Science & Nonduality

Are science and nonduality compatible? According to the conventional modern scientific worldview, reality consists of a physical universe composed of energy and matter behaving according to objective physical laws. In contrast, the mystics from the world’s major religious traditions teach that reality is ultimately nondual, i.e., that all distinctions are imaginary, including the distinction between subject and object, consciousness and universe. Thus, nonduality would appear to undermine the existence of an objective physical world, independent of consciousness. Where does this leave science, and the objective world? Is it possible to reconcile science and nonduality? Join us for an exploration of this question and a possible resolution to this apparent conflict.

Tom McFarlane is a teacher and board member at the Center for Sacred Sciences, a non-profit spiritual organization whose mission is to support spiritual practitioners following the teachings of the mystics of the world’s major religious traditions and to help foster the creation of a new worldview in which spiritual and scientific truths can be seen as complementary views of the same underlying reality.

Tom has a BS in physics from Stanford University, an MS in mathematics from the University of Washington, and an MA in philosophy and religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the author of Einstein and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings (Ulysses Press, 2000), a collection of parallel quotes from mystics and physicists.