On the first page of Sex, Ecology, Spirituality (1995) Wilber sets the stage for what is to come by comparing his philosophy to the prevailing scientific outlook.
Wilber continues:
Isn't the proposition of a Kosmic force which magically accomplishes everthything that asks for explanation, as much, if not more, a philosophy of Oops? Of not asking and investigating further? I believe the answer to this question determines one's outlook on life.
As Richard Dawkins has reminded his audience on many public occasions when science and religion are compared, and religious objections to the coldness of science were raised, the question to ask is not "Does it appeal to me?" or "Is it comforting?" but "Is it true?"
To Schelling's burning question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?," there have always been two general answers. The first might be called the philosophy of "oops." The universe just occurs, there is nothing behind it, it's all ultimately accidental or random, it just is, it just happens--oops! The philosophy of oops, no matter how sophisticated and adult it may on occasion appear--its modern names and numbers are legion, from positivism, to scientific materialism, to linguistic analysis to historical materialism, from naturalism to empiricism--always comes down to the same basic answer, "Don't ask."On wonders, isn't the very nature of science to continue to ask and investigate how things have happened and evolved? Wilber continues:
The question itself (Why is anything at all happening? Why am I here?)--the question itself is said to be confused, pathological, nonsensical, or infantile. To stop asking such a silly or confused question is, they all maintain, the mark of maturity, the sign of growing up in this cosmos. I don't think so. I think the "answer" these "modern and mature" disciplines give--namely oops! (and therefore "Don't ask!")--is about as infantile a response as the human condition could possibly offer.Or, is science just saying that it is fine to ask such questions, but that it is not within the competence of science to answer them? Note the strong emotional tone of Wilber's comparison of the two viewpoints. Meyerhoff's psychological analysis of this key passage is illuminating.
Wilber continues:
The other broad answer that has been tendered is that something else is going on: behind the happenstance drama is a deeper or higher or wider pattern, or order, or intelligence.... Something else is going on, something quite other than oops…. This book is about all of that "something other than oops.Throughout his subsequent works, Wilber will refer to that mysterious force that turns atoms into molecules, molecules into cells and cells into organism as Eros. For example, in his recent book Integral Spirituality (2006), giving his current take on neo-Darwinian evolution (and Intelligent Design), Wilber writes:
That drive—Eros by any other name—seems a perfectly realistic conclusion, given the facts of evolution as we understand them. Let's just say there is plenty of room for a Kosmos of Eros.But does Wilber really understand the facts of evolution? First read Lane, "Wilber and the Misunderstanding of Evolution", again Lane,"Wilber on Evolution Revisited", Chamberlain, "Wilber on Evolution" and Falk, "The Age of Wilberius".
Isn't the proposition of a Kosmic force which magically accomplishes everthything that asks for explanation, as much, if not more, a philosophy of Oops? Of not asking and investigating further? I believe the answer to this question determines one's outlook on life.
As Richard Dawkins has reminded his audience on many public occasions when science and religion are compared, and religious objections to the coldness of science were raised, the question to ask is not "Does it appeal to me?" or "Is it comforting?" but "Is it true?"
