Science & Spirituality Topics
1. Science, Objectivity & Postmodernism
2. Science, Mysticism & Philosophy
3. Science, Logic, Faith, Love, Art, Beauty etc
4. Belief In The Occult & Paranormal vs.
Scientific Thinking & Non-Belief In Religion
5. Miracles And Science
6. A Scientific View Of Life, Death, Immortality
Philosophical Topics
7. Subjectivity in Arts
8. Objectivity vs. Subjectivity in Morality
9. What is Rationalism?
10. On the Abortion Debate
11. On Nature Vs. Nurture Debate
12. On Destiny, Fate Vs. Free Will
13. Faith, Philosophy & Dogma
14. On Cultural Relativism
Articles on Religion & Philosophy Issues
Rationality FAQ
References to books & articles, Book Reviews
Excerpts from Weinberg's "Facing Up",
Pagels' "Dreams of a Reason", Stenger's "Physocs and Psychics",
"Unconscious Quantum, and Alper's "God Part of the Brain".
1. SCIENCE, OBJECTIVITY & POSTMODERNISM
The most unifying element between races, religion or nations is science
Here all speak the same language. It is common to see a Chinese
scientist discussing research topics with say an Arab scientist in a
conference, academic institution or research laboratory. There is a
universal aspect of scientific laws, principles that crosses racial,
geographical & cultural boundaries that is absent in other branches of
knowledge(e.g history, arts, economy, law etc which are taught and
adapted to suit their respective nation or society). The programs in
Physics, Chemistry etc. in an Arab, Chinese or US University cover
the same topics and principles. The theologians of different religions
have widely differing views but the scientists of all religions have
identical "views" of scientific principles. A vindication of the
point I am trying to make is nicely illustrated by the noted British
American elite Physicist & Philosopher from Princeton, Freeman
Dyson who, in his insightful book "Infinity in All Directions" credits
a Bangladeshi Muslim (Dyson's own word) Physicist Jamal Islam as
having inspired and helped him in his quest for understanding of
what the possible ultimate fate of the universe might be, and to a
Japanese Biologist Kimura for having helped him in a mathematical way
in his quest for the understanding of how Life on Earth might have
evolved (genetic drift through random statistical fluctuation).
Incidentally, Jamal Islam is also mentioned in Frank Tipler's mind
boggling book "Physics of Immortality" on page 116. As Physicist
and former president of the New York Academy of science said:
"What distinguishes scientific theories from the pictures of reality
provided by religion, culture or politics is the intention of their
creators that they be useful theories independent of their user's
religion, culture, politics, sex, race, personality, feelings, or
opinions (p-172, "The Dreams of Reason"). A nice illustration of this
universality is by listing the following Nobel Laureates in Physics
(with diverse ethno-religious backgrounds) and their work. Physics is
the right choice as the laws of physics are fundamental laws of
nature that are universal and any explanation of any aspect of nature
eventually reduces to explanation in terms of these basic laws. All
other branches of science are derived from these basic laws of
physics with some additional assumptions reflecting the complexity of
the individual instances. See article#6 (A scientific view of Life,
death, Immortality) for quotes from scientists substantiating this
conclusion. The principles of medicine etc are not fundamental laws
either but reflect empirical rules that can and sometimes indeed
seem to be violated, but are nevertheless universal i.e not culture
or tradition dependent. So let us list some Nobel Laureates in
Physics with a brief note of their work, to illustrate this point:
1) Subrahmaniam Chandrashekhar(Indian/Hindu): Theory of Black hole
and the structure and formation of Stars. See the link at:
http://www.math.bme.hu/mathhist/Mathematicians/Chandrasekhar.html
2) C.N. Yang and T.D.Lee (Chinese/Buddhist): Theory of Parity
violation in nature (A subtle aspect hard for me phrase it for laymen)
. See http://www.nobel.se/laureates/physics-1957.html.
3) Abdus Salam (Pakistani/Muslim): Unifying the Weak and Electro-
magnetic forces of nature (same comments as above). See
http://www.ictp.trieste.it/ProfSalam
4) Tomonaga (Japanese/Buddhist?): Work on Quantum Electrodynamics.
See http://nobel.sdsc.edu/laureates/physics-1965-1-bio.html
5) Landau(Russian/Aethist(?)): Work on Superfluidity. See
http://www.nobel.se/laureates/physics-1962-1-bio.html
6) U.S, and other European physicists too numerous to mention.
Often a cavalier view and misconception exists among many laypeople
about scientists, scientific truths and scientific methodology itslef.
There was a common perception before (and still is among some) that
the laws of science are discovered by bespectacled, absent minded scientists,
working quietly away in their labs, dabbling with microscopes and playing
with simple equations or graphs of the kind that one is familiar with in
their high school math, adding here, subtracting there, tweaking numbers
until they are hit by a piece of good luck. In fact the math that is used in
contemporary science is quite sophisticated. The simple math of the
early Greek and medieval times has evolved into an incredibly complex
edifice of advanced math today that are applied to scientific research.
This complexity is not just in quantity, in the sense that an entire
page of equations of high school algebra or calculus being needed to
express a physical law, but rather in the complexity and novel
concepts, notations and structures needed to express a physical law
precisely. The new notions themselves often require mathematicians
to delve metaphysically into the realm of higher dimensions, far
removed from ordinary experience, sometimes to a 26dimensional world,
for example in developing the superstring theory of spacetime-matter
at the fundamental level. Also the steretypical image of scientists
diligently engaged in trial and error with experiments and equations
until finally they hit upon something revolutionary is a myth as well.
It is not realized by many that all the profound breakthroughs in
scientific ideas are not due to just the patient and diligent
tinkering of instruments and numbers, but due to the painstaking,
disciplined mental work through mathematical analysis and
observations following the scientific method. Although the
inspirations behind the discovery of certain scientific truth may be
epiphanic, but the formulation, verification and communication of
such scientific truth requires the use of scientific methodology
before it can attain the status of a universally accepted scientific
law. Scientific method is the "conscience" of the scientists, so to
speak, that guides the scientists and prevent them from succumbing to
individual whims and wishes. It enforces a uniform rule of
engagement for any scientist irrespective of affiliations to search
for the objective truth about reality based on observations, evidence
and logic. Technological marvels, which are results of applying those
scientific principles through ingenious ideas using both theoretical
and experimental techniques, however at times do require diligence
and tinkering. Some layfolks even think that the laws of science are
just the result of some abstract imaginations or mental constructs of
scientists reflecting their bias for what they perceive to be true ,
and the scientific laws are just a post hoc mental constructs to
explain away observations, denying the objective reality of
scientific laws. They seem to equate the claims of truth by religions
with scientific truths. But unlike religious and personal beliefs ,
which are considered true just by thinking it ot be true, scientific
beliefs are arrived at and inspired by a desire to seek the truth
through a systematic, repeatable, testable experimental and
theoretical endeavors. Such endeavors have to be necessarily
objective in nature for it to be verifiable by scientists
collectively regardless of their affiliations. A scientific truth
does not result from haphazard attempts. It emerges from a
systematic series of tests and observations inspired by intuitive
thinking, reasoning and evidences, aided by theoretical or
mathematical analysis. The level and complexity of the mathematical
analysis is often beyond that seen even in graduate level math
courses. One need only glance through the pages of the book "The
large Scale Structure of Space Time" by Hawking & Ellis or "The
Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" by Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar to
appreciate this fact. Oftentimes lay persons are illusioned and take
the profound scientific statements of reputed scientists for granted
as obvious,simple, or armchair speculation, not realizing that pages
and pages of sophisticated math that went into the arrival of such a
scientific conclusion in a precise way (An example being Hawking's
mathematical derivation of a Universe with no beginning or end and
the notion of "imaginary" time) and developing a theory based on such
math that can predict any result that is a logical consequence of the
theory, testable by the scientific community in a repeatable way. A
full consensus of the scientific community crossing national, racial
borders is an absolute prerequisite as well. The most important
aspect of scientific methodology is its ability to predict and a
scheme of verification/falsification of this prediction. All known
scientific laws were established through verification of the
predictions it made. A lay person is hardly aware of the ruthless and
exacting rigor with which the prestigious scientific journals and
their international referees screen a prospective article publicizing
a scientific principle. Such is the firmness of an established
scientific law or truth. A scientific law is not introduced in a
cavalier way like the pseudoscientific theories of "Scientology",
"Quantum Healing" and similar other new age myths that are not
accountable and subject to any rigorous peer review and testing. One
simply has to remind oneselves that there is good reason for these
never being taught in the regular programs in any general Academic
Institution, private or public. It is important to remember that only
one violation of a scientific law is enough to topple it whereas a
series of evidence/verification together with a mathematical and
logical consistency tested repeatedly by peers help to establish one.
Many laypeople hold the view that something that cannot be "seen" by
their eyes cannot be said to exist in a certain way but only
conjectured. To them electron is thus not a real object, but a
scientific conjecture. They miss the point that our individual senses
are no longer the only reliable means of verifying, testing or
predicting a truth or proving the existence of some entity. Our
observable universe consists of visible and invisible domains, the
macrocosm and the microcosm. The entities of the microcosm can be "
seen" by more sensitive means than our limited senses. Scientific
methodology has, over hundreds of years been able to perfect an
objective systems of observations through the design of extremely (
Cannot overemphasize this word) sensitive equipments & procedures
that can measure one billionth of the thickness of a hair to give an
example. Add to that the extremely complex, sophisticated
mathematical structure & language to express a scientific truth that
defy human words. Scientists spend a substantial amount of time
mastering this complex language before even beginning to express and
converse about the truths with their peers. Our entire assortment of
technological boons like T.V., microwave or for that matter any
electrical/electronic appliance is based on the same principle that
asserts the existence of electron, even the computer that the
Software Professional was writing programs for. Saying that the
existence of an electron is a perceived truth by the scientists is
like saying that the existence of the computer he is operating is the
result of his believing that it exists! Many educated people even
doubt about the objectivity of Einstein's Relativity particularly its
implication of time dilation etc. They don't realize the "Nuclear"
bomb, whose existence no one dare doubt, is built and devised from
the very same law that yields time dilation as its natural
consequence. It is also sad to see the cavalier way some lay people
and non-specialists dismiss many scientific theories/speculations
just because it contradicts their subjective perception, belief or
"common sense". Examples are "Big Bang", "Black Holes", "Time Warp",
Superstring Theory, Antimatter, prediction of machines having
consciousness beyond 2050 etc(As believed by Nobel laureate
Scientists Crick and Edelman, Computer Scientist Marvin Minsky,
Philosopher Daniel Dennett). The noted philosopher of this century
Martin Gardner commented in 1983 in his book "The Whys of a
Philosophical Scrivener" : I cannot say it is impossible for humanity
someday to build a computer or a robot of sufficient complexity that
a threshold will be crossed and the computer or robot will aquire
self-consciousness and free will (p-114) Notice he is not saying that
this WILL happen, only that it cannot be dismissed as impossible.
Scientific theories are based on painstaking mathematical derivations
based on well established fundamental laws of science or are
propounded in a mathematical expression derived on the basis of some
premise that seem plausible from observations. Once enough
observational evidence in support of the consequences of the theory
is accumulated the theory becomes a fundamental law itself.
Scientific speculations are predictions based on existing natural
laws but project its future extensions far beyond its current range
of validity. For a lay person to dismiss or disbelieve such a theory
or speculation, he/she has to point out the flaw (if any) in the
mathematical derivation of the theory (For that he/she obviously has
to master enough technical proficiency in the sophistication of the
mathematical framework) or put forward an observational evidence to
contradict the theory (Also has to be able to master the
observational skill needed in the experimental field of that theory).
A lay person is intelectually dishonest/wrong to dismiss the result
of the painstaking work of the scientists. A lay person can with good
conscience only confess that they don't understand or are not capable
of comprehending or analyzing it because of their lack of necessary
background. They can either accept the words of the masters , read up
enough to get a reasonable grasp, or just stay neutral. See http://
www.csicop.org/sb/9803/reality-check.html for a related interesting
article by Victor Stenger. Some post modernist social theorists also
audaciously characterize Science as another cultural construct of
human and question science's claim to objectivity. Interestingly
these postmodernists use the same scientific results to propagate
their outrageous propositions while declaring science as relative and
not objective! The truth that has already been revealed about these
postmodernists is that they are suffering from science jealousy and
since scientific knowledge undoubtedly commands glory and respect,
they cleverly try to wrest more respect by pretending they know more
than scientidts by proving that science is wrong. After all if
science requires high intellect then surely discounting science must
require even higher intellect, so why not pretend to "debunk" science
if you cannot understand it? Thats the ploy of these postmodernists.
Another reason for these posmodernists to pretend to debunk science
is because that would provide a convenient excuse not to go through
the hard route of learning the difficult principles of exact
sciences and apply them correctly to the social sciences. These
postmodernists are nothing but armchair social scientists incapable
to face the challenge of the hard sciences, and are threatened by the
incursion of scientific paradigms and principles in their field. For
them the appropriate maxim is "If you can't join them beat them"
rather than "If you can't beat them join them" ! There are even some
outrageous views like "scientific truths are the results of the
mental constructs of the white males of Western society !".There are
feminist sociologists who take this post modernist view and advocate
feminist science! (For debunking of such ludicrous view, see an
article by a female philosopher Susan Haak where she takes on the
preposterous position of Sandra Harding on feminist science at
www.csicop.org/si/9711/preposterism.html.
For another rebuttal of post modernist views,see
http://www.godless.org/eth/round.html.
Philosopher of science Noretta Koertge criticizes feminists' position of
science at
http://www.cycad.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/fem/KOERTGE.html
. A Female freelance journalist Elizabeth Larson mocks feminist science
in this here.The famous Sokal's Hoax
lucidly illustrates this ridiculous attitude of some non/pseudo-scientific
social theorists who pass irresponsible armchair commentaries on the value
of scientific principles. For more on post modernist's abuse of scientific
ideas check out Alan Sokal's Book: Fashionable Nonsense
Here are some excerpts from Fashionable Nonsense: "Science is not a text.
The natural sciences are not a mere reservoir of metaphors ready to be
used in the human sciences. Non-scientists may be tempted to isolate from
a scientific theory some general "themes" that can be summarized in few
words such as "uncertainty", "discontinuity", "chaos", or "nonlinearity"
and then analyzed in a purely verbal manner. But scientific theories are not
like novels;in a scientific context these words have specific meanings,which
differ in subtle but crucial ways from their everyday meanings, and which
can only be understood within a complex web of theory and experiment. If
one uses them only as metaphors, one is easily led to nonsensical conclusions."
Check also the following excellent and timely written books:
1. A House Built on Sand: Exposing Postmodernist Myths About Science(see link below)
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195117255/o/qid=935873231/sr=2-1/002-0600960-2676052
2. Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels With Science (Link below)
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801857074/ref=sim_books/002-0600960-2676052
The Nobel laureate scientist P.B. Medawar said that "there are some
fields that are genuinely difficult, where if you want to communicate
you have to work really hard to make the language simple, and there
are other fields that are fundamentally very easy, where if you want
to impress other people you have to make the language more difficult
than it needs to be." ("Third culture - By John Brockman, p-23). As
Alan Sokal says in his book "Fashionable Nonsense": "Not all that is
obscure is necessarily profound" (p-186). The renowned Biologist &
author thinker Richard Dawkins says:
"And there are some fields in which--to use Medawar's lovely phrase--
people suffer from 'physics envy'. They want their subject to be
treated as profoundly difficult, even when it isn't. Physics
genuinely is difficult, so there's a great industry for taking the
difficult ideas of physics and making them simpler for people to
understand; but, conversely, there's another industry for taking
subjects that really have no substance at all and pretending they do--
dressing them up in a language that's incomprehensible for the very
sake of incomprehensibility, in order to make them seem profound."
(Ibid). Interestingly neither Medawar or Dawkins are physicists, but
are biologists. Dawkins also said, apparently saddened by those
pseudo/non-scientifc intellectuals who argue that science alone
cannot answer ultimate questions about existence that: "They think
science is too arrogant and that there are certain questions that
science has no business to ask, that traditionally have been of
interest to religious people. As though *they* had any answers. It's
one thing to say it's very difficult to know how the universe began,
what initiated the big bang, what consciousness is. But if science
has difficulty explaining something, there sure as hell is no one
else who is going to explain it". (End Of Science - John Horgan p-119)
Dawkins is right on the mark here. My point here is that when
laymen, mystics or new age thinkers etc assert that "scientists or
science cannot answer all questions or that one cannot/should not
try to understand life, consciousness/soul/Creation of the universe etc
using science" they are in fact themselves arrogantly claiming that
their way (mystical meditation, pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo etc)
is the "right" way to know them! So much for consistency! At least
scientists are always basing on objective evidence and reasoning as
their guide and constantly making room for revision and revocation
and humbly confessing not knowing all the truth at any time. It is
one thing when scientists say science is yet unable to explain some
mystery and another when a layman or mystic says that. The laymen's
assertion is an uninformed biased view. The scientists' assertion is
an informed verdict. The two assertions are not by any means of the
same weight or consequence. One may accidentally hit on the truth by
random guessing, but it is not the same as arriving at the truth by
systematic reasoning. The truth is not always what appears to be most
likely from common sense. Our senses can be easily fooled as amply
borne out by history.
Another unfounded view held by many non-scientific leftist
intellectual is that it is impossible if not difficult to change the
existing scientific paradigm by fresh new minds brilliant ideas
specially if theses new minds happened not to be from the elitist
white western male scientist etc, i.e basically they contend that
the objective content of a new scientific theory is not judged in
isolation but that the affiliation of the proponent figures in its
acceptability. A single landmark exception will suffice to debunk
this preposterous belief. Until 1956 the overwhelming majority (In
fact 100%) of Physicist believed that Parity conservation is never
violated in nature. Any new theory without evidence that went
against this ingrained belief would almost certainly be dismissed. The
belief in parity conservation was too strong an accepted paradigm to
be challenged. Then in 1956 two Chinese physicist Yang and Lee first
pointed out the exception and theoretically predicted non-conservation
of parity. Initially there was predictable skepticism and it took further
convincing work and subsequent experimental verification by another
Chinese woman Wu and her colleagues and in 1957 the physicist
community abandoned a long held belief in conservation of parity.
Yang and Lee were not only vindicated,they received the Nobel Prize
in Physics for this intellectual feat. So much for conservative western
scientist clinging on to their scientific "beliefs" and refusing to accept
any new ideas specially if proposed by scientists from different
affiliations. This debunks two myths in one stone:
(1) That revolutionary new ideas that go against the current paradigm is
always rejected by reactionary mainstream scientist community and
(2) That the affiliation of a scientist offering a revolutionary new idea
may be a hindrance to an objective assessment of the merit of the new
idea.
Another example debunking the first myth is that of Nobel
physicist Paul Dirac's suggestion in 1928 of the existence of anti-matter
purely on mathematical symmetry considerations. As bizarre and
far out this idea may have sounded back then in 1928 physicists
didn't ridicule it even though they didn't accept it either for lack of
observational evidence. When observational evidence did come in 1932
his idea was accepted and rewarded with the Nobel prize. Truth,
however tall sounding, ultimately manages to shine out.A very
opportune note can be found at by a female Professor emiriti of
Physics Nina Byers (See her page at
http://www.physics.ucla.edu/faculty/emeriti/byers.html) and Claude Pellegrin,
professor of Physics at the University of california at Los Angeles, at:
http://www.soz.uni-hannover.de/isoz/SOKAL/NYTREV6.htm It is equally
disingenuous for laymen to observe "Of course, that's obvious, I knew it
all along" etc when commenting on some superficially trivial sounding but
truly profound statements by top scientists like Roger Penrose's assertion
that "Human mind/brain cannot be simulated by a computer (Turing machine)".
This assertion has a deep scientific connotation and is made to
refute the opposite viewpoint taken by top scientists in Artificial
Intelligence theory. This disagreement between Penrose and AI people
(Dan Dennett, Marvin Minsky etc) for example) is of a highly technical
nature and Penrose was not making a cavalier remark to echo what
mystics and pseudoscientists often make while discounting the role of
science in metaphysics and what laypersons perceive by their gut
feeling and common sense. This trivial sounding statement is a result
of a laborious research (Summarized in the two books, "The Emperor's
new mind" and "The shadows of the mind" in hundreds and hundreds of
pages). For a layman to quip "Oh that's obvious" is an arrogant, flip
remark implying he/she already is in possession of the insight that
is reflected in Penrose's conclusion based on his painstaking
cerebration and whose conclusion is nevertheless debated by top
scientists from Harvard, Carnegie-Mellon etc. Similarly when top
scientists express the views that in about 50 years it may be
possible to create intelligent machines possessing consciousness it
should not be cavalierly discounted by laymen but should be debated
with authoritative expertise in artificial intelligence, brain research
and mind/matter research based on Quantum theory. Laymen and
quacks etc seem to thrive on dissenting views of scientists. They
quote the views of the side which seem to be favourable to theirs and
claim that their view is supported by scientists! The fact is that
the two dissenting views of scientists on an issue differ on a fine
level and the two sides nevertheless agree on 80% or more of a
detailed and technical knowledge of the issue on which their
dissension is based. The quacks and laymen are totally ignorant about
those detailed technical background. So for a layman or quack to claim
that their view is supported by scientists is nothing but arrogant
and disingenuous. In other cases the laymen or quacks point to the
dissenting scientists and conclude that since the scientists differ
with each other so they are all wrong and its them (laymen/quacks)
who are correct ! (conveniently ignoring the the broad area of
agreement between the two dissenting scientists). As a final example,
when cosmologists state that vacuum has no weight, laymen should not
jump to a derisive laugh and say "Phew. Isn't that obvious? How can
empty space have weight anyway?" etc. Emptiness(vacuum) is more
than meets the laymen's eye. A deep study of quantum theory and
general relativity reveals empty space to contain virtual particles in
various modes of excitation and the fact that ordinary vacuum has
zero weight is a fortuitous result of the Grand Unified theory of matter.
Another example is the question why is the night sky is dark. To
a layman this may sound like a silly question, but it is not,
according to Physics it should not have been dark IF universe was
infinite with stars or space was not expanding, So there IS a
deep cosmological reason behind night sky being dark.
The bottom line is that so called "common sense", "gut feeling",
"intuition" etc are not always guaranteed to be a reliable guide to an
objective truth. They all reflect to some extent our desires and
wishful thoughts deeply ingrained inside, though in many cases they
are indeed right, but NOT ALWAYS, and it is this exceptional cases
that a true scientists ruthlessly tries to guard against any veil of
illusion and deceptive appearances that might creep in through fond
wishes and habits by deductive, objective cerebral work. And it is
through these deductive cerebral intuition that some of the the most
bizarre yet valid predictions/theory have sprang forth that defy
usual common sense and intuition of laypeople. (Time dilation,
quantum non-locality, matter from vacuum, many worlds etc). A
layman's intuition is almost invariably based on his/her wishful desires
and is believed in naively by him/her but is constrained by his/her
refusal to think in a more detailed and careful way. A scientist's
intuition is almost always based on an assumption of symmetry and
simplicity of nature, but is refined by deeper and careful thinking
and is always considered tentative. So it must be emphasized that
just as in order to establish a theory one has to get it screened and
reviewed through highly respected journals by a wide body of scholars
crossing national boundaries and actively involved in the field and
most importantly borne out by clear objective (indicated by unanimity
of scholars of diverse background) evidences, it is equally true that
to declare an established theory wrong one has to go through the same
rigorous path. Unfortunately often one is seen to cavalierly dismissing
a theory just because it seems too abstruse to him/her. Humanity has
learened enough sobering lessons not to jump so quickly in accepting or
dismissing any notion without careful invetstigation.
2. SCIENCE, MYSTICISM & PHILOSOPHY
It is commonly thought that understanding of mind, life,
consciousness etc belonged to that vague discipline called "
Mysticism" or religion and that science cannot/should not try to
deal with them. Laymen often defend Mystics & Theologians by saying
"You cannot judge their approach to truth as wrong using logic or
science". Laymen, mystics and theologians also feel that questions
of life, consciousness etc should be left with philosophers,
mystics, theologians etc and not with scientists". Nothing could be
further from the truth. The "mystics", by claiming to be opposed to
materialistic pursuits and adhering to ascetic life style attempt
to create this aura of wisdom and superiority. This is not to
question the sincerity of ALL the mystics, many do have the genuine
desire to grasp the meaning of the ultimate, but to question the
means they are adopting and more importantly their claim to having
(sole)access to the ultimate reality and their disdain for
scientific methodology. Some may not disdain scientific methods but
still belittle science by calling it just" another way" among many
in the the effort to learn about reality. By implication they view
scientific way as no better than any other way, mystical, religious
etc. It is a serious mistake to equate the objective methods of
science with just any other subjective belief systems. If someone
claims to experience a very personal feeling of higher state of
consciousness (in whatever subjective sense), or a sense of
heightened illumination about some transcendent reality, that is
perfectly acceptable as long as he/she characterizes it as such
(i.e subjective). But when these experiences are attempted to
formalize and made into an "ism" such as "mysticism" or when such
personal subjective experiences are defended by others as "real",
"objective" that is going a bit too far. Once a set of regimen is
prescribed for any Moe/Joe to follow by "joining" the exclusive
mystical school in order to experience the same personal subjective
senses of illumination, then it ceases to be of any spiritual or
transcendental nature. A divine truth, IF it exists at all, cannot
be acquired through pure procedural regimen. It may possibly be
obtained in an epiphanic flash like it came to Einstein (any truth
about nature can be viewed as divine/religious since that truth is
not the creation of human mind),who out of pure metaphysical
intuition grasped the truth that the space time we live in is
curved (This concept has a precise objective meaning that can be
shared with others, which no mystical "truths" possess). His
insight is an enlightenment about objective reality and is not
tangible through ordinary intuition but is amenable to the
objective language of mathematics and physics. That's how his
metaphysical insight was elevated to a universal truth. A divine
"feeling" of enlightenment on the other hand cannot be translated
into an expression capable of communication and so has to be
solipsistic. A pure procedural regimen to stimulate such feeling
will necessarily imply a non divine nature of the same. Any attempt
by mystics to elevate a personal subjective "feeling" of spiritual
enlightenment and call it a universal truth and prescribing some
regimen for others to experience the same would be disingenuous. It
is true that through meditation and other induced means brain can
go into an altered state which can produce a feeling or sense of
enligtenment, joy, fulfilment etc. That in itself does not imply
that a contact with a divine entity/truth has been established,
although any individual may justifiably believe it to be so in
their own mind. At the end it is really to each his own. Anyone can
" subjectively" claim to have grasped the ultimate mystery of life.
It is quite possible that mystics, meditators etc may experience
some subjective feeling of enlightenment/vision/hallucinations etc,
(Aviators when subjected to severe and sudden change of motions
causing substantial oxygen deprivation to the brainalso report
similar psychedelic experiences, sort of induced effect of mystical
mediation. In fact Harvard researchers have concluded that the
experience of mystical meditation is indistinguishable from altered
brain states induced by certain drugs.). So for the mystics,
theologists & laypeople to go one step further and assert that they
have gained access to the ultimate truth and reality is a stretch.
No real substantive or cerebral work goes into their pursuit to
back up their high sounding (though repetitive and often self
evident truisms) talks and preachings. If at all any truth is
arrived at through mystical means (meditation etc), then it cannot
be communicated to others because it is bound to be highly
subjective and subjective thoughts and realizations cannot be
communicated unambiguously to others and generate the SAME
subjective perceptions in them unless an objective language
(symbolic/mathematical) is developed. No mystical studies have
ever developed them. Subjective PERCEPTIONS or SENSATIONS
may be stimulated in others through communication of rituals/regimens
prescribed by some "mystic", but UNDERSTANDING or KNOWLEDGE
cannot. Understanding inevitably involves knowing TRUTH (Not personal
perception of such). And truth requires an objective means for its
EXPRESSION and VERIFICATION. And objective expression requires
an objective language (Math & Logic, Natural Laws , as expressed
in terms of well defined concepts etc) to be unambiguously
communicated. Mystics, New Age thinkers emphasize cognition
through intuition. But the cognition that the non-inferential intuition
results in cannot lead to the truth, at best a perception. A truth
must lend itself to a universal objective expression or an
inferential derivation for it to be communicable and an objective
criterion for its verification/ falsification. For, without a
consensus reached through such communication the mystic's "truth"
becomes a solipsistic concept devoid of any substantive value. No
mystical studies have ever developed such objective expression
of truth and its verification, and so cannot honestly claim to
communicate the "TRUTH". On the other hand the hard sciences
(Specially physics) do have the sophisticated objective language
to not only communicate but to understand in a fundamental way
subjective perceptions on such issues as mind, consciousness, life
and reality in general. This is what has been and being done by
cerebral giants like Roger Penrose, Henry Stapp, David Deutsch,
Paul Davies and others. None of these great yet humble physicists
claim that Physics in its present form can solve the problem of
explaining consciousness/mind/reality but that it may be explained
fully in future by extending the present structure of physical laws
through further discoveries and break throughs, if not within its
present purview. The boundary between science and metaphysics &
philosophy is getting thinner each day. It is inconceivable that
one could grasp the mystery of mind or consciousness without ever
knowing the facts of Quantum coherence or collapse. To appreciate
this one need
only to check this link out on the attempt of a theoretical Physicst from
Berkeley to understand consciousness. Here's another link
of another PhD Physicist Evan Harris Walker's attempt to understand
consciousness, and another on the inevitable role of Quantum Physics
on consciousness research.
It is fair to say the ultimate truth about reality, if ever is
explained, will be done so not by just by pursuing a formal study
of reductionist Physical principles or non-cerebral meditation of
mystics, but through a combination of a strong grasp of the
reductionist principles of Physics and metaphysical reflection/
intuition. So either a Physicist has to become a "mystic", or a "
mystic" has to grasp the fundamental truths of nature through a
thorough grounding of the reductionist principles of Physics and
mathematics in order to seek the truth about reality. That's why
most of the leading minds in the area of consciousness and mind
research are either from Philosophy, neuroscience or mathematics
who have spent enough time to train themselves in the advanced
principles of Physics and mathematics (Dennet, Lockwood, Chalmers
et alia) or are Physicists who are equipped with the knowledge of
the workings of brain/neurons (Penrose,Stapp et alia) and spent
enough time thinking metaphysically. In their book "Where God
resides in the brain", authors Allbright & Ashbrook says in p-xxv
that theoretical physicists are exceptions in the usual dichotomy
of mystics and scientists. They appreciate the particular but
also seeks order and theoretical beauty in ways reminiscent of
mysticism. And on page 32 they comment that neuroscience resides
between physics and metaphysics.
Dan Dennet is a distinguished
philosopher (Educated in Harvard and Oxford) who is well versed
in science and bases his philosophical ideas on solid scientific
insights in an authoritative way unlike pseudoscientists and
mystics. Richard Dawkins, the celebrated Biologist who insists on
precision, has even objected to labelling Dennet as a philosopher
rather than a scientist!. After all, mysticism/metaphysics strives
to deal with intangible entities and constructs to arrive at some
higher level of reality/truth based on the fundamental intangible
entities. But lacking the necessary tool, it is bound to fail. On
the other hand that's exactly how physics works. After all,
uncertainty principle, quarks, superstrings, curvature of spacetime
etc are the most intangible concepts which through series of
intricate deductive mechanism give rise to higher level of reality
of forces, matter and most all phenomena in the visible world and
life. Traditional mysticism is a poor man's (intellectually,
figuratively speaking) attempt to connect to the platonic reality.
Metaphysical reflection based on the principles of Physics and
Biology etc, on the other hand are the sophisticate's way. I must
emphasize that no derogatory connotation is implied here. Its just
that a well-intentioned effort is misdirected in the former case.
It requires both the necessary tool and the proper mind frame to
get the best possible grasp on reality. Some of the mystics may be
well intentioned and have the desire and mental capacity but lack
the necessary tool (A deep knowledge of Physical laws and
mathematical logic) and hence do not really achieve anything
substantive. Metaphysics without Physics is like a car without fuel.
It can go nowhere. The noted Cambridge Philosopher Michael Redhead
says "Physics and Metaphysics blend into a seamless whole, each
enriching the other, and that in very truth neither can progress
without the other" (From "Physics to Metaphysics", page-87)Just as
those who undergo rigorous and arduous physical training and
exercise are the most capable of performing tasks that require
physical skill by the same token the principles of advanced Physics
and mathematics enforce a rigorous mental exercise and training
that makes one prepared for an effective metaphysical speculation.
What could be intellectually more rigorous a training than the
mathematics of the 26 dimensional hyperspace of Superstrings?
Metaphysicians/mystics with no reductionist training cannot in an
unambiguous and objective way formulate/express reality of life and
universe but do so in a vague and arcane and highly subjective
manner that is only amenable to blind and subjective acceptance
prompted by biased and wishful desires. Merely quoting or
paraphrasing the truths of Physics (Quantum non-locality etc) by
a so called Quantum healers/mystics to back up their vague
affirmations does not/should not impart legitimacy to such
assertions. One has to pay their dues through a formal training
in the natural laws of Physics. It is simply an intellectual
dishonesty to assume that all the fundamental facts and truths of
nature discovered by painstaking mental efforts of brilliant minds
are all useless or irrelevant and one can bypass them and gain
direct access to some ultimate truth about reality by some vague
mediation efforts alone. As physicist/skeptic Victor Stenger
says his book "Physics and Psychics": "Despite widespread
belief to the contrary, mo mystical revelation has ever told us
anything about the universe that could not have been inside
the mytic's head all along. The most basic truths about the
universe - its size, constituents, the fundamental laws these
constituents obey, and humankind's place in it -- are nowhere
even hinted at in the sacred scriptures that recorded the
supposed revelations of history's leading religious and mystical
figures" (p-10-11). Even if it was true that some special soul
by some freak did gain access to ultimate reality through some
meditation (Or may be without it, why even mediation, if it is a
divine gift?) then he/she would be a lone inhabitant of an island
of enlightenment since no other ordinary human being can ever
grasp what the special person knows or feels, there is simply no
mechanism to communicate it, other than a blind belief on his/her
words generated in the minds of the ordinary folks through their
charismatic traits (Ascetic life style, detachment from
materialistic pursuits etc). Also if at all the ultimate mystery of
life/universe can be experienced by some mystical means it has to
be epiphanic, i.e a sudden experience arrived at unexpectedly with
or without mystical meditation by some priviledged individual. It
cannot be through a prescribed set of regimens which when followed
will yield that privileged experience to any individual. If that
was the case it would become a routine mechanical method for
anyone to attain ultimate insight and thus would be amenable to a
scientific analysis and would be integrated with mainstream science.
It may be noted as a side that it is far easier for a physicist to
get up to speed with neuroscience than it is for a neuroscientist
to get up to speed with quantum theory, due to the inherent
difficulty of grasping Quantum principles let alone its
mathematical complexity. It should also be noted that it is Physics
which is APPLIED TO neuroscience and not the other way around in
the attempt to understand mind/consciousness. It is no surprise
that most of the leading brain/consciousness researcher are from
Physicist background, like John Hopfield, a quantum physicist
turned brain scientist (Pioneer in neural net) appled Q.M. to
neurons. Miguel Virasorz is a superstring theorist turned brain
scientist (neural net. bottom up approach). Particle Physicist Leon
Cooper (Nobel Laureate Physics) also turned into brain scientist.
Physicist Eric Harth (Author of the book "The Creative Loop" and
"Windows of the mind") also worked on mind/brain research for
many years which has added valuable insight.
For examples of physicist turned mystic check this link and this
To understand the importance of the role of Science in Mysticism click here.
Also to understand the importance of the role of mathematics in mysticism click
here and here.
Even Russell envisaged the role of physics in brain/consciusness very early
in his essay "Cosmic Purpose" from his book "Religion and Science" where
he said that Physics and Psychology will eventually be merged into one
science. Mind and matter will not be the issue, but events". He also says
in that essay that the belief that persinality is mysterious and irreducible
has no scientific warrant, and is accpeted chiefly beacause it is flattering
to our human self-esteem. (from "Critiiques of God").
In more recent time distinguished scientist and editor of prestigious Science
magazine John Maddox in his book "What remains to be discovered" says on p-278:
"Psychology will be a branch/handmaiden of Neuroscience".
Let me now move on to the meaning and relevance of Philosophy
in the context of today's world. The word Philosophy
literally means love of knowledge. In ancient times the body of
knowledge was too small and there was no division of labour among
knowledge seekers. Philosophers were people who tried to understand
everything in life including the structure of matter, origin of the
universe, life/afterworld, consciousness etc. Not being aware of the
natural laws that we know now they came up with unique and often
ridiculous theories to explain everything. As you can see Zeno's
paradox baffled scholars at that time, whereas today an average
college student can figure out the flaw. Calculus was not known in
Zeno's time. Here's an interesting quote by Dawkins from his BBC
lecture in November 1996 : "You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And
you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an
encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you
know more than him about the world. You also can have a deeper
understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of
living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and
their colleagues." (For the remainder of Dawkin's lecture see:
http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/dimbleby.htm
Another Scientist and renowned author E.O. Wilson writes in his book
Consilience(From http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98apr/biomoral.htm):
"Now, this formulation has a comforting feel to it, but it makes no sense
at all in terms of either material or imaginable entities, which is why Kant,
even apart from his tortured prose, is so hard to understand. Sometimes
a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong.
This idea does not accord, we know now, with the evidence of how the
brain works."
(referring to Kant's idea of categorical imperative)
"Had Kant, Moore, and Rawls known modern biology and experimental
psychology, they might well not have reasoned as they did. Yet as this
century closes, transcendentalism remains firm in the hearts not just of
religious believers but also of countless scholars in the social sciences
and the humanities who, like Moore and Rawls, have chosen to insulate
their thinking from the natural sciences"
For another example lets take Hume's reasoning in Inquiry V II:
"Although many past cases of sunrise do not guarantee the future
of nature, my experience of them does get me used to the idea
and produces in me an expectation that the sun will rise again
tomorrow. I cannot prove that it will, but I feel that it must."
This is ridiculous/simplistic by today's standard. We can
certainly "prove" that it will, based on geometry and theory of
gravitation. Its not just a belief based on past observations. Of
course it will be a truism to say that there is no guarantee
that the proof itself is not a guarantee that the sun will rise
tomorrow. But then that is simply playing with words, one is not
saying anything deep. After all what would mean by "guaranteeing"
in this context? The proof is certainly there, however it is
defined. In light of modern knowledge in Physics, Evolutionary
and molecular biology, psychology, neuroscience, all the
speculations, questions, reasoning etc of classical philosophers
seem puerile today and reflects an ignorance of the deep
knowledge of the Laws of Physics, Biology (evolutionary/
Molecular/Neuro). Nevertheless they stand in high esteem for the
manner in which they reasoned and and thought despite the
primitive knowledge database that existed in their time. No one
really needs to study them now to gain insight in life and
nature. For that they need to study Physics/Cosmology,
Evolutionary and molecular biology in depth AND (that's the
vital part) try to understand the meaning of it all (i.e think
metaphysically). Mere reading in a fact gathering manner, like
feeding data into a computer is not adequate for human insight.
Humans today have been passed down a gene pool that contain the
cumulative knowledge over millions of years and a research Physicist
or a Molecular biologist today knows more about nature and life than
the combined knowledge of all these primitive philosophers of ancient
days. Even religion (eschatology) now is a more properly addressed
by Cosmologists. The incredible level to which Physics and the
Biological sciences have progressed has radically changed the
traditional meaning of Philosophy in modern context. Philosophy
today is primarily study of logic and epistemology. Logic is more an
integral part of mathematics, and the rest of philosophy is only
meaningful as a historical study of the evolution of human thought,
epistemology and reasoning. Basically, Kant, Hume, Heidegger,
Wittgenstein etc have put to rest all philosophical/metaphysical
speculations by showing that they are just constructs of words with
no meaning beyond that can be conclusively arrived at by consensus
thru any objective means. All previous philosophical ideas are
nothing but subjective verbiage of individual abstract ideas which
can never be tested/verified or agreed upon in an universal way
except for the obvious statements of individual perceptions that are
common to all in an intuitive way (The feeling of mystery and awe
about the infinite universe and its creation and existence etc). Here'
s an interesting excerpt from cognitive scientist Roger Schank (See
his page at www.ils.nwu.edu/~e_for_e/people/RCS.html) who holds
triple faculty positions in Computer Science, Education and
Psychology, referring to the remarks on consciousness in Mortimer
Adler's "Syntopicon" by Old Philosophers like Aquinas, Montaigne,
Aristotle etc : "These people have vague hand-waiving notion of what
consciousness is about, with a religious tinge to it. Their work
wouldn't fly at all in modern academics. Yet we're being told that if
you haven't read them you aren't educated. Well, I'm reading them,
but I'm not learning much from them. What I'm learning is that people
have struggled with these ideas for the last two thousand years and
haven't been all that clever about it a lot of the time. Now, with
the computer metaphor, and a different way of looking at the idea of
consciousness, we have entirely different and new and interesting
things to say.." Stephen Hawking, in the final chapter of his
celebrated book "A Brief History of Time" quotes the eminent
Philosopher of this century Wittgenstein as saying that the only
meaningful work left for philosophers today is the analysis of
language ! Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman has commented: "Philosophy
is the graveyard of isms". Another nobel laureate Francis Crick
(Codiscoverer of DNA) has said "Philosophers had such a poor record
over the last two thousand years that they would do better to show a
little modesty rather than the lofty superiority they usually display"
. All the so called deep philosophical verbosity on Life, Soul, etc
be it in Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Hellenic Philosophy etc, can
never be boiled down to any tangible fact or a precisely formulated
truths of life/nature i.e there is no real substance but some rich
literary/poetic/romantic imageries. To be a true seeker of knowledge
(i.e philosopher) one has to understand the deep laws of Quantum
Theory, Cosmology, Chaos theory, Molecular Biology. Reading on the
early Philosophers and their works are only for historical interest
and to understand how human thoughts have evolved and advanced with
time to the sophistication today. The theories of Aristotle, Ptolemy,
Copernicus appear so obvious and elementary today. But they were the
pioneers of their days. But the combined knowledge/insight of top
Physicist, Molecular Biologists and all the other disciplines today
will far surpass the combined insight of all the ancient
"philosophers" in existence. Today's hard sciences are ready to tackle
even issues that were considered the exclusive realm of religion/
ethics/spirituality etc. In fact the laws of physics ARE the Laws of
nature and the laws of biology are the laws of Physics (in the
emergent form), so ultimately, Life/Consciousness, End of the World,
etc will all be in the domain of Physics ("The Fabric Of Reality" by
Oxford Physicist David Deutsch states this premise in a remarkably
elegant and convincing way). In fact all contemporary philosophers
(who still survive as a species) of today are either former
professional Physicists/Mathematicians/Life Scientists or have strong
background in such and constantly invoke the deep truths of those
disciplines to construct their philosophical ideas. Science provides
the "raw material", so to speak, for the philosophical speculations
and views. Scientists themselves are so occupied in the actual hunt
for the truth and refining it through painstaking series of precise
tests and observations that they can hardly afford to pause and
speculate about the metaphysical implications. But many do, and
they are to me truly the true philosophers, like Paul Davies, Roger
Penrose, Richard Dawkins etc. For example Philosophers have debated
and written profusely on morality, ethics etc, but they all in the
end analysis, reduce to verbal meanderings with no remarkably
significant insight. But if these issues of human life is viewed in
the light of the profound truths of evolutionary biology, genetics
etc they do provide some remarkable insights into it, an example
would be the ideas of Richard Dawkins as outlined in his book. "The
Selfish Gene". Even the concern of the philosophers on the issue of
the limit of human knowledge is more effectively dealt with through
mathematical principles and Quantum Theory. So my whole point is
that there is no such viable thing as philosophy in isolation from Science.
Philosophy is just the pursuit of understanding of life and nature
through "thinking" and this understanding is only possible, if at all
through Science. Up until the thirties, there were intellectuals
devoid of scientific background who were monopolizing the profession
of "thinkers" while scientists merely writing technical books on
scientific principles, forming two distinct cultures. Now it is the
time of the Third culture where Scientists themselves are taking the
role of thinkers since nobody with little or no scientific background
can even dare think on the profound issues of life which are so
intimately a part of scientific pursuit today. Modern philosophers of
any consequence are really doing their thinking on ideas and issues
that are already the result of the work of scientists by first
mastering the ideas and then working on the implications and/or
extrapolations thereof. For example look at the 1988 article at :
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/uncaused.html, to
see what a 36 year old PhD in philosophy had to say about the origin of
the Universe (Warning: Maybe too mathematical for you). All the
contents of this article refer to the work of cosmologists(Scientists) like
Einstein, Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, James Hartle etc. For other
examples of philosopher's subject of study see the other articles by
Quentin Smith at www.infidels.org/library/modern/quentin_smith/.
Finally the book "The Ends of Philosophy" by Harry Redner does a post
mortem of traditional philosophy and the attempts to revive it new
form. Click here for excerpts from the book. Einstein in an obvious
sense of pity for the moribund state of philosophy commented in 1932 "
Philosophy is like a mother who gave birth to and endowed all the
other sciences. Therefore one should not scorn her in her nakedness
and poverty, but should hope, rather, that part of her Don Quixote
ideal will live on in her children so that they do not sink into
philistinism. (From p-150, "The Quotable Einstein")
3. SCIENCE, LOGIC, FAITH,BEAUTY ETC
Often a mistaken perception exists in some people that those who
are logical, rational or scientific (henceforth abbreviated and referred
to as LRS, in alphabetical order, not in order of importance) in their
thinking cannot be passionate, appreciative of humour and beauty etc
and display human emotions like fear, love, passion, fantasy,
frustrations illogical beliefs etc. This view is utterly preposterous
and a myth. If one exception breaks a rule then certainly more
than one exception do. Not only can they show all these human
emotional traits but even have a belief in something not
provable by science (May have ever occurred to many, for some
examples to follow later). Thinking logical and rational is a way
of organizing our thoughts and actions to avoid unnecessary
problems and misunderstandings that result from a lack of it. It is
of practical significance, intellectual aside, and is mutually
exclusive of, yet compatible with purely "natural" human emotions
like love, passion, imaginations, daydreaming, fear etc. If 'A'
points out to 'B' the inconsistency of statement 1 with statement 2
of 'B' (An indication of 'A''s logical mind ) what is there to
prevent A from appreciating a piece of artwork, or to hug someone
or hold someone's hand and look into their eyes? So B should not
immediately jump to such an impression about A by A's logical
remark. Often remarks like "Logic or reason cannot apply to
emotions, love, beauty etc", "science ruins the beauty and mystery
by trying to explain it" etc are made. Is it just a coincidence
that this kind of remarks are never made by those who understand
science truly, i.e the scientists? Besides these remarks sound
like answering a question that was never asked, or refuting a
statement that was never made. No one ever said that Logic or reason
applies "TO" emotions, beauty etc. Or that logic can help find or
explain the "feeling" of love or beauty. Science and logic never
claims or requires that. But that does not by any means imply that
logic and reasoning cannot help us to UNDERSTAND the ORIGIN of love,
appreciation of beauty etc. Such understanding is within the domain
of modern science specially the new field of "Sociobiology" or more
specifically "Evolutionary Psychology" where usual human traits
like selfishness, altruism, aggression, love etc are explained in
terms of the fundamental lessons of Biological Evolution together
with the hormonal basis of certain emotions. Trying to understand
the origin of emotions in terms of a more basic underlying natural
principle through scientific reasoning does not mean negating those
emotions themselves or claiming that they are the results of the
pure constructs of logic or reason. Then why so many harp on this
defensive statement when no such contrary statements are made
by scientists? The reason may be rooted in the inherent fear of the
truth. For many the truth may destroy the idealistic mental images
that their romantic imaginations create and inspire them in a
personal way. There is a propensity among most humans to live with
wishful thinking providing a sense of purpose and a driving force
to move on in life. A mature insight into the truth should not
interfere with these personal images but should complement it
instead. First let me tackle the issue of LRS vs. beauty, passion,
mystery etc. Those , who choose intuitive over rational approach in
thoughts and actions (henceforth to be abbreviated and referred to
as NLRS), are heard to pass comments like "LRSs kill the beauty by
trying to explain or understand beauty". Here the NLRS are making
a subjective judgment. Kills the beauty? What does it mean? Does it
mean it kills the capacity of the LRSs to appreciate art or beauty?
Who judges that? The NLRSs? How can an NLRS judge the pure
subjective qualia of artistic sense in the minds of an LRS, who may
not at all agree with that statement? Do the NLRS also think that
LRSs feel less of the qualia of love and other human emotions? That
would be a condescending and patronizing attitude of the NLRSs
toward the LRS, a variation of the "holier than thou" attitude. For all
we know many scientists have a quite a bit of sense of beauty, and
they feel that their appreciation of beauty is enhanced by knowing
the object or phenomenon of beauty at a deeper level. Just as
trying to understand the working of the brain does not rob the
neurologists of their own brain or stops it from functioning, the
act of trying to understand the deeper meaning of love and beauty
does not rob the LRS of their inherent sense of beauty and ability
to appreciate it. Theses are genetically programmed in humans in
various degrees and are not affected by any other propensities to
understand, explain things at a deeper level. In other words if sense
of beauty, compassion, love etc are determined by one genetic
factor (say gene-1) and the propensity to understand and search for
deeper answer through LRS way is determined by a second genetic
factor (say gene-2) then gene-1 and gene-2 are mutually independent,
not affecting each other.
Einstein saw beauty in the laws of nature. Beauty is symmetry. And it
is by believing in the beauty of nature that Einstein, Dirac and
numerous other physicists came to the most insightful realizations of
the secrets of nature. Behind their profound discoveries lie the
motivation from a sheer metaphysical sense of beauty and mystery of the
universe. he was also moved by music. he used to play violin. Nobel
laureate Feynman was an accomplished Bongo player. The Nobel laureate
Physicist Chandrasekhar who wrote a 650 page mathematical tome "The
Mathematical Theory of Black Holes" also wrote a book called "Truth and
Beauty" in which he emphasized the role of sense of beauty behind the
motivation of scientific thinking. To him, art, seen from this
scientist's point of view, seems to be all the richer for it, contrary
to popular belief that rationality strips Art of its elemental passion.
He drew the parallel between the works of Shakespeare, Beethoven,
Shelley etc with the beauty inspired approach of scientists for the
search of the truth. A very fascinating marriage of beauty and
mathematics can be seen in the works of mathematician/artist Escher
(http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Museum/3828/air.html) The renowned
British astronomer and prolific author John Barrow also has shown how
beauty and truths of natural laws are closely related (not antagonistic)
in Part 6 Titled "Aesthetics" in chapters 23 & 24 of his fascinating
book: "Between Inner Space and Outer Space" (see
http://www.oup-usa.org/docs/0198502540.html)
Does LRS ruin the sense of mystery by trying to understand or explain the
mystery? Again like beauty its subjective. LRSs feel that the mystery even
deepens and becomes more interesting as they understand more. Also LRSs
admit that there exists an ultimate mystery that is unexplainable. For
example one can start asking why to each phenomenon (As Nobel laureate
Weinberg does in his famous "Dreams of a Final Theory"), say start with
phenomenon "D".
LRS:
D. Why D? because C.
Why C? Because B.
Why B? because A.
Why A? "I don't know"! I wish I knew. My aim is to search for the answer.
NLRS:
Why D? Because its the work of "GOD" or some "Spiritual force"
Why C? Because its the work of "GOD" or some "spiritual force"
Why B? Because its the work of "GOD" or some "spiritual force"
Why A? Because its the work of "GOD" or some "spiritual force"
Whats the point of asking, isn't logic and reason useless here?, besides
it destroys the beauty of the creation in trying to explain everything.
Now stare at the two. Who was showing more humility? One who proclaims
ignorance at some deeper level or one who claims to KNOW that some divine
being does everything because "he" chooses it to be so, whether it is A,B,
C, D. Also ask who is ruining the mystery and who is keeping it alive?
For example, for LRSs "A" now = the Standard model of particle Physics,
or potentially in future, the M-Theory version of Superstrings. In other
words:
Standard Model->All of Physics->All of Chemistry->All of Biology->Life->Economics..
Of course the details in some arrows are lost in the laws of emergent
phenomenon like complexity, chaos that are almost impossible to know but
are in principle traceable to the Standard model or can be added as a
supplementary rules along with it.
Next take the case of love, (com)passion etc. NLRS often pass
comments like "Love, kindness, human emotions" are not rationalizable.
Its beyond logic or science. What are they really trying to say?
Scientists do try to find a layer of reality underneath each human
traits including that of sense of beauty, love for people etc which are
supervenient on those lower phenomenon and appear as epiphenomena. But
does that really imply rationalizing the subjective feeling (qualia) of
love itself that we all human (LRS or NLRS) feel? Does it even make any
sense to say that? Then why such comments are made? I will get to it
later. Now what possibly can make it impossible for an LRS not to be
moved by the beauty or charm of a flower, a woman (for a male LRS) or a
man (for a female LRS)? I tend to believe that I am an LRS. But why
is it that I am attracted to surrealism in art, why am I touched by
hauntingly beautiful music, poetry etc? These are not explainable nor
demanded by LRS thinking. Then of course it is subjective which music
or poetry appears to reflect beauty to whom. But who is to judge which
one has and which one doesn't. But they all appeal to our inner senses
the same way as any other. An LRS is not an alien and has the same
genetic structure and capability to appreciate and enjoy beauty as a
non LRS human, or more.
Just because one is an LRS does that immediately dehumanize and strip
him/her of the lofty qualities of parental love, spousal love, passion
in love, and compassion and it becomes the sole monopoly of the NLRS?
LRS's also are parents, husbands, wives. How can they be bereft of love
or emotion if they can have children? It requires passion to be a
father or mother assuming a loving relationship. And loving
relationship is certainly common among LRS's as much as NLRS's. Are the
LRSs less humane than NLRS ?. Can't an LRS weep when his/her mother
dies?; can't he/she love his/her daughter and set aside his priorities
for a day to give some precious time to her? Does his heart feel with
joy when his see a baby smile at him? NLRs may think he can't, because,
he has been brainwashed by the LRS way of thinking to forgo all his
finer humane instincts. By the same token an NLRS may think that since
an LRS follows the valid argument forms of Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens,
Hypothetical Syllogism or Disjunctive Syllogism he is incapacitated
to feel the pangs of bereavement of his departed mother, or never to
wish to get married and be a father or a mother, or to make any
exceptions to any rule out of any compassion for someone. Or that
since he accepts in the indisputable evidence of the theory of
evolution, and do not egotistically believe that humans are very
special and were created in a special way in one swoop, he cannot
claim to possess human qualities. If he is humble enough to look at
himself as just another animal evolved out from a common ancestor,
along with all other animals on earth through the long and slow process
of evolution from lower life forms to complex ones then he loses the
right to claim possession of the loftier human qualities like love,
compassion, family values etc. Such qualities are claimed by the NLRS
as being their sole monopoly because they were egoistic enough to
believe in the creationist myth that humans were created specially in a
preferential way by a divine being in its own image at a special
moment of time!.
Can an LRS who doesn't believe in life after death (not all LRS have
to disbelieve in Life after death as will be pointed out below) not have
any feeling for their parents/children? After all they will all be gone
sooner or later and become inert matter? NLRSs want all to believe
that they cannot or don't. The most loving father, spouse are some of the
avowed reductionist scientists not believing in resurrection, God etc.
Again like gene-1, gene-2, love for a child, parent is a human genetic
instinct (say gene-3) which cannot be wiped out by gene-2.
Next let me tackle the case of beliefs.
It is also a mistaken conclusion that a scientific and skeptical
mind cannot have any belief. Even a belief in a GOD (not a personal
God of revealed religion, but as an abstract concept or belief in
immortality through an unexplainable power) is not inconsistent
with a skeptical and rational thinking, because the latter is
supposed to be a guide in an objective evaluation of subjective
"claims" and for seeking the truth by consensus. But a personal
belief in something plausible which does not CONTRADICT or VIOLATE
NATURAL LAWS (This is the all important qualifier which the NLRS
forget when they criticize LRS) is NOT inconsistent with LRS
thinking as above. A fine example of a skeptic rational philosopher
who believes in such a GOD and immortality but otherwise doesn't
believe in any existing religion or faith is the eminent Philosopher of
this century Martin Gardner. (See his book "The Whys of a Philosophical
Scrivener"). Martin Gardner is a rigid skeptic and logician/
mathematician who has been a regular critic of pseudoscience and new
age mystics debunking myths through the columns of The Skeptical
Inquirer magazine of the "Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal" (CSICOP) (http://www.csicop.org) but also
believes in Immortality and his own concept of GOD. Why? He plainly
admits that because he wants to believe in immortality (and hence GOD,
as the former necessitates the latter) and since logic/science is not
violated by this belief he can happily believe in it! Another Physicist
Frank Tipler not only believes in GOD which he calls Omega Point, but
also goes a step further to prove that such a GOD is an end result of
the evolution of life and universe and will become an omniscient,
omnipotent entity that purely arises out of a consequence of the
natural laws (both already discovered ones and potentially unknown ones
working in the background. Even the known part are sufficient to make
Omega Point plausible.). Although some premises have to be true (which
are not known at this time if they are) for Omega Point to become a
reality Tipler chooses to "believe" that the premises are true because
it doesn't violate any known scientific laws to believe in those
premises. This is a clear example of believing in God, resurrection,
immortality etc while still adhering to the strict principles of
Physics and LRS thinking.
Intrigued by Tipler's ideas? See more at http://niazi.com/resurrec.htm
or http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html Tipler
is a Global general relativist, a formidably mathematical field and
his work comparable to that of Hawking. He can be taken as a
prototype of an LRS. In fact while it is true that most scientists
don't subscribe to the traditional beliefs in personal GOD and the
revelations of a book as the word of the GOD, they are in fact
deists. Einstein believed in a Cosmic Consciousness which he
identified as his God (Called Spinozza's God). I already mentioned
Omega Point. Its just that they don't believe in the usual personal
concept of God as a father figure somewhere up in the heavens
monitoring the day to day activities of each mortal, talks to them
through the revelations of a book written in a certain language,
who demands daily worship by the mortals and gets angry if they don't
, and prepare a ledger for final rewards and punishment for not
following the revelations. The term atheist is misapplied to
scientists. Since scientists admit that the very source or origin
of natural principles are not explainable by the natural laws
themselves there will remain an ultimate mystery of the unknown.
Scientists don't label that unknown with any term (although some do
use the word GOD metaphorically like Hawking, Einstein etc), our
ancestors came up with the easily graspable concepts of religion to
give that unknown a closure although to those ancestors even some
of the natural consequences of the known natural laws today were
unknown and were explained by God, the "one word explains all"
concept. It is also an unfair to assume that an LRS shows
disrespect for the acts and beliefs of NLRSs. They don't. No
scientist or rationalist ever mocks at the acts or prevent or denies
to help in carrying out of any acts of NLRS like ritual praying etc.
Although in their mind they can consider those acts irrational by
the criterion of logic and rationality. But even ritual praying is
speculated by LRS as having a placebo effect and thus beneficial.
So LRS sometimes are envious of NLRS as the latter do benefit from
the blind belief in ritual praying which the LRSs are deprived of
by their skeptical and logical thinking. Here is a case where
belief in falsehood may be more beneficial to health than a belief
in the truth! Oh, if only beliefs could be switched on and off
like a button!
Finally some speculations. If I at all succeeded in exploding the myths
about an LRS not possessing human emotions or traits then the question
arises why insist on this myth. Why is it brought up again and again by
NLRSs in discussions and writings? Is it that there is an instinctive fear
of logic, rationality, science due to their potentials in leading us to
unpleasant truths that one wishes not to face or admit? A truth which may
shatter the desires that we all cherish deep inside? If so then how to
counter this dreaded consequences of LRS way of thinking? One way would
be to dehumanize the LRS and rob them of these lofty human qualities by
portraying them as cold hearted, devoid of all softer qualities of love,
compassion, filial piety etc, after all these are valued by ALL of humanity,
so by cleverly manipulating the common sentiments against LRSs by stripping
them of these lofty traits and claiming sole monopoly on them the NLRSs
can successfully marginalize the LRSs. And this marginalization will also help
to obfuscate the unpleasant consequences that the LRS ideas and methods
can potentially lead to, at least that's the hope of the NLRS. Just a speculation!
4. BELIEF IN OCCULT & PARANORMAL PHENOMENA VS.
SCIENTIFIC THINKING & NON-BELIEF IN RELIGION
Often when someone asserts their non-belief in any religion and belief
in rational thinking it is assumed by many that they also cannot(or should
not) believe in supernatural/occult/paranormal phenomena. This is utterly
baseless and mistaken conclusion. Belief in any given religion stems from
a totally blind faith in all the divine revelations professed in that religion.
But the belief in the existence of supernatural/occult/paranormal can result
from even a rational mind who realizes the limitations of human knowledge
and the possibility of hitherto unknown physical/natural laws being the
raison-de-etre for these phenomena and that has the potential of being
explained in principle IF those laws are ever discovered. This is totally
in line with scientific thinking (or rather scientific metaphysical thinking)
which allows for existence of laws not yet known. It is a mistaken idea
of many laypersons that scientists are haughty/overconfident people who
pretend to be able to explain everything and that they dismiss as impossible
anything that cannot be EXPLAINED by KNOWN scientific laws . This is
totally untrue. Scientists only declare something impossible or
cannot exist if it VIOLATES any well established KNOWN natural law.
The crucial thing to realize is that VIOLATES is not the same as
UNEXPLAINABLE. If something cannot be explained by any known
natural law but at the same time does not violate one then
scientists are open minded about it and only try to give a
plausibility arguments using Occam's Razor as guide to explain it.
The important point to realize is that Science does not say
Paranormal events DO NOT or CANNOT EXIST, only says it has not
been proven conclusively to exist, so to assert its existence is
unscientific.
One should realize that all the physical laws that are known now (e.g
Einstein's theory of relativity, Quantum theory of matter, Newton's Laws, etc)
were true and were at work in nature even before their discovery. In the same
vein their can be many undiscovered laws at work in nature at present which
may explain those phenomena. This is exemplified in the views of Roger
Penrose of Oxford that some new principle in Physics must be integrated
within existing Quantum Theory and Theory of Gravitation to explain
consciousness. Nobody can say if all of the undiscovered laws will even ever
be known. Nobody could have guaranteed the discovery of Einstein's theory, it
just happened coincidentally. These subtle undiscovered laws of nature might
potentially be a manifestation of the so called Grand Unified Theory (GUT)
that scientists believe in the existence of and are striving to discover.
It may be that we may approach incrementally to that nirvana of knowing
the ultimate law and thus increase our understanding continually and incrementally
but never quite reach there. After all, science is more a process of getting
closer to the absolute truth, not necessarily discovering THE truth of
nature. But also one should NEVER ignore the fact that within a certain
domain of applications the truth is known in 100% accuracy, for example
the fact that computers, TV, microwave, Rockets, Atom bombs etc work certainly
proves that the truth of natural laws hold in our world. The whole point
is by recognizing the possibility and keeping one's mind open on the possibility
of supernatural/occult phenomena one is asserting this view rather than
contradicting their rational thoughts or their non-belief in institutional
religion. For example reports of Poltergeist,apparition,spirit etc have
been quite common in human history, some even by persons of credible reputation.
There may indeed be such phenomenon, which may be manifestations of purely
natural laws (Not anything divine as the religious books hypothesize).
In fact there are quite a few plausibility arguments to explain its existence.
An example of such is the after shock of an unnatural death which gets
recorded in the ambient articles (walls, furniture, etc) of the place of
the death and this recorded aftershock replaying itself like a phonograph
record playing back to reproduce the song that was recorded from a real
human voice. In fact there has been recorded incidence of man made Poltergeist
activity called "Hutchison Effect" where poltergeist like movements of
articles were induced in a non-repeatable way by purely physical means
(But without any explanation). See www.peg.apc.org/~nexus/Polter.html
for a discussion of such effects. But interestingly none of the phenomena
that are reportedly perceived in a haunted house VIOLATES a known law,
only that the haunted events cannot be explained by any law. No one has
ever conclusively shown that an object floated still in space without support
(Can be a hallucination but to prove it actually happened needs objective
demonstration and witnesses), an example of violation of a physical law. A
flying object SEEN in a deserted, haunted house is granted spooky, unexplainable
by any law, but it DOES NOT violate any laws of physics, since SEEING is
a subjective perception not susceptible to scientific scrutiny. A very
nice illustration of a purely scientific (i.e natural) way of giving plausibility
arguments to explain the alleged psychic phenomenon of mind influencing
matter (A random number generator in this case) is to be found on line
at: http://prola.aps.org/text/PRA/v50/i1/p18_1. Warning: this is a highly
technical paper. The psychic phenomenon is disguised in the technical jargon
"Causal Anomaly". The author (Stapp) is a theoretical physicist at Berkeley
and the paper was published in the Physical Review, a highly prestigious
journal and as a testimony to the genuine scientific nature of this work
By Stapp one just needs to take note of the fact that the work was supported
by U.S. Department of Energy ! Other cases in point are faith healings.
In fact faith healings do have a "plausible" explanation. It is similar
to the principle of counterfactuals in Quantum Theory where it is known
that the mere possibility of an event "A" happening can influence an event
"B" even if "A" did not happen. (cf. "The Shadow of the Mind" by Roger
PenRose). In a similar vein it is possible that the act of merely placing
firm belief in something (prayer/faith/God) can open up the possibility
of certain unknown event "A" (Some subtle neuronal rewiring in the brain
maybe?) happening, that can counterfactually influence another event "B"
("healing" in this example), even though the target of the faith (a personal
God) may be non-existent or false. i.e the fact that faith in prayer to
a personal GOD actually helped in the healing does not guarantee that the
object of the faith (personal GOD, divine revelations etc) are true, but
that the ACT of placing a faith in such an object had a tangible effect
through natural laws. It is also possible that the pattern of correlation
that is observed between certain phenomena that is traditionally explained
as divine intervention can be just built in nature and part of the subtle
interplay of natural laws at work (analogous to Newton's law of action/reaction
or the law of conservation of energy etc) and not due to the intentional
act of intervention by an entity with consciousness. Sometimes they seem
to be random and not follow any persistent pattern. That may be due to
the inherent complexity of the natural laws which make it impossible to
predict, just as the laws of complexity preclude weather prediction, although
the weather still strictly follow the laws of Physics and can be often
predicted in a statistical sense. Some current views of paranormalists
even posit that mass praying can have effect on physical world in a similar
vein as Quantum non-local effects are manifested in physical act of observations,
i.e an unexplained yet purely natural cause/effect or interconnectedness/
correlation/synchronicity can in principle exist without any divine connections.
It is also a mistaken conclusion that a scientific/skeptical mind cannot
have any belief. Even a belief in a GOD (although not a personal God of
revealed religion, but an abstract concept or belief in immortality through
an unexplainable power) is not inconsistent with a skeptical and rational
thinking, because the latter is supposed to be a guide in an objective
evaluation of subjective "claims" and for seeking the truth by consensus.
But a personal belief in something which does not contradict/ violate natural
laws is not inconsistent with skeptical/rational thinking. A fine example
of a skeptic/rational philosopher who believes in such a GOD and immortality
but otherwise doesn't believe in any existing religion/faith is the eminent
Philosopher of this century Martin Gardner. (See his book "The Whys of
a Philosophical Scrivener). Belief in an abstract God (not the personal
God of revelations) and life after death are the kind of inborn instincts
in human that are not amenable to logic and logic is not contradicted if
one FEELS this instinct. Feeling is not controlled/shaped by logic, but
THINKING is. On the other hand, believing in the revelations and texts
of a certain religion is not instinctual at all but can be traced to a
belief in other humans due to influences from one's socio-religious roots
and belief in them are certainly amenable to a rational analysis. Such
beliefs originating from human indoctrination can certainly be debunked/
confirmed by logic. Similarly a generic prayer to an abstract God (not a
religion specific prayer) certainly does not contradict logic as such prayer is
an INTENT to form an abstract mode of communication with an abstract
God. Its possible that a rational and scientific person when in dire illness
can begin to believe in an abstract God and "pray" to such a God. It is
a hardwired defense mechanism in the genes that give rise to such faith
so that a placebo effect can result from the faith and lead to healing.
Its purely an instinct/reflex, not due to a conscious change of heart through
enlightenment from Koran, Gita, Torah etc. Instincts/Reflexes are biologically
rooted and is not shaped/controlled by logic. There are many unexplained
phenomena in nature. In absence of any yet known natural explanation even
a scientific mind can speculate/hypothesize a plausible cause which is
not scientific (In the sense that it cannot be tested by observation),
but metaphysical which nevertheless doesn't violate the existing natural
laws either. But to a skeptical mind a belief is an ad hoc one which is
subject to revision/generalization/extension if more insight is gained.
For example a scientifically inclined person may believe in the "Omega
Point" concept of GOD (cf. "Physics of Immortality" by Tipler). Since the
existence of Omega Point cannot be observationally tested (At least at
the current time) believing in it cannot be a truly scientific act but
nevertheless a physicist would not be violating scientific principles by
believing in it either since it is consistent with Physics and certainly
plausible in Physics terms and provides the best concept of GOD as a "belief".
The belief in Many Worlds/Parallel universe is another example of a belief
of scientists that cannot be tested scientifically but is nevertheless
quite consistent with Physics (Quantum Physics to be exact). Many physicists
strongly believe in many worlds (And many other ideas of Quantum Metaphysics)
and in fact "believe" that Quantum Metaphysics and Global General Relativity
are the link between tangible world and the intangible world of consciousness,
spirituality etc and may "explain" (i.e make it seem natural) all the paranormal
phenomena eventually. Many scientists believe in the so called Anthropic Principle
.( See the link at http://www.winternet.com/~gmcdavid/html_dir/anthropic.html)
which is as close a scientist can get to GOD as possible staying within
the discourse of scientific rationality. Notice that no explicit mention of
God is there in its discussion. God has to be read in it by pure metaphysical
extrapolation which is certainly valid to anyone rational. Indeed the Anthropic
Principle which is stated as a one liner in popular books like Hawking's
Brief History of Time) is really very complex and detailed. A 700 page
book called "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle"
(see http://matu1.math.auckland.ac.nz/~king/Preprints/book/quantcos/anth/anth.htm)
has been devoted to it by Tipler and Barrow whose names have been mentioned
in my earlier posts. If the summary review in the preceding link looks
abstruse then one should wonder how much insight the 726 page original
book may provide. Its my personal biased view that by understanding this
726 page book one can get the most spiritual feeling. But in no way this
instinctive feeling of God from Anthropic principle need to be passionately
preached as an absolute. The facts of Anthropic principle are objective
(expressed in Physics language). The conclusion derived thereof is just
a subjective one.
So Rationality or logic does not REQUIRE "not believing" or "having a faith".
By framing the question cleverly one can succeed in putting people in two
camps, theist and atheist. That's what happens in all surveys on the beliefs
of scientists. They are asked if they believe in their religions or in
the traditional concept of GOD. Of course most of them do answer "no".
But if they were asked if they have any instinctive spiritual feeling of
any sort the answer could have been different. One should be aware that
instinctive feelings need not be correct or even precisely defined.
One has to distinguish beliefs rooted in instincts and beliefs generated
by absolute(previously labelled blind) faith (ultimately in humans). First
of all this instinct of God and immortality is universal. It exists throughout
humanity in general. So believing in an instinct although not dictated
by logic is also not contrary to logic either, because instincts are not
bound by logical rules. Believing in the revelations of religious scriptures
are not, on the other hand purely instinctive. These are narratives that
one inherits from the socio-religious roots or surroundings that they are
brought up in. They never believe in it from first hand experiences nor
by the first hand associations with the prophets. It makes MORE sense
(Not necessarily total sense) to believe in a universal instinct that believing
in the narratives of revelations of that religion as read in a book and
heard from the mouth of contemporary fellow humans. Most of the religious
scientists including Einstein and Salam fall into this category who have
this instinctive belief in God. As I said there's nothing in Salam's writing
or speeches that ever indicate any absolute belief in all the details of
scriptures and revelations. He never prefaced every sentence he uttered
with quotes from scriptures He was a spiritual man with the passion for
the hard science based on the rigorous rules of natural science. He never
believed that religion can explain science or that science has to be rooted
in religion as so many orthodox apologists constantly emphasize. Salam
should be an inspiration for all the Muslim nations. But he was not. He
has been neglected in his own country. None of the Muslim country ever
gave the due recognition where the Western nation bestowed him the much
deserved Nobel Prize. That speaks a lot about the price one has to pay
for not being a dogmatic religionist. He championed secular ideas and beliefs
instead of religious dogma. A person is often judged by what and how he
speaks. One just need to read the entire article by Salam at
(http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?salam_jan0598)
and contrast it with the religious apologetics and see the difference between
them. He is very sparing in his quotes from the holy book and only does
so to add a metaphoric inspiration to his ultimate passion for the pursuit
of scientific knowledge, not to preach us to follow and believe in the
revelations themselves or to try to relate the verses with the scientific
truths themselves. In fact he was even opposed to it.
All the religious books, Koran, Gita, Bible allows enough latitude to
anyone to pick and choose verses to provide reinforcements and inspirations
for a pursuit that one feels passionately for. Salam did that by emphasizing
the quotes of the "unseen" "unknowable" part to emphasize the mystery of
the universe that one can unravel and get closer and closer to the ultimate
mystery by the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Please read the following:
(http://www.chowk.com/bin/showa.cgi?salam_jan0598)
All scientists at the bottom of their heart appreciate more so deeply about
the unknown than anyone else. After all, one can only appreciate the unknown
best by knowing all that can be known first. The mystery of the universe
is best appreciated in the secret code of nature that has been cracked
by science so far and is constantly being cracked as an ongoing process.
It is the nature of our world that the path to truth is full of impediments.
the major impediments are gullibility/naivette, self complacency and
cynicism. Gullibility results from an inability to exercise one's critical faculty
and accept blindly other's views as authentic without ever bothering to
examine the credentials of those proposing the ideas and views. Cynicism
leads to an obsessively negative view of everything and hence failing to
recognize/acknowledge even the objective truth. Self complacency is due
to a false perception of knowing everything and not realizing the the technical
nature of some topics that only can be fully understood, proposed or challenged
by the experts only. Sometimes the overzealous laypeople paraphrase the
views of scientists in catchy words and propagate misleading interpretations
and thus create a domino effect of public myths. Then the scientific community
helplessly takes a back seat and decide to go about their own important
business and not even bother to stop the domino effect. The entire myth
of Teletransportation, UFO, Philadelphia experiment etc bears testimony
to this unfortunate reality. Take another example. When quantum mechanics
was formulated by the great physicists in the third and fourth decade of
this century, they became aware of some strange and profound aspects of
the theory(Like non-locality etc). These Physicists when debating among
themselves used to refer to the word "mystical" in expressing the wonder
at these profound implications, and the pseudoscientists quickly exploited
this word to promote their own alternative theories and cults quoting and
paraphrasing these words by physicists without really understanding themselves
what those really meant and unconscientously touting their ideas/views
to be supported by the Quantum Theory of Physics. Nowadays one can hear
New Age mystical Quacks using the "quantum" word to plug their own vague
ideas of healing and making millions from gullible public. New Age Mystics,
healers etc have unabashedly exploited Quantum theory without understanding
it. Check the link www.csicop.org/sb/9806/reality-check.html for an example
of one such attempt to justify "spiritual healing" through modern physics.
The fact is, these esoteric aspects of Quantum Theory/Cosmology is too
complex to be taught technically at even the usual graduate level Physics
curriculum and is only studied in specialized graduate level courses and
by Research Physicists at the post graduate level. Nature's mysteries and
secrets are unfortunately hidden in complex symbolic codes (mathematical
equations) that can only be understood and decoded by the complex symbology
of mathematics, and once they are decoded by Scientists they then phrase
it in simpler terms for the rest laypeople and that's where lies the potential
pitfall of mischaracterization, mispresentation and self complacency by the
pseudoscientific self proclaimed "mystics" who exploit them. Another popular
mischaracterization is the view that trying to "explain/understand" a mystery
destroys/disrespects the mystery and the creator (i.e GOD). Actually the
truth is that a mystery is honoured and elevated by the pursuit of its explanation
and understanding. Providing a simplistic answer like it is the work of GOD, or
only GOD knows, or that only the mystics, theologians or psychics can grasp the
ultimate reality it doesn't really recognize the mystery but kills it by closing
all the doors of a better understanding through a disciplined mental efforts
via scientific metaphysics.
5. MIRACLES AND SCIENCE
Contrary to what most lay people believe, there is no documented/authoritative
record of any miracle. A miracle is an event/phenomenon that VIOLATES any
known natural law. An example would be floating (still) of an object in
space with no support. What is commonly labelled "medical miracle" i.e
unexplained healing of a disease that doctors cannot explain is not really
a miracle, since no existing laws of EXACT SCIENCE are violated. There
is no LAW in medicine. Medicine is more or less an empirical science. Even
medicine acknowledges the potential of human mind in healing some ailments
which otherwise is judged incurable by routine medical methods. That's
the very nature of empirical science. But the basis of ALL science is the
laws of Physics. Every phenomena is a high level manifestation of Physical
Laws working at the lowest level. Since none of the "medical miracles"
(Which are the only ones whose existence are attested to by doctors/scientists)
which are high level deviations from the norm of empirical science can
be reductively traced to a violation of the basic physical laws at the
lowest level they cannot be defined to be true miracles. The cases of faith
healings also cannot qualify for miracle label. Faith healings might have
a speculative "plausible" explanation. There is a strange concept called
counterfactual in Quantum Mechanics where it is known that the mere
act of opening up of the possibility of an event "A" can influence an event
"B" even if "A" did not actually happen. (cf. "The Shadow of the Mind"
by Roger PenRose). In a similar vein it is possible that the act of merely
placing firm belief in something (God) through intense meditation (prayer/
faith/can open up the possibility of certain unknown event "A", that can
counterfactually influence another event "B" to happen ("healing" in
this example), even though the target of the faith (a personal God)
may be non-existent or false. i.e the fact that faith in prayer to
a personal GOD actually helped in a given instance of healing does
not guarantee that the object of the faith (personal GOD, divine
revelations etc) are true, but that the *act* of placing a faith in
such an object had a favourable tangible effect through the workings
of natural laws. It might just be a purely quantum mechanical
effect. It is certainly a speculation. But a speculation that is
consistent with scientific thinking, not a blind irrational belief
in a contradictictory notion like a personal God heeding to such
prayers.
The act of praying may be a purely natural process (a cause-effect
scenario) which itself may have its own effect depending on the infinite
possibilities of boundary conditions that accompany an instance of
praying (individual, mass etc). A prayer is basically an intense wish/
thought (an intense activity in the brain) and hence a natural process
that CAN interfere with the environment (and hence the individual who is
praying). Like Physicist philosopher paul Davies writes in his book "
The Cosmic Blue print" even an act of thinking involves the motion of
electrons in the neurons of the brain and is bound to affect the rest of
the universe. In this view, a mass prayer is more intense and more
likely to impact the environment than an individual. By the way prayer
here is meant in a generic sense of wishing with intense meditation,
not necessarily by reciting verses of Bible or Koran etc. A desire to
exert an influence on the laws of nature is meant. It is an
intense mental desire to manipulate the natural laws (which
fortunately contain quantum uncertainties to allow for multiple
potentialities of reality) to yield the reality favourable to the
prayers.
The same kind of speculative reasoning can be applied to give a
plausibility touch to Jungian phenomenon of "synchronicity". I
must emphasize again that the point is to illustrate that miracle like
events can happen purely out of a naturalistic cause/effect and not
due to a conscious intervention of a divine entity envisaged in
traditional religion/metaphysics. It is possible that some
alternative spiritual healing might work for someone in a specific
instance where traditional medicine failed. This can be due to a
stroke of good luck hit upon by the healer by empirical trial and
error that might work for certain individual under certain
circumstances but which can certainly be not reproducible in a
controlled and predictable way. So the healer cannot claim a
possession of some supreme spiritual healing power/ insight for
such isolated instances of success. If the spiritual healing did
unfailingly succeed in 100% cases or if they could unfailingly
PREDICT the success/failure of their spiritual technique on each
subject then that would lend credence worthy of attention and would
have become mainstream healing method by now. Most explanations
of failures are provided post hoc, i.e after the fact, not predicted in
advance. Of course, since there is a certain probability that a
certain individual may be the beneficiary of the the isolated
instances of success of the spiritual trial and error healing method,
then he/she by all means should give it a try when all traditional
means turned out to be a failure. Medicine, after all is not an
exact science with unfailing laws like Physics and can never provide
unfailing success in healing on each and every subject in all
ailments. See also F9 for related discussion on miracles, faith
healings, prayer etc.
There are hearsay of many miracles. But these are all very personal
accounts. They can at best be labelled as "truth" as seen in the
eye of the beholder. They have never been demonstrated/repeated
or have happened in an open forum or in public or in a controlled
environment under careful observations. In this context it may be
relevant to mention that the $100,000 award declared by the
debunker/magician James Randi or the Rs. 100,000 award declared
by B. Premanand, the Founder of Indian CSICOP (Committee for the
Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal) if anyone can
conclusively demonstrate the existence of a miracle still remain
unclaimed. A lot of events/phenomena do exist that cannot be "
explained" by any known natural law. They can be called
supernatural. But "Not explainable" does not translate into "
violates". This trivial sounding statement is often not realized
or appreciated by lay and nonscientifically inclined people. What
is inexplicable now can potentially be explainable by discovery (If
we are lucky. Discoveries of Scientific laws are Epiphanic, not all
potential laws of nature are guaranteed to be discovered) of new or
suitable extensions (through increased understanding) of existing
natural laws in future. The fact that some magical tricks can
baffle even a very well prepared scientist indicates that it is
even more likely that humans can be fooled by the mother of all
magicians: "Mother Nature".
6. A SCIENTIFIC VIEW OF LIFE, DEATH, IMMORTALITY
It is appropriate to look at the issues on Life, death, Life after death
(Immortality) from an alternate angle, that is not based on faith (Like the
existence of Life after death, day of judgment etc), or obvious observations
not requiring any thought (Like we will all die, we are mortal etc), or armchair
philosophizing,but based on the hard earned objective insights gained through
painstaking scientific observations and scientific thinking that has and continues
to revolutionize our thoughts and paradigms. It must be understood in clear
terms that scientific insights are consensus based as they are rooted in
objective evidence and rational thinking and hence crosses cultural, religious
and racial boundaries. There is no Islamic version of Quantum Physics,
Hindu version of Genetic Code or Christian version of the second Law of
Thermodynamics. Scientists from ALL cultures/religions are solidly unanimous
on these basic laws of nature. Most of our contemporary understanding of
Life and the universe are based on these universal natural principles and
hence not the product of any specific culture or bias. Let me now proceed
with these profound questions What is Life? What is the purpose of life?
Is there life after death? Why do we die? These are old questions although
the meaning of the questions (and of course the answers) have changed over
the years in view of a wealth of insights gained thanks to the revolutionary
way scientific thinking has changed human perceptions and knowledge and
the remarkable discoveries and insights that it has led to and is still
leading to. To briefly phrase the best known scientific answer today in
scientific jargon : "Life is a dissipative structure that has achieved the
threshold of complexity to become an autopoietic system." The purpose
of life is to faithfully obey the Second Law of Thermodynamics by increasing
entropy (Even eating and sex are dictated by this requirement, although
our brain translates it into a sense of desire and pleasure for us, hiding
the real underlying purpose from our conscious mind). Why do we die? In
short because we (i.e most plants and animals) have inherited through evolution
death genes from our protist (single celled organisms with nucleus) ancestors
that took to reproduction through sex purely due to a better evolutionary
survival strategy in tough primitive environments. Death is brought about
in a programmed way by certain genes (death genes). Those few life forms
(bacteria) that did not and still do not reproduce sexually are immortal,
barring accidental deaths. Is there life after death? How can one define
life AFTER death to begin with? If that new Life after death must require
the same material body then what age should that body be? What if someone
dies at 6. Will he/she be resurrected at 6? What if someone dies at 90?
Will he/she be resurrected at 90? Will the resurrected body age again?
If not then what is the meaning to be alive at 90 forever or at 6? Unless
one can answer these questions, the vague concept of Life after death will
be a product of refusal to accept death as a permanent destruction of one's
self. All scientific and logical reasoning points to an absurdity of resurrection
in the way humans wish to look at it. Some form of simulation of one's
life (Virtual reality) is however, possible to envisage within scientific
framework, but that would be pure science without any theosophical basis.
This has been speculated by Physicist Frank Tipler in his book "The Physics
of Immortality", although latest observations point to an unlikely prospect
for its coming true(scientifically). (See reference 13 at the end for links
to this book). As mentioned before, the question of Life after death is
rooted in the human refusal to accept death as the ultimate termination
of their identity. This fear of death and urge for immortality results
from Self-Awareness, a necessary attribute of human consciousness which
makes us distinct from other species, whose primary instincts are propagation,
and avoiding dangers so as to successfully pass their genes to net generation.
A conscious anxiety due to awareness of death is not present in other animals.
Now If life is defined as the genetic code (Which after all directs growth
of our body and brain), the program of our living body then yes there is
life after death, just as a software program exists independent of the
physical computer and after the program has stopped running. Our bodies
die, but our genes (and thus genetic code) live on through propagation.
And if one does not leave any offspring, one can preserve his/her life by
doing a complete genome sequence and saving it for eternity as an information
in a database. Someday if biotechnology is sufficiently advanced, a resurrection
may not be that far fetched an idea. Although the resurrected human will
not be an exact replica of the original, since the brain wiring is shaped
principally by environmental stimulus, which can never be the same in every
rerun of the program of life. That's why we say that human nature is part(mostly)
genetic, part environmental. A similar analogy of software running on a
hardware is a nuclear bomb. The spectacular mushroom cloud, the blast,
the destruction is just nothing but a materialization of an information
or code (The laws of nuclear physics and relativity) with some hardware
ingredients (uranium etc). Behind any natural or artificial wonders are
nothing but some code (ultimately reducible to the laws of Physics) at
work. Some programs need human intervention to run (Like nuclear bomb),
others (like life, snowflakes, stars etc) are initiated by nature itself
through chaotic effects. But it is only a matter of perspective. If we
take the big picture of humans as being part of nature obeying laws of
physics then every materialization of code in nature is spontaneous, and
human intervention is also a result of natural laws at work. The ultimate
example of materialization of physical laws is the Big Bang which created
the entire universe together with all its life forms and other structures.
The Big Bang was the materialization of the Physical laws (Software) using
the hardware of tiny quantum bubble created through fluctuations of quantum
vacuum. Thus a tiny Quantum Bubble ended up as the observable universe
we wonder at today, thanks to the laws of Physics. Big Bang is certainly
a speculation, albeit a scientific one. It is predicted by the same principles
of Physics that predicted nuclear bomb which was also successfully tested(Any
doubter?). Do we dare question the reality of nuclear bomb? We cannot question
the validity of the laws of Physics while placing complete unquestioning
confidence in the reality of a nuclear bomb whenever one is built, since
the latter is nothing but a materialization of the former. So Big Bang,
or some possible variation thereof in future (As dictated by Physics),
which is predicted by the same laws of Physics that gave rise to nuclear
bomb cannot be dismissed using non-scientific reasoning. Back to the main
theme. The questions of life, death and immortality have intrigued humanity
since the dawn of civilization when consciousness evolved to a mature state
in the human brain from the more primitive reptilian brain. This is a question
whose complete answer has not and will not be answered in one sweeping
breakthrough or by one human in a finite time. Neither should this profound
question of humanity be curtly dismissed with "It is God's miracle, its
beyond human comprehension" type of answers. The fundamental fact is that
the answer lies in an incremental approach to THE truth rather than a complete
grasp of it. Like the geometric idea of an asymptote, to which a curve
gets closer and closer to but never quite reaches it, truth about the nature
of life and death is a slowly unravelling secret/insight. One can get closer
and closer to the truth. A lot has been learned already. Very few of us
laymen actually are aware of the rapid increase in understanding that has
been going on. We only get a jolt when a flash of news are thrown at us,
for example, cloning of the sheep Dolly, the completion of the human genome
project, continued development of gene therapy etc. First of all it must
be understood that saying that Life is the miraculous work of a Divine
creator does not "explain" life, it only puts a closure to the quest for
the answer and allows human to go about mundane pursuits so as not to be
distressed by the failure to understand it. It is a common human instinct
to put a closure to any unresolved questions. one feels uneasy living with
mysteries and unanswered questions. A scientific inquiry must go against
this instinct and strive for further insights, incremental advance being
the goal, not a closure necessarily. That was then, millennia ago when
our intellects were primitive that such simplistic answers were put forth.
But humanity have come a long way since then. Engaging in vague metaphysics
does not get us much further in the quest for truth. Now a genuine understanding
should involve a scientific study spanning across a host of disciplines.
Although we don't know the full answer to these questions we do know that
a lot of insight into life has been gained and also know where to look
for them. And it is in the sciences. As I said before, the complete answer
will never be known but we can certainly get the best answer available
at the current time. And science provides that. One has to look into the
sciences with all its modern insights. Every day a new insight is being
added to the knowledge base and getting us incrementally closer to the
final understanding. Quantum jumps of insight do occur in history. For
example Darwin's Theory of Evolution, Mendel's theory of heredity and most
importantly the almost legendary discovery of DNA and deciphering of the
genetic code in 1953. The experiments of Urey and Miller showed how chemical
and physical process can create the ingredients of life if not life itself(as
yet). These are facts of life that are universal and crosses all religious
boundaries, unlike religious "explanations" of life. Although Darwin explained
beautifully how life evolved from simple to the complex but only vaguely
mentioned about a possible mechanism of the origin of life itself (The
primitive pond). The first scientific attempt to understand the origin
of Life was by the Russian scientist Oparin in his 1929 classic "The Origin
of Life". He extended the Darwinian theory of evolution backward in time
to explain how simple organic and inorganic materials might have combined
into complex organic compounds and how the latter might have formed the
primordial organism. The first attempt to understand life in a more fundamental
way was by the nobel laureate physicist none other than the founder of
quantum physics Erwin Schroedinger in his epoch making book "What is Life?
The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell With Mind and Matter" written more
than fifty years ago. He anticipated DNA in that book even before its discovery
(He called it some kind of aperiodic crystal). Although now dated, it is
a mark of amazing insight for its time. This book was the inspiration for
all later generation biologists and physicists interested in life's mystery
like Watson and Crick who materialized their inspiration into discovering
the "DNA", Schrodinger's aperiodic crystal. About fifty years later another
physicist from Princeton, Freeman Dyson improved upon Schrodinger's idea
and wrote the book "Origins of Life". His ideas have been based on much
more insights gained in Biology and Physics since Schrodinger and others.
There has been a continued increase in our understanding of life and its
origins by scientists all around the world. One of the most creative of
them all was the Sri Lankan born American chemist/biologist Ponnamperuma,
who was the director of the laboratory of the chemical evolution of life
at the University of Maryland until his premature death in 1995. He along
with Carl Sagan and Ruth Martiner was able to produce ATP, one of the fundamental
building block of DNA, and thus life. His insights into the chemical nature
of life's evolution signifies a quantum jump from the days of Schroedinger
and Oparin. Incidentally, Ponnaperuma was also the founder of the Third
World Foundation, an organization dedicated to the promotion of scientific
minds of the third world countries. Ponnamperuma said if God exists then
he must be a organic chemist. He called HCN molecule "GOD molecule" because
the intriguing way this molecule gives rise to more complex molecules of
life. A nice article on the origin of life with some description of Ponnamperuma's
work can be found at the site: http://www.rit.edu/~flwstv/biology.html.
Another pioneer in life research is Nobel Laureate Eigen. He was able to
induce (chemically) RNA molecules to replicate in the lab. This is very
close to producing a virus. Viruses are in between living and non-living.
Two more pioneers that should be mentioned are Stuart Kauffman (A Biochemist)
and Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine (A physical chemist) both of whom have
shown how order can spring out of chaos. At the base of it all is the most
profound aspect of life which is the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the
law of increase of entropy. In fact the purpose of life if one has to find
one is to satisfy the second law and to maximize entropy production as
I said before. The main attribute of life is autopoiesis, a tendency of
aggregate molecules of matter to maintain its identity through metabolism
and replication/reproduction. And autopoiesis is the inevitable result
of a dissipative system trying to maintain its far from equilibrium (thermodynamic)
state to maximize entropy generation. A dissipative system is one that
requires continuous input of energy to maintain itself. The more advanced
life becomes the more it will have to generate entropy (through waste products).
This is the mystery of life. Our desire to live, lust, hunger is nothing
but a very advanced manifestation of the laws of physics at work at the
cell level. About death, biologists have found that death is the result
of sex. As Richard Dawkins, author of the legendary "The selfish Gene"
says, death is the first sexually transmitted disease. Bacteria are not
sexual. They reproduce asexually. They never die. They are truly immortal.
When the primitive unicellular bacterial ancestor of all animals (protists)
first switched to sexual mode of reproduction death was an inevitable
consequence. We have traded immortality for sexual pleasure. Life is not simply
an entity created from scratch from conception to birth. Life is an evolving
process that has been going on over billions of years in an incremental way.
Our body may have been formed in matter of years after conception, but the
program (our genome sequence) that builds us (our body+mind) has taken
billions of years to perfect. The most insightful discovery by Darwin was
that natural selection and mutation can give rise to a complex life form
as human through a prolonged and cumulative action of those laws. The
complicated body and brain of ours are not just a creation from our birth to
date. We have inherited the blueprint of life (the genetic code) that has
evolved and perfected through billions of years of evolution. That's why
life is so precious. It contains huge information collected over an incredibly
long span of time. Our genome sequence will take thousands of pages to
write down in paper. Like a complex software that starts with few simple
lines but eventually is perfected into a sophisticated program of millions
of lines with contributions from many people over a long time, the genetic
code of life took billions of years to be developed and is still evolving.
Life will look different and more advanced in another million years. We
can never understand life without understanding the history of how life
has evolved from the primordial earth with single cells becoming more and
more complex by incremental steps. But the process of this evolution of
life from simple to complex is purely natural. Down at the bottom it is
nothing but physics. Natural selection and mutation is nothing more than
a manifestation of the laws of Physics at work on cell/gene level. As
Nobel Laureate Watson of DNA fame said "In the last analysis, there
are only atoms. There's just one science, Physics; everything else is
social work" in his lecture at the London Institute of Contemporary
Arts in 1985. This view is also echoed by Stephen Hawking and Steven
Weinberg. Hawking nicely summarizes this view as: Biology->Chemistry->
Physics. Steven Weinberg says in his book "Facing Up", p-22-3:
"No biologist today will be content with an axiom about biological
behaviours that could not be imagined to have a more fundamental level.
That more fundamental level would have to be the level of Physics and
chemistry, and the contigency that the earth is billions of years old"
Biologist Richard Dawkins (in "The Blind Watchmaker") states
that Physicists have to come into the scene at the end of the long
chain of reasoning to explain evolution of life to complete the last
but not the least significant step. (In this context also refer to
reference 7 at the end ). Renowned biologist Earnst Mayr wrote in his
book "The growth of Biological Thoughts ('82)": "Every biologist is
fully aware of the fact that moleculr biology has demonstrated
decisively that all processes in living organisms can be explained in
terms of Physics and chemistry" (As cited in Weinberg,"Facing Up", p-19)
Physicist Heinz Pagels wrote in his book "The Dreams of Reason",p-49:
"Biological systems are extremely complex Qunatum mechanical entities
functioning according to well-defined rules.
A caveat must be issued that it is never implied that Physics is
complete and all that can be known is known already. There will
certainly be insights gained in Physics in future and current
concepts and laws may be revised or subsumed under a more
comprehensive scheme of laws (Theory of Everything). But it will not
at least invalidate what is certainly known and tested today, like
nuclear Physics and relativity since nuclear bomb is the litmus test
of its validity, among many others. We are misled by apparent beauty
and complexity of a product to immediately conceive of a designer
with a human attribute. But it is nature which is the designer. Sure,
humans as yet cannot create life, but that does not automatically
imply life must be a direct product of a divine act. Humans cannot
make a naturally beautiful snowflake or a natural gemstone with
beautiful patterns either. But we know these are all results of the
Laws of Physics. Similarly, life, in all its complexity, impossible
for humans to create, is nothing but the result of the laws of
Physics, although acting over a long (billions of years) period of
time, unlike snowflakes where it acts over a much shorter time span.
If there has to be a divine designer for life then it is the Laws of
Physics. A beautiful snowflake with its artistic and symmetric
pattern is just a result of the laws of thermodynamics and Quantum
mechanics. So is life. Life is an EMERGENT behaviour of matter. Life
is a result of self organization of matter driven by the requirements
to maximize entropy and reduce the gradient of temperature difference
between sun and earth. What is the origin of the laws of physics?
Here we reach the wall. Nobody knows. If one really has to
contemplate a designer, then its the law of Physics that one has to
wonder who is the designer of. But at this primal level it hardly
matters whether one postulates a grand designer that exists
necessarily without itself(himself?) requiring a creator, or
postulates that the the Law of Physics exists necessarily without a
creator. The former just provides a consolation to mortals in the
form of a promise of a personal God looking after each human who will
resurrect him someday and bestow eternal life along with the
fulfillment of all desires unfulfilled in this life. So this question
of the designer of the Laws of Physics has no answer, or better yet,
it is not a meaningful question even. Just saying "God" made these
laws is another way of saying we don't know. It sounds better than
admitting ignorance. But it does not increase our insight by phrasing
it that way. Its a pretentious cop out. We can "label" the unknown as
"GOD", but that's an affirmation of our ignorance, not a deep
realization. But we as human can still spend our lifetime learning
and discovering just the natural laws that exist and understand how
it (Natural Laws) works and give rise to the marvelous phenomena of
evolution, formation of stars, galaxies, snowflakes etc and try to
understand life in an incremental way. There is no reason (other than
faith, which does not require reason) to assume that the phenomenon
of life cannot be ever understood in terms of natural laws. The fact
that we do not completely understand it now does not imply that it is
not understandable in physical terms. We don't understand weather too,
in spite of all the technical advances. This lack of understanding is
rooted in the complexity of weather and life. The chain of reasoning
based on laws of physics that links a simple molecule to a living
organism is broken in the middle due to the enormous complexity of
cumulative effects of over billions of years of evolution. In weather,
it is the enormous number of air molecules that is at the root of
complexity preventing an exact understanding. Trying to understand
life however in itself is no trivial a task. After all, its the
journey, not the destination that is fulfilling. If there at all one
has to find any meaning of this finite life then the best candidate
for meaning is the search to find the answers to how life has evolved
and will evolve. This is the best use humans can make of their "gift"
of consciousness, a gift since it was after all not required by
evolution for survival, but came as a by product. If one has to speak
of teleology then I think it is best to say we have acquired
consciousness so that we can ask how we came about and answer it by
understanding the very laws of nature that are at work behind all
this marvelous creations (including ourselves) and evolution. Even if
one insists on believing in a personal God, what could be a better
pursuit than to try to understand and discover the wonderful Laws of
nature, reading the mind of God in the words of Stephen Hawking?
Surely its a more appropriate tribute to "God" than worshipping. The
most intriguing thing about consciousness is that it satisfies a
consistency loop (Here "->" means gives rise to or explains):
Physical laws -> matter -> Life ->Consciousness -> Physical Laws.
In other words our minds and consciousness have discovered (through scientific
search) the very same physical laws that created it(consciousness) in the
first place through creation of matter, life and evolution! Many top physicists,
biologists, chemists (some Nobel laureates) are in the forefront of the
research into the origin and evolution of life. Now they are being joined
in this search by computer scientists (specially artificial life/intelligence
people who view life as a software running on the hardware of human body.
Some even believe that one day a fully conscious machine can be built!).
We are witnessing an amazing synthesis of human knowledge and insights
in the dawn of 21st century. Gone are the days when arm chair philosophers
were idly talking about their pet theories of life, consciousness etc.
Without the new language of genes, DNAs, entropy, Second Law, autocatalysis,
autopoiesis any talk of life would now sound like childish babble, trapped
in words going in circles, getting one nowhere. It would require a super
philosopher today (There are a handful, Paul Davies, Daniel Dennett to
name a couple) well versed in all these disciplines to pool together all
these separate insights into a coherent story of life. Thousands of pages
of results of scientific research into consciousness, mind, life are being
published monthly in journals of evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology,
biomathematics, biophysics, molecular genetics, artificial intelligence,
quantum consciousness etc. The best approximations to date of the truth
of life are distributed among these separate database of knowledge that
is rapidly expanding. Some of the key words vital to the understanding
of life are: COMPLEXITY, EMERGENT PHENOMENA, CHAOS,
SELF ORGANIZATION, DISSIPATIVE SYSTEMS, AUTOPOIETIC SYSTEMS,
AUTOCATALYTIC PROCESS. etc. For us, not actively engaged in this quest,
the only way to learn about the insights that have been achieved in the
search for the answer to the question of life is through reading. Its
frustrating to realize that despite reading enough in one's life time
one will only get to know only a fraction. But again, learning the truth
is a journey, and its the journey, not the destination that should give
meaning to our finite life. I will suggest the following books as a start
in addition to the the two books above by Schrodinger and Dyson. All these
books are written by top scientists (Some Nobel laureates)in the forefront
of research. Even reading all these books will only provide the tip of
the iceberg(sigh).
1. What is Life? - Lyn Margulis and Dorion Sagan [A book of incredible
insight in to life. A very appropriate title]
2. What is Sex? - Lyn Margulis and Dorion Sagan [This is not a book
on ordinary sex as most understand it. But an evolutionary explanation
of how sexual reproduction evolved from bacteria to higher organisms over
billions of years and how genders became separated over time. Lyn Margulis
is a distinguished scientist with hundreds of publication and is affiliated
with many Nasa projects in exobiology. She has original ideas in biology
and is also in touch with Dyson and other physicists about the latest research
in life and evolution. By the way she was married to Late Carl Sagan. Dorion
Sagan is her son]
3. The Selfish gene - Dawkins. (An eye opener, take a gene's eye view
of life)
4. The Blind Watchmaker - Dawkins (Clearly shows how complex life can
evolve from simple through small natural steps)
5. Climbing Mount Improbable - Dawkins (up todate and more convincing
than above)
6. Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative - Christian De Duve(Nobe
laureate) . Written both in a scientific and philosophical way
7. Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World - Ian
Stewart Below is a summary of a talk by Ian Stewart with the same title
as the book above ( Given on 4/23/98 at the Univ. of Minnesota):
What is life? Why is the world of living creatures so different from
the inorganic world? The discovery of the first secret of life, the molecular
structure of DNA, in the middle of this century, showed that Life is a
form of chemistry - but chemistry unlike any that ever graced a test tube.
Some secrets, however, lie deeper that the genetic code. It is the mathematical
law of physics and chemistry that control the growing organism's response
to its genetic instructions. That is Life's OTHER Secret. Its full understanding
will come only when we combine the mathematical and physical sciences with
biochemistry, genetics, and developmental biology. One of the most exciting
growth areas of twenty-first century science will be biomathematics. The
next century will witness an explosion of new mathematical concepts, of
new kinds of mathematics, brought into being by the need to understand
the patterns of the living world.
8. Seven Clues to the Origin of Life : A Scientific Detective Story
- A. G. Cairns-Smith [A pioneer in life's origin. Originator of the clay
theory of Life]
9. At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-organization
and Complexity - Stuart Kauffman
10. The Fifth Miracle - Paul Davies (Speculates on life's possible extraterrestrial
origin)
11. Life Itself - Francis Crick(Nobel Laureate)
12. Steps Towards Life : A Perspective on Evolution - Manfred Eigen(Nobel
Laureate)
13. Physics of Immortality - Frank Tipler [An intriguing book that postulates
on the possibility of immortality based on pure physics]. For a review
click on: http://niazi.com/resurrec.htm
or http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html
14. Web Link: http://www.historyoftheuniverse.com/origlife.html
7=========
SUBJECTIVITY IN ARTS
Artistic appreciation for many seem to be a result of extrinsic
factors, like influences, popularity, constant exposure to a widely
availabile and plugged art form,, an urge to go with the going fad
or style, cultural bias among many others. For few is it due to a
genuine desire to discover and appreciate the intrinsic quality of
the art, e.g by listening or reading all genre of music or
literature and selecting discriminately. Some do have a strong
individual sense of like and dislike which they use as a guide in
selecting art of their choice for their own pleasure irrespective
of how it is perceived by the vast majority. For most others this
intrinsic individual sense of like or dislike is absent or is so
weak that it is often overshadowed and is primarily deteremined by
extrinsic factors mentioned above. This is what is known as the "
meme" factor, originally introduced by Sociobiologist Dawkins
(Elaborately discussed in Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine").
This meme effect can get so powerful that one loses the
discriminating ability of a true art connoisseur and blindly loves
ANY work of an artist and cannot discriminate between individual
pieces of work according to any subjective criteria, nor do thay
care to. The artist to such a fan becomes a cult, a fad, fashion,
a symbol of prestige. And for them the liking for arts seem to
develop by broad categories like Classical, Jazz, Rock, Tagore
Songs for music. Or Science Fiction, Adventure, Romance etc for
literature, and they would like anything under those broad
categories with no exception (Although there may be variation
of lthe intensity liking within a category but it would still be a
like, not a dislike). Let us label them type "A" fans (fans subject
to the meme effect). For a few discriminating persons this likes
or dislikes may not be defined by these broad categories but by
certain individual subjective criterion specific to that person.
For them it is possible that they may like some items within a
given category but may find no appeal in some other items inside
it. Let us call these minority fans (not subject to meme effect)
as type "B". It is observed quite often that when "X" states his/
her interest in some art form of a certain category, many
invariably assume X as being type "A". The possibility of
X being a type "B" art enthusiast usually escapes their mind.
This is evident from their gifts to X of books, CDs, invitations
to concerts or recitals etc by ANY artists in that category, not
considering the possibility that X may be a type "B" fan
and may not like that particular book, CD or concert etc.
Moreover, when X, doesn't show interest in a specific book,
song, concert under that category, X is perceived by many
as not having any interest in that category at all, not
realizing that this may be due to the discriminating taste
of a type B art enthusiast. This is a common fallacy.
The question of greatness and liking in art is purely a
subjective one. It is hard to come up with a universally
acceptable objective criteria to judge artistic greatness. Volume,
popularity, consensus of the critics are usually the common
criteria. The market usually decides what is great(est). Public
tastes are moldable by various extrinsic factor. But the criteria
for an individual's liking or disliking of an art(ist) is purely
subjective, unique to that individual. But whatever that unique
subjective criteria is , it is certain that not ALL work of a given
artist or genre will be equally appealing to anyone, certainly
not to a type B fan. The fact is that famous musicians, poets,
novelists etc who have created volumes of artwork are bound
to create quite a few which are inferior in quality under any
subjective criteria. Not all their works can be equally evocative
to a discerning taste. A type B fan need not like all works within
a given genre of arts. Discrimination and selectivity is an
essential mark of type B fans. The beauty of art is in the eye of
the beholder. By the same token, under any subjective criteria, it
is quite possible, that a specific piece of work by artist "X" can
appeal more than a specific piece of work by artist "Y", although
overall "Y" may appeal more than "X" Of course with some
objective criteria, like volume, number of copies sold, critics'
verdict etc one can decide the greatest, but such criteria should
have no meaning to a type B fan. To him/her liking or dislike
should be intrinsic, not influenced by polls, numbers and
statistics or any other extrinsic factors.
Now coming back to the issue of greatness in art. How is it decided,
in case of an individual artist? If greatness of an artist is assesed
retroactively by the award of say Nobel prize, sure he is. If assesed
by the number of works, then also he is. But all these are post
hoc criteria, volume and popularity is assumed to result from
greatness. That leaves the question begging as to what is
greatness ? We have a circularity here. Greatness is defined as
that which leads to volume and popularity, whereas popularity and
volume is viewed as resulting from greatness. There has to be
some APRIORI intrinsic criteria of greatness to break this
circularity. There ISN'T ANY! Art is inherently intuitive,
subjective. Of course to an individual, although the appeal is
subjective, there can be deeper objective factors deciding his/her
tastes, like certain distinctive imageries and metaphors to
describe nature, human emotions, certain choice of expressions,
certain notes or chords or riffs (in songs), etc (Style in one word).
But these are not possible to quantify and written down as criteria
of greatness for ALL to agree on. Such subjective criteria is
appropriate for deciding greatness at an individual level to
a type B fans.
Now good and bad in arts being subjective, use of such label is
improper and meaningless. Despite that people are seen to rave
about authors, stories, movies, music etc saying they are "great"
"outstanding" etc (Without qualifying it by "TO ME"). If these
attributes of "great", "outstanding" etc are defined by the "volume"
and publicity of these works then it IS OBJECTIVE. If it is due to
their "quality" then it IS a SUBJECTIVE judgement and hence
requires " TO ME". Even in the case where "greatness' etc is
decided by fame and publicity one has to look carefully into how
this fame or publicity came about. If it came about by independent
AND simultaneous reading and judgement of their work by large number
of people then there will be some authenticity to it. But in many cases
it happens by an iterative reinforcement or snowball effect whereby
more and more people hear or read ABOUT the "fabulous" work of an
artist and are purely led to believe in the greatness of an artwork
or artists by this sheer publicity rather than by judging by
themselves it's intrinsic appeal (TO THEM) and they themselves then
act as a further propagator of this fame and adds to this publicity
by reinforcing it further (The ubiquitous meme effect). That is not
to say that the artists would not have appealed to them had they
not heard about its "greatness". But it is also possible the work
of someone not so famous may have appealed equally or more in the
absence of the meme effect which acts as an extrinsic agent of
influence and either completely forfeits or significantly impair one's
intrinsic faculty of judging likes and dislikes. If "X" mentions
to "Y" a poetry, a quote or precept of a "famous" person claiming
to be his/her own and if "Y" is not familiar with it then there is
a good chance "Y" may not be quite impressed by it, whereas if "X"
had quoted it as being of a famous person, then "Y" would show an
appreciative response! The same is true about motivational speakers,
celebrities . When they address an admiring audience. The most
trivially true statements seem to create much more sense of awe on
the audience than it would have been, if told by some one ordinary
without mentioning that they were quoting those celebrities.
Interestingly, if someone KNOWS a certain symphony or classical
musical piece to be famous and "deep", he/she may listen to it and
rave about it while nodding head in awe, but if the same music is
played regularly as a background music for say a TV show and
didn't know or realize it to be a famous musical piece, he/she
may only identify the music with just the show and not feel any
interest in listening to the music itself but only will try to
reminisce about the show that it conjures up!
Tied in with above discussion is the fact that artistic and
aesthetic sense or perceptivity is an intrinsic quality or
attribute of a person which is not created or increased by mere
READING or exposure to an art work. A person may be endowed with
this inherent ability to appreciate art and a sense of aesthetics
yet have not read a lot of artistic work by others but would
nevertheless be able to appreciate it more when they read it than
who has read a lot and can talk about them in a descriptive manner
yet doesn't have the same deep artistic appreciation or sensitivity
of it as the former. An art school education does not increase the
inherent artistic sense of a person but only helps to bring out
whatever is inside to its max. A given engineer or scientist or
whatever does not necessarily posses less inherent artistic sense
than a given artist, its just that one has it latent, undeveloped,
while the other has developed it into its max. It is true that those
who have "higher" intrinsic artistic sense tend also to chose to
become professional artist and develop it but there are significant
exceptions to that rule.
Let me summarize the meme effects responsible for the fame of an
artist can be due to certain combination of factors , as follows:
(In the following "outstanding" and "mediocre" are judged mainly by
critics and to some extent by popularity, as reflected in media and
sales etc which may or may not be in sync with the critics always).
1. Some extraordinary work and a large volume of mediocre work
and the snowball effect of publicity, plug, hype generated by the
extraordinary ones. Then naive minds may "like" even just the
mediocre ones while never having read the extra-ordinary ones,
being controlled by the meme effects of the publicity/hype.
2. Large volume of work, none of extraordinary level, but due to
sheer large volume and a fortuitous condition of being at the right
place at the right time, gained publicity and fed into the hyp to
create an aura of fame around his/her name.
It is possible that some not so famous artists may have created a
similar number of extra-ordinary work as a famous one but not
having created large volume of average work didn't get the
benefit of snowball effect of mass or media hyp.
Now some thoughts on the connection of arts to real life. Here it
is observed that movies, novels which contain in its 3 hours/300
pages or so some cameos of deep philosophical, psychological
realizations of life, human emotions etc (expressible in few words
or sentences), attract rave reviews from viewers, readers for those
contents whereas the same people would dismiss reading or hearing
the same profound truths, realizations as boring and academic when
heard or read as isolated statements from an individual or in a
non-fiction book.
Just as kids only like to learn math if it is taught through fun
and entertainment some grown ups too retain this vestiges of
childish propensity and can only accept insights and truths if
adorned with extra layers of humour or romance, fiction and
verbiage etc. In most cases a much raved poem, song, story or movie
when stripped off its garnishings boils down to a trivial statement
of a fact of life that one may already know. So when touting such
poems, songs, stories or movies as a must read, must hear to others
one has to be clear about the message and the mode of the message
in them and draw a distinction. They have to be aware that the mode
part is subjective and may not appeal to someone else who may still
know or appreciate the message already, and thus not jump to the
conclusion that he/she doesn' t have the "depth" to understand the
inherent message just because he/she didn't appreciate the mode of
the message. Often by making mode quite appealing some naive minds
can be made to elevate a trivial precept or paradigm to a sublime
level. On the other hand an enlightened but not so naive mind can
be moved by the sheer beauty or artistry of the mode of the message
and yet realize the trivial nature of the message ( if any, an art
need not have a message always). One has to separate out philosophy,
psychology etc aspect from the entertainment aspect in an art and
if one is interested in the former then instead of wasting time one
can directly read core works on philosophy, psychology and if
interested in entertainment, then of course performing arts is the
appropriate avenue. In a combination, one must realize the
secondary aspect of the philosophy part in any art form. Certainly
one feels entertained to see certain human emotions and aspirations
powefully illustrated by some actors and performers through the
skills of writers and directors and of course their own artistic
skill. But whatever philosophical, social or psychological insights
or messages there are in a movie,poem, story etc, as I said, can be
reduced to few lines or minutes. And there is nothing in them that
has not been discussed, expressed or analyzed by Philosophers,
Psychologists etc over the centuries and even now in public and in
academia. One only has to take note of the fact that there exists :
1. An encyclopdia of aesthetics in 4 volumes each of 500 pages
2. An encyclopedia of Human Emotions in 2 volumes of 750 pages
total (McMillan'99)
3. An encyclopedia of Human Behaviour in 4 volumes each of about
700 pages. (Academic Press'94)
4. An encyclopedia of Ethics in 2 volumes of 1400 pages total
(Garland Publishers'92)
5. An encyclopedia of Applied Ethics in 4 volumes of 3000 pages
total (Academic Press'98)
6. An encyclopedia of Bioethics in 4 volumes of 2840 pages total
(Mcmillan'95).
And to think that all of the above are torn of any extra layers of
fictional or entertainment materials. One can imagine what their
size would have been if extra layers of fiction, entertainment were
added to the facts contained therein! Besides them there are
innumerable scholarly books and journals on all aspects of life.
Some people mention certain poems, songs, fictions etc as having
influenced or changed their lives or seek inspiration to drive their
life from them. Poems, songs, movies etc are poor sources to seek
for inspiring truths and insights about life. Real life and nature,
when observed and studied with a reflective and analytical mind
is a much more reliable source or guide to truth. Reading works
on philosophy, psychology, biology, logic, ethics etc are better and
more cost-effective means and sources of learning about insights
of life than fictional works. Fictional works are more suited to
entertainment aspect of life. We all yearn for words,rhythms,
riffs, expressions, music, pictures etc that evoke our very individual
inner artistic sensitivity and appeals to our soul. It helps to uplift
our spirit when we do come across a piece of artwork in which
we see reflections of those very emotions and feelings of our
inner self. But we should get beyond that whe it comes to real
life which should be guided by real life factors and considerations
and not handicapped by dreams, fantasies, poems, fictions and
dictated by them. Depending on a movie or poem to understand
facts and truths of life and to seek inspiration from it is the height
of naivette. Our external life has to be based on reality independent
of art. One should not depend on a poem to decide their course of
action but should be guided by his/her own head (using knowledge
and experience) and instinct. Dependency leads to self deceit. Art
is mainly to cater to our subjectuve need of our inner life, to find
an expression and reflection of our inner soul .
8=====
Objectivity in Morality
Moral subjectivism, alternately moral relativism is quite popular
with postmodernist thinking as well with sticklers of political
correctness. It was also advocated by early sophists, of course
with an agenda of their own, not that they actually believed
sincerely in the correctness of their position. Moral objectivism
or absolutism is touted by theologians, as well as by rationalist
philosophers from totally opposite viewpoints, the former from a
divine perspective, the latter from logic and basic human instinct.
Whether the theologian's view of divine source of moral
absolutism is justified is addressed in my article
Does Religion Define Morality?
The rationalists also recognize the fact that although absolute
right and wrongs do exist, SOME notions of right and wrong are
necessarily relative, not absolute. Postmodernists insist on total
relativism, whereas theologians insist on total absolutism. I
will try to discuss my own views on the subjectivity vs. objectivity
in moral perception from a rationalist perspective. Since
rationalist view acknowledges the existence of absolute wrong and
right, let me define what constitutes absolute right and wrong. I
will provide definitions of three wrongs that qualify as absolute. It
is possible that more absolute wrongs may be defined. But one
exception being enough to break a rule (The "rule" in this case
being the view that no definition of absolute wrong is possible), I
will stay content with three. In fact it will become evident that
many other acts can be judged to be absolute wrongs since those
acts can be shown to be ultimately derivable from or reducible to
these three basic abosolute acts of wrong. I must also mention
that regardless of how absolute wrong is defined, the fact
remains that absolute wrongs do exist as borne out by the very
fact that a instinctive conscience of right and wrong exists in
all humans across culture, religion and race, even before the
advent of religion of divine revelations. Modern sociobiological
insights also corroborate this fact by revealing that the
instincts of morality are hard- wired in human brain, through
evolution, originally as a strategy for survival, later
reinforced through the brain's (cerebral cortex to be precise)
ever increasing complexity through what is called gene-culture
coevolution. The fact that certain acts are characterized as
wrong (like self-evident truths) universally across cultures and
religions, provide a common sense proof of this fact.
The three morally wrong acts are described below in 1, 2 and 3 :
1. A COERCIVE perpetration of direct, intentional injury
to someone's body (either by inflicting wounds, pains, or
applying force on him/her body), WHEN the perpetrator
was not subjected to such act by the victim in past.
2. A COERCIVE or DECEITFUL perpetration of a direct, intentional
loss, deprivation or damage to someone's assets and possessions,
WHEN the perpetrator was not subjected to such act by the victim
in past.
3. Lying ABOUT someone, WHEN the perpetrator was not subjected to
such act by the victim in past.
NOTES :
The reason for including the WHEN clause is that doing so avoids
the possibility of a circular reasoning where one can justify a
wrong by saying that a wrong was done in response to another
wrong, which in turn was in response to a previous wrong...and
so on. Regressing backwards one will arrive at a point where a
wrong was first committed by one that cannot be unambiguously
tracked as a retaliation for any act against the perpetrator.
That's where the absoluteness of the wrong applies
unambiguously. So it follows that an act is not an absolute
wrong if it is an act of fair retaliation, i.e 1 for 1, 2 for 2 or
3 for 3 and only directed against the perpetrator, not anyone else.
The COERCIVE clause rules out the defense that the victim did
not resist such acts, so was willingly allowing such acts to be
committed on him/her. Because resistance is not possible when
coercion is enforced through superiority of might, and such
wrongs then become an accepted part of a tradition.
The lying referred to in 3 above means making a false objective
propositional statement (O.P.S.), not a false subjective
propositional statement (S.P.S). A propositional statement is
one which carries a true/false or yes/no implication. An
O.P.S is by definition a propositional statement to which an
absolute true/false attribute can be assigned, whereas S.P.S.
is one where no absolute true/false can be applied to it.
The difference between the two is explained through
examples of each below:
O.P.S. :
1. "A" is a male
2. "A" is a college drop out
S.P.S. :
1. A is stupid
2. A is dishonest
A false O.P.S. is necessarily a deliberate falsehood or at least
shows lack of integrity for not verifying its authenticity
(Objective statements can be verified).
DISCUSSIONS WITH EXAMPLES:
A subjective wrong (i.e an act which is not absolute moral
wrong as defined in 1, 2 and 3 above) may or may not be
legally permissible. On the other hand an absolute moral wrong
is invariably legally prohibited universally. For example
blasphemy is legally allowed in most societies, prohibited in
certain societies. Rape is universally prohibited by law.
Physically assaulting or robbing someone solely due to their
color, faith, etc are absolute wrongs. Killing of unarmed
civilians by suicide bombers is absolute wrong (Direct and
Intentional, and not a retaliation against the perpetrator).
Death of civilians in and around a military target in a bombing
raid is not an absolute wrong (Not intentionally directed).
The killing of civilians in Nagasaki and Hiroshima was absolute
wrong. Note that just because an act is not wrong in an
absolute sense doesn't mean it is automatically right. Being
subjective(relative) it can still be wrong in a certain legal
social context, but not another.
As mentioned earlier many absolute wrong acts can eventually
be reduced to or derived from the primitive wrongs defined above
by series of inferences. For example marrying off one's daughter
to a man of the parent's choice against her wish in a certain
culture is wrong since ultimately physical coercion will be
required to force her to comply if she persists in refusing to do
so. Another example is the act of suicide bombers killing
innocent noncombatant civilians.
The injury or loss being referred to in acts 1 & 2 is of "Doing TO
someone" type, not "Not doing FOR someone" type (i.e Intended
and direct, not unintended and indirect injury resulting from the
act). For example "A may refuse to do "B" a "favour" as a result of
which B may suffer some loss. B cannot accuse A of wrongdoing
since B was expecting a favour from A and A simply refused to
comply, but not necessarily intended any injury to B. Receiving
favours is a privilege, not a right. One should not lead their
life based on getting favours from others and should not stake
their life and property on the assumption of receiving a favour.
Also any damage to body or property has to be a direct and
intended result of a tangible action, not an indirect result of
one's thinking in a certain way due to one's belief,faith,
expectation etc. For example if "A" makes a critical remark about
"X" where X=faith/religion/race etc, and members of "X" feel
outraged and claim it has hurt them mentally enough to cause
physical and material loss, that would not make "A"'s critical
remark an absolute wrong. Because any damage to any member of
"X" is solely due to his/her conscious "thinking" and any sense of
outrage is of their own making in their mind, not intended by A.
In other words an act cannot be judged absolutely wrong simply
because someone believes it to be wrong. A wrongness of an act
should not be based on people's view or belief about the act.
Moreover, the criteria for the wrongness has to be objective and
A PRIORI , not an A POSTERIORI criteria, like the adverse
consequences of one's view or belief about the act and reacting
to it accordingly. Since the belief or views of any member of "X"
is not imposed by "A", so any damaging consequence of that
belief or view about the act of A has to be the responsibility
of the members of "X" not of A. This follows from the "direct"
clause in the definition of wrong-1. As a simple example, if
someone stronger than me overpowers me and stabs me with a
knife and I start bleeding, I cannot stop the bleeding by any free
will. But if someone made a critical remark about me, I have the
free will of not to loose control and engage in a destructive act
against him or anyone else or property. With an even stronger
free will I can choose not to be even bothered by such criticism
at all.
Another example is when "A" is rejected in love by "B" and the
resulting emotional distress leads to his/her physical or
financial damage (In extreme case may be a suicide). This also
will not qualify as absolute wrong by "B" since this damage is due
to "A"'s "expectation" being not fulfilled and "A"' and "B" did
not intend any damage to be done on "A". Any self-damaging act
like suicide by "A" is due to A's free will.
The definitions of absolute wrongs stated above emphasize the
fact that contrary to what many insist that no absolute right or
wrongs exist and that all wrong and right are inherently relative .
But as I argued above there are indeed some absolute wrongs
as stated above. Absolute, since anyone irrespective of
background without exception will feel hurt or offended if the
above is perpetrated on them (Certainly will not wish to be a
willing victim of such acts, hence "wrong").
A strongly held popular view is that rights and wrongs (more so
for wrongs) are cultural (cultural relativism). What is wrong in one
culture need not be wrong for the other, so one should not declare
anything in another's culture wrong by their standard. There is a
serious flaw in this view. First we can label a culture (say A) as a group
of "n" people sharing a common value or trait. (to keep it general I use
A and 'n'). Then by that very same logic a culture cannot or should
not call anything wrong that apply to a specific subculture B of
"m" people contained within culture A (of course "m" is less than
"n"). Continuing this process a subculture B cannot label anything
wrong about few group of individuals comprising a sub-subculture
"C" of "B", and so on. Ultimately nobody as an individual can be
wrong at all if we can never judge the wrongness of a group as a
whole. So cultural relativism breaks apart by an reductio ad
absurdum fallacy.
Another popular view is to dismiss all wrongs as being equal.
There is a reason for the popularity of this view. Going into the
the finer details of the difference between wrongs require
some mental work. Lumping all as equal saves one from having
to take the effort to do that work. Human tendency (from inherent
laziness) is to minimize effort as much as one can with impunity.
Trying to portray the view that all wrongs are equal as a politically
correct or ethical one is nothing but an attempt to hide the
unfairness of that view and project it as a virtue. By logic and
fairness, if we equate a more serious offense with a less serious
one, that rather dilutes the culpability of the more serious one,
and it is a bit insensitive toward the less serious offender to be
treated equally with the more serious one. One must recognize
shades. It is a fair practice. Just as two wrongs don't make a
right, equating two unequal wrongs don't make a right either.
Often a judgement of unequal capability or skill between culture or
races is labelled as racism, discrimination, intolerance etc. But
It is the DENIAL of of equal rights or opportunities which should be
labelled as racism, discrimination etc,. Whereas an apriori judgement
not based on any objective criteria certainly is "prejudice" , but an
assertion of an inevitable fact of life that all are not or cannot be
equal, regardless of the criteria used is not racism, discrimination
or prejudice. Of course for a specific comparative judgement one must
use some objective criteria. We use such objective criteria to judge
individuals, thats why there are tests in life to choose the best and
to grade people , on the basis of their abilty, skill, talent etc by
some criteria. Note that a single person cannot excel others in every
category of skill, capabilty or talent. The same remarks can be made
about races or nations. One race/nation may be superior to another
(In an average sense) in certain category of traits by any objective
criteria. Such unequalness is inevitable. But to go a step further
and say that ANY person from race 'A' is superior to ANY person from
race 'B' is a racially prejudiced statement. Also care should be
taken in differentiating "rights" and "priviledges". Discrimination
applies to rights, not priviledges. There can be subjective criterion
in deciding when one bestows a priviledge to another. That cannot be
categorized as discrimination. But objective criteria must be used in
deciding rights. Often the results of a test/contest or judgement
about individual or groups are alleged to be influenced by bias of
the person or group evaluating the result even if the evaluation
method is demonstrably objective and fair. It is rooted in the
ingrained biased belief that no one can ever be truly unbiased. If a
group of people of different affiliation (race/ color/belief/gender
etc) are all subjected to a computerized test to assess their skill
or capability by some criteria (Which are race/color/belief/gender
neutral) then the outcome of the result will be very unlikely
labelled biased . But once humans are substituted for the computers
it is assumed that the cannot be objective at all. It is true many
people may not be objective but that does not mean it is automatic
that all judgements by human have to be biased. After all the it is
human who programs the objective criteria into the computer.
The fact of unequalness can be illustrated by a simple example. Let us
take two groups of people "A" and "B". Gropu A consist of five people
with grades 10,8,8,6,5 (The grade indicates some generic trait/
attribute left as a for discussion purpose) and Group B consists of
five people with grades 10,9,7,5,5. The average for group A is (10+8+
8+6+5)/5 = 7.4 and that of B is (10+9+7+5+5)/5 = 7.2. So group A has
a higher average grade than B. But both have a member with the
highest grade 10. Group B has a member with grade 9 which group A
doesn't. For two races it is highly unlikely that the average bewteen
them will be exactly same. So to say both race or nation are exactly
equal is a politically correct but logically absurd statement. It is
equally acceptable to ASSUME an unequal average one way or the other
in absence of any objective data. But again a race or nation being
better than another on the average doesn't mean that every member is
superior over every member of the other as is clear from the above
simple example. It is a well established scientific fact that many of
the human traits are biological variables which follow the bell-
shaped curve. So there will be a variability within any group, no
matter how the group is formed. Intra group variability is much
larger than intergroup variability. But certainly the mean or median
of one group will very unlikely be identical to another. One will
bound to have alarger mean or median than the other. The important
point that must be realized is that any comparative opinion or
judgement about cultures, races must not be apriori based on
perception. It has to be based on an objective scientific crietria or
a posteriori from evidence and/or observations. Also such judgement
has to be tentative and open to revision if evidence so suggests
later. Most importantly such judgement should only be limited to
theory or opinion, and should not be used officially as criteria in
real life to grant priviledges or to deny rights to individuals,
because as I mentioned earlier, avergae score of group of cannot be
an indicator of individual score . For such individual cases, only
objective criteria which does not take into account any comparative
judgement of the group (even when that judgement itself may be
supported by objective criteria) must be used, which is what for
example Equal Opportunity Employment symbnolizes in US where the
academia may have comparative theories about races, societies. And
thats what tolerance implies. Tolernace should not pre-suppose an
apriori equality between different cultures, or cultural relativism;
to assume beforehand equality, or unequalness one way or the other;
that is against scientific or rational thinking, Again to repeat,
any post hoc judgement of superiority or inferiority should NOT be
used to justify denying equal rights.
9=========
What is Rationalism?
Rationalism is defined as using logic and evidence as the reliable
basis for testing any claims of truth, seeking objective knowledge
and forming conclusions about reality, independent of (but not
necessarily excluding it) sense perceptions. Free thinking, which is
intimately related to rationalism, is defined as the forming of views
about reality independent of authority or dogma, be it from a divine
or human source. If we stick to the strict definitions, then
freethinking is not synonimous with rationalism. One need not be
strictly rational to be a freethinker. A freethinker according to
this definition is allowed the leeway to believe or form any opinion,
not necessarily logical, as long as it is not influenced by any
existing religious, cultural or traditional dogma or authority. A
postmodernist (Read intellectual anarchist) may claim to be a
freethinker according to this non-restictive definition. But
rationalism is much more restrictive. It enforces logic and reason as
the guiding principle in thinking and forming opinions. So although
rationalism invariably leads to freethinking, it does not allow
freethinking to include any irrational belief or thinking.
Nevertheless I will adopt a loose broader meaning of freethinking
synonimous with rationalism and use them interchangeably. I have
attempted to provide my own definitions in a precise way in the
article Faith, Philosophy and Dogma to help set the criteria for
freethinkers/freethinking.
Rationalism as a philosophy demands some strict mental discipline
that many find hard to implement in their thoughts and actions. Many
may not even be aware that they are not being strictly rational. The
reason for this is that some mistakenly associate rationalism with
certain ideals and outlook that do not necessarily follow from
rationalism. Rationalism as a philosophy inevitably leads to
scientific method through logic and critical thinking. Therefore a
rationalist cannot subscribe a priori to any ideology, political or
ideological, nor can a rationalist make statement of truth that is
not a strict proposition. So a rationalist cannot claim to be a strict
atheist, i.e cannot assert that "God does not exist", since God is
not a logically well-defined and meaningful concept, all defintions
of God in any religious context runs into contradictions and logical
inconsistency. So the existence or non-existence of God are
both logically meaningless to a rationalist. A rationalist can only
take a NONCOGNITIVIST position in the God context. For more details
on this issue please carefully review the following two articles at :
1. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/definition.html
and
2. http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/theodore_drange/incompatible.html
I have also discussed the problems of defining God in the article:
God,Atheism & Secular Humanism
Does it mean a rationalist cannot have any opinion at all about
anything? Of course not. If an opinion does not contradict logic,
evidence or observation, ratilonalism does not prevent one from
forming a tentative opinion. For example it is not against rationalism
to hypothesize about all the POSSIBLE causes of a crime, when definite
evidence is missing to point to the actual cause. Same can be
said about theories to explain certain facts of reality. Thats what
science is about. Scientific speculation is just that. Theories are just
possible explanation about facts and observations. Before theories
can become laws they are just scientific opinions. But the important
point to realize is that rationalist opinions, although not yet proven,
are nevertheless consistent with logic or observations (i.e does not
contradict logic or observations).
A rationalist also cannot subscribe to a political party based on any
dogma. Nor can a rationalist express a priori affiliation or support to
a non-dogma based poltical party. For a rationalist, support for a
political party should be based on policies, performance, efficiencies
and other objective criterion, thus need not be a static one, but
changeable based on an ongoing assessment of the fulfilment of those
criteria. There is no such concept as party loyalty in a rationalist
vocabulary. Some intellectuals believe that certain political stand in
an ideological, social or political controversy is required by
rationalism, e.g leftist ideology, pro-choice stand in abortion,
nurturist stand in nature-nurture debate, etc to name a few. To
a rationalist, such a priori biased stand is not consistent with
rationalism either. They should be prepared to accept any viewpoint led
to by scientific and logical reasoning, even if that goes against the
popular trend of thinking. Rationalism is ruthless, it does not pamper
to one's emotional needs or wishes, or care about political correctness.
In personal life, that means one has to subject even one's near and
dear ones to ruthless scrutiny of rationalism and be prepared to
acknowledge, and be critical of any negative aspects of one's near and
dear ones and close friends, if evidence so suggests, even though one
may wish they were not true. A rationalist may therefore not always be
a popular figure with his/her close friends and immediate relatives
and may be misunderstood. A truly rational man is a lonely man!
By the same token, a rationalist has to acknowledge, and criticize
the shortcomings of the race, religion he/ she belongs to, in a
detached way totally free from bias, as well as acknowledge the
excellence of another race, religion in a certain aspect, if evidence
so suggests. Rationalism cannot make an a priori assumption that all
bad or wrongs are equal, just because political correctness says so.
Rationalism demands doing the required homework to quantify and
recognize shades in right and wrong in morality ar shades of good and
bad in attributes by some objective criteria when applicable. This
requires intellectual courage as it can potentially incur one the
wrath of the majority, for whom the priority is loyalty, pride,
nationalism, patriotism etc. But rationalism does not recognize such
mental constructs, or sets such priority. It only cares for logic and
evidence. Rationalism does not allow taking a stand just because it
is politically correct or popular. But that does not mean that
rationalism cannot lead to a stand that coincides with patriotic or
nationlsitic stand. They may coincide. But sometimes it may not. A
German rationalist in the 30's would not be led to Hitler's
brand of nationalism for example. Many intellectuals associate the
terms liberal, progressive etc with freethinking. But for them,
liberal, progressive etc are usually understood and judged by the
stand one takes, viz, pro-choice, left ideology, nurturist stand, a
puritanic belief that all are equally bad or equally good etc (i.e
cultural and moral relativism). But rationalism does not require one
to adopt such positions, and in fact in some cases may lead to the
opposite stand by scientific evidence and logic. I will not dwell on
the specifics of those scientific evidences as it is a topic on its
own and I am only interested on the general aspects of rationalism in
this essay. Even humanism, is not strictly derived from rationalism.
Humanism follows from rationalism if the postulate: "we should put
priority on the welfare of maximum number of humans irrespective of
race, color, creed, ethnicity etc." is added to rationalism. It must
be noted that all religions and dogmas claim human welfare as their
goal as well. But what differentiates their view of humanism from
rational humanism is that for them, that goal is claimed to be
achievable only through the implementation of their dogma. So dogma
comes first for them. Not only that, the priority for welfare in most
religions and dogmas is reserved for their followers. Some apologists
of theocracy claim that their religion is fair to all and treat all
equally. But even in their interpretation, the equality is still a
secondary one, whose criteria is decided by them once the rule of
their religious dogma is implemented, since other faith and religion
members by not being a member of the ruling religion can never be
equal to members of the ruling religion, by the simple fact of
asymmetry that one religion has control of state affair, the other
does not. A strict equality would require a secular rule, which a
religious apologist opposes in principle. But rational humanism does
not make that distinction or discrimnation, since rationalism implies
secular rule. Once humanism is arrived through rationalism, the
notions of democracy and secularism follows as corollary.
Symbolically:
Rationalism+Human good-->Humanism-->Democracy-->Secularism
Another point that many may have already wondered is that how
can we decide who is rationalist or not? After all, doesn't every one
(religion, dogma etc) claim they believe in logic and reason? Doesn't
every individual and every religion have their own logic? So how can
one not be rational? This is a tricky question that can lead to a
slippery slope if not addressed carefully. Cultural and moral
relativists, postmodernists exploit such slippery slope to argue that
all are equal, nothing is more valid than another etc. But the logic and
evidence referred to in rationalism, is shared by humanity with an
overwhelming consensus crossing race, religion and affiliation etc. In
other words they are universal. Modern logic finds much in common with
the logic of early Greek, Hindu and Buddhist philsophers, as well as
the early Muslim rationalists during the time of the House of Wisdom in
Bagdad. This logic has been perfected and improved by later
philosophers, like Hume, Kant and many Mathematicians and logicians
of the twentieth century. This is the logic that is taught with tax
payer's funding in public schools in most nations of the world as well
as secular private schools. It is also the logic most humans from all
background agree to intuitively. This is also the logic that has WORKED.
It has led to the scientific method that has changed the world, made
predictions about nature that was tested and verified to be true. It is
also leading humanity towards continued advancement. It is no surpirse
that this is the logic that people have staked their money in teaching
and learning. There are a set of unambiguous rules for valid logical
reasoning, both informal and formal taught in elementary logic class
that can act as guide to resolve dilemmas, ambiguities, paradox.
contradictions, disputes etc. Contrast that with the "logic" that
person "A" uses to rationalize his own belief, or the "logic" of
religion"X" to rationalize that religion. Such "logic" is not shared
universally, nor has it demonstrated its utility by coming up with
any predictions, inventions or innovations, nor to the discovery
of any fundamental truth about nature or reality. A "logic" that
has been invented as a dedicated ploy to justify one dogma or
belief over others, is no logic at all. Besides such logic does not
have universal appeal.
Rationalism also implies skepticism. Skepticism requires one to doubt
any claim to truth, unless proven by evidence and logic, and to suspend
belief or judgement in absence thereof, which clearly follows from
rationalism. In personal life, such skepticism forces one to refrain
from forming judgement or drawing hasty conclusions about a person,
or opinion. In the absence of any evidence or logic a skeptic should
stay in a "do nothing" i.e neutral mode. This "do nothing" neutral
mode is a level most minds cannot recognize and needs some effort
to become at ease with it. Most feel tempted to form an opinion one
way or the other, even in the absence of any supporting data. If
and when the evidence or logic is available only then a skeptic can
form an opinion, that is dictated by the evidence and logic, not by
their wishful desires or biases. A rationalist has to have the
intellectual courage to acknowledge unpleasant truths. A rationalist
never gained/gains materially or otherwise by being rational. It is
just a philosophy that they find intuitively appealing.
Let me now turn to some mistaken notions about rationalism that
is quite common among many. Many think that rationalism means
an arrogant claim to infallibility, that rationalism never admits of
ever being wrong, that it denies the posibility that logic itself may
be wrong! All these are due to a lack of careful reflection. �First,�
that�one�could�be�wrong�is�a�trivial,�self-evident�fact�that�is
implicit.�It�is�like�saying�that�one�cannot�be�sure that he/she
will�make�it�to�the�destination�as�the flight�may�crash.
Verbalizing�that�truism�about�the�limits and�uncertainties�in�one's
knowledge�is�a�matter�of humility. Humility�is�a�personal�trait.
Rationalism�is��a philosophy, not�a�trait.�Rationalism�does�not
prevent�one, nor�does�it�mandate�one�to�possess�certain
personality trait. Second�to�say�that�"logic"�itself�may�be�wrong
is to�commit�a�fallacy. Because�to�judge�something�as�"wrong"
needs�a�logic�of�its�own. One�cannot�use�logic�to�judge the
same�logic�as�wrong! We�have�assumed�that�there�exists
only�one�system�of�logic�that�works�best.�Until�we�find�a
better�system�of�logic,�it�is�a�fallacy�to�judge�that logic�as
wrong. But�saying�that�the�"logic"�is�not�wrong does�not
mean�saying�that�one�cannot�make�mistakes. Mistakes�are
due�to�an�individual's�limit�or�flaw�in applying�logic, not
due�to�logic�itself.�That�is�not�to say�that�logic�does�not
have�its�limit�either.�The�limit�of logic�reflects�limit�of humans.�
But�there�is�no�better�way to�overcome�that�limit than�logic
itself.�Anyway,�that humility�of�the�self-evident�fact�of�fallibility
is�built into�the�scientific�method.�Scientific�method,�which�is
derived�from�rationalism�is�based�on�the�premise�that there
is�no�absolute�or�final�truth,�and�that�any conclusion about
reality�is�always�tentative,�subject�to contnual�revision�in
light�of�further�evidence.�But�one must�not�conclude�that
just�because�in�certain�instance one�could�predict�the�truth
correctly�by�non-rational�(intuition, guess)�means�that�means
intuition�is�superior to�rationalism�as�a�means�for�seeeking
truth.�For�example if�a�coin�is�tossed,�an�intuitionist�may
intutively�guess that�the�coin�will�come�heads�up.�A�
rationalist�cannot predict�the�outcome�on�the�basis�of�logic
and�science�(It is�incredibly�complex�calculation)�If�the�coin
does�fall heads�up, does�it�prove�that�intuition�is�superior�to
rationalism?�Of�course�not.
Next, to many, rationalism means robbing one of the sense of beauty,
romanticism, love, compassion , i.e leaves one heartless and devoid of
emotions. This is a big myth. Rationalism stresses separating the head
from the heart, not REPLACING heart with head. Certain things are
intrinsically rooted in instinct, and thus beyond rationalism. Love,
fear, altruism, conscience (sense of right and wrong), these are
biologically rooted instincts. Instincts are not controllable or
influenced by rationalism. Instincts are more or less rooted in our
genes and manifested through the workings of the limbic system of our
brain. Whereas rationalism results from the thought process determined
by the cerebral cortex. So a rational person can feel an instinctive
fear in certain environment, or can feel passionate love for certain
person. What differentiates a rational person from a less or non
rational person is the synaptic connectivities in their cerebral
cortex, not in their limbic system. So when it comes to primal
instincts controlled by limbic systems, for example self-preservation,
the difference disappears. In a life threatening situation, control
is automaticaly taken over by the limbic system from the cerebral
cortex, biological instinct of aggression may kick in, and at that
point whatever one does is not subject to rationalism anymore.
Taste is also instinctive. Rationalism has nothing to do with it.
Although rationalism does not decide or control our tastes and
emotions, it can however EXPLAIN (or at least try to through
scientific method) the basis of such emotions and likes or dislikes.
Rationalism cannot affect or control love. But rationalism can
ceratinly help explain the biological (in both evolutionary and
biochemical terms) origin of love. The same can be said about all
other instincts and emotions. So being rational does not by any means
deprive of those instincts, tastes and emotions, because they are an
integral part of being human, rational or not. A neurologist does not
lose his brain in trying to understand the workings of the brain, nor
does an evolutionary biologist ceases to be a loving mate or parent
in trying to explain and understand the biological roots of love.
Simply because we have no control on our biological instincts,
whether we are rational or not.
Another "reason" for viewing rationalism with cynical eyes by many is
because it is believed by them that humanitarian acts should come
from an emotional impulse, not from a rationalization process, which
does not take the compassion factor in the decision of such acts. On
first look, it may look like a noble view, putting heart before head.
But as I pointed out, compassion, humanitarian acts all are derived
from altruism, a biologically rooted instinct, so rationalism cannot
affect it. Although rationalism can certainly manage altruism in a
way that ensures optimum utilization of it. Impulsive altruistic acts
do not always lead to the best results. Rationalism can help to
channelize our altruistic instincts in the most optimal manner. At a
very personal level, of course even a rationalist can (and often does)
act out of an impulse in a humantarian act, since doing so is not
contradicted by logic. Rationalism is truly applicable in forming
opinions, judgements, learning the truth and solving problems, not to
instincts, or impulses that are non-judgemental or non-intrusive.
Lastly I will be remiss if I do not point out the challenge that
rationalism is facing from the postmodernist thinking that seems to be
gaining ground in recent years. Postmodernists are challenging that
very golden product of rationalism, namely scientific method by
insisting that scientific methoid is just one among many EQUALLY valid
route to truth and deserves no special priviledged status. This is
nothing but intellectual anarchism. Postmodernists are nothing but
armchair social scientists that have fallen much behind modern
scientific paradigms and are threatened by the scientific approach that
social science is adopting (rather being forced to adopt). They are
seeing with horror one after another social discipline is giving ground
to the exact sciences. Not being able to face upto the challenege of
the sciences some of them have chosenout of intellectual laziness,
the treacherous art of deconstruction and misapplying it to scientific
method. So rationalism now faces challenges from two fronts, religious
dogma (which medieval Europe successfully met during the
rennaissance), and postmodernism, which is a new challenge that
needs to be met. So the need to emphasize rationalism is more
now than ever.
10=======
On the Abortion Debate
The abortion issue has two unrelated aspects that are subject
to debate and get quite mixed up. One is the philosophical
question as to whether the ACT of abortion should be considered
unethical and the other is the question whether it is the women who
should have the sole right to decide whether to abort or not. These
two are totally unrelated and it is logically possible to take any
combination of stands on these two questions.
The first issue is gender neutral and is a question whose answer is
bedevilled by the problem of subjectivity in (a) the notion of life
itself in deciding at what stage is abortion considered as taking
life and (b) the problem in judging whose life is more important,
the mother's or the unborn child in the eventuality when medical
complications can permit only either mother or the child to live. The
first subjectivity in (a) can be best resolved by a deeper knowledge
of molecular genetics, neuroscience and embryology. But even such
objectivity may not be acceptable to those whom it will not favour
in such an emotionally polarized issue. subjectivity in (b) is harder
to resolve but even here an objective answer is possible by evolutionary
biology by calculating the best odds for the survival of species and
genetic propagation in such a choice. But again that will not be
acceptable to the mother for sure due to the inherent biological
instinct of self-preservation (The selfish gene paradigm again). A
classic case of genetic impulse being at odds with the moral
instincts of frontolimbic forebrain.
The second issue being an adversarial one between genders, any
logical resolution of the question will not be acceptable to both
genders. If only rationality is placed above emotion and vested
interest, should the answer be acceptable (But not necessarily palatable)
to both. I will try to address both the issues, but my focus primarily
in this essay will be this second aspect of the abortion issue.
In what follows it will be assumed that the pregnacy did not result
from rape, but from a consentual act of love.
One common argument defending choice of abortion is that it is the
woman has to go through complications and travails of pregnancy
risking her life, so she has the right to choose what she thinks is
best for her body. No one else has any right to decide for her.
The relevant point here is that she had a choice. If she wants to
avoid all these risks then she can simply take necessary precautions
(There are more than one safe way of doing this) to prevent pregnancy.
Or simply abstain from engaging in the act of love. By engaging in
act of love consentually with a man she is in effect accepting to
share part of the responsibilties/rights of the outcome of such an
act. A woman who conceives due to a consentual act of love without
taking any preventive measure cannot be endowed with the same rights
as victim of rape. In the latter case, the woman was a willing
collaborator, so to speak in the pregnancy and should be subjected to
some accounatabilty and thus some curtailing of her rights.
Consentually engaging in act of love out of impulse without taking
the necessary precaution and then killing the foetus after pregnancy
just to relieve oneself of all the pains and tribulations of
pregnancy is an easy, irresponsible and selfish way of solving one's
personal problem. This can be no more justified than the killing by
drowning of two babies by their mother Susan Smith, as the children
appeared to be liabilities and getting in the way of her relationship
with her boyfriend. She chose an easy way out of her problems by
killing her babies instead of acting responsibly. The responsible way
to solve is by taking the steps to prevent conception, stay away from
love making, or to undertake the responsibilty of rearing the child
by making whatever sacrifice necessary.
Anothet common argument is also made that an embryo/foetus is not a
fully developed conscious human so can be destroyed with moral
impunity. Its like saying that a plant is valuable but not the seed
(Which produces the plant) so you can destroy seeds at will. Some
argue that abortion should be ethical up to the 15th week of
pregnancy, because that is when the spinal cord and brain become
fully active in the fetus and so only after that can it become the
right to child's life issue. There is an ethical dilemma in this
position. The above implies that abortion on the 16 the week is
killing a life, but is not in the 14th week. Now is the boundary
between life and death a matter of one's perception of a criterion?
Is the change in 15th a sudden abrupt one? it is not, it is a
gradual evolutionary one that is merely the unfolding of the genetic
code in the embryo with the mother's womb serving as the early
ambience for temperature control and as a startup process for
eventual independednt growth outside. An embryo is on its way to
being a human being. All the genetic code is already there, a dipoid
set of chromosomes. The neurons, the main player of consciousness
forms and multiplies continuously througout the gestation. So the 15
week threshold is only a convenient one for someone to plan an
abortion ahead and justify it by doing it before the 15th week. It is
not a meaningful ethical rationalization at all. If it is 100%
unethical to abort on the 16th week, it cannot be 0% unethical on the
14th week, because there is a gradual evolution (onotgeny) of the
embryo. An ethical decision should be less conditional. Just like
rape of a autistic girl is not less culpable than rape of a bright
articulate girl.
If killing a foetus (which would have evolved into a fully grown
person and had all the genetic code and ingredients to become a fully
developed human) is justified to alleviate one's own personal
suffering and physical pain then it can also be justified in the case
of killing minor children. After all, both results in no noticebale
impact on the rest of the world. A minor child is not fully grown up
human and hardly contributes to society and the world (Only a
liabaility. So is an Alzheimer patient.) The babies would not
experience any pain or trauma after the death, neither would the
foetus. Or by the same logic an old and sick person may become a
serious liability for his/her spouse or son/ daughter and the spouse/
son/daughter may argue that his/her pain and suffering to take care
of the old soul can only be understood by him/her and its solely his/
her problem and hence has the moral right to take the old person's
life to bring an end to his/her own suffering of having to take care
of the old person and no one has the right on his/her decision.
So for all practical purpose no difference exists. But responsibility/
accountability demands that neither be done just to solve one's
personal problems brought about by one's conscious choice of not
doing whatever needed to prevent it in the first place. The bottom
line is that a pregnancy due to consentual act of love morally binds
BOTH the parents to take responsibility for the outcome of the act.
Another defense used by pro-choice advocates is that for many
married women birth control fails them, and they annot afford a
child and cannot imagine carrying a child for nine months with the
father looking away etc.
All of the above points to the limitations/failures by the parents,
NOT the unborn child. So logically it is the parent who must take
responsibility and pay or sacrifice for such imitations and failures
(And it would hardly be a supreme sacrifice), not the unborn child who
has to pay by a supreme sacrifice for the parent's limitations/
failures. Whether killing an embryo/fetus is killing a life or not
should be decided A PRIORI, not A POSTERIORI, after the the fact of
the complicacy of pregnancy has occurred, because the decision has a
drastic implications in the two possible cases. In one decision, it
would be a case of murder, and in another, a case of disposing an
unwanted object/article. Any post hoc rationalization of abortion is
a convenient one and hence not a truly ethical rationalization.
It's also not fair to say without qualification that abortion is
ONLY a woman's right to choose. This lumps the case of a rape by a
stranger on the same footing with consentual act of love between two
lovers having mutual feeling. Pregnancy can occur in both cases, but
obviously the situation that led to it are very different. Its only
fair in case of rape. A women cannot conceive without a man and in a
pregnancy not resulting from rape they both have equal responsibilty.
Again as a reminder, all the discussion that follows it will be
assumed that the pregnancy occured due to a consentual act of love.
The common ground for advocating abortion as women's right issue is
that it is the woman who has to go through the complication and
travails of pregnancy . Granted, the woman goes though the travails
during pregnancy. But a woman's travail's should not disqualify a man'
s right. A person can be disqualified from rights only by his/her own
wrongful act or conduct. "A" cannot lose "A"'s rights due to "B"'s
hardship. "A" can lose "A"'s rights due to "A"s own irresponsibility
or misconduct. The travails of a pregnancy is built in nature and its
not a pain that one is voluntarily taking over from another. A
natural event cannot entitle one to a greater right just by that fact
alone. This becomes a human rights issue (or an equal/ proportional
rights issue). One entity's (gender,race etc) right cannot be at the
cost of another's. If hypothetically lets say that conception could
occur in both female and male and could be chosen by some means and
then if a woman graciously agreed to volunteer to do it then she
would have by that very act deserved a higher rights over man or
conversely the man would be deemed to have relinquished his share
of rights by not volunteering.
It is also contended often by pro-choice advocates that since its the
woman who has rights on her body, no one else should have the
right to decide what she can do with her body, the relevant
counterpoint is:
Right over her "body" is not same as right over the "Embryo". Of
course no one can have right over anther's body. An embryo is not her
body like her other organs are. An embryo is not something that a
woman acquires from birth but is an entity that was created by a
collaboration, so to speak between a male and a female and hence it
cannot be the sole property of one or the other. Any common sense law
says that anyone who is involved (In whatever way, directly or
indirectly) in an activity/project, acquires rights on it
proportional to his/her contribution to such an activity/project.
Just because the embryo physically resides in the females body does
not entitle her to a full ownership. Take an analogy. If "A" and "B"
jointly bought an article for use by both, then even if the article
(TV. etc anything) stays in "A"'s room, it still is a joint property
and "A" cannot lay full claim on it. Only a property that anyone
aquires solely on their own gets full ownership. If a woman chooses
to become pregnant by insemination through sperms purchased or
donated through a sperm bank, then she has total ownership of the
embryo. And she can whatever she chooses to do with it. The sperm
donors effectively relinquished their rights on their sperm by
donating/selling it to a sperm bank.
The moot point here is that a pregnancy is a joint rights and
responsibilities issue, not of one or the either exclusively.
Responsiblities and rights go hand in hand. Irresponsiblities always
forfeit a right. A criminal is forced to stay in a jail forfeiting
his/her rights to a free movement although he/she was entitled to
the right to move about freely like the rest do but the criminal act
forfeited it. If a man doesn't stand by the pregnant woman and walks
away from her after pregnancy then that would amount to an
irresponsible act and he effectively has relinquished his right. So
in this case all the right of abortion goes to the woman naturally.
But in all other cases its a shared right and the choice of abortion
has to be made jointly on a consensus basis. So to say without
qualification that a man has 0% right on abortion decision period is
grossly unfair and would be clearly equivalent to saying that a man
has 0% right and woman has 100% just because of their genders and
would thus be a highly sexist statement (against men) in the same
manner that so many sexist statements are made (against women).
Two wrongs don't make a right.
11==========
ON NATURE VS. NURTURE DEBATE:
DO GENES OR ENVIRONMENT DETERMINE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR?
Often there is a debate as to whether people are born with negative
attributes or they are a result of the effect of the environment and
bringing up. While almost all take one of those two extreme
positions, the truth is that its actually both (or a combination of
both). But the truth is not exactly halfway between. It is a lot
closer to nature than nurture. Let me explain it with a diagram
below.
.....
...........
..... ******* ....
.....*************.....
.....******************......
.....*********************.....
.....***********************.....
.....***********************....<<-----< Outer Shell (".") (Epigenetic factor)
.....***********************..... (represents Effect of environment)
.....***********************.....
.....***************<<------------< Inner core ("*") (genetic factor)
.....******************..... (represents Intrinsic attributes)
.....***************.....
.....***********......
......******.....
......
In the above diagrams the outer shell region (marked by ".")
indicates effect of environment, upbringing etc (nurture). The core
region(marked by "*") indicates the true intrinsic attribute (nature)
of a person. In biological parlance the shell is the epigenetic
effects due to the neuronal wiring of the brain during its
developmental stage whereas the core is the actual genetic code
through inheritance. It must be emphasized that epigenetic traits
are themselves coded genetically although it determines how one is
shaped by environment. In other words although environments do shape
a human behaviour to seme degree, it does not shape everyone
identically. For similar environmental stimulus will evoke
different behavorial response in different human (due to different
epigenetic rule). It is seen that everybody possess an intrinsic
attribute which can be good or evil or a combination of both. As one
progresses in life effects or influences from environment creates a
shell or layer around the core and hides it for a vast majority.
However the core is not same for all. Just like a fingerprint its
different for each individual. For some the core is predominantly
good, and for some its predominantly evil, same is true for the
shell. A small percentage of people don't develop the shell or even
if they do its a very thin one. The thickness of the shell is
thickest for an extreme extrovert to thinnest for an extreme
introvert. Now for those whose core is good and the shell is either
good or very thin, they are the most desirable people in society,
whereas for those whose core is evil and the shell is thin or evil,
they are usually the most harmful elements in society (Biologically
speaking, their frontal lobe of the brain have the least regulatory
control on their midbrain). Even among the majority (who are
somewhere between these two extremes) there can be situations
where the evil core may break through the shell and a normally
good (perceived) person may commit an evil act. (e.g murder of an
intellectual or white collar by a communist revolutionary for no
other reason than their identity or chopping someone's head off by
a fanatic for expressing dissenting ideas and views which contradict
any divine revelation or their religious dogma). According to
contemporary sociobiological understanding the following sequence
describes the relationship between nature (gene) and nurture(culture)
: gene(prescribe)->epigenetic rules->shaping of individual mind
which in turn grows further through cultural influence and in turn
shapes culture. So its tightly coupled relationship and is called
gene-culture co-evolution. Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson makes the
following statement in "In Search of Nature":
"To summarize this point, culture is created and shaped by
biological processes while the biological processes are
simultaneously altered in response to cultural change." and "Culture
is rooted in Biology. Its evolution is channelled by the epigenetic
rules of mental development, which in turn are genetically
prescribed." He also says that even the epigenetic factor is
prescribed by the gene and thus different individuals posses
different epigenetic rules, i.e although environment does play a
role in the development of an individual human(mind), the effect is
different for different individuals under identical environment,
culture etc. In other words genetic propensities are modulated by
the environment.
In a metaphoric language, asking what shapes human nature, gene
or environment is like asking what gives the rectangle its shape, its
height or its width? Its both. There's an alternate metaphorical way
of illustrating the effects of gene and environment on huiman traits.
lets say the threshold of a trait (religious belief etc) is the number
80 . So if genetic and environmental effects are assigned numbers
(0-100) then for a trait to be wired firmly in the brain,
gene+environment = 80 or above. Let us consider four individuals
A,B, C and D:
for A gene=50, environment=20 total 70
for B gene=50 environment=35 total=85
for C gene=40 environment=30 total=70
for D gene=60 environment=30 total=90
So despite same genetic propensities A is a freethinker, B is a
believer despite same environmental stimulus C is a skeptic, D is
a believer etc. It should be clear if one has a high enough genetic
propensity, the trait will manifest almost under any environment,
and conversely if genetic is very low, no environment can trigger
it. A nice metaphor to iullustrate this fact is a computer program
whose output is determined by both the input and the program
code. The same program code can produce different outputs for
different inputs. So gene is like code, environment is like the
input.
The fallacy among many layman is to overlook one factor completely,
i.e assign "0" to one or the other.
So gene and environment(culture,meme) are interlinked. Humans are
born with incomplete neuronal wiring of the brain. The wiring
continues until quite late in one's life shaped by environment
(culture,meme). We don't have control over the gene, but we do have
control over environment. That explains your observation of Chinese
in Singapore.
One reason that many who reject "nature" do so because they are
afraid that then any act can be justified as being genetically
programmed and hence beyond one's control, and thus would preclude
any accountability for a wrong act. That is a false conclusion. A
"conclusion" that some act is genetically programmed does not (and
should not) translate into a "sanction" of that act. Genes in our
body issue orders, so to speak, but we can disobey their orders. A
punitiv or preventive act in response to a wrong act by another is
also an act of nature. It is as much a part of the collective human
instinct as is the instinct to commit wrong by individuals. This
provides the necessary checks and balance for natural selection
process to maintain an evolutionary stable equilibrium in a species
and helps it to survive and propagate. Put in simple words, just
because I understand that an intruder in my house is acting on his
genetic impulse does not mean I would sit back. I would fight back
to drive him away and protect my property. By the same token if
someone does an act of generosity, I will not stop at just
understanding the act as due to an impulse programmed in his/her
genes, I will also appreciate the gesture. The cynical assertion:
"There is no true altruism. An altruist is also driven by selfish
desire to get gratification through altruist acts" is hollow and
devoid of any substance or insight, since the gratification came
only AFTER the act of altruism as an effect. An effect cannot be the
cause of an action. Its true that one knows beforehand that the
gratification follows an altruitsic act but thats only in hindsight
from the first experience of altruism and is used as foresight
therafter. So the root cause of altruism is not the desire for
gratification. The root is in the genetic makeup. So although
altruism is rooted in one's nature(genes), and not due to one's
conscious choice (conscious choice does not exist in isolation from
the genes, rather it is a manifestation of the underlying genetic
makeup along with the interaction of that genetic makeup with
environment), its nevertheless something to be appreciated and
valued. We don't associate a virtue with a nice car, but we do value
it. The real insight comes from recognizing the DIFFERENCE between
those who act altruistically and those who don't. One has higher
value than the other both at an individual level and at a
evolutionary biological level, as altruism has higher evolutionary
value in terms of genetic propagation.
The second reason many reject nature because that seems to
legitimize an uneven playing field and attribute the misery and
failure of one segment of society (A) to their own inherent
inferiority as well as attribute success and happiness of the other
segment(B) to one's inherent superiority. That prevents A from
blaming B for their misfortune and thriving at their expense.
Incidentally A is a significant segment of the society, not a small
minority. By insisting on nurture they don't need to accept
responsibility and finds it easier to blame society(B) for not
providing the proper nurturing.
There is a major flaw in the nurturists assertion that "human are
not born evil. They are made evil by bad environment" suffers from
an internal inconsistency. Isn't environment made up of humans? For
environment to be bad, it is the human who make up that environment
have to be evil first.
As a final comment it is unfortunate to see non-scientific and lay
people expressing their own subjective views on this issue in an
authoritative way when this issue is intrinsically a scientific one
requring knowledge on evolution, genetics and neurology.
12==========
ON DESTINY, FATE VS. FREE WILL
Here the popular position is one extreme or the other. Some
maintain that everything is under the control of people themselves
and one's future is soley a result of actions and decisions by them,
nothing external is responsible. Others assert that everything is
beyond the control of any mortal and that external power (God,
destiny etc) really control our lives and we really can't do much
to change our inevitable fate. The truth lies in a combination of
both. Let me explain how. We all can say that if you follow steps 1-
n, an intended result can be achieved. (Example studying hard will
yield good grades in an exam etc). There is no debate on that. So
why don't all achieve their desired objective even though they all
know the steps needed for this? Some decide to follow the steps with
firm resolve and achieve it, where others are not as resolute and
choose not to follow them with tenacity. This temperamental
difference between these two kinds of people are inherently
programmed into them in the form of genetic code by nature, destiny,
God or what have you and causes one group to succeed and the others
not to. In other words its a matter of destiny that some people are
the way they are. Lets say you come to a point in life where you
have to make a choice of either 'A' or 'B', and your life will take
a completely different turn depending on which choice you make. You
consider all the other factors available to you as input data and
make the best choice for you. Here you made the choice with your "
free will power" and thus shaped your future life but the input data
on which you based your choice may not be all under your control.
Even leaving aside the input data, the choice made could be solely
due to your mentality, outlook or personality which is also not
under your control (These are inherent in all from birth). We all
have experienced the situation where we advised A to make a certain
momentous choice that we are quite sure is the right one. But A
picks another choice not because he/she assessed your advice
carefully and concluded that you were wrong but because of certain
instinctive impulse he/she feels inside which impels him/her to take
a different route. At the end it turned out that he/she was wrong
and regretted not having followed your advice. This is a case where
the choice was definitely made by A but A didn't chose to be a
person driven by instinct and not by objective assesment. That trait
is inherent in his/her leading to a certain destiny. In other words
the choice of taking a certain route is in turn dictated by certain
attribute which is not a choice by conscious control. Whether the
view that God has given humans free will is consistent with the
attributes usually associated with God is addressed in my article
On The Free Will Defense Against Argument From Evil
Also check out http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/freewill1.html for
a very interesting exercise on free will. Another interesting article
refuting the assertion of religious adherents that GOD has given
human free will is at http://www.3ee.com/truth/philosophy/c-nofreewill.html
Another example is that we all know if a blood
pressure patient keeps eating salt, or a diabetic patient eats sugar
etc then that will speed up their death. Even knowing this some defy
these rules and invite early death, whereas others are very
particular in following proper rules and thus live a longer life.
These two sets of people have very different mind/personality which
is inherited by birth (genetic code) and which causes them to act or
make choices in a certain way that affects their life and future
accordingly. So, the conclusion is that it is destiny first and then
free will based on it that decides one's life and future. Free will
is a subjective perception that is perceived until an action is
chosen. Once the action is over it is (or should be) perceived as
the inevitable result of destiny in retrospect, i.e an act of free
will is fate in retrospect.
Another nice example is from nature. It is a well known trivial fact
to biologists that the sex of a crocodile embryo is determined by
the ambient temperature of the egg during incubation. Above a
certain temperature it will hatch as a male and below certain level
it will be a female. The eggs always hatch with both male and female
babies, never totally one sex or the other. Now obviously the sex is
not predetermined in this case, a kind of "choice" is left to the
crocodile to determine the sex by suitable temperature control. But
the crocodile doesn't know this fact or doesn't know how to control
the temperature for each of the hundreds of eggs. It is left to
chance. So in a way it is fate that a certain egg will be of a
certain sex although it was in principle controlable through a
deliberate temperature control.
While in the context of fate or destiny it is interesting to observe
that quite often people make the statement "Thanks God you were/I
was not in the flight" after hearing the news of a plane crash in
which he/she or someone they know were supposed to be on but
cancelled for some reason. By this they are implying that IF they
were on that flight the plane would have still crashed. A close
examination of this would reveal an inconsistency of thoughts or
logic. Lets say the person in question is "A" and the flight is
called "X". there are four possible events:
1. A was in flight X and X crashed
2. A was not in flight X and X crashed
3. A was in flight X and X didn't crash
4. A was not in flight X and X didn't crash
Now in the above example case "2" happened and the opinion by A or
his/her friends was that if "2" didn't happen then only "1" can
happen and not "3" Now there is no logical reason to think that way.
The world just happened to end up in 2 because of the infinite
sequence of cause and effect at play. A different sequence of
infinite cause and effect relationship may have led to any other
events. But "2"'s not happenning does not imply only "1" can happen.
We cannot hypothesisze about 1 once 2 has happened since happenning
of "1" implies "2" didn't happen. These two events can be compared
independently only if everything in the world is identical except A
being or not being in a flight. But once A is in the flight then
that implies a different world with its different cause and effect
factor (an example would be the total number of passenger, weight or
load distribution on the plane is differnt now, not to mention a
host of differrnt factors that led to A's being in X in the first
place) leading to A being in the flight. This kind of statement i.e
"IF (event "A" hadn''t happened ) THEN (event "B" wouldn't have
happened) is called a counter-factual statement in logic and is a
meaningless one from a rational standpoint, because it assumes a
condition which can never be met, since we cannot go back in past
and change a past event to test the validity of the conclusion
regarding a future event. So such counterfactuals reflect a poor
sense of the both logic and reality. Those familiar with and
understand the Many World interpretation (Parallel Universe) of
Quantum Theory would appreciate the subtleties involved here.
In a parallel universe theory it is possible to make such a
counterfactual statement meaningfully if it is observed that in
the another universe, where event "A" did not happen, event "B"
did not happen in the future of that universe. But in a single
universe theory (Which all laypeople and even many, but not
majority scientists believe in) this statement is nonsense.
13=========
FAITH, PHILOSOPHY & DOGMA
Let me start with a definition of each of the terms and follow up with
detailed discussions of each.
1. FAITH: A PERSONAL belief of any kind that is not verified and
supported by logic and evidence. Some personal beliefs MAY
contradict the strict rules of logic (The classic example of an
omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator of the universe).
An important attribute of faith is that it has no implied compulsion
in it. It is not derived from some divine or human authority
demanding the belief. It is upto an individual to believe or not.
The belief is also held to be an absolute truth, and no possibility
of its being false is allowed. Faith, by its definition, is non-intrusive.
A faith of "A" does not force any act or thought on "B". So it
follows from the preceding attribute that faith is harmless,
since a faith by "A" does not in any way affect "B".
Examples of Faith:
Faith in Pegasus, Santa Claus, round square, reincarnation, An
omnipotent/omniscient/omnibenevolent GOD etc.
2. PHILOSOPHY: A PERSONAL view or belief about reality which
may or may not be supported by logic or evidence, But unlike
faith, NEVER contradicts logic or observation, nor does it insist
on its being true in an absolute way.
Example:
Spinozza's nature God, Pantheism, Omega Point Theory,
Process theology, Socinism , platonism, humanism, atheism(Only
in the sense of not subscribing to theism), agnosticism (defined
anyway), humanism, secularism, rationalism, skepticism..
Note: Philosophy shares the attribute of non-intrusiveness (does
not affect or require participation of others ) and
harmlessness of faith as well.
3. DOGMA: A dogma is a belief or a system of beliefs , not based on
logic or evidence, but claimed as absolute and final, not to be
questioned or subject to any revision or affected by any observation
or facts of reality. A dogma is believed to be directives from
a divine or human authority and contains imperatives of the type
"SHOULD(NOT)", "MUST(NOT)", "HAS TO/CANNOT" for all to
obey, and not to be questioned. So a dogma has a political
aspect in it by its implied imposition of its beliefs and directives
on ALL, through threat and coercion . A dogma thus necessarily
interferes in the private life and is intrusive in nature.
A dogma always invariably prescribes a set of rules and
conducts for its believers (often discriminating between
genders) as well as for the non-believers. Thus a dogma
has the potential to be harmful IF it is implemented puritanically
with zeal and vigour. Examples are the dogmatic part of (i.e the
political part) of Judaism, Islam, Chrsitianity, Communism, various
cults .
DISCUSSION:
Faith and Philosophy can sometimes be combined, e.g Buddhism,
Hinduism. Some organized religion can contain elements of all three,
like the three Abrahamic religions. A system of belief based on
dogma is not necessarily harmless, despite the presence of the
faith and philosophy part in it. It may or may not be dangerous
depending on how puritanically the dogma part is enforced or
implemented. A system of belief that does not contain dogma is
not dangerous per se. A follower or a group of followers may
subscribe to both a dogma "A" and a philosophy "B", for example,
A=communism, B=athesim. The classic fallacy among many, as the
quote below from an article demonstrates, is to characterize the
acts of extremism of such a person committed in the name of "A" ,
as being due to "B":
"genocides have occurred for causes rooted in religion
as well as in other philosophies, including atheism"
This fallacy is often due a deliberate attempt to discredit atheists,
in defense of the theists. And the defense of the theists, as I
can understand from the article is due to an "empathy" for
the theists, as they are viewed as the victims, whom the tyrant
atheists are supposedly attempting to rob of their only pain
management tool (Read "belief in God") by trying to debunk
the notion of God!. And the atheists hardly deserve any empathy
in the face of the harshest personal attack (being declared
Immoral, inhuman etc), and intimidations by the theists. I can't
see how an atheist can ever hurt a theist by trying to logically
refute theism. Since theism requires a faith, how can logic affect
faith? So this empathy to me is misdirected. Whether or not
atheism is a less logical tenable notion than agnosticism is an
altogether different philosophical question, which has been
addressed in my article GOD,ATHEISM & SECULAR HUMANISM.
But I see no reason to imagine a paranoid state of theists caused
by atheists and to feel empathy out of that imagined paranoia.
The example of Stalin is a popular one touted by critcis of atheism
or secualrism to prove that atheism leads to atrocities. But Stalin did
not commit atrocities in the name of "atheism", but in the
name of communist dogma (Or his version of it : "Stalinism"). One can
never commit atrocities in the name of atheism. Betrand Russell was
an avowed atheist. He could not have any committed any atrocities, no
matter how hard he tried, in the name of atheism, SINCE HE DID NOT
BELIEVE IN ANY DOGMA. No one can come up with any example of
anyone committing atrocities solely because of atheism. All attrocities
are committed by theocratic or communist regimes , to enforce their
dogma by coercion, or by an oligarchy (military or otherwise) to
crush any opposition to its rule.
REFERENCES & BOOK REVIEWS
SECTION-A. FIVE OUTSTANDING BOOKS:
Authors:
Paul Davies (1-3),
Frank Tipler (4),
Roger Penrose (5)
1. GOD AND THE NEW PHYSICS
REVIEW:
How did the world begin and how will it end? These questions are not new;
what is new, Paul Davies argues, is that science may now be on the verge of
answering them. Here he explains, in jargon-free language, how the recent
far-reaching discoveries of the new physics are revolutionizing our view of
the world and, in particular, throwing light on many of the questions formerly
posed by religion. Science, Davies believes, has come of age, and can now
offer a surer path to God than can religion.
CONTENTS:
Science and religion in a changing world; genesis; did God create the universe?;
what is life? - Holism vs reductionism; mind and soul; the self; the quantum factor;
time; free will and determinism; the fundamental structure of matter; accident
or design?; black holes and cosmic chaos; miracles; the end of the universe;
is the universe a "free lunch"?; the physicist's conception of nature.
2.THE MIND OF GOD
REVIEW:
This sequel to God and the New Physics explores the fascinating questions of
modern physics such as why does mathematics, an abstract system of logic
invented by man, prove to be so useful in understanding the laws of nature?
And is the existence of intelligent life a random chance or in some sense an
inevitable and essential part of the cosmos?
CONTENTS:
Part 1 Reason and belief: the scientific miracle; human reason and common sense;
thoughts about thought; a rational world; metaphysics - who needs it?; time and
eternity - the fundamental paradox of existence. Part 2 Can the universe
create itself?: was there a creation event?; creation from nothing; the
beginning of time; cyclic world revisited; continuous creation; did God
cause the Big Bang?; creation without creation; mother and child universes.
Part 3 What are the laws of nature?: the origin of law; the cosmic code;
the status of the laws today; what does it mean for something to "exist"?;
in the beginning. Part 4 Mathematics and reality: magic numbers; mechanizing
mathematics; the uncomputable; why does arithmetic work?; Russian dolls
and artificial life. Part 5 Real worlds and virtual worlds: simulating
reality; is the universe a computer?; the unattainable; the unknowable;
the cosmic programme. Part 6 The mathematical secret: is mathematics already
"out there"?; the cosmic computer; why us?; why are the laws of nature
mathematical?; how can we know something without knowing everything?. Part
7 Why is the world the way it is?: an intelligible universe; a unique theory
of everything?; contingent order; the best of all possible worlds? beauty
as a guide to truth; is God necessary?; a dipolar God and wheeler's cloud;
does God have to exist?; the options; a God who plays dice. Part 8 Designer
universe: the unity of the Universe; life is so difficult; has the universe
been designed by an intelligent creator?; the ingenuity of nature; a place
for everything and everything in its place; is there need for a designer?;
multiple realities; cosmological Darwinism. Part 9 The mystery at the end
of the universe: turtle power; mystical knowledge; the infinite; what is man?.
An interesting quote from part 7 (Under "a unique theory of everything?"):
"Even the process of thinking involves the disturbance of Electrons in our
brains. These disturbances, though minute, nevertheless affect the fate of
other electrons and atoms in the universe."
3. THE COSMIC BLUEPRINT
REVIEW:
Scientists have only just begun to understand how complexity and organization
can emerge from featurelessness and chaos. Scientific research has shown how
physical systems tend to generate new states of order spontaneously. Was the
origin of life therefore the result of the natural outcome of cycles of
self-organizing chemical reactions or a chance event? Is the way the universe
is now in some sense predestined? Is there, in other words, a 'cosmic blueprint'?
Paul Davies argues persuasively in favour of the idea of the creative universe,
which recognizes the progressive, innovative character of physical processes,
and suggests that the universe as a whole possesses a tendency to develop
towards progressively higher levels of complex organization. Investigating
some remarkable scientific discoveries he shows how the study of complexity
wherever it is found - in chemical reactions, fluid motion, biological evolution,
artifical intelligence - reveals certain common holistic principless.
Exhilarating and informative, The Cosmic Blueprint challenges both the
concept of a dying universe and the reductionist view of the physical world
as a meaningless collection of particles.
CONTENTS:
Blueprint for a universe; the missing arrow; complexity; chaos; charting the
irregular; self-organization; LIFE - its nature; LIFE - its origin; the unfolding
universe; the source of creation; organizing principles; the quantum factor; mind
and brain; is there a blueprint?
4.THE PHYSICS OF IMMORTALITY
REVIEW:
Here "God" has been discovered through laws of pure physics by one no- nonsense
Physicist of repute in the rank of Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose etc. A Caveat:
The God in Tipler's Book is very different from the Personal God of most
revealed religions. It is defined as the convergent point (Omega Point) of all
the possible quantum cosmological histories of SpaceTime (i.e universe) into
the c-boundary, where knowledge/information assumes infinite extent and thereby
becomes an omnipotent/omniscient entity capable of resurrecting all finite past
beings by a simulation process from its stored history. The term resurrection
has to be understood in this very different sense from the naive one. It is a
Physicist's "God" and "Resurrection" so to speak. I think Tipler has done his
homework and paid all the dues (It takes formidable cerebration to master the
fields of Global General Relativity, Quantum Cosmology, Particle Physics etc.)
before coming with such a dramatic original approach to eschatology. He
displays an awesome depth of diverse fields (Each page of this 500 page book
quotes/ cross references works of scholarly nature on Philosophy, Theosophy,
Logic etc) and builds upon established scientific principles in an
authoritative way unlike those advanced by pseudoscientists who have a
smattering of scientific principles and take cues from Scientists' quotations
(without really understanding in depth Quantum Mechanics, Cosmology etc) and
adding it in a catchy way to their ideas to propound their theories of "quatum
healing", body and mind etc. To fully understand Tipler's derivation of "God"
one has to master the most advanced concepts of Global General Relativity,
Cosmology, Particle Physics, Computer Science, Evolutionary Biology etc.
Otherwise just have to take his word for it and be content with it. But at
least accepting his theory on faith is much preferable over accepting as faith
preachings made in a matter of fact way with no attempt to base them on sound
logic/knowledge by people with much less knowledge in ancient past (all the
reasons for existence of God was statements like " How can there be mountains,
sky full of stars, the miracle of life, cows giving us milk etc without GOD? A
simplistic observation which any ordinary individual can make. no need of any
spiritual leader to point that out). In simple terms it is human (or its
descendents in whatever form or shape it assumes) who will create GOD through
the pooling of the immense cumulative information database to be aquired over
the lives of all humans who have lived and will have lived over the next
billions of years until the end of the universe, and not the other way around
as in traditional religion where GOD creates all human. Figuratively one can
visualize this by a simple fact. A few human with finite strength and brain can
build very powerful nuclear bombs that can destroy the earth by utilizing the
combining the knowledge gained by varoius scientists and engineers. So it is
not hard to extrapolate the power human as a species can achieve after billions
of years of cumulative knowledge and combining it to build something very
powerful and creative (in a posotive sense) that can perform what a traditional
GOD is capable of. The Omega Point concept of GOD does provide an explanation,
in my view, of the mystery of behind the urge to procreate of all species.
First to create GOD human has to continue to exist, so procreation is a
necessary prequsite. For human to continue, all other species need to continue
as all of them are interdependent. So procreation is the the necessary
biological imperative for Omega Point to be created. Tipler takes a global view
of things and doesn't really try to focus on or advance any given religion and
its eschatology (He makes it clear he doesn't subscribe to any revealed
religion and makes a critical study of all religions, though he does point out
purely incidental similarities between his eschatology and those of the other
major religions/philosophies). After all his theory is purely a physics theory
and cannot be a respecter of any specific religion/culture/etc. His eschatology
can provide little help to diehard religious fanatics who are dogmatic about
their perception of their own religion being only right with all its blind
revelations. Tipler also formally declares Theology (Justifiably in my view) as
a branch of Physics/ Cosmology (Specifically the eschatological aspect of
Theology. I can foresee "Quantum Eschatology" or "Physical Eschatology" being
added to Graduate level course listings in Physics at many universities in the
early 21st century) with the writing of this book. Even if one finds it hard to
understand or does not find some pages in the beginning to be interesting I
strongly urge one to read on as it gets very interesting in later chapters with
cameos of occassional humours, not to mention the inexhaustible references to
facts, insights and principles on all diverse fields as researched by scholars.
Lastly it must be mentioned that Tipler's theory is a plausible and testable
Theory. It is not an absolute prediction. There are many sensible assumptions
made (All physics laws assume logical assumptions and when tests verifies the
theory the assumptions are vindicated. So Tipler's theory can only become a law
if and when its six predictions are tested to be true. But physicists concede
that Tipler's Theory/predictions are possible/ consistent with Physics but just
because it is possible doesn't guarantee it WILL happen. Read the following
reviews (selected from amongst many) by others to get a broader perspective.
1. Review by Danny Rich 2. Review by Dr.Sarfaraz Niazi and
3. Review by Christopher Hunt which is quite interesting.
A side note:
I think its about time the popular expression "It doesn't take a brain
surgeon to understand.., or "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand.."
is revised as: "It doesn't take a Quantum Cosmologist to understand.." :)
My Epilog:
It might as well be the case that the motivation for Tipler's research/book
was: "So, you want God and eternal life, eh? Ok, I will give it to you,
here it is, what you have been dying for" ! It may be leg pulling in its
highest sophistication! By the way if one believes in the Omega Point Theory
(If one has to believe in GOD and RESURRECTION then it is definitely a
more logical choice over others, since after all, it is scientific speculation
at its best. All speculations Tipler makes follow naturally from the most
advanced concepts of Physics, Evolution, Epistemology and Turing Principle)
then "Physics of Immortality" can be identified as the holy book of revelation
and Tipler, the Prophet :)
5.SHADOWS OF THE MIND
What can I say other than wow! This is an incredibly profound book about a
cerebral giant's ambitious endevour to understand/unravel the mysteries of mind
and consciousness and its inevitable link to quantum physics and information
theory via the brain (ala cytoskeleton/microtubule). This book will put a
clincher on the assertion that the true understanding of this topic can only be
achieved, if ever through a proper understanding/extension/application of the
fundamental principles of Physics of the very small and very large (Quantum
theory and Graviatation) and not through vague and ill defined discipline of
mysticism. For reviews of this masterly work by scholars in diverse but
relevant disciplines see the link above under the title. (Check this link
also for a very nice review)
SECTION B. INTERESTING ARTICLES, LECTURES, AND MORE BOOK REVIEWS
Physics and The Mind of God : Paul Davies
Paul Davies has a balanced view of Holistic and Reductionistic belief. Although
thoroughly versed in reductionist principles he believes the whole is more than
just the sum of the parts. Although he still is a skeptic but keeps an open
mind to the possibilty of something beyond the bounds of science and
objectivity. Unfortunately laypeople/pseudoscientists misconstrue this holistic
leanings of genuine Scientists/Physicists like Paul Davies and try to use it to
back up their own belief in pseudoscientific/cult/mystic ideas and views
without having a clue what these scientists really mean by their holistic
utterances. Thus we need ruthless reductionist scientists like Victor Stenger
to debunk them and put them on right track
Has Science Found God? : Victor Stenger
Mystical Physics: Has Scence Found the Path to the Ultimate? - Victor Stenger
A Physicist's view of Religion, God etc : Victor Stenger
Can God Be Found in Physics?: A Philosopher's view - Michael Dickson
UNIVERSE,LIFE,CONSCIOUSNESS - Andrei Linde
Articles on Mind-Matter Unification : Brian Josephson(Nobel Laureate in Physics)
Matter,Mind and God : Jack Sarfatti
Physics and Consciousnes: Links
The ultimate Link on Life,Universe..
(In the link on the Meaning of Existence the author seems to echo my feelings)
Mind,Matter & Quantum: Links
Physics of Consciousness: Lecture By Stapp
Quantum Consciousness
The Fifth Miracle : Paul Davies
Mind,Matter, and Quantum Mechanics : Henry Stapp
In this well written book, holistic ideas are advanced (with moral authority)
by a leading Quantum Physicist from Berkeley. The basis of this holism is of
course is the 20th century physics of Quantum Theory. Some quotes: 1. "The
successor to Classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, allows each man's
consciousness to be understood as an integral part of the world described in
the mathematical language of physics" (p-199). 2. "Quantum Theory leads
naturally to a rationally coherent conception of the whole of man in nature. It
is profoundly different from the sundered mechanical picture offered by
classical physics. Like any really new idea this quantum conception of man has
many roots. It involves deep questions : What is consciousness? What is choice?
What is chance? What can scince tell us about the role of these things in
nature?" (p-210). 3. "If the world indeed operates in the way suggested by
Heisenberg's ontology then we are all integrally connected into some not-yet-
fully-understood global process that is actively creating the form of the
universe" (p-214). Stapp discusses the role of Quantum process in brain and its
plausible link to consciousness and goes on to discuss the profound
implications/connections of quantum theory to issues of values, morality etc.
He builds up his ideas on those of the nineteenth century Psychologist/
philosopher William James and the 20th century ideas of Heisenberg Ontology to
offer his post modernist form of Cartesian Dualism armed with all the modern
ideas of Quantum Theory & Neuroscience to offer a better attempt to explain
mind and consciousness than so far attempted.
Origins:Cosmos, Earth and Mankind: Hubert Reeves
Our Cosmic Origins: Armand Delsemme
(Click here to read the Epilog of the book)
Doubt and Certainty : Rothman and Sudarshan
The subtitle certainly conveys the text's gist, but readers may be interested
to know that these witty authors are serious physicists. Their Western and
Eastern philosophies flavor these dialogues concerning issues in modern physics
and the clashing or meshing of New Age ideals. In what they describe as a cross
between Plato's Republic and the 1001 Nights, Rothman and Sudarshan reinvent
Plato's academy, melding their thoughts with those of their ancestors and
contemporaries. Each section is prefaced by background on its subject and is
concluded with a puzzle or exercise.
Paradigms Lost: John L. Casti
This is a very well kept secret and a gem of a book, published in 1989. Its a
unique yet extremely well written book by a PhD Mathematician attempting to
answer six most profound questions of modern science and philosophy and
providing an answer in the form of a claim by the prosecutor and after jury
deliberations (Objective evidences from the work of reputed scientists and
philosophers) the verdict is issued as to whether the claims are correct. In
his sequel to this book published in 2000, called "Paradigms Regained" some of
the older verdicts were revised in light of the further research work by
scientists since 1989. The final results after revision, the claims can be
stated correctly as: (1) Life Arose out of a natural Physical process here on
Earth, (2) Human behaviours are pimarily dicated by genes, (3) Human language
stems from a unique innate property of the brain, (4) Computers can in
principle literally think, (5) No evidence of Extraterrestrial Intelligence
exists in our galaxy with whom we can establish contact and (6) There exists an
objective reality independent of the observer. I will let the reviews of 5
customers in Amazon tell the rest.
The Fabric Of Reality: David Deutsch
The Meaning of it All : Richard Feynman
Before the Beginning : Sir Martin Rees
The Self-Aware Universe : Amit Goswami
The Spritual Universe : Fred Alan Wolf
Elemental Mind : Nick Herbert
The Selfish Gene : Richard Dawkins
River Out of Eden : Richard Dawkins
The Blind Watchmaker : Richard Dawkins
Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative - Christian De Duve(Nobel Laureate)
The Animal Within Us: Jay D. Glass
This is an incredibly well written book. Although the topic is old but it takes
on a refreshing look in the authoritative writing of a PhD in neurobiology who
has also been in the real world dealing with humans and equipped with the
latest knowledge of Neurobiology and years of accumulated biological and social
insights. There are plenty of surprising insights to be gleaned from this
concise yet informative (Avoiding the usual verbiage of other authors and
articulating his thoughts/insights succintly) book. After reading this book
many other books on philosophy, sociology seem redundant and playing with words
and expressions. This book is not only terrific, but terrifying too, for it
makes one face the truth that so many of us are afraid to face. Most cherish
the thought that human's treasured traits like love, feelings and emotions have
divine or sublime (i.e non-biogical) origin. The thought that they may be of
(neuro)biological origin is a terrifying prospect to may. But then truth is
beauty, isn't it?
The Astonishing Hypothesis : The Scientific Search for the Soul - Francis Crick (Nobel Laureate)
The Physics of Consciousness: Quantum Minds and the Meaning of Life - Evan Harris Walker
The End Of Certainty : Ilya Prigogine(nobel Laureate)
The Hour of Our Delight : Hubert Reeves
ZEN AND THE BRAIN: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness - James H. Austin
Mystical Mind: Probing the Biology of Religious Experience - Eugene D'Aquili
SECTION C. SOME BOOKS IN MY "TO BE READ" LIST:
Stairway to the Mind : Alwyn Scott
Conversations on Mind, Matter, and Mathematics :
Jean-Pierre Changeux, Alain Connes
THE "GOD" PART OF THE BRAIN : Matthew Alper
The Mystery of Consciousness : John Searle
How the Mind Works : Steven Pinker
Evolving the Mind: on the nature of matter and the origin of consciousness - A.G. Cairns-Smith
Life's Other Secret: The New Mathematics of the Living World - Ian Stewart
Summary of a talk by Ian Stewart with the same title (Given on 4/23/98 at the
Univ. of Minnesota):
What is life? Why is the world of living creatures so different from the
inorganic world? The discovery of the first secret of life, the molecular
structure of DNA, in the middle of this century, showed that Life is a form of
chemistry - but chemistry unlike any that ever graced a test tube. Some secrets,
however, lie deeper that the genetic code. It is the mathematical law of
physics and chemistry that control the growing organism's response to its
genetic instructions. That is Life's OTHER Secret. Its full understanding will
come only when we combine the mathematical and physical sciences with
biochemistry, genetics, and developmental biology. One of the most exciting
growth areas of twenty-first century science will be biomathematics. The next
century will withness an explosion of new mathematical concepts, of new kinds
of mathematics, brought into being by the need to understand the patterns of
the living world.
Life Itself: A Comprehensive Inquiry into the Nature, Origin, and Fabrication of Life:
- Robert Rosen
Steps Towards Life: A Perspective on Evolution - Manfred Eigen(Nobel Laureate)
Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind - Gerald Edelman(Nobel Laureate)
Seven Clues to the Origin of Life : A Scientific Detective Story - A. G.Cairns-Smith
The Mind's I: Douglas Hofstadter
Godel,Escher, Bach: Douglas Hofstadter
This has become a virtual epic of the 20th century. Some have likened it to a
scripture. Martin Gardner has never expressed such an awe in praising a book.
I am yet to read this book, as I would like to leave the best for the last.
One only needs to browse through the 119 reviews of this book in Amazon to
appreciate the the sense of awe and wonder that it has generated.
The Life of the Cosmos: Lee Smolin
Between Inner Space & Outer Space : John Barrow
The Artful Universe : John Barrow
At Home in the Universe : Stuart A. Kauffman
Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists - Ken Wilber
Brings together for the 1st time the mystical writings of the world's great
physicists - all of whom express a deep belief that physics and mysticism are
somehow fraternal twins. Written in non-technical language. Wilber selects
telling comments, in their own words, from some of the key big names of modern
physics. Well edited and insightfully commented, Wilber presents a strong case
that these physicists were indeed not philosophical materialists, and some were
outright mystical.
Quantum Brain Dynamics and Consciousness: An Introduction
- Mari Jibu, Kunio Yasue
1. Excerpts from FACING UP - Steven Weinberg:
p-45: "All my experiences as a physicist leads me to believe that there is
order in the universe"
p-17: "all thr arrows of explanantions point to one source which is the standard
model."
p-92: "I think we scientists need make no apologies. It seems to me that our
science is a good model for intellectual activity. We believe in an
objective truth that can be known, and at the same time we are always
willing to reconsider, as we may be forced to, what we have previously
accepted"
p-112: One can illustrate the reductionist world view by imagining all the
principles of science as being dots on a huge chart, with arrows
flowing into each principle from all other principles by which it
is explained. The lesson of history is that is that these arroes do not
foprm separate disconnected clumps, representing sciences that are
logically independent, and they do not wander aimlessly, rather they
are all connected, and if followed backward they all seem to branch
outward from a common source, an ultimate law of nature that Dyson calls
"A finite set of fundamental equations"
p-58: "Life emerges from biochemistry; biochemistry emerges from atomic physics;
atomic physics emerges from the properties of elementray particles as
described in the modern standard model"
"emergent phenomena do emerge, ultimately from physics of elementary
particles"
p-115: "Mind is a phenomena that emerges from the biology of complicated
animals, just as life is a phenomena that emerges from the
chemistry of complicated molecules"
"phenomena like mind and life do emerge. The rules they obey are not
independent truths, but follow from sciemtific principles at a deeper
level, apart from historical accidents that by definition cannot be
explained, the nervous systems of George and his friends have evolved
to what they are are entirely because of the principles of macroscopic
physics and chemistry, which in turn are what they are entirely because
of the principles of the standard model of elementary particles."
"There are no principles of chemistry that simply stand on their own,
without needing to be explained reductively from the properties of
electrons and atomic nuclei, and in the same way there are no
principles of psychology that are freestanding, in the sense that
thay do not need ultimately to be understood through the study of
the human brain, which in turn must in the end be understood on the
basis of physics and chemistry"
p-232: "Even a universe that is completely chaotic, without any laws or
regularities at all, could be supposed to have been designed by
an idiot"
p-249: "Whatever purpose may be served by rewarding the talented, I have
never understood why untalented people deserve less of the world's
good things than other people. Itis hard to see how equality can be
promoted, and a safety net provided for those who would otherwise
fall out of the bottom of the economy, unless there is government
interference in free markets."
p-250: Of course, some inequality is inevitable."
p-251: "For my part, I will fight against any proposal to be less
selective in choosing graduate students and research associates
for physics department in which I work. But the ineqalities of
title and fame and authority that folow inexorably from inequalities
of talent provide powerful spurs to ambition. Is it really
necessary to add gross inequalities of wealth to these other
incentives?"
"Whatever its economic effects, gross inequality in wealth is itself
a social evil, which poisons life for millions"
(Five and a half utopia")
"Civilization is not maximized by free market".
"For me, civilization includes classical-music radio stations and
the look of lovely old cities. It does not include telemarketing
or Las vegas. Vivilization is elitist; only occasionally does it
match the public taste, and for this reason it cannot prosper if not
supported by individual sacrifices or government action, whether
in the form of subsidy, regulation or tax policy."
(From Free Market Utopia)
p-254:(The Best and Brightest Utopia): "Power is not safe in the hands
of the elit, but it is not safe in the hands of the people, either.
To abandon all constraints on direct democracy is to submit
minorities to the tyranny of the majority. If it were not for the
elite judiciary, the majority in many states might still be
enforcing racial segregation, and at the very least would have
introduced prayer sessions in the public schools. It is the majority
that has favoured state-imposed religious conformity in Algeria and
Afghanistan and other ISlamic countries"
So what is the solution? Whom can we trust to exercise government
power? W.S. Gilbert proposed an admirably simple solution to this
problem. In the Savoy opera Utopia Limited, the King exercises all
power but is in constant danger of being turned over to the Public
Exploder by two Wisde men, who explain,
Our duty is to spy
Upon our King's illicities,
And keep a watchful eye
On all his eccentricities.
If ever a trick he tries
That savours of rascality,
At our decree he dies
Without the least formality
We just have to get used to the fact in real world there is no
solution, and we can't trust anyone. The best we can hope
for is that power be widely diffused among many conflicting
government and private institutions, any of which may be allies
in opposing the encroachments of others-- much as in the United
States today.
2. Excerpts from PHYSICS & PSYCHICS - Stenger:
|> Stenger(P&P): p-26-7, The new anomalies, when they are found will undoubtedly
result in the rejection of the current standard model. Possibly they willeven
lead us to revoke the materialistic,reductionistic, and quantum mechanistic
view of the world that now works so well. But if this happens, it will be
because empirical evidence demands it, not simply because of pious philosophizing
or wishful fantasies based on superstitious beliefs of the prescientific age."
|> ibid p-45: Even a highly creative thinker like Feynman found it hard to believe
the proposal that EM & Waek forces are equivalent.
|> ibid, p-46: The prediction of W & Z bosons by EW gauge theory of SWG is a classic
case of scientific process at work. The prediction was clear and unequivocal.
The prediction was tested in 1983 and verified, so the theory was accepted.
|> ibid, p-57: In Platos' Theaetetus, a young Athenian tells Socrates "The sophists
claim that everything is true according to to each individual's measure of truth,
and thus all theories are equally true and false". Socrates astutely replies,
"Then I would say that they must admit that their own statement can be false too!"
3. Excerpts from UNCONSCIOUS QUANTUM - Stenger:
|> p-194: "One of my favourite examples is the magnetic moment of the electron,
which can be first calculated and then measured to one part in ten billion,
with the two results in perfect agreement. To characterize this spectacular
achievement as nothing more than a social convention is absurd."
|> ibid-193: However debatable its philosophical foundationss and moral value,
science works better than any other mode of thought we humans have been
able to invent so far.
|> Ibid-278: "The feeling of oneness experienced by the mystics is almost
certainly a delusion. One can find no independent evidence that the
claimed insights obtained in mystical state have anything to do with
objective reality. No one can point to a previously unknown discovery
made in a mystical state that was later confirmed by scientific
observation. On the contrary, virtually every claimed mystical,
non-trivial revelation about the nature of the universe and humanity's
place in it has proved to be grossly wrong"
|> Ibid-29: Conclusion of a 1987 inquiry by the National Research Council
of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences: After almost a century and
a half of study, "The best scientific evidence does not justify the
conclusion that ESP--that is, gathering information about objects or
thoughts without the intervention of known sensory mechanisms--- exists".
4. Excerpts from GOD PART OF THE BRAIN - Alper:
|> p-100: "In order to counter this fundamental angst, humans are
'wired' for God" - Herbert Benson* in "Timeless Healing", p-198
* Harvard Cardiologist
|> p-112 : "The mystical experience can be explained in physiological terms"
James Leuba "Psychology of Religion" p-229
|> p-113: "The spiritual contents of consciousness can be accounted for by
the effect of excitation of the frontolimbic forebrain" - p-445, "The
Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry" - Kaplan and Saddock, 7th ed
|> p-114: Jeffrey Saver and John Rabin of the UCLA Neurologic Research
center found historical documentation to suggest that a significant
number of the world's spiritual prophets and leaders were sufferers
of temporal lobe epilepsy. The list they composed included, among others
such notable religious figures as Joan of Arc, Mohammed, and apostle John
|> p-128: "It is highly probable that in due course it will be possible
to explain the 'mystic experience' in terms of neuro-biology; it is
highly improbable that neurobiology will ever be explained in terms
of 'mystical experience'" p-335, The Conscious Brain - Steven Rose
|> p-132: "At birth, a baby's brain contains 100 billion neurons"
- from p-50, in Fertile Minds, Time, Feb 3, 1997 by Nash, M
"Out of these 100 billion neurons, there already exist more than
50 trillion connections(synapses)" - p30, How to build a Baby's
brain by Sharon Begley in Newsweek, Special Spring/Summer ed'1998
|> p-152: "Near death experiences can be induced by using the dissociative
drug ketamine" - p-64, Dr. Karl Jansen, "Using Ketamine to induce
the near death experience".
|> p-156: "Scientists and humanists should consider together the
possibility that the time has come for ethics to be removed temporarily
from the philosophers and biologized" - E.O.Wilson in Sociobiology, p-287
|> P-165-6: Morality stems form the prefrontal cortex, as was illustrated
in the damaged prefrontal cortex of railroad worker Phineas Gage in 1848.
Studies by Antonio Damasio of U of Iowa confirmed that.
(As reported by Stein, Rob, Sociality, Morality and the Brain, Monday
Oct 25, 1999, A13
|> p-194: Raj Persaud, God's in your cranial lobes - Financial Times, May 8/9
1999
|> p-187: "Only those willing to submit themselves to the rigorous
constraints of scientific methodology and to the canons of
scientific evidence should presume to have a say in the guidance
of human affairs" - by sociologist Auguste Compte, from p-5 of
Masters of Sociological thought - Louis Coser (1997)
|> Temporal Lobe instability is behind the mystical or religious experience
- "Neuropathology and the legacy of Spiritual Posession", Skeptical Inquirer
12-3-248, 1988
|> Human mind did not evolve in order to create a race of philosophers or
scientists - "Is Belief in Supernatural inevitable?" by Bainbridge, Skeptical
Inquirer, 8:21 ('88)
|> Science tries to explain the absence, not the existence, when the existence
is not forbidden by science
* Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty - Nancy Etcoff ('99)
* Right Parietal Lesions --> loss of body consciousness
* Entheogenic drugs (e.g Soma)
* Lee Hotz - Seeking the biological basis of Spirituality, L.A Times, Apr 25, 1998
* John Locke - Tabula Rasa (p-69)
* The biological origin of Human values - Pugh ('77)
* Journal for the scientific study of religion
* International journal for the psychology of religion
5. Excerpts from DREAM OF REASON - Pagels:
|> p-48: Evolution and human behaviour are linked by cause-effect relationship.
|> p-182: A deep theory of cognition is unlikely to exist unless it is
directly founded upon the actual material structure of the brain or
computer.
|> p-260: "Night Thoughts of a Classical Physicist" - Russell McCommach
|> p-261: Likens Kuhn's paradigm shoift with that in high fashion world
of N.Y or Paris. Thats because Kuhn's P.S ignores the invariant aspect
of scientific discovery and focuses on its social aspect only.
|> p-228 : Ben Libet, neuroscientist at UCSF, discovered that doing
precedes awareness of a conscious act of brain.
|> p-288: John G Kemeny, a mathematician once remarked about
Principia mathematica that it is "A Masterpiece that is discussed
by practically every philosopherand read by practically none". It is
full of abstract symbols, and one does not get to the proof that
1+1 = 2 until the second volume.
|> p-263: "Many people, who ought to know better, develop and popularize
the view that science is simply another social enterprise. This misconception,
like occultism, deserves rebuke. I insist that scientific ideas, because of
their special vulnerability to failure imposed by the actual order of nature,
are subject to a unique, self-imposed selective pressure, a criterion for
survival that is transcendent to the particular culture in which these
scinentific ideas originate."
|> p-267: Werner Heisenberg said "In science a decision can always be
reached as to what is right and what is wrong. It is not a question of
belief, or Weltanschaung, or hypothesis; but a certain statement could
be simply right and another statement wrong. Neither origin nor race
decides this question: It is decided by nature, or if you prefer, by God,
in any case not by man"
|> p-328: Fundamentalism is a terminal form of human consciousness in which
development is stopped, eliminating the uncertainty and risk that real
growth entails."
|> p-311-2: The hands on approach is the key to success in modern science;
people who don't want to get their hands dirty have no buisiness in science.
Once I was carrying a viewgraph projector to a lecture room to be used by
the afternoon seminar speaker. A colleague with a distinguished and noble
Asian ancestry noticed me carrying the projector and asked why I was doing
this, I said that since I was in charge of seminars that year, I had to
provide the visual aids for the speakers. My friend looked concerned. Then he
said that since next year he was in charge of running the seminars he would
have to get a secretary to carry the projector; he wasn't going to do it. I
responded, "That, my friend, is one big reason that modern science began in
the west instead of the east". He grasped my point immediately, and the next
year I did see him conspicuously carrying the projector without complaint.
|> p-330: The new sciences of complexity and the perspectives on the world
offered by computer modelling may teach us things that we did not realize
about the values we hold.Science cannot resolve moral conflicts, but it can
help to more accurately frame the debates about those conflicts.
Take for example, the act of lying. We hold the telling of truths as a
value; we are not supposed to lie. Yet if everyone told the truth all the time
so that one could have complete trust in what one is told, then the advantage
that would accrue to a single liar in society would be immense. This is not a
stable social situation. On the other hand, in a society of individuals in
which everyone lied all the time, society would be unworkable. The equlibrium
state seems to be the one in which people tell the truth most of the time
but occasionally lie, which is how the world really seems to be. In a sense,
then, it is the liars among (and within) us that keep us both honest and on
our guard. This kind of scientific analysis of lying can help us understand
why we do it.