Mysticism – Lesson 1

Table of Contents

• The story of the pigeons and jaundice
• Rationality versus conservatism and rationalism
• The difficulty of defining mysticism
• Rationality as a relative concept and game theory
• Science, observation, and presumptions
• Non-observational principles within science and philosophy
• Actualism, informativism, and “theoretical entities”
• The halakhic context: “Do not practice divination” and “do not practice soothsaying”
• A proposed definition: mysticism as inaccessible knowledge and non-objectivity
• Gershom Scholem, Agnon, and intersubjective meaning
• Falsification, science, and Copernicus
• Prophecy and the summit of mysticism
• Mathematics as a branch of philosophy
• Conclusion and open questions

Summary

General overview

The text opens a series on mysticism through a story about “treating” jaundice with pigeons, and from there raises the tension between mysticism, rationality, and science. The speaker rejects the simple identification of mysticism with nonsense or with whatever is false, and also criticizes the “rationalism” of dismissing testimony simply because there is no immediate explanation for it. He examines possible definitions of mysticism as opposed to rationality, science, and observation, and shows that each runs into difficulty, because science and philosophy too contain assumptions and principles that do not derive from direct observation. In the end he proposes a definition in which mysticism is a claim or kind of knowledge that is not accessible to others through a systematic path of proof, reasoning, or shared intuition, and therefore accepting it rests mainly on trust, while emphasizing that mystical claims too can be true or false.

The story of the pigeons and jaundice

The speaker recounts that when he was in yeshiva in Gush, a student came down with jaundice for a long time, and at the hospital a young Haredi “witch” arrived with pigeons that were placed on his navel, and each time a pigeon died, and after a few days the student came back to the yeshiva. The speaker says that at the time the phenomenon was presented as common, and he was told that they even used it at Meir Hospital, though he does not know how well that is established. He brings a report in the name of Rabbi Tau, according to which the treatment is nonsense because the pigeons die for a physiological reason having to do with blockage of an air passage, but the speaker stresses that the actual outcome was that the student returned to yeshiva. He notes that he may come back later to the “law of small numbers” in relation to drawing conclusions from isolated stories.

Rationality versus conservatism and rationalism

The speaker describes how his parents reacted with shock and saw this as a fall into primitive mysticism, and he responds that rationality does not mean rejecting something simply because it is not understood, but rather trying to understand facts and credible testimony. He argues that dismissing testimony because there is currently no explanation for it is anti-rational behavior, and illustrates that if science had operated that way, “we’d still have the science of Adam.” He presents an ideal in which a rational person checks whether the phenomenon is real, tries to reproduce it reliably, and then looks for an explanation and updates his picture of the world accordingly.

The difficulty of defining mysticism

The speaker argues that many people would classify the story of the pigeons as mysticism, but that classification is problematic, because if the phenomenon works and has a scientific explanation, it is not clear why that should stop it from being called mysticism. He emphasizes that mysticism cannot simply mean “anything we don’t have an explanation for,” because mystics also offer explanations, and because scientific understanding changes over time. He describes a common conception of a zero-sum game in which science keeps “taking bites” out of mysticism until it disappears, and clarifies that he himself does not sign on to that statement.

Rationality as a relative concept and game theory

The speaker offers a common definition of rationality as choosing optimal steps to achieve a goal, and shows through examples of a lottery ticket, a utility function, expected value, or saving the cost of a test, that rationality depends on goals and preferences. He argues that even in logical inference, rationality is relative to assumptions, and there is no objective way to determine that a conclusion is “rational” without the context. He distinguishes between rationalism and a kind of rigid rationalistic attitude, and defines the latter as a narrow attachment to categories and a prior dismissal of mystical testimony, whereas rationalism in his sense tries to investigate and understand even unusual things.

Science, observation, and presumptions

The speaker examines a definition of mysticism as the opposite of science or the opposite of observation, and shows that even basic trust in ordinary testimony such as “what time is it” rests on accumulated experience and presumptions about human character, and is not considered mystical. He explains that presumptions are formed even without formal research, through accumulated indirect experience, and compares this to Jewish law and to the legal system. He argues that expanding “science” to include everything ultimately based on experience and observation still does not isolate mysticism very well.

Non-observational principles within science and philosophy

The speaker points out that even in “pure” science there are assumptions that are not products of observation, such as the principle of induction and the principle of causality, and that even a preference for simplicity, like “Occam’s razor,” does not derive directly from the facts. He argues that it is not correct to say that the simpler theory “usually works,” and mentions moves from simpler theories to more complicated ones, such as from Newton to Einstein. He asks whether philosophy is mysticism, and rejects that identification, because philosophy deals with claims that are not settled observationally yet still are not ordinarily perceived as mysticism.

Actualism, informativism, and “theoretical entities”

The speaker describes a position in the philosophy of science identified as actualism/nominalism, according to which what is true in science is only the facts, while generalizations are a convenient tool rather than a claim about the world. He explains that according to this position, belief in the existence of theoretical entities such as gravitational force, a wave function, or a field is a kind of mysticism, whereas using them as methodological metaphors does not require belief in their existence. He notes that scientists in practice are usually informativists and take theories to be claims about the world, and asks whether that makes science into mysticism, warning that such an identification empties the concept of mysticism of content.

The halakhic context: “Do not practice divination” and “do not practice soothsaying”

The speaker states that this conceptual discussion will later appear within Jewish law as well, because there are prohibitions against resorting to mystical practices such as “do not practice divination” and “do not practice soothsaying.” He says that there is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) about the definition of mysticism in Jewish law, and that the same conceptual problems he presents here arise in different approaches.

A proposed definition: mysticism as inaccessible knowledge and non-objectivity

The speaker proposes that a non-mystical claim is one that, even if I did not arrive at it on my own, after it is presented and reasoned through I can follow the path and reach it myself, as in geometry or in accepting the principle of causality as a shared intuition. He defines a mystical claim as a claim that even after it has been stated, I still have no idea why it is true; there is no proof or line of thought that can be followed, and all that remains is trust in the person who said it. He stresses that mysticism is not identical with “false,” but rather with “non-objective” or not accessible by a shared route, and adds that even the mystic himself understands that the way he arrived at the claim is subjective to him and cannot be systematically transmitted to others.

Gershom Scholem, Agnon, and intersubjective meaning

The speaker cites Gershom Scholem in Devarim BeGo, who brings a story from Agnon’s Sefer HaMa’asim about an encounter with a mystic, and argues in Scholem’s name that a significant mystic is someone whose words, carved out of his own subjectivity, become understandable to others in an intersubjective dimension. He says that this creates a bit of a twist in relation to his own definition, because according to his proposal, if many people find it within themselves, then it is no longer mysticism, whereas Gershom Scholem sees that precisely as significant mysticism. He mentions the example of Gurdjieff and students who adopt a “mystical map,” and admits that the boundary is delicate and the question of “universality” cannot be sharply cut.

Falsification, science, and Copernicus

The speaker distinguishes between scientific claims that can be tested by falsification and mystical claims that, in his view, do not stand up to that kind of test, and explains that even in science there are true and false theories and yet they are still science as a category. He discusses Copernicus through the distinction between the “context of discovery” and the “context of justification,” and argues that it does not matter how a theory was born, only whether it stands the test, so even if the source of an idea is a dream, there is no problem if the justification is empirical. He rejects the presentation of Copernicus as going against “what you see with your eyes,” and argues that the older models imposed an ideal of circles, while the move to a better description is not mysticism in the sense of inaccessibility.

Prophecy and the summit of mysticism

The speaker says that prophecy is “the summit of mysticism” and almost a synonym for it, in the sense of an encounter with dimensions of reality that are not accessible to the broader public, so that only someone who trusts the transmitter will accept the claim. He sharpens the point that the criterion is not truth or falsehood, but accessibility and the ability to be convinced in a way that does not depend on trust alone.

Mathematics as a branch of philosophy

The speaker is asked about mathematics and says that it is completely objective, because if you are given assumptions and prove a conclusion, others accept it as well, and he classifies it as a formal branch of philosophy. He adds that the university placement of mathematics under the natural sciences is methodological rather than essential.

Conclusion and open questions

The speaker concludes by saying that the definition he proposed is “the closest” he can get at this stage, but he is not fully satisfied with it, mainly because of the blurry boundaries of intersubjective persuasion. He returns again and again to the point that mysticism can be true or false, and should not be identified with nonsense, and he ends with the blessing, “Shabbat Shalom.”

Okay, let’s begin. The series I want to open today deals with mysticism, and as usual, like in all the series, I’ll start with some discussion—a more general discussion about this concept, about this topic—and afterward we’ll examine or discuss its Torah and halakhic implications, like in all the series we do. So I’ll start with this topic, mysticism, and here there is—maybe I’ll begin, I’ll begin through a story. I’ve already told this a few times; I assume at least some of you know it. When I was in the yeshiva in Gush, there was some guy there who today is a well-known person, and he was sick with jaundice for a long time. For about half a year the thing just wouldn’t go away. He was hospitalized a bit, went back home, but didn’t come to the yeshiva for something like half a year. Now some mutual friend of ours told me that he visited him in the hospital, and some kind of witch showed up there, a young Haredi woman with doves. She put doves on his belly button one after another. Each time she put one on, the dove died; she put on another one, the dove died; and that’s how they died one after another. And after a few days the guy came back to the yeshiva. Meaning, bottom line, this thing works—it worked. At that time also, for some reason lately I hear less about it, but at that time people talked about it quite a lot. Someone once told me that they even used this dove business at Meir Hospital to treat people with jaundice. I don’t know how well established that is; someone once told me that. In any case, it was a fairly common story around that time, or a little afterward. So that was again the first time I’d heard about it, but afterward it turned out that it was probably very common. There were all kinds of people who had doves at home, experts, specialist sorcerers in treating jaundice. And that was it—that was the story. Maybe one more sentence: years later I read some piece—not Rabbi Tau’s article itself, but a description of an examination Rabbi Tau made of this matter—and he claimed it was all nonsense. He claimed it was all nonsense; the doves die because they have some kind of breathing opening in the back too. Meaning, if you put them on the belly button and press, it blocks their rear opening and therefore they die. I don’t know, I didn’t check it, but that was his claim, and therefore he says that the fact that the doves die proves nothing. Fine, so the fact that the doves die maybe proves nothing, but practically speaking, the guy came back to the yeshiva after a few days. Meaning, in terms of results it looked like this thing worked. I’m not—maybe later I’ll comment on the law of small numbers, also one of my favorite laws. In any event, so that was it. I went back home to my parents from the yeshiva and told them the story. They both wrung their hands—oh no, what they’re doing to you in that yeshiva, all those primitives are messing up your mind, where is the rational thinking, this is how we raised you, and in the end apparently they succeeded with you after all. But then—in any case—they really seemed disappointed by my fall into this primitive mysticism. And yes, they rejected it out of hand. So I told them that if they’re speaking in the name of rationality, then it seems to me that rationality does not mean refusing to accept something that I think is untrue, or that at the moment seems to me untrue. That’s not what rationality is called; that’s called conservatism. Rationality means trying to understand those things that you are faced with as true. If someone gives you information and that person is reliable, gives you this information, then presumably the information is true. You don’t understand it? Okay, so think—maybe there is some explanation that you’ll manage to reach if you think, or maybe you won’t reach an explanation, it doesn’t matter. But if the testimony is reliable, then it is reasonable to accept it as fact. To try to understand—either I’ll succeed or I won’t succeed—but to reject testimony because I have no way of understanding it, or because at least at the moment it isn’t understood by me, that is not rational conduct; that is blatantly anti-rational conduct. I told them this once, but afterward it always comes back to me: if all the scientists throughout the generations had been rational in the sense my parents presented in that conversation between us, then today we’d still have Adam’s science. Meaning, yes, Adam had some conception. Any fact that contradicted his conception he would not accept. Right? Because he’s a rational person. He accepts only those things that seem to fit his current worldview. And if so, he will never change his worldview, because any fact that doesn’t fit it he simply won’t accept. That is exactly the opposite of what people usually mean when they educate toward rationality in the scientific context. The opposite—in the scientific context you are supposed to be open to every possibility, even if it contradicts the worldview you currently hold. If there are solid facts that contradict it, you need to examine that worldview and replace it if necessary. But why in the world would you reject the facts because they don’t fit my worldview? Therefore I told them there that in my eyes this attitude is really not a rational attitude. True, you can be irrational and dance the hora around these doves all the time, and that’s it. A rational person is supposed to check, first, whether it’s true; try doing it again and again to see that it’s repeatable, that you can repeat the experiment and get the same results. And after that try to look for an explanation for the phenomenon. That is a rational person. I agree that you shouldn’t just accept things and that’s it, but the alternative is not not to accept them; rather, to accept them and then incorporate them too into your worldview, or update your worldview so that it includes these new facts as well. That seems to me a rational approach. Now I’m bringing this example because it raises the question, first, what is rationality; and second, what is mysticism. Is there a connection or a contrast between these two things? And in this example, how would we classify this story? Someone comes to you and tells you the story I told. What would you say about it? Okay, this is mysticism? Or okay, it isn’t true? Or okay, it isn’t rational? Or what—what sort of attitude should one take toward such a story? I think a great many people, when they hear a story like this, will classify it under the heading of mysticism. It seems to me that this is a common attitude. A lot of people, I think, will put it under the heading of mysticism. But classifying this thing under the heading of mysticism is quite problematic. Meaning, suppose this phenomenon were true; we repeated it and every time it worked—it factually works. Now scientists sit down, examine it, and reach the conclusion that they have an explanation for why this thing works. So now does it stop being mysticism because we have an explanation? Meaning, what is mysticism? Anything for which we have no explanation? Mystics also find explanations. They always sound to us like some other kind of explanations maybe, but there too there are explanations. So again, we are not exempt from trying to understand. So what is the difference between mysticism and non-mysticism? Or is rationality the opposite of mysticism? And even if so, then what is this and what is that? I think this story illustrates that dilemma well, because the definition of the concept comes before the question whether I accept it or don’t accept it, whether it’s reliable or not reliable, why people use mysticism. First of all, what is it? What’s the definition of the concept? I think it’s very hard to define this concept. Very hard. Is everything I don’t understand mysticism? Meaning, was quantum theory a hundred and fifty years ago mysticism? Was electromagnetism two hundred years ago mysticism? I don’t know—maybe yes, but that sounds a bit strange. We are usually accustomed to treating this category of mysticism as something not dependent on time. There is such a category—again, a category irrespective of whether I believe in it or not—but first of all, what is the definition? The claim is that there is such a category called mysticism. It has its laws, its rules, its ways of handling it—or perceiving it—or whatever, but such a category exists. So to identify mysticism all the time with things I do not understand is an identification that in fact doesn’t really acknowledge the existence of such a category. Because my understanding and my acquaintance with information and with scientific explanations develop throughout my history—yes, of all humanity. So mysticism keeps shrinking all the time, and science or rationality bites into the mystical domain. There is some kind of zero-sum game here, meaning that every time we discover something more, mysticism contracts and science or rationality expands. And that’s how we basically play this game until in the end we eliminate mysticism from our lives altogether. There are many people who would sign onto that statement. But I, by the way, wouldn’t. If there are people who think I would, then I wouldn’t. But the question of how to define mysticism really is not a simple question. And I think this is a good example for clarifying that matter. Maybe one can ask, before I ask what mysticism is, maybe one can ask what rationality is and what science is. Because very often rationality and science are the concepts set against mysticism; they are the opposite concepts. In some sense—again, these are preliminary feelers, I’m not committing to any of these statements—I’m starting to feel my way in order to try to grasp this concept. What does this concept mean? Rabbi? Yes. Once you told me—I don’t remember—there’s a difference between rationality and rationalism. Is this rationalistic? Rationalistic, yes. Right. Rationalism is the approach my parents expressed in their conversation with me, and rationality is the approach I expressed, that’s how it seems to me at least. Rationalism is sticking to a set of things that are called rational and an unwillingness to open up to other horizons. Yes, you bring testimony about mystical things and the rationalists reject it out of hand. The rational person tries to understand. Maybe there’s an explanation, maybe not. If I don’t find an explanation, I’m still not necessarily going to reject it—but first of all, let’s examine it. Why is it that everything that doesn’t fit my categories I immediately reject? That is what’s called rationalism, okay? So let’s go back for a moment to the adjacent concepts—science, rationality, and so on. Let’s try to define them a bit; maybe we’ll get a bit further there, and מתוך that perhaps we’ll be able to understand what mysticism is. Rabbi, isn’t it maybe parallel—Rabbi, maybe it’s parallel to alternative medicine versus scientific medicine? Maybe. I think that’s an insult to mysticism, to make that comparison, that analogy. I’m offended on behalf of the mystics. Fine. Because alternative medicine is just something that doesn’t work; mysticism, you can argue about it—maybe yes and maybe no. What? The example with the doves fits pretty well. What? The example with the doves fits pretty well. Maybe whether it works or not—I don’t know of any research that did a systematic examination. One example is no example of anything. Alternative medicine too—that’s what it’s built on, one example where something worked; that’s what that whole world is built on. But maybe that’s exactly the difference, maybe that’s exactly the difference: if you take mysticism and start putting it through scientific tests, then you’ll already get something scientific. Mysticism, from what I know, is exactly as you said—some one isolated case, assuming some emotional, spiritual kind of connection, and from there projecting it forever. It isn’t examined by any scientific means. Emotional-spiritual matter—saying that I’m afraid of heights, is that an emotional-spiritual matter or is that a fact? Is that mysticism? I have no real basis for fear because there’s a railing, I won’t fall, but a lot of people are afraid of heights. Is that mysticism? That’s not mysticism. That’s not mysticism, that’s psychology. Things that are psychological are not necessarily mysticism; mysticism is something different. Fine, let’s move a little further maybe. Now there’s an advertisement for “Eshev BaNachal.” What? There’s an ad now from Breslov that if you buy a certain book then all your problems will be fixed in no time. Helped Rabbi Levi—no, no. Things that are psychological are not necessarily mysticism. Mysticism is something different. Fine, let’s move a little further maybe. Now there’s an ad for “Ash Dat BaNachal,” right? There’s now an ad from Breslov that if you buy some book by so-and-so, then everything will work out for you in no time. Let the rabbi move on. That’s not mysticism; that’s just nonsense. Meaning, I’m saying again, I don’t want to insult mysticism. Meaning, there are things that are nonsense and there are things that are mysticism. Now mysticism—I don’t know whether it’s true or not—but I don’t want to— I’ll come back to this identification, between mysticism and nonsense. Or between mysticism and something that doesn’t work or isn’t true. I do not accept that identification. Or at least not as an obvious identification. Okay? Not a conceptual identification. Fine, so let’s see. What is rationality? Rationality—there too there is a great, great difficulty in defining this concept. Usually, when there is the accepted definition of rationality or rational conduct of a person, it is to take the optimal steps in order to achieve the goal that you have set for yourself. You want to achieve goal X, whatever goal—economic, social, value-based, whatever—it doesn’t matter. If you set a goal for yourself, you choose the efficient, optimal means in order to achieve that goal. If you do that, then you are a rational person. If you choose non-optimal means, then you are not a rational person. Yes, this takes us back a little to game theory, right? In game theory they often relate to a person—or an agent, as they call it there—as someone who is irrational if he chooses a path that is not optimal for achieving his goal. Now there are some very interesting philosophical debates there, because the claim is that if he chose that path, then by definition that is the optimal path for achieving his goal—it’s just that you didn’t properly understand his goal. I’ll give you an example: someone buys a lottery ticket—I don’t know, for five shekels, I have no idea how much it costs, let’s say five shekels—and it gives him some chance of winning a million shekels. Okay? But his chance is, I don’t know, one in ten million. Let’s say for the sake of discussion. Is it rational to buy that ticket? So often they’ll tell you—game theory in its earlier, naive stages would have said, absolutely not; that is irrational conduct. You’re investing more money than the expected value of your profit from the deal. Right? Your expected profit is a million shekels times one over ten million; your expected profit is ten agorot. Don’t invest five shekels in something whose expected return is ten agorot. But afterward the whole thing got more sophisticated and now they talk about a utility function. Utility function means that it could be, for example, that for the person the option of gaining a million shekels is worth a lot of money even though it is an option with a low probability. For example: a person is suffering from an incurable disease. And the only way—the only way for him to recover is to go to some doctor, pay him a million shekels to perform some operation and save him. He has no money. Fine? Now he’s offered a lottery ticket. The chance is one in ten million to win a million shekels. He invests all his property in that ticket. Even though he has almost no chance of winning. Can you clearly say that he’s an irrational person? What—would it have been better not to buy it and die? It gives him some chance to stay alive. Fine, but in your example he has no other option—either he dies or he invests. But in another case, if it’s— I have money but I invest five shekels. I’m saying, that’s not important; I’m bringing this example because it’s easier for me to illustrate it with. And what they say there is that in fact the person’s utility function is not only monetary. The goal he wants to achieve is not just money. In that case, for instance, it’s health. There are others, for example, for whom it’s love of risk or challenge. The chance of winning, even if small, is worth a lot of money to him. Because meanwhile for a few days he lives in suspense; he has some chance of becoming a millionaire in three days. Those three days in which he has hope of becoming a millionaire are worth paying fifty shekels for. Hope is something very pleasant for a person. Is it irrational to pay fifty shekels for that? Why? In fact, if you continue with this, then at least formally you can attach a utility function to every manner in which a person acts, and give it a rational basis. You know, even a person who invests in the stock market and has no financial distress whatsoever. He invests money in something that has a very small chance of yielding a lot of money; he invests more money than the expected return. Fine? But he doesn’t know that that’s the expected return. But he could have checked. Fine. The cost of checking every investment channel, getting into the details, checking the data, taking an interest in economics, understanding the significance of the data—that’s not worth it to him. That too is a cost. That too is some utility he is willing to pay money for—to save himself the examination. Is that irrational conduct? Why? A person sets himself some goal; as long as he acts optimally to achieve that goal, he is a rational person. Or if I translate this into logic, then there are no rational conclusions and irrational conclusions. If I have a logical argument that leads me to this conclusion, then I reached the conclusion in a rational way. By the way, that does not mean it is true. It could be that the premises are false and therefore the conclusion is false, or the argument is flawed—not valid. Okay? But I reached the conclusion in a rational way. Rationality is not something objective. I can’t check the conclusion to see whether it is rational or not. Someone who arrived at that conclusion by means of a logical or philosophical argument is a rational person. Someone who arrived at it, I don’t know, through a revelation of Elijah is a non-rational person. Whether the revelation of Elijah is real or imagined doesn’t matter, actually. Then he is not rational. Same conclusion—both hold the same conclusion. This is the mirror image of what I described earlier regarding a person’s mode of conduct. The concept of rationality is a relative concept. Relative to the goal you set for yourself, one can examine whether you are rational or not. Relative to your premises and your conclusion—or rather relative to your premises—one can examine whether your conclusion is rational to adopt or not. But all of that is relative to your premises, or relative to the goals you set for yourself. Is there such a thing as rational goals to set for myself? Or rational premises to assume? I don’t know. What could be the indication for that? Person A assumes X, person B assumes Y. On what basis would I determine that this is rational and that is not rational? He thinks X is true and he thinks Y is true. So the concept of rationality is usually defined as—again, in everyday language it isn’t used this way—but those who deal with it systematically, conceptually, philosophically, often ultimately arrive at the conclusion that it is a relative, context-dependent concept. Give me the context and I’ll tell you whether this conduct is rational or not, or whether this thinking is rational thinking or not—but you need to give me the context. I can’t tell you something context-independent. Therefore the concept of rationality, if I want to use the concept of rationality to define against it the concept of mysticism—as though mysticism would simply be what is not rational—then the concept of mysticism actually becomes not a concept that describes claims, but a concept that describes a way of arriving at claims. Or a concept that does not describe goals, aims, beliefs, but rather the ways of realizing those aims. Someone wants to bring the messiah. So he can bring the messiah by observing commandments, bringing all the Jewish people back to repentance. He can bring the messiah through all kinds of magical practices and Kabbalistic amulets. The first way is rational, the second way is mystical. Notice: the goal—I think most people would define it as a mystical goal—the coming of the messiah. But according to my definition now, why would it be? The coming of the messiah—goals in general can’t be classified on this axis of mystical or not mystical. That’s not relevant to goals. Once you have the goal you set for yourself, the question is how you realize it, how you strive toward it. That perhaps can be defined as a mystical way or a rational way. Okay? Some people will be rather alarmed to hear that there is a rational way to bring the messiah—by observing commandments. Yes, so it’s context-dependent. In a context in which one believes in that whole system, then yes, that is the rational way to bring the messiah. Everything depends on context. Why actually? What? Why is doing a commandment to bring the messiah a rational way, whereas doing all sorts of mystical things and— Exactly, that is precisely my claim. Meaning, to do mystical Kabbalistic things in order to bring the messiah may appear irrational to me, if my assumptions are rational assumptions—what are called rational assumptions. I don’t believe in amulets and Kabbalistic magic. But someone who thinks those really are the authorized, reliable ways to bring the messiah is as rational as I am. The difference between us is only in the context or framework. That’s why I say there is a problem defining mysticism or rationality that way. To define mysticism against rationality does not sound plausible. You get to a point where a mystic is only someone who does magic to bring the messiah even though he doesn’t believe that magic is effective. Fine, so that’s the empty set. Meaning, if he doesn’t believe that magic helps, then he presumably also won’t do it. Whoever does it presumably believes that magic helps. You understand that this is exactly the same move I showed with game theory? Meaning, if you do it, then apparently you believe that this is the right way to achieve your goals, otherwise you wouldn’t do it. And if I think that is not the right way, then apparently I don’t fully understand your goals, or the framework in which you are operating. Unless you’re just confused, or just—I don’t know—but that turns irrational conduct or mystical conduct into the possession of a minority, I would almost say an unbalanced or bizarre minority. Right? Again, that’s insulting mysticism—yes, insulting mysticism. So there’s something here that is very, very hard to define. Let’s move to the second concept: science. Is everything that is not scientific mystical? Science, unlike what I described until now—until now I dealt basically with logic or rationality or thought, which is really the way one infers conclusions. Science deals with things I arrive at by observation. Afterward I also make generalizations, draw conclusions, but first and foremost the basic scientific tool is observation. So there are those who will say that any statement you make about the world that is not based on observation is mysticism. Now I’m defining mysticism against science, not against rationality. But here too it seems to me difficult to accept such a definition of mysticism. You know what—let’s not even talk about science in the strict sense of the word; let’s talk about observation in general. Because there are things that are observational, but it isn’t something like—say I meet someone in the street, ask him what time it is, he tells me it’s 2:10. So I accept that. On what basis? Did I verify that he is a reliable person? On what basis do I accept it? So is accepting such a thing mysticism? I have no observational basis or empirical basis for accepting what he tells me. So here one can be a little clever—or actually not clever, this is probably really the explanation—and say that our assessment, our acquaintance with human nature, over time—we’ve already accumulated experience—our acquaintance with human nature tells us that usually when people are asked what time it is, they won’t lie. First, because most people are decent, and second, because here too he has no interest in lying; why wouldn’t he tell me the truth? Therefore I come to the conclusion that what he says is probably true. I don’t think I would call such a thing mystical. Even though it may not be the result of direct observation, it is the result of a generalization based on previous observations, cumulative experience. Every scientific thing is based on that. I didn’t test a sample group and a control group and ask them the time and check whether they lie or don’t lie, but still I think this is indeed the result of cumulative experience regarding human nature, cumulative observational experience regarding human nature. So it’s just more indirect. Yes, someone remarked something earlier? Presumption. What? Like the rabbi said, there’s a presumption that people won’t do things. That’s how presumptions are actually created, both in Jewish law and in law in general—that’s how presumptions are created. In the modern world we’re accustomed not to establish presumptions unless we have first done some sort of study, survey, yes, some kind of empirical observational element. But that’s an illusion if someone thinks that all our presumptions are determined that way. Clearly there are many presumptions that somehow arise for us even without that. Even if indirectly. We have some acquaintance with human nature, we’ve spoken with many people, some of them we checked, we formed some understanding of when, if at all, a person lies, and therefore we can claim that when a person is asked what time it is, usually he won’t lie. He may make a mistake, but as a presumption, as an assumption, as a starting point, I estimate that he is not lying to me. And to my mind that is a completely non-mystical statement. Okay? So I would therefore broaden the scope a little more and I will not speak specifically about science but about anything that at its core is based—at its core rests—on observation. And in that sense, even a statement of that type—even trusting someone who tells me the time—I will call a step based on observation. Not direct observation, but on cumulative experience over the course of my life. So that too, fine? So that too is not mysticism. So what remains? What’s the problem with the definition you gave earlier, the one you said you didn’t like? What? Earlier you defined what mysticism is, you said you didn’t like it, and then you went into this definition, into this example, which in the end we also saw is some kind of observation, even if indirect. No, that’s not the issue—it’s not mysticism. So what’s the problem with defining mysticism as you defined it, as something… What did I define? Earlier you defined mysticism—you said it’s something not based on observation, and you said you didn’t like the definition, and then you came back to this example. No, I didn’t understand. Now I want to examine this definition. First I examined how to define mysticism against rationality. I said that’s not plausible. Now I’m saying I’ll define mysticism against observation—not against science, but against observation. I’m testing it; that’s the stage we’re at now. Maybe that’s what should be called mysticism? Meaning, adopting things that are not the result of observation, not even indirectly, but I don’t know—something, a revelation of Elijah, I don’t know exactly what. Okay? It may be that this is what deserves the title mysticism. This already seems closer to what people usually define as mysticism. Why is a revelation of Elijah mysticism? The Talmud gives the example of Rabbi Yosei who prayed in a ruin, and Elijah came to him, and it derives three Jewish laws from it. And therefore? That’s a great example for my point. Okay. The Talmud brings it and therefore what? And therefore revelation of Elijah—no, a revelation of Elijah, in the case of a revelation of Elijah, it could be completely real. Here. And therefore? Then it isn’t mysticism. Mysticism—what, whatever is true is not mysticism? Now you’re already saying something very revolutionary. Until now I was constantly trying not to head in that direction. Otherwise we have a very easy definition of what mysticism is, but that definition is too dismissive. Whatever isn’t true is mysticism. Whatever isn’t true in my eyes is mysticism; whatever is true in my eyes is rationality; and in your eyes the opposite. So if we disagree, then I’m a mystic in your eyes and you’re a mystic in mine. You understand that that’s not plausible? I do not identify mysticism with what is untrue. That is exactly the point. I don’t want to get pushed into that corner. Not only I don’t want to, but I don’t think it’s right to get pushed into that corner. Not a matter of interest, but I don’t think it’s right. Now you’re trying to define mysticism by way of what it is not. Why don’t you try to define mysticism by what it is? Please, tell me what it is. I don’t know, I haven’t thought enough, but— So I’ve thought a bit, and I didn’t get all that far, so very often when I can’t make progress in defining a concept—and by the way, this is advice for life or for thought in general, not only for life, advice in philosophy, in any field where you are trying to define a concept—very often it will be hard to define the concept, so try to think what the opposite or neighboring concepts are, try to define them and understand the difference between it and them, and that way you can make progress. That’s very good advice. In many cases this advice has worked. I think once I even did this in a series when I tried to define what poetry is. I had a series of columns on the site, 107 onward, and there I spoke exactly about this methodology of how to define vague concepts through opposite concepts, through building some sort of spectrum; there I did it in a more systematic way. So whoever wants can look there. In any case, right now we are examining the possibility of defining mysticism as something that is not the result of observation, not even indirectly. But here too I have a problem with it. The problem is, I would say, twofold. First of all, I think that if mysticism is the opposite of science, or even of science plus something else—meaning if I expanded the concept of science to everything observational and said mysticism is the opposite of that—then it is certainly even farther from pure science, from what is just science, right? An even larger group there is entirely outside the concept of mysticism, so a subset of that group is certainly even farther from the concept of mysticism. Now I’ll show you that in the world of science pure and simple—what we usually call science—there too there are steps like that that are not the result of observation. The principle of induction, the principle of causality—here are David Hume’s examples. The principle of causality: everything has a cause. The principle that what has been will continue to be: if I have found a law of nature, then it will continue to work in the future as well. All these things are certain assumptions—and there are many more—certain assumptions that have no observational basis, and nevertheless I assume them. Is that mysticism? More than that—even a scientific generalization that I make: after all, the scientific generalization is one out of many possible generalizations. I have a certain set of facts that came out of observation. I can now make many possible generalizations from them. I choose the simplest generalization—Occam’s razor, yes, I spoke about it in the last column or the one before that, I don’t remember anymore. So I choose the simplest generalization. Why? What observational consideration is there? All the generalizations fit the observational facts. So choosing one of them is not something done on an observational basis, but on the basis of some a priori thinking: because it seems to me that what is simpler is probably more correct. So is that mysticism according to this definition? No, it could be that it’s based on indirect observation, that we saw in all the theories that usually the simplest theory is the one that works, and therefore here it’s— I don’t think that’s true. What we saw is that usually simple theories don’t work. Occam’s razor—that was a discussion in the comments, and I also wrote a bit in the column on this issue. Occam’s razor does not say that the correct theory is simple. It says that among the possible theories, a theory that is simpler is probably more correct. Now that, I don’t think, can be empirically confirmed. Did you check the complicated theories and see that they are incorrect? I didn’t check them at all. On the contrary, all the theories I adopted were usually the simplest possible theories at that point in time. And each time, after all, I refute that theory and replace it with a better one. So in fact all the theories I have adopted until now have been refuted. I chose the simplest one and it was always refuted, and then I was forced to arrive at a more complicated theory. There was Newton; we moved to Einstein, or to quanta, or to more complicated theories. I don’t think one can offer empirical confirmation for the claim that truth is usually simple. So in short, there are many examples even in science proper of principles that have no empirical basis. So what will you say—that this is mysticism? So at the foundation of science too there is mysticism? Then again I no longer understand. So I don’t think one can seriously progress that way with the definition. More than that, I’ll ask you: is philosophy mysticism? Philosophy by definition—and I spoke about this in the courses I gave on philosophy—philosophy by definition deals with claims that cannot be decided observationally. Because if they could be decided observationally, they would be scientific claims; they wouldn’t be philosophical claims. So is philosophy mysticism? Most people wouldn’t say so. Philosophers are rational people, or rationalists if you want; they are not mystics. There are some who might define mystics too as some kind of philosophy; maybe, one can argue, it’s a semantic issue. But to identify all of philosophy with mysticism seems to me not to hold water. I’m trying to understand what we’re… People do not relate to philosophy as mysticism. There is, by the way, in philosophy of science an approach that speaks about nominalism or actualism, an approach that emphasizes that what is true in science is only the facts. The generalizations are my own private responsibility. And then this approach basically says: I am not prepared to treat scientific generalizations seriously, because that is essentially a kind of mysticism. Because a generalization has no observational basis; a generalization is something I do. Observation gives me the facts. The generalization I make on the basis of the facts is not an observational step; it is a step that I take. So indeed this very restrictive approach—some would call it rationalistic—according to this approach they would probably classify scientific theories as mysticism. If you state them as claims about the world, you are a mystic. If you use them because they help you deal with the facts, no problem—that is only methodological, it’s not a statement. I’m not claiming there is a force of gravity in the world, but it is convenient for me to think about the law of gravitation through the idea that there is a force of gravity responsible for that law. Not because I claim that such a force really exists—there isn’t one, because it is mysticism to think there is—but because it’s convenient for me, because that’s how I’m built. So I use the term force of gravity even though I don’t really believe that such a thing exists; I have no indication that such a thing exists. So anyone who says it exists is a mystic. Anyone who uses the concept without saying it exists, fine—he uses the concept because it is convenient for him. Very often, by the way, we use concepts without believing they really exist. You can hear atheists speaking about the image of God or the image of man. The image of what? You know, in Hungary there is a Hasidic dynasty called Tzelem. Yes, Tzelem is a town in Hungary whose name was probably something like “cross” in Hungarian, I don’t know how they say it. The Jewish rendering of it was Tzelem. Then at some stage—you know, in Hungarian pronunciation, yes, with a Hungarian accent—at some stage there was the Rebbe of Tzelem. In Hungary there was a Rebbe of Tzelem; maybe he still has some descendants, who knows. Because he was simply the rabbi of a community from that town, so he was the Rebbe of Tzelem. And Jesus, yes, Rabbi Jesus was the first Rebbe of Tzelem. Or his emissaries. Fine. In any event, when atheists speak about the image of man or the image of God, they use it as some kind of convenient metaphor. They don’t really mean to say that there is some similarity between man and God, because according to them there is no such thing as God. Okay, so sometimes we use such concepts; very often an atheist will say, “Thank God, everything worked out.” What “thank God,” who is God? Fine, it’s a manner of speech; it’s not that he really means the literal meaning of that phrase. You use things because it’s convenient, because that’s what you’re used to, because it expresses best what you want to express. The actualists use scientific theories, theoretical entities, in that sense. For them these are some kind of convenient metaphors because through them it is convenient for us to deal with the facts. But they do not claim that in the world itself these concepts really exist—wave function, field, potential, all sorts of abstract concepts of this type, even elementary particles that cannot be observed. But that is actualism; the common approach in science is not like that. Actualism and informativism are matters for philosophers; scientists, it seems to me, are almost never actualists. They are almost all informativists. That is, they take theoretical claims as claims about the world, not as convenient methodological expressions, but as a statement about the world. They claim that there is in the world an electron, a force of gravity, a wave function; these are entities or things, phenomena, that exist in the world itself. Shall we define them as mystics? The actualists might define them as mystics; I wouldn’t. But there too this conceptual system is a conceptual system that we created. Nobody saw it directly in an empirical way. Even as an explanation for the empirical facts that we observed empirically, it is one explanation among several possible ones. So even the facts we observed cannot be a basis for the informativist claim—that the theoretical entities or theoretical principles really describe the world. So is that mysticism? Then science too is mysticism? Then we have emptied the concept of mysticism of content. If everything is mysticism, then there is no such thing as mysticism. And that doesn’t work either. In short, what I really want to claim is that if I define mysticism against rationalism—I said that’s not plausible, because it basically means that a person makes an inference even though he doesn’t believe in it, or uses assumptions he doesn’t accept. That sounds very strange—I don’t know, that’s a person who needs hospitalization, not a mystic. Defining mysticism against science, or against things that emerge from observation, also doesn’t advance us very much, because the fact is that even in fields that are completely not defined as mystical, there too we use principles and concepts that have no observational basis—in philosophy and even in science. So what are we left with? We are left with a vacuum. Meaning, so what is it, then? Science and rationality are not mysticism—and sorry, science and rationality are not the opposite of mysticism. Meaning, they are not contradictory to mysticism. So what is? What will not be considered mysticism? What? Come on—why not consider, maybe you discussed them separately, but why for example not take— you spoke about philosophy—maybe that itself is mysticism, but philosophy, everything we discussed, depends on logical laws. You only spoke about observational things. Why not take the group of both the observational things and the logical laws on which we base philosophy and so on, make that a group, and its complement will be mysticism? That’s rationality, what I spoke about at the beginning. That doesn’t work either. But then it also doesn’t rely on observation. It doesn’t make sense from his point of view; he wouldn’t do it. I actually think that’s a good definition, because then those doves—take the doves example—she says, from my point of view this is a logical law just as you claim that if A implies B and then not-B implies not-A, for me it’s the same thing. Exactly—that’s what I’m telling you. You think it’s not logical, and she thinks it is logical. So she is a mystic and you are not? I didn’t understand. No—you are a mystic in her eyes and she is a mystic in yours. You are again returning to that identification between mysticism and what is not true. Okay, so that’s not a good definition. What do you say? I don’t agree that it’s what is not true, because for you it’s not true, but for her it is true. Again, I don’t know—if the doves don’t work, then they don’t work. What do you mean, “for you”? Either it works or it doesn’t work—that’s a fact. This is not a matter of opinions. It may be that we still don’t know the fact; we need to test it. But in the end, in the final analysis, either it works or it doesn’t work—one of the two. There’s no “both are right” here. Okay, so in the end it seems we are a bit stuck. Maybe one could talk about mysticism as some kind of continuum. Yes—if something is not falsifiable, that’s usually the definition of science, a claim that is falsifiable—or if the distance between the claim and the facts is large, that is called mysticism. In science, true, the theory does not emerge directly from the facts, but the distance between the theory and the facts is short—that is, from the facts I arrive fairly quickly at this theory. Okay, although again one could have presented other theories as well. Mysticism is something much more—it seems much less connected to the facts, farther away. This is already a somewhat quantitative question. It won’t really help us, but beyond all this, then according to that, philosophy too, which is not connected to facts at all, would be considered mysticism. Yes—we still have the same difficulty, so that won’t save us. So I want to propose the following definition. By the way, this whole discussion I’ve been conducting now—we’ll get to it toward the end of the series or later on—this whole discussion also takes place within Jewish law. All the options I proposed here and their rejection and the problematic aspects of the definition—all this exists within Jewish law. In Jewish law there is a prohibition on resorting to mysticism in a certain sense: “do not practice divination,” “do not practice sorcery,” all kinds of things of that type. The question is: what is mysticism there? There is a dispute among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), and all the problems I described here arise in the different positions of the medieval authorities there. And therefore here too, as I said, we are starting with a more general conceptual introduction, but in the end we’ll also see it in the Torah and halakhic context. So now I want to propose some definition that perhaps comes closer. By all means, you are invited to agree or disagree or comment. When someone proposes a scientific or philosophical claim—both of which, my assumption is, are not mysticism, I just want to understand what is, right?—both are not mysticism. If someone tries to propose a scientific or philosophical claim, observational or philosophical, even if I alone could not have reached that claim or that conclusion, after he says it, I also agree, or at least I understand why he reached that claim. Say, let’s take geometry as an example, okay? As I have often said, the axioms of geometry every bright fifth- or sixth-grade child knows. Ask a bright child and show him two parallel lines—he’ll tell you they’ll never meet. Or show him two points and ask how many straight lines pass through them—a bright child will tell you one, not more than one. He knows the axioms of geometry. But he doesn’t know the sum of the angles in a triangle, or the theorems of geometry, the Pythagorean theorem, whatever. That he doesn’t know. Now, the geometry teacher or the teachers of geometry who teach him the theorems are in fact revealing to him something he didn’t know before. But—and this is the important point here—after they take him by the hand and walk him through the whole path up to the conclusion, he too can arrive at that conclusion. Even if he could not do it by himself, if he does it accompanied by the teacher, then he will succeed, then he will get there. If he won’t get there, then in principle he can get there—maybe he isn’t clever enough. Someone else. But many people will get there too. So maybe I’m not talented enough and I won’t manage to understand the proof, but people in general can—even those who did not discover the proof on their own—follow the paths of proof or the paths of reasoning and reach the conclusion. By contrast, I’ll say more than that—not only a conclusion. The principle of causality: that’s an assumption, not a conclusion. It is not a product of observation. It is basically a philosophical principle. But even if someone did not formulate it to himself, the moment I formulate it for you, you will agree. You will also find within yourself that understanding or that identification with the principle of causality. You too will agree that the principle of causality is true. Therefore I’m speaking not only about scientific inference or logical inference, but about a claim that even if someone by himself did not manage to know it or reach it, after I present it to him, he knows how to reach it or he agrees that it is true. That is a non-mystical claim. A mystical claim—and I am now proposing a definition, this is a proposal—a mystical claim means a claim that even after you say it to me, I have no idea why it is true. I do not find it within myself. You are not presenting me with some proof based on premises that I can follow, and arrive with you at the conclusion; and therefore in the end what remains for me is trust in what you said. Now understand that this is a definition connected to a concept—I don’t know who coined it. Again, I simply thought about it in preparation for this series, and therefore I’m proposing this definition to you, but for now it’s provisional. What—is this a kind of intuition? Hm? A kind of intuition that you— No, no. Intuition is exactly not this. Because intuition is like the principle of causality. After I formulate the principle of causality for you, you too will find that intuition within yourself. How is this different from what I said earlier? Meaning, here you say you don’t find observational, logical, or philosophical tools to reach the conclusion, and therefore you’re left only with trust—and that is basically the complementary set of all the tools on which we base the conclusions we reach. Yes, that’s what I said. Okay, fine, excellent—then I agree completely, totally. And that means that mysticism is the opposite of science and the opposite of rationality in a certain sense, but not in the senses I dealt with earlier, but rather the opposite of what science and rationality have in common. Yes. Why? Because there is something objective here—something any reasonable person can hear and accept, or follow the reasoning and reach the conclusion. Mysticism is not like that. Suppose a person comes and says, “Listen, Elijah appeared to me in a dream and told me that the messiah will come,” okay? That the messiah will come. Even after he says that, I do not find within myself the insight that the messiah will come. I have no empirical observation or logical argument that will lead me to the conclusion that the messiah will come, and therefore what remains for me is either to accept it because I trust him or not. Now notice: I am not claiming he is wrong. I do not identify mysticism with what is untrue. I identify mysticism with what is not objective. Something subjective. The subjective can be true—that is, if in the end the messiah comes, then it will turn out that he was right, and if I did not accept it then it will turn out that I was wrong. I am not claiming it is untrue; I simply have no idea. Why should I think it is true? I don’t know. I remain not knowing even after you told me. So notice, this is not a claim that it is mystical because it is untrue. No—it is mystical because you did not manage to convince me that it is true, or there is no objective way to reach the conclusion that it is true. It could be—wait one more second—I want to go one step further and say: what about the mystic himself? He met Elijah and reached the conclusion that the messiah will come; he himself is convinced that it is true. When I hear it from him, I do not find it within myself; he does not propose a path I can follow. For me that is mysticism. What is it from his point of view? It could be not. I think that from his point of view too it is mysticism, and that’s what I want to say. What is he relying on? Because I claim that mysticism is a category. It’s not a status that can depend on me or on you. It is a category, a certain domain of reality or of perspectives on reality, which I call mysticism. The indication that a certain statement belongs to this domain is whether, when someone thinks it or reaches the conclusion that it is true, he manages to pass it on to others and persuade them in some systematic or intuitive way, one way or another. If not, then we are dealing with mysticism also from his point of view. He too understands that the way he reached this conclusion is a path subjective to him. He too understands that others do not see that path as he does and cannot follow the move he made, and therefore he too has to accept that this is mysticism. And again, I do not identify mysticism with not being true, and that is the big sharpening here. Because from my point of view I might perhaps dismiss mysticism and say I have no indication whatsoever, therefore it’s nonsense—and then I’ll remain with that identification that mysticism is what is untrue. But no—I’m claiming this even about the mystic himself. And the mystic himself certainly thinks it is true, and still he has to admit that we are dealing with mysticism. Because when he tries—the indication is that when he tries to pass this on to other people, he will run into some kind of opaque wall. He has no way of transmitting it to them. By the way, that’s a point—a very interesting point, because this is a definition I’m not entirely comfortable with. Gershom Scholem writes in his book Devarim B’Go, an anthology of his essays—I once saw there—he brings some story from Agnon’s Book of Deeds. And Agnon there tells about someone who met—I no longer remember which mystic—and everything that mystic said suddenly sounded to him so sensible and true and acceptable; meaning, he found within himself the very things that the mystic said. And Gershom Scholem claims that a significant mystic is a mystic who, when he carves things out from his subjective inner world, the things that emerge—other people also find them within themselves. That may not be objective, but it is intersubjective—it is true for all subjects. By contrast, if someone talks nonsense with all kinds of concepts and statements and principles and it means nothing to anyone, then he is just a chatterer, then he is not a significant mystic. Again, “chatterer” does not mean he isn’t right, but that he is not a significant mystic, he teaches us nothing, contributes nothing to society, to the public, to the public domain. So he himself may live in some world that has meaning, and it may be that he has also discovered pure truth, but Gershom Scholem says that is not what is called mystical thought. There is such a thing as mystical thought, but in order for it to be thought there has to be some objective dimension. So on the one hand I carve it out from within myself, but on the other hand after I’ve carved it out, many other people also find it within themselves, they identify something—it makes sense, it is familiar, it is found within them too. That is significant mysticism. Now you need to understand that according to the definition I gave earlier, this thing would not be called mysticism at all, because if in the end after he says it I find it within myself too, then how is that different from the principle of causality? I tell you the principle of causality; I have no way of proving it to you just as I have no way of proving it to myself, but since when I tell you there is such a principle, usually you will accept it, you will agree, then I did not define that as mysticism. According to Gershom Scholem’s definition it fits there very well. It’s even science. Why science? Because it is empirically falsifiable. Why would I define it as science? So I can’t explain every scientific theory, that is—but it did stand the test of falsification. Mystical theories, nobody can ever put them to a test of falsification; that’s why they flourish so well—nobody has ever refuted them. Rabbi, in your opinion, was Copernicus in his time a mystic? He came and argued and told people that the earth revolves around the sun, but we observe that the sun revolves and the moon revolves around the earth. So in your opinion was Copernicus a mystic at that time? I don’t understand why he’s a mystic—explain again. Because in his time, how could people understand that the earth revolves around the sun? The simple intuition was that the sun revolves around the earth. He told them otherwise, and suddenly they understood he was right—fact is they accepted it. No, they accepted it after some time. Right, right—so that means they accepted it in the end. I didn’t define on the axis of time how long it has to take. But if in the end you really do manage to persuade your environment, and they too understand that it is true, that is exactly what is not called mysticism. So with a revelation of Elijah too, one person can convince me that— No, he won’t convince you that Elijah appeared or that what Elijah said is true. Rather, you trust him; you yourself won’t manage to become convinced that it is true. Even with Copernicus in his time… True, it may be that I trust him and therefore I accept it, but I have no direct and immediate way to arrive at that insight by myself. That is what I defined as mysticism. I do not identify mysticism with what is untrue, I repeat again. No, it’s not untrue, I understood that. But in his time, how could one argue with Copernicus? He said things that were supposedly untrue, since with our own eyes we see that the earth— We don’t see anything with our own eyes. What we see with our own eyes is exactly what Copernicus said. What people did until Copernicus was ignore what the eyes show us and cling to the conception of circles, because circles are the most beautiful thing. So they put in epicycles and deferents, and all kinds of circle within circle and another circle within another circle, just to remain in the language of circles. Until Copernicus came and told them, “Friends, what nonsense are you talking? They’re ellipses. Everything is fine.” Suddenly everyone understood he was right, and that we had been living in nonsense for thousands of years. On the contrary—the situation is exactly the opposite of what you said. I don’t know what caused Copernicus to discover his thesis, but they distinguish in philosophy of science between the context of discovery and the context of justification. The context of discovery is the question of how I thought of the theory. And the context of justification is that I put it to a falsification test and see whether it stands or not. Now, in philosophy of science it is accepted that the context of discovery interests no one. If someone comes with a scientific theory because his grandmother appeared to him in a dream at night and told him that the value of the gravitational constant is one point I-don’t-know-how-much, so what? No problem. We will put it to the test of falsification and see. If it stands the test of falsification, excellent; it doesn’t bother me that it came from his grandmother. If it does not stand the test of falsification, then I reject it—but I reject it not because it came from his grandmother; I reject it because it is not true. So I don’t care what the source of the theory is. I thought that was what you wanted to claim—that since Copernicus built his theory on the basis of mystical things, then maybe he was a mystic. It could be there really is a mystical dimension here, but then that’s no longer science, that’s Copernicus. Because we adopted Copernicus’s scientific statement simply because it really explained the facts well, not because we were persuaded that his grandmother appeared to him. Therefore from our point of view this is not mysticism. But even with a revelation of Elijah now, at this time, you have no tools to argue with it and no tools to know whether it’s really untrue or not, right? True. If I had such tools, then perhaps indeed it would not be mysticism, I don’t know. But at least under the conditions of our world, under the conditions I know, it is mysticism. So it may be that now it is mysticism and later it will turn into non-mysticism? Later it may turn out retroactively that it never was mysticism. It was just that we didn’t have the tools. It’s like relativity. Once people didn’t know relativity; today they do. So was someone who made a relativistic statement a hundred and fifty years ago a mystic? Maybe people would have considered him a mystic, but today it becomes clear to us retroactively that he never was one. It’s not the same thing—the concept needs to be true also with respect to time, that throughout time the concept is defined that way. If you define mysticism this way, but in a hundred years it won’t be correct? No—not that the definition will be incorrect, but rather that what I thought today was mysticism, I was mistaken; it isn’t mysticism, though the definition remains correct. So Rabbi, anything that is not falsifiable is not scientific on the one hand, and on the other hand can be defined as mysticism? No, I don’t agree. Things that are not falsifiable, like the principle of causality—it is not falsifiable and I do not define it as mysticism. Why? Because it is an intuition found within all of us. So it has no empirical basis, but it is objective in the sense that everyone you tell it to will agree with you. Or what do I mean by everyone? Every reasonable person you tell it to will agree with you. Again, I’m not talking about fringes or about some percentage of people who won’t agree. There are disputes over the sense… for example disputes in philosophy. So even a philosophical position I don’t agree with, if I understand the move the philosopher is making from his premises to the conclusion, then from my point of view it isn’t mysticism because I can follow what he says. I’ll just say, “Listen, but this premise of yours I don’t accept.” That still isn’t mysticism. Do you understand? For me mysticism is something that is simply inaccessible to me. I can believe the person who tells me this or not believe him, but it is inaccessible to me. I have no direct and immediate way to become convinced of it myself. Quite apart from… yes, I have an analogy to prophecy, of course. Prophecy is the summit of mysticism; it is the essence of mysticism and almost synonymous with it. A mystic is basically some sort of prophet. Maybe it’s not a meeting with the Holy One, blessed be He, at least not directly, but rather a meeting with other things, dimensions in reality that are not accessible to the wider public. Only one who believes him will accept it from him. But that depends on the trust I place in the person. It does not depend on his convincing me or on my managing to become convinced on my own that this thing is true. Okay? It seems to me that this perhaps comes close to a definition of mysticism. Fine, I’ll stop here. If anyone wants to comment or ask, you can. So what is mathematics? It’s not science because it isn’t observational; it’s not philosophy because it’s not philosophy. Fine—but mathematics is completely objective. If you give premises and prove the conclusion to me, I too will accept it. Yes, yes, fine, but what category does it belong to? Not science and not philosophy—what’s left? It is usually included under philosophy. Mathematics is the formal branch of philosophy. Mathematics is a subcategory of philosophy? Of course. Yes, mathematics is a branch of philosophy, that’s obvious. What troubles you about that definition? A branch—the formal branch of philosophy. It’s the branch in which one can construct precise arguments with well-defined premises and reach well-defined conclusions. In philosophy too they try to do this; they also symbolize, yes, they formalize arguments. I understand. In philosophy it’s usually harder; the things are less susceptible to sharp definition. Mathematics is those sectors of philosophy to which formalization can be applied in the full sense. Strong. And in school they taught us that this is science: there’s mathematics, there’s physics, and there are the natural sciences. No, again—mathematics is a branch of philosophy. In terms of category. I’m saying again, at universities there are disagreements. A philosophy department isn’t under mathematics and mathematics isn’t under philosophy. Exactly. Usually it’s under the natural sciences. Exactly. That’s for methodological reasons, not for essential reasons. Mathematics is a branch of philosophy. I understand. Okay. A question, one more small question: what makes you uncomfortable about this definition of mysticism? You said it comes close, but something is missing for you. Because as Gershom Scholem said, a mystic is always someone I basically won’t believe? Because if he manages to make me find it within myself too, I defined that as not mysticism. Right. So what remains? Only some bizarre person is a mystic? So I’m saying I have some little kink, some distinction. What do you mean? If I’m persuaded because I trust the person, that’s still mysticism. If I find it within myself, that’s not mysticism. Right. That’s the closest. Don’t you have a concrete example that bothers you? What? Don’t you have a concrete example that bothers you, where you say: here is an example and therefore I’m not comfortable with it according to your definition? Look, a great many mystical teachings attract followers because they really become convinced that their rebbe is telling the truth. Right. Not because they trust that he is a good prophet. Take Gurdjieff—we’ll discuss him later. Yes, some scholar from Bukhara who later at some stage moved to the West, never mind. So he has some mystical theory—the ray of creation, divided into seven sefirot, what in Kabbalah we would call sefirot, never mind. He had students from all over the world. His students were convinced he was right and adopted his point of view. And anyone who looks at that will tell you that this is mysticism. But why exactly? If they found it within themselves too, then what would you say—that they really didn’t find it within themselves, they only remained with trust in the rebbe? That’s the only reason they accepted it? I’m not impressed that that’s the case there. I’m impressed that after he laid out his mystical map before them, they felt there was some truth in it, that it was correct. Otherwise why did they follow him? On what basis did they believe him? Why? What? Maybe, I don’t know, some beauty, something specifically non-rational? Not exactly. That beauty too—esthetic quality—is an intellectual criterion. A scientific theory—Occam’s razor tells me that if the theory is esthetic, Einstein said this more than once—an esthetic theory is an indication that it is true. So every nonsense thing someone says, and if some public figure connects to it, then what—shall we define it as not bizarre? That is exactly the vagueness I’m talking about. I think it’s supposed to be something universal. But what does universal mean? Cannibalism is okay—cannibalism… No, no, let me explain. There are differing schools in philosophy. So if there is disagreement, then none of them is universal. On the other hand… the boundary is subtle. I don’t know if this is a completely sharp definition, but it’s the closest I can get. No—universal at the principled level, or universal in the sense that one can follow it. If there are five crazy people who follow you, that’s not called universal. Now, how many crazy people need to be there before I call it universal? A hundred? A thousand? How many? I have no idea. Rabbi, is Kabbalah mysticism? We’ll get there, we’ll get there. That’s one of the topics later on. Rabbi? Yes. Rabbi? Yes, yes. What the rabbi said, that the rabbi doesn’t identify mysticism with something untrue, right? But aren’t there mystical things that are proven false? So how—where does the rabbi place them? If someone makes a self-contradictory mystical statement, then it’s false, yes. But mystical statements don’t stand a falsification test; otherwise it would be a scientific statement. They don’t stand a falsification test? But a certain person or a certain mysticism can be refuted; you can simply go and refute it. How refute it? Empirically? What? How refute it? Empirically? You do some experiment or another, say. So empirically—then it isn’t mysticism, it’s science. No, I’m saying there are mysticisms where you can see that they are not true. If it can be shown that they are not true. What? If you can see that they are not true, that’s science. No, you can see that they are not true and still the mystic believes in them. That’s science; it’s not mysticism. Categorically it’s science—it’s an incorrect scientific theory. But it’s a scientific theory, not a mystical theory. For me there are correct and incorrect scientific theories, and correct and incorrect mystical claims. And I do not want to identify mysticism with what is untrue, but of course I also do not identify mysticism with what is true. It’s not that mysticism must be true. Mysticism is a category, just as science is a category. Science is a category of claims that can be subjected to a falsification test. Those that passed the falsification test are true; those that did not pass the falsification test are untrue—but both are science in terms of category. In mysticism too it is the same. Okay? What did you say? Okay, thank you very much, goodbye, Sabbath peace. Sabbath peace, Sabbath peace.