Dear Molly,

I had a similar feeling recently when I walked into a cathedral in Melbourne. It was more aligned with a sense of peace, of finding a quiet space in the world and I wondered why there should not be a secular version of the same. But, to answer your question...

I suggest by looking at the foundations, at the rock on which it is built. I sense a fear of loss perhaps when I read this. In your analogy, one would understand the modern by comparing it's axioms or foundations to the ancient and yes, this knowledge can be lost but regained by returning to it's starting point. But not a total experience. I guess if the foundations are there and our spirit willing to be engaged as yours was then that is how one would enter it, by contemplating upon the starting point. Wearing the garment is to feel the reality as we wear the garment of poetry or music. Of course in these days we don't usually do that in any deep way, as for example the Afghan does in a Western city when he laments "why not these girl-gazelles wear the garment of Omar Khayyam?" (instead) "they are into capriciousness and feasting". So it is probably true there is less emotional depth now, we are more disconnected from tradition. Becoming small helps as was that not a purpose of the architecture? It make one feel small and so awed and contemplative thus facilitating the emotion.

Is there necessarily a sense of loss in general? There are those who revere their Greek ancestors for their achievements in science, philosophy, ethics and so forth. It is a foundation of the modern world. But in the 16th century Tartaglia provided a general solution of the cubic polynomial. Something no Greek had ever done. Of course, this is an intellectual result and not wholly spiritual but our spirit became different because of these kinds of things. We became freer, less shackled to the past.

It would seem that modern physics would be not too difficult to recover given the correct assumptions to start from: the ideas of the relativity of time, of quanta, of uncertainty principle and others more basic such as the idea of atoms. For mathematics the same seems so, of course there are some striking results from out of left field such as Godel's Theorems. Philosophy perhaps not to different but literature? That could be significantly different but that would depend more on the human spirit than any of the others except probably religion. 

Who is to say a loss of the religious sensibility, in the narrow sense of the church, would be a real loss? Why could it not be replaced with something better or more enduring? One could restrict what your feeling was to a more fundamental thing and secure a more universal agreement that it would be a loss and in that case we're closer to our humanity aren't we, face to face with it. 

Why was the feeling of sanctuary surprising? I agree that it is. It's rare in the modern world isn't it. Precisely because it is different and provokes such thought it can be useful.

Thanks, Martin, for your reply.

On sanctuaries: Perhaps to say it another way, it used to be that one had many multigenerational projects (cathedrals, dynasties, family trades). The projects themselves had a certain lifespan and finitude -- several centuries, perhaps more -- but somehow the individual contributor was able to experience a certain boundless fulfillment in the context of these projects. When a (religious?) person walks into a cathedral, it becomes like a kind of extension of one's own body: a shell which mediates the contact with the world. Its mortality allows one to suspend one's own... 

Whereas somehow one feels that these days such projects are lacking. We don't really see the living reality of large projects; everything is to scale and contained within human lifetimes. So there is a polarization: some things become small and less meaningful, others become (artificially) large and absolute. Nothing in between to act as a sanctuary.

I suspect my post was driven not so much by a sense of loss as by a visceral need to counteract this movement, by pointing out that much of our intellectual and social life can, in fact, be seen as having this kind of intermediate form.

I wonder what you mean by "something better or more enduring"? Again, loss may not exactly be the worry: the question is more what loss entails. Can one experience an ancient temple without its roof? What exactly would this mean? Can one read fragments of Euclid in the modern world? Perhaps not, but I was trying to ask (to inhabit?) the question at least as much as to lament the answer.

Hello Molly, thank you for your ideas and clarification.

I was able to characterise what you said in a two or three different ways. But it seemed to me that what is a sanctuary now, if identified with our intellectual and social life, may well be something very much like this web site. A virtual space in the world where feelings and ideas are exchanged, in silence, in a sacred, secular space, contributing to a kind of growth. 

What is entailed by loss, is a question with a more complicated answer depending on which aspects one looked at, I considered. Perhaps I should ask: what, if anything, is being sought? Was there an assumption to be unpacked?  What is the source of the feeling that inspired the first post? Sometimes our questions become disconnected from the impulses that gave birth to them. That is a good thing (a value of e.g. generality) but perhaps returning to the original feeling might help clarify the question.

As for better or more enduring, is it not the case as I hinted by example, that anything set in stone can be challenged and therefore perhaps the only choice for a better, more enduring thing with intellect is to question and always be open to answers; remaining in the so-called open channel. As for feeling, isn't it interesting how careful we are these days with that.  In past ages, feeling was closer to truth. 

Is there a real loss or one that just seems so, perhaps because we do see that something is missing and just want to recapture that feeling, seeing after all, that it is gone?

We can read fragments of Euclid in the modern world, but what we have now in that sphere is deeper and richer. There is no necessity for the parallel postulate, it is independent of the other four axioms of Euclidean geometry and can be replaced by other axioms for other equally valid and consistent geometries. So then, to the question: what do we lose? We gain, in possibilities. Is it not like some Greeks who revere their great ancestors but are annoyed by Tartaglia? If not, what precisely is it. I would like to know, because I don't want to miss out on anything!

We lead ephemeral lives, in the shadows of great ideas, in vain…? Is that what we feel is missing? I do feel that but I also want to clarify it. What do you wish to lament? Does anyone think science removed the mystery? It doesn't at all, in my view.