by Osman Bakar

Published in: IAIS Journal of Civilisation Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (October 2008), pp. 203-207.

 

A unique and ‘revolutionary’ science symposium was held in Hokkaido, Japan near the city of Sapporo on 24^th-26^th July 2008. Attended by a small group of participants (seven people in all, excluding the moderator specially brought from Australia) comprising of natural and social scientists and philosophers of science, the Hokkaido symposium was hosted by Aleph, Inc. a Japanese company with a core business in organic farming products. Aleph’s CEO and President, Mr. Akio Shoji is a champion of organic farming in Japan since the late 1960s. Mr. Shoji is also personally interested in the main goal of the Symposium, namely to reconsider the foundational assumptions of western science and to replace them, wherever necessary, with new assumptions that are not only sympathetic to the worldviews of non-western sciences but also in greater conformity with the most recent scientific findings especially in physics.

With this goal in mind, the co-conveners of the Symposium, Dr Elisabet Sahtouris, a leading biologist, and Mr. Shoji, had chosen participants that would best represent not only the academic disciplines most needed for the intellectual task at hand but also the major spiritual traditions of the world. The participants have one major thing in common. They are all serious critics of the foundational assumptions of modern western science and they are all eager to see the emergence of a new global science founded on visions of reality that accept consciousness as something more fundamental than matter. I myself have been invited to attend the Symposium as a contemporary Muslim critic of western science and as a representative of Islam’s spiritual and philosophical tradition. The other participants are: Dr Yasuhiko Genku Kimura (Oriental philosophy), Dr William Turner (quantum physics and consciousness), Dr Brian Josephson (physics and consciousness), Dr Manjir Samanta-Laughton (medical science), Dr Enoe Texier (social science), and Dr Elisabet Sahtouris (biology).

In the three-day dialogue, the participants have undertaken a thorough re-examination of the assumptions of western science. The intellectual task demanded of the participants was by no means easy. It requires inter-disciplinary collaborations and a solid philosophical input. Admirably, by the end of the Symposium the small group succeeded in identifying the foundational assumptions that need to be discarded and in coming up with an impressive list of new assumptions of science. The main focus, however, is on the assumptions of biology and physics, the two branches of modern science with worldviews that are considered by the participants to be at greatest odds with the worldviews of many non-western cultures. In particular, the assumptions of these two sciences on the relationship between consciousness and matter are viewed by the participants as “problematic” not only in light of worldviews outside the practice of science but also in light of new discoveries in science.

Dr Turner, an American physicist who has carried out experimental studies of the relationship between matter and consciousness over the last four decades and Dr Sahtouris, a former Darwinian biologist in search of a more holistic view of life have been exceptionally forceful in their rejection of the inherent limitations in the “modern” foundational assumptions of biology and physics. The new list of foundational assumptions, however, needs further reformulation and refinement before these can be presented to the scientific community. This task has yet to be undertaken. The group has resolved to ensure that this particular task will be an important aspect of the on going post-Symposium agenda and programs it seeks to pursue.

Having participated in the Symposium and after being convinced that Muslims eventually will find this newly conceived science to be more congenial to the Islamic scientific world-view than the modern (and post-modern) one, I would like to urge Muslim scientists, scholars, and intellectuals to respond to the “new global science” agenda with great understanding and sympathy. I have long and passionately argued that if there were to be a civilizational renewal in the twenty-first century in terms that are broadly acceptable to the Islamic value system, then the birth of a universal scientific culture of the kind created by Islamic civilization when it was at its best would be absolutely necessary. Science is necessary to the sustainability of human civilization. But it could only be effective in this role if its progress is to be charted on the plane of immutable spiritual and ethical values and if it is founded on principles that are in harmony with the foundational ideas of the other sectors of human civilization. Otherwise, science would lose its true purpose, and become misused and abused, both intellectually and technologically, to the point of weakening spiritual and moral values as embodied in the world’s traditional religions. Those Muslim scholars who have argued for the rebirth of Islamic scientific tradition in the contemporary world have been motivated by the same consideration. Through the re-application of epistemological principles of a different order in science as enunciated in Islamic epistemology they want to stem the tide of the degradation of human life and civilization in our contemporary world.

The birth of a new scientific culture that is in conformity with the Islamic world-view and value system entails the creation of a new synthesis of modern scientific knowledge and traditional scientific principles embodied in the teachings of Islam, especially in its cosmology. Islam has the necessary intellectual resources to help bring this new synthesis into fruition. Exponents of Islamic science in particular have many reasons to support the new global science. One of these would be the common concern with the formulation of new foundational principles of twenty-first century science. No synthesis of traditional and contemporary sciences could take place without a prior re-examination of the foundational principles of the modern sciences. Within the context of the global Muslim ummah, for example, no Islamization of science worthy of the name is possible if no attempt is made to scrutinize the existing foundational principles of the sciences and just leaving them untouched as if these are obvious truths that no longer need to be challenged.

I have participated in the Symposium with the strong conviction that, armed with the intellectual tools furnished by the Islamic scientific tradition and complemented by other intellectual traditions, Muslim scientists and philosophers of science can work together with their counterparts in other cultures and civilizations to lay a veritable epistemological foundation for the new global science. Once this foundation is put in place, serious collaborative works can begin in the direction of creating a new synthesis of the traditional and modern sciences befitting the needs of twenty-first century humanity. As for the cross-cultural collaborative initiative at Hokkaido, it would not be an exaggeration on my part to make the claim that the spirit of Islamic science very much ran through the veins of the Symposium even if the word “Islamic” was rarely mentioned in the course of the discussion.

A rigorous follow-up to the Symposium is obviously necessary. The Symposium itself has unanimously agreed to do a follow-up on several fronts. One of the decisions reached was to spearhead a public relations campaign that would create a greater consciousness, especially among scientists, of the urgent need in the contemporary world for a global science founded on the newly formulated assumptions. Toward that end, the seven-member group will create its own website, conduct a global survey to gauge the opinions of the scientific community concerning the new foundational assumptions, and organize dialogues, seminars and conferences on the theme of the new global science, both nationally and internationally. For the public relations campaign itself, the group needs material, moral and intellectual support from individuals and groups all over the world who are in sympathy with the vision and goals of the new global science. IAIS itself would invite Dr Elisabet Sahtouris, the convenor of the Hokkaido Symposium to come to Malaysia in early December 2008 to deliver several lectures on the new science. As for Aleph, Inc, the co-convenor of the Symposium, whose philosophy of organic farming and agriculture is much in line with the “new scientific worldview,” it is committed to furthering the process begun in July 2008 with a larger symposium in 2009.