320 mind
contemplative theory can never be adequately translated into the language of
common, everyday experiences and ideas. The only way one can truly under-
stand mathematics is by practicing it, not just reading about it; and the same
is true of contemplation. The chief difference between mathematical and con-
templative discourse is that noncontemplatives can easily draw the conclusion
that they are thoroughly fathoming contemplative writings, when in fact they
are reducing such accounts to their own, more prosaic experiences and ideas.
Here is one more case of an illusion of knowledge, for the contemplatives are
using ordinary language in extraordinary ways, and only an experienced con-
templative knows the referents of the words and phrases used in contemplative
writings. Noncontemplatives reduce those ideas to experiences that are familiar
to them, but in so doing, they give themselves the false impression that they
have fathomed what the contemplatives were writing about.
Steven Katz, a contemporary scholar of comparative mysticism, for ex-
ample, insists that experienced contemplatives are in no better a position to
evaluate their experiences than are noncontemplatives.^24 This notion is just as
implausible as the idea that a nonmathematician could evaluate the relation
between Heisenberg’s matrix equations and Schro ̈dinger’s wave equation de-
scribing quantum mechanical phenomena. But the misconception that one
can evaluate contemplative truth-claims solely on the basis of reading books
about mysticism is widespread both among scholars and the lay public. Edward
O. Wilson, for example, falls into this trap when he suggests that all mystical
experiences are basically the same, and that they have all yielded no insights
whatsoever into the nature of reality.^25 Scientists and scholars who try to eval-
uate one or more contemplative system without acquiring any contemplative
experience of their own are thus confined to the echo chambers of their own
preconceptions.
A fundamental problem facing both mathematicians and contemplatives
is the ineffability of their insights to outsiders. In this regard, three types of
ineffability may be posited. First, something may be deemed ineffable if it lies
outside of anyone’s experience. The objective world with all its contents, exist-
ing independently of all experience, fits that description.^26 Secondly, that which
lies within the scope of one person’s experience is ineffable to those who lack
that experience or anything like it. This is true of many mathematical and
contemplative insights. Thirdly, an insight may transcend all concepts, so even
if one has experienced it directly, it may not be verbally conveyed to anyone,
regardless of the range of their experience. A prime example of such an inef-
fable experience is that of pure, conceptually unstructured consciousness,
which figures prominently in many contemplative traditions of the world.^27
This brings us back to the status of consciousness in nature, and a kind
of hierarchy among the physical sciences, life sciences, and cognitive sciences.
By probing the nature of inorganic phenomena, one may fathom all the laws
of physics, but knowledge of physics alone has not predicted or explained the