"Science deals with that aspect of reality and human experience that lends itself to a particular method of inquiry susceptible to empirical observation, quantification and measurement, repeatability, and intersubjective verification -- more than one person has to be able to say, "Yes, I saw the same thing. I got the same results." So legitimate scientific study is limited to the physical world, including the human body, astronomical bodies, measurable energy, and how structure work ...

Clearly, this paradigm does not and cannot exhaust all aspects of reality, in particular the nature of human existence. In addition to the objective world of matter, which science is masterful at exploring, there exists the subjective world of feelings, emotions, thoughts, and the values and spiritual aspirations based on them.

If we treat this realm as though it had no contitutive role in our understanding of reality, we lose the richness of our existence and our understanding cannot be comprehensive. Reality, including our own exictence, is so much more complex than objective scientific materialism allows..."

From "The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality" by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Interesting too, what he has to say about his lifelong friendship and mutual intellectual exploration with physicist David Bohm, one of the many great thinkers and scientiest with whom he has studied extensively, and exchanged knowledge:

"David Bohm guided my understanding of the subtlest aspects of scientific thought, especially in physics, and exposed me to the scientific worldview at it's best ... In our conversations I felt the presence of a great scientific mind which was prepared to acknowledge the value of observations nad insights from other modes of knowledge than the objective scientific ..."


May all scientists, and all of mankind eventually benefit from these insights and understandings.