Meaning That Goes Beyond Us

NYU President John Sexton was featured Friday on PBS' Bill Moyers Journal. The program was titled "On God, Science and Baseball."

It was a great interview. Some quotes:

... there's meaning in our lives. There's meaning that goes beyond us. There's meaning that goes beyond us in something more than the butterfly effects or the chain of history or existence. ...

... the war between science and religion seems to me is a false war. There's no tension between science and religion. They're different dimensions. ... There are people out there on the NYU faculty that are embarrassed to have their president say this and I delight in that, you know. ... it is something that's real in my life and affects me day-in and day-out. It's self-evident that there are important things that are not reducible to the cognitive. You know, now, the neuroscientists would like to map even the poetic parts of the brain. And so on. We'll see where that goes. But the fact of the matter is that when I listened to Rachmaninoff's second at the Philharmonic a couple of days ago, there was an ineffable transportation to another plane that undeniably became part of my experience.

... I think Keats would say, at this point, that there's a coalescence of what we're talking about here, about transcendence and beauty and truth and faith.