sociology of AI networks. He’s interested in questions such as: How do structures self-organize in our complex world? Or are we just good at finding subtle patterns in the chaos? He has explored both these possibilities using tools from dynamical systems theory, statistical mechanics, and information theory, as well as experiments with robotic swarms. See this blog post for the meta perspective, this one for discussion on the origins of life, and his research page for more details.
I first met them at this workshop, the “Complexity Science & Contemplative Studies Conference”. I invited them to discuss issues at the boundary of science and spirituality, to explore symmetries and differences between how they both see these fields from their distinct perspectives. My list of topics for our discussion included:
- how do you see the relationship between your spirituality and your science? how do they mesh, what is the role of faith?
- are there specific features of your spiritual traditions that are functionally helpful for scientific progress – not merely compatible with it but that you found actively potentiating of your work?
- If a human population had 100,000 years of living peacefully in accordance to the moral precepts of some religious tradition, but their last day was the same as their first day (in the sense of no new math, physics, medicine), would that be fine or would there, in some sense, be something missing? And if the latter, why is there little to know positive injunction (commandments and such) to spur people on to science and greater understanding – even among religions that do not forbid it, why is there not any pressure for it?
- Is there a useful sense of the word “miracle” and if so, what does it mean to you?
- How do you see the community adjusting to (and your role in) spiritual guidance of new beings – first human cyborgs with sensory/motor substitution (i.e., they live in partially different Umwelts than standard issue humans), and then more radically different hybrids, high-IQ level synthetic beings, etc. – do you embrace the possibility that your flock will get very diverse, and that they too will need spiritual guidance? What will that look like?
- Given the inevitable changes in human embodiments, cognition, and environment of our species long-term (assuming we make it), will there be a need for new spiritual teachings or are the ones we’ve been given enough for us no matter how different we and the world gets?
Here’s the video recording of our discussion:
Some downloadable materials and relevant links:
from Robert Marsland:
- My academic setting: links to relevant people and projects I’m directly affiliated with
- Opus Dei: https://opusdei.org/en/article/message/ (see also a programmatic homily by the founder, explaining this message in terms of “Christian materialism”: https://escriva.org/en/conversaciones/passionately-loving-the-world/)
- Faraday Institute Research Hub on Science as a Contemplative Activity: https://www.faraday.cam.ac.uk/research/project/science-as-a-contemplative-activity/
- Relational Ontology Research, at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross: https://www.relationalontology.org/en/
- Pankaj Mehta’s “manifesto” on theory in biology: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.20506
- Articles on specific topics, published by the INTERS group at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross:
- Miracles https://inters.org/miracle
- Spirit https://inters.org/spirit
- Christ as in some sense an “ingression” of the “mind of the whole” (see especially section III) https://inters.org/jesus-christ-logos
- The official stance of the Catholic Church on the relation between “progress” and spirituality: https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html
- Some essays from his personal substack:
- The specific content of Christian theology (in relation to science): https://walden.substack.com/p/logos-ut-verbum
- Christianity as “interpretive key,” and the specific task of the priest in making this key available (commentary on the last homily of Pope Francis): https://walden.substack.com/p/priesthood-and-apocalypse
From Pavel Chvykov:
- The main site for the CSCSC research community has reflections and recordings from the conference, our core epistemology, research directions, references, and some 10-min contemplative practices from varied traditions.
- Pavel’s personal website and blog.
- Pavel and Fr. Robert conversation comparing Christian and tantric views, using sexuality as a test-case.
Featured image by Midjourney.
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