Through A Mirror Darkly

 Bobby has been sending me some interesting links to philosophers/scientists making very interesting points. This is my response to one of those links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWo7-azGHic

Kaufman was very interesting; a bit dense and rushed, but interesting. While I was listening to him I experienced one of those gestalt breakthroughs. As you know, I’ve been puzzling for years and asking, why is it that, in the absence of clear and compelling evidence, highly intelligent individuals insist that they have no free will but they are merely robots composed of biochemical/biomechanical phenomena which were 100% predictable to be exactly what they are today and what they will be forever (or at least as long as the universe exists) at the moment of the big bang?

Since the evidence is unclear at this point (although they keep insisting the evidence absolutely proves that point, said evidence is woefully inadequate to draw a final conclusion) what would compel an otherwise intelligent, even powerful, human being to decide that he has no free will, has no choice, and is not only a machine but a totally unintelligent machine which only manages to delude itself into its belief system, that is, the concept that there is an individual standing there thinking and saying these things.

This is understandable position for a dangerous individual who is causing great harm to society. He could argue it’s not my fault. I can’t help myself. I have no ability to control anything. I don’t even really exist.*  Again, however, this seems a very strange position for a highly respected and influential  member of society to take.  This is all the more true when you look at the passion with which they defend this position. It is not, in their minds, sufficient to believe it themselves or even to share this belief with those who agree. No! They must evangelize. They must spread the good word that none of us actually exist, that we are not real,  that we have no free will and are completely subject to the unfeeling will of reductionist mathematical physics.

As I listened to this presentation, I was suddenly struck by that what should have been obvious from the very first time I asked myself the question. They are true believers. Evidence is not valued by them because evidence threatens the possibility that their true belief just might possibly not be correct.  This is not to say that that belief is necessarily wrong, although, obviously, I think it is.  Instead,  it explains why they are so determined to degrade their own status so as to present themselves as no more conscious or capable of free will than a rock rolling in a stream or a maple seed fluttering in the breeze.

You might ask, why then would intelligent people who are so capable of an unusually large measure of control in their lives be so determined to deny that they have any? What, exactly, is that explanation?  I believe, and this is the greatest insight that occurred to me while listening to this presentation, that this is because they are in fact identical down at the most basic emotional level with the creationists and science deniers.

They do not deny science, to be sure. Yet,  although they are excellent scientists, when it comes to this philosophic issue, they transform into true believers for whom evidence, science, and logic are mere enemies of their deep rooted faith.   Remember that young earth creationists also insist that science is on their side. If you simply Google young earth creationism you will quickly find a large number of articles and YouTube presentations declaring that coal seams prove Noah’s flood or that fossils and even science in general proves Noah’s flood.   It is absurd nonsense, but it is affirmed with the same passion with which of these highly skilled and normally very logical scientists who usually develop conclusions based firmly on the data now devote themselves to contorting the data to fit their preconception.  Again, exactly the way creations do.

The greatest insight which dawned on me today was that the reason for doing this is exactly the same as that of any true believer, including the creationists. It is the need for certainty. We live in a very uncertain, chaotic world. Even that which should be predictable if you know everything is subject to chaos theory wherein even the tiniest variation will make a radical change in the ultimate outcome.  Just as so many people turn to conspiracy theories and blind religious faith in order to gain some sense of sanity and order in our so disordered and unpredictable universe, these scientists are turning to reductionist particle physics in order to create a structure for our universe which, if not desirable, is at least predictable.  As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be.

Better an unpleasant certainty than the fear of the bleak, dark, and unknown forest, or, as we have all heard so many times, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

This has been an issue which has puzzled me so greatly and so deeply for so very long. Why did I suddenly realize it in the middle of Kaufman's talk? I don’t know. I don’t even remember exactly what he was saying at the moment I realized it. Of course, his talk was declaring that there are things greater than mere mathematical reductionism and utterly predictable classical physics, I was thinking about the topic thanks to his insights, but at what exact point I suddenly realized this, I cannot say. Now that I have realized it,  it seems so blatantly obvious I wonder how I could have  been so dimwitted as to not see it from the very beginning. I can only turn as a defense to the brilliant Thomas Huxley who, upon reading Darwin’s theory of natural selection, is purported to have declared “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Sometimes the most insightful and, in the case of Darwin, brilliant insights are blatantly obvious…after someone finally realizes them.

*This also fits with the opening of Sapolsky’s first lecture (which I also enjoyed very much.  I intend to watch the rest of his course).   As he spoke I was struck by the memory of an interesting article I read some years back.  One of the terrifying events of the past, now unfortunately all too common, was when a sniper took over a tower at, I believe, the University of Texas, and began randomly shooting people. As I recall, he was the individual that was the subject of this later article. The point is that an individual, whoever he was, was changing from a highly respected and healthy member of society into something very strange. He eventually did commit murders and I’m fairly certain he was the sniper. After his death it was discovered that he had written a request for an autopsy after his demise. He felt something was wrong with his brain. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, the autopsy revealed a large tumor which was interfering with his higher brain functions.

He knew that something was wrong with him. He didn’t know the cause but he could feel his sense of self fading away. He could feel the sense of free will fading away.  As you know, my own belief is that we do have free will but it is very much constrained by our biology and the uncaring laws of reductionist mathematical physics. That is bleak. That is indeed a dark and terrifying forest. However,  there is a light within that forest, and the light is our sense of self, our sense of free will, at our struggle to maintain those against the forces of a universe that doesn’t care about us in any way, manner, or form.

Let Us Prey For Guidance

As the Catholic Church is in turmoil and dissent over the issue of politicians who do not oppose abortion rights receiving communion (read Biden), they might consider looking back in history to find some interesting suggestions as to ways to resolve the issue.

 A few of these examples from history (and various unspecified Internet sites) that we could consider adopting today are listed below. 

Example one:  >On July 16, 1054, Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius was excommunicated, starting the “Great Schism” that created the two largest denominations in Christianity—the Roman 

Catholic and Eastern Orthodox faiths.<

So how about an American Orthodox Church? The Pope would still be unhappy, but least the bishops would get their way. Although, thinking about it, Biden would probably stay Roman Catholic and continue as a communicant in the churches which remained loyal to Rome in our second Great Schism.   Still, the bishops could declare a moral victory.

Example two:  Henry VIII is not allowed to get a divorce because the Pope doesn’t think it’s moral. Henry declares a schism that establishes him as the head of the “real” church. Yes, technically, the Queen of England is the head of the Anglican church.  (The Archbishop of Canterbury is subordinate to her and is merely the chief cleric.)

This could work out really well for the Christian nationalists, if they declared Donald Trump the head of the new American Church. That sounds better than Anglican doesn’t it?

Example three:  Henry declares that Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, is being disrespectful to him angily wonders why no one will stop this “lowly cleric” from insulting their king? Angry at this lese majeste; a group of knights take action.Thomas is murdered in the cathedral!

Then the king is forced to perform an extremely humiliating pilgrimage to show his penance and regret.

The difficulty with with this one is, I can’t think of who would get murdered and why. Also, I don’t like murder. Not really a good solution for today.

Example four:  >Western Schism, also called Great Schism or Great Western Schism, in the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the period from 1378 to 1417, when there were two, and later three, rival popes, each with his own following, his own Sacred College of Cardinals, and his own administrative offices.<

This is an interesting solution. However, we would have to find a third Pope.  Any suggestions?  How about volunteers?

Example five: > Luther became increasingly angry about the clergy selling 'indulgences' - promised remission from punishments for sin, either for someone still living or for one who had died and wasbelieved to be in purgatory. On 31 October 1517, he published his '95 Theses', attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences.<

No one is selling indulgences anymore (or any of the other practices Martin Luther decried so sharply).  Still, there is a big disagreement about who should or should not be allowed to receive communion. That might be sufficient justification for creating an entirely new branch of Christianity.

Since he was protesting the practices of the established Church, his new branch was called Protestant. The new branch today could be named… I’ve run dry here, I have no idea what could be called. Politicianism?

I could go on because the history of Christian belief and practice is very complex and involved. Nevertheless, I think that five examples are sufficient unto the day.  Dare I say, five suggestions?

Explosion? What Explosion?

 An idle thought on Father’s Day.

The Cambrian Explosion that actually wasn’t.

To this day Christian extremists describe the Cambrian Explosion as the sudden appearance of advanced animal life on the planet which can only be explained by God creating it.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, many paleontologists are declining to call the event the Cambrian Explosion any longer. This is because it is clearly not an explosion. It was a diversification, a radiation of already existing life.  This is exactly the sort of thing that has happened time and time again throughout evolutionary history.

Scientists are merely human, so, for about a century, they refused to recognize any fossils from the preceding Ediacaran era.  After all, they said, we know there aren’t any. So first of all, we won’t look. Second, if somebody claims he found some, we will just ignore him (or her).

Now that we finally recognize their existence and have found fossil beds containing them, we know that there was even a bilaterian before the Cambrian.  (That’s an advanced form of life, including you and me, that wasn’t supposed to exist prior to the “explosion”.)

Even Darwin recognized the problem of advanced bilaterian and complex animal life suddenly popping into existence. Because he was an honest man and a really competent scientist, part of his revolutionary work included the careful and detailed listing of all the possible objections to his theory of natural selection. The most telling, he acknowledged, was the absence of fossils prior to the Cambrian. Fossils which we have now found.

The Christian extremists refer to this as “Darwins doubt”. This is nonsense. Darwin did not doubt his theory. He just recognized that this was a valid objection to his conclusions. It is sad that he did not live to know all that has been found since his time which confirms, again and again and again, that he was correct.

From the net:

> Roger Mason (born 4 May 1941) is an English geologist. He is known as the discoverer of Ediacaran fossils, although it was later found that a then 15-year-old schoolgirl named Tina Negus had discovered the first Charnia fossil a year before he did.<

Notice that in this rare case, Tina Negas actually gets sort of a secondary, footnote kind of recognition for her discovery. In most cases, she isn’t even mentioned.  Wonder why? The school boy who found it a year after she did is honored. She’s almost entirely forgotten, even though she discovered it a year earlier, in the same forest where he discovered it. Makes me wonder if it was exactly the same fossil!  Hmmmm…

An add-on from two days later:

To make it clear that Darwin had no “doubts” let us quote him. “Consequently, if my theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Cambrian stratum was deposited,… the world swarmed with living creatures.”  – Darwin, 1859.

A prediction which now has been proven to be completely true.

Orthodox Or Heterodox?

 In response to the effort of American Catholic bishops to ban Biden from communion, a move which is not supported by the Pope:

Over the centuries the Catholic Church has always had its dissenters.  Many of them were loyal church members who just had a different spin on things. The Franciscans are a fine example. It’s not that they wanted to attack the authority of the Pope, it’s just that they communed with God more directly, which the papacy (not inaccurately) interpreted as a threat to its own authority.  Pope Honorius III brought the Franciscans under control (a bit, anyway) by recognizing them as an order of the church and thus putting them under his authority.

To this day they remain inclined toward mysticism and direct contact with God, a religious approach no longer highly regarded within the Roman Catholic Church, although profoundly important in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Abelard was even worse from the Church point of view. He replaced Anselm as the great philosophic leader of Church thought. The problem was that in his position as a professor at the University of Paris he taught his students that they should study natural philosophy because by finding out the way the world actually worked in an objective, empirical manner; they would see how God had designed the world. He believed, and taught, that this would inevitably lead them to conclude that the Catholic Church was right about God. 

The Church wanted none of it. They wanted everyone to simply believe what they were told to believe.  After all, the true teachings of the church WERE the truth. They saw natural philosophy, an early form of science, as sometimes contradicting Church teachings (nailed it!), and in such a case, the church teachings were right and anything that disagreed with them was wrong. In fact, that was true in any and every case. Yet they couldn’t condemn him for it. First, he was very popular and famous throughout Christendom so a lot of attention would be drawn to muzzling him, generating controversy and debate which might weaken Church authority. Worse, all they could say against him was that he said that the actual objective, empirical world reflected God’s will (kind of obvious when you think about it) and if they said no it doesn’t, then they sounded like they were being very foolish. So they had to let him teach. That meant he remained a highly regarded member of the Catholic Church even though his doctrines were not in full alignment with Church orthodoxy.

No recent schisms have occurred. However, the Church does contain a wide variety of beliefs and opinions. Orthodox Catholics are orthodox. They toe the line, and it is a very straight line indeed.

Not all Catholics, however, are orthodox.

We might regard America’s bishops as the ultra orthodox within the Church  They want to go back a few centuries. They want to restore the monarchal authority of the Church.  The current Pope sees that as a way to simply speed up the process of the erosion of Church membership.

History seems to indicate that he is correct. The more fundamentalist and orthodox churches become, the more rapidly they bleed out membership. This has been displayed over the past half century in America. It’s long been the reality in Europe.

The ancient Christian desire for purity, once very attractive (and still attractive to some) is proving to be such a bad taste in contemporary spiritual mouths that it is driving many away.

Those in favor of purity argue, what use is a church if it doesn’t follow its own doctrine?  The more liberal argue, what use is a church if it has no members?

Whatever resolution is worked out for this particular moment in time, the struggle has gone on for as long as there have been Christians, long before there was a Catholic church, and it will continue for the foreseeable future.

It is interesting that polytheistic religions don’t generally have this problem. Different Greek cities were not only different nations but they often had their own mythological stories about a given set of gods. Was Helios the sun god? Or was it Apollo Helios? For that matter, wasn’t Osiris just Dionysus in a different form?  The answer is that it could be both, or neither, depending on where you lived.

This proved to be a very stable system for thousands of years, in various forms, during pre-monotheist history.  Tolerance is not an aspect of faith generally associated with monotheism.

It occurs to me that one could take a lighter look at all this and sing a song! The song could be, what do you do with the problem like Saint Anselm? I don’t think the answer would be turning him into a nanny for some adorable kids who sing catchy little songs.

On third thought, shouldn’t the song be, what do you do with a problem like Joe Biden? I don’t know. I think I’m overthinking this and it’s time to end this post. Also, I just heated up some pizza in the air fryer. And I’m hungry.

Article Of Faith

 

https://apple.news/AN7nlmhN5Rku8XphHr10nEw

Very interesting article which I might have ignored had it not been in Scientific American.  It does make some excellent points. I remember reading an article in the LA Times perhaps 30 years ago which pointed out that while Europe was very secular and non-religious, that was in terms of organized religion. Most Europeans were, in fact, quite spiritual. They believed in something, whether it was an amorphous spirit of humanity or the Gaia hypothesis.

I used to complain (when the Next Generation was still an ongoing series), that, while every starship had a counselor, it seemed wrong that there weren’t any chaplains.  Chaplains are an essential component of military service and I couldn’t see the “non-military” but somehow incredibly militaristic Starfleet not having a chaplain’s corps.

I expected America to follow Europe’s lead and then, eventually, the rest of the world to get there too. However, organized religion in Europe has not ceased to exist, so I expected it would still remain an important, if minority, part of human existence.

In the decades since, the decline in organized religion in America has been following the European model. (Europe starting it all back in the days of the French revolution and we just taking own sweet time to get around to it.)

 Furthermore, the decline in organized religion in Europe has also increased (with the exception of new immigrants, especially Muslims).

In other words, it more and more looks as if Star Trek had it right and I had it wrong. Organized religion may in fact continue to fade away in the world as it has in Europe, while a generalized, individualized spirituality will likely remain.

Which means I’m also in agreement with this article. Counselors (along with their psychiatrist/psychologist colleagues) should be aware of spirituality, if not religion. It can be a very useful tool in treating emotional disorders.

>The study also revealed key opportunities in patient care, particularly for younger and seemingly secular patients. Psychiatric folklore has long suggested that psychotic, manic and obsessive patients gravitate more toward spirituality, as do older adults. Our findings, however, suggest that patients benefited from SPIRIT irrespective of their diagnosis or age. Apparently, depressed millennials are just as likely to want and benefit from spiritual psychotherapy as geriatric patients.

Our results also suggest that spiritual care is not only for religious individuals. The largest group of patients to voluntarily attend SPIRIT (39 percent of our sample) were individuals with no religious affiliation at all. Apparently many nonreligious people still seek spirituality, especially in times of distress. In fact, such individuals may be most likely to attend spiritual psychotherapy because their spiritual needs are otherwise ignored.<

Utilitarianism In Utopia

 Bobby, I was thinking about your friend who’s into utilitarianism. Somehow, I forgot about that when I was making my response to Prospera, but I shouldn’t have, because all utopias end up based on utilitarianism. Sooner or later, usually a lot sooner, the architects of the perfect utopia realize that not everyone is prepared to agree with them and some force is going to be necessary. This means suffering. How can utopia be based on suffering? The answer, of course, is utilitarianism. Yes, many must to suffer right now, right here, but then nobody ever suffers again.

This, of course, was the argument used by every brutal dictator in history. Let’s just look at recent history.

All those millions of people had to die for Hitler to purify the race and to conquer Russia, but then think of all the thousand years of perfect happiness that would follow for everyone who wasn’t killed and all their descendants. Utilitarianism says Hitler was onto something, Or at least he had some justification for his actions, very real, quantifiable justification

Marx? Lenin?  Pol Pot? Trump?

A relatively small number (sometimes even millions) had to suffer and die so as to guarantee the ultimate victory of the Utopia and thus the eternal happiness of mankind. At least for the next thousand years or so.

I think the biggest problem is people persist in trying to find the magic formula that gives you the right answer in every single moral situation. The difficulty is, as always, anything involving human beings isn’t simple math. Remember the quants on Wall Street?  You’re familiar with all the economists who just knew that everybody always did whatever was in their best financial interest. This is why the social sciences will never actually be sciences. They cannot be because every one of them involves emotion. They involve the  irrationality of our species. It can’t be quantified and calculated in an exact manner. At most you can make it somewhat statistical.

I spent decades trying to find something the equivalent of utilitarianism, but actually effective. That is, a true moral code, a reliable guideline that could be applied in any situation. I wasted those years. Although, maybe not.   At  least I learned a few things in the process. The main thing I learned was what I said above; there is no simple universal answer that can encompass the full scope of humanity.  Ultimately we are emotional, not rational. You must look at every individual situation. The best you can come up with some general guidelines which may or may not be applicable in any given specific case.

And even then you get problems. Was Bomber Harris a hero, or was he a monster? The Brits put up a statue to him (I think about 20 years ago) because they think he’s a hero. The rest of Europe was horrified and disgusted, because as far as they’re concerned, he should’ve been hanged at Nuremberg along with the other war criminals. I bet you can guess which group I agree with. If you don’t know about Bomber Harris we’ll talk about it next time we are together.

(And I’m not even beginning to think about the whole issue in Japan, where the war is still officially taught in Japanese schools as Japan being forced into the war by bully America and Class One war criminals are honored as heroes.)

Post script:  I really hate this dictation system because it’s so bad. I use it because it is still better than typing but it requires so much proofreading! For example even when I referred to Marks, Lennon and communism… You see what spelling it gave me.

Bomber Harris was just as bad. I don’t know of anyone named Bommer. Maybe that some famous person or maybe not, I wouldn’t know, but Bomber Harris was named after the strategic bombing airplanes he commanded not after some person named Bommer.

I won’t even repeat what it did to Paul pot. Well, there it is anyway.

I give up.  I’m gonna post this on my blog.  And, yes, I did say I am going to. But it never writes going to. No matter how slowly and carefully I pronounce it, it always types Ghana.

Enough! Enough!

The Old Gray...Herd?

Another Facebook post.  

This one is a little glimpse into daily life for some of us who identify as elderly.

https://tiffytaffy.com/shopping-cart-test/?UlL=6g06ugY0oDAJ&fbclid=IwAR1T7C4RZP_ehMwSltF84ewumNPHaFXDV6tamI-C89TlxL39VpJdECd7OPs

M: I am an old lady with difficulty walking.  I use a cart as a walker.  Nothing makes me madder than to see the store rush out to remove the carts near handicapped spaces.  It would be so nice to leave one, just in case someone really needs it. I guess they expect that more carts will be put there from other customers, but my experience is that they run out all the time and remove them.  I usually have to call to them to PLEASE leave one cart for me.  I was a single mom for years and always took the carts back, but I can't criticize others who may have many other problems.

Me:  I never take my walker with me shopping because what do I do with it after I grab a cart?

M: So true.... I only take a walker if I think I may have to go far... otherwise it's the cane.  The "Golden Years".....crap!  Oh well, the alternative isn't so great either.

Me:  I don’t know if I told you but I’ve told other people I really feel bad about being a such crappy shape. I mean I’m only 72. But then I remind myself that while it is true that I know people older than me in much better shape than I am, I also know people who died years ago and that means that when they were younger than me, their lives ended. So I guess things aren’t so bad after all, are they?

M:  Yes, to be able to function at all is a blessing.  My mother died at 87 after suffering Alzheimer's for 15 years.  I only care about keeping my brain working....that is such a horrible disease.

Me:  

The neighbor lady, who has since moved, had to go through that with her husband. Thankfully he was happy in his Alzheimer’s. He basically reverted to childhood and was unaware that there was anything wrong.