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TOWARD A METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OFTHE DIALOGUE BETWEENTHE TECHNOSCIENTIFIC AND SPIRITUAL CULTURES
∗
1. Introduction
At the beginning of human history, science, spirituality and culture were inseparable. Theywere animated by the same questions, those about the meaning of the universe and the meaningof life.The germ of the split between science and meaning, between subject and object, wascertainly present in the seventeenth century, when the methodology of modern science wasformulated, but it did not become full-blown until the nineteenth century.In our time, the split was consummated. Science and culture have nothing more in common;this is why one speaks of science
and 
culture. Science does not have access to the nobility of culture, and culture does not have access to the prestige of science.One understands the indignant cries unleashed by the concept of t
wo cultures — scientific
*
∗
Opening talk at the 6th International Congress on Philosophy and Culture « Differentiation and Integration of Worldviews: Dynamics of Dialogue Between Cultures in the XXI Century », Sankt Petersburg, Russia, November 2003, Russian Academy of Science, published in
 Differentiation and Integration of Worldviews
, series «InternationalReadings on Theory, History and Philosophy of Culture» n° 18, Eidos, Sankt Petersburg, 2004, edited by LiubavaMoreva, p. 139-152.
1
 
and humanist culture
— introduced some decades ago by C.P. Snow, a novelist and a scientist [1].Science is certainly part of culture, but this scientific culture is completely separated fromhumanist culture. The two cultures are perceived as antagonists. Each world — the scientificworld and the humanist world — is hermetically shut on itself.However, time has passed since 1959 when C. P. Snow formulated this concept. Themarriage between fundamental science and technology is now accomplished, generating
thetechnoscientific culture
which drives the huge irrational force of globalization, centered on theeconomy, which in turn could erase all differences between cultures and between religions. Partof humanistic culture has already been absorbed in the technoscientific culture. In front of thisnew monolithic culture, there is what I will call below the
spiritual culture
, which is in fact aconstellation of a huge variety of cultures, religions and spiritual communities, sometimescontradictory but still united through a common belief in the two natures of the human being —on one side, his (her) physical, biological and psychical nature and, on the other side, his (her)transcendental nature.As scientists, active participants in the technoscientific culture, we have a greatresponsibility: to avoid the disintegration of the spiritual culture resulting from the unbridleddevelopment of technoscience, whose probable outcome will be the disappearance of our humanspecies. It is, therefore, urgent to establish links between the technoscientific culture and thespiritual culture. But are these links possible?As a practicing quantum physicist I know very well that, if we insist on the technical aspectsof science, no link is possible. The only way is to question the axioms of fundamental science andits most general results. Only by situating ourselves at the frontier of science or in its very centercan we establish a dialogue with the spiritual culture. I had the privilege of actively participatingin one of the first institutional events in this direction [2].It is only if we question the space between, across and beyond disciplines that we have achance to establish links between
the two post-modern cultures
, integrating both science and2
 
wisdom: transdisciplinarity could offer a methodological foundation for a dialogue between thetechnoscientific culture and the spiritual culture.2.
The transdisciplinary approach to Nature and knowledge
The methodology of transdisciplinarity is founded on three postulates [3] :i.
There are, in Nature and in our knowledge of Nature, different levels of Reality and,correspondingly, different levels of perception.
ii.
The passage from one level of Reality to another is insured by the logic of the included middle.
iii.
The structure of the the totality of levels of Reality or perception is a complex structure :every level is what it is because all the levels exist at the same time.
The first two postulates receive experimental evidence from quantum physics, while the lastone has its source not only in quantum physics but also in a variety of other exact and humansciences.It is interesting to note that the three postulates of transdisciplinarity correspond to the threepostulates of modern physics as formulated by Galileo Galilei
:
iS.
There are universal laws, of a mathematical character.
iiS.
These laws could be discovered by scientific experiment.
iiiS.
Such experiments can be perfectly replicated 
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