Church of the Churchless

Atheists can feel as much awe as religious believers

I'm best friends with awe. If anything awe and I are closer now, in my churchless days, than when I was a religious believer. (See here, here, and here.)

Often my awe is stimulated by a simple thought: existence exists.

However, sometimes this strikes me as a meaningless truism: of course, existence exists; if it didn't, it wouldn't be existence. Also, if it didn't, I wouldn't be thinking existence exists. Or anything else.

Regardless of what makes awe so awesome to me or others, I heartily agreed with Michael Shermer's Skeptic column in the most recent issue of Scientific American.

Print version is titled "The Awe Delusion: What does the magnificence of the universe have to do with God?" Online version (identical except for title) is called "Can an atheist be in awe of the universe?"

Of course. Here's how the piece starts:

After 64-year-old Diana Nyad completed her 110-mile swim from Cuba to Florida in September 2013, she was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey on her Super Soul Sundayshow in what was to be a motivational reflection on the triumph of will over age.

When Nyad announced, “I'm an atheist,” Oprah responded quizzically: “But you're in the awe.”

Puzzled, Nyad responded: “I don't understand why anybody would find a contradiction in that. I can stand at the beach's edge with the most devout Christian, Jew, Buddhist—go on down the line—and weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity. All the billions of people who have lived before us, who have loved and hurt and suffered. So to me, my definition of God is humanity and is the love of humanity.”

What Oprah said next inflamed atheists: “Well, I don't call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, then that is what God is.”

This is the soft bigotry of those who cannot conceive of how someone can be in awe without believing in supernatural sources of wonder. Why would anyone think that?

I have no idea. If anything, religious belief deadens awe, because it pretends to explain mysteries of the universe instead of leaving them mysterious. Science, by contrast, is fine with saying "We don't know. Yet."

Even when science understands something, that thing can be so awesome, the understanding boggles the mind.

The March 2014 issue of National Geographic has a piece on black holes. Here's some factoids I read last night:

-- A sugar-cube-size fragment of a neutron star would weigh a billion tons on Earth; a neutron star's gravitational pull is so severe that if you were to drop a marshmallow on it, the impact would generate as much energy as an atom bomb.

-- But this is nothing compared with the death throes of a star some 20 times the mass of the sun. Detonate a Hiroshima-like bomb every millisecond for the entire life of the universe, and you would still fall short of the energy released in the final moments of a giant-star collapse.

-- The star's core plunges inward. Temperatures reach 100 billion degrees. Hunks of iron bigger than Mount Everest are compacted almost instantly into grains of sand. 

-- If the Earth were to become a black hole [way denser than a neutron star], it would retain its current weight of more than six sextillion tons (that's a six followed by 21 zeros) but be shrunk in size to smaller than an eyeball.

-- Our universe began, 13.8 billion years ago, in a tremendous big bang. The moment before, everything was packed into an infinitesimally small, massively dense speck -- a singularity. 

-- Perhaps the multiverse works something like an oak tree. Once in a while an acorn is dropped, falls into the ideal soil, and abruptly sprouts. So too with a singularity, the seed of a new universe. And like a sapling oak, we'll never send a thank-you note to our mother. For the message to escape our universe, it wold have to move faster than the speed of light.

-- The evidence for what could reside in a black hole is compelling. Look to your left, look to your right. Pinch yourself. A black hole might have originated in another universe. But we may be living in it.

Awesome!

My mantra meditation posts inspire me

Om. Here's proof All is One. 

About half an hour ago I started to write a new blog post about meditation. But first I wanted to check out some of what I've written before on this subject. So I fired up the Great God Google search box in the right sidebar.

I ended up transfixed by the inspirational brilliance of... me. 

Geez, I'd forgotten how wise I was back in 2005. And 2006. And 2007. I really enjoyed re-reading five posts about my churchless take on mantra meditation. 

Who knows? Maybe nine years from now I'll be equally impressed with the 2014 version of me. Which, of course, raises an interesting question: 

Right here and right now, does every person already know a lot more about what makes life meaningful to them than they are prepared to recognize? That is, do we tend to only trust ourselves when our knowledge is reflected back to us, not when it is intuitively experienced?

Maybe. 

Anyway, instead of writing a fresh post I'm going to share links to my previous writings that just inspired me, along with an excerpt from each.

"Mantra meditation: does God make it better?" 

Most recently, I’ve become a believer in keeping my mantra as short and simple as possible. And even more meaningless, since my goal is the cessation of thinking instead of positive thinking, as was the case in this research.

That’s a subject for another post: whether a meaningless or meaningful word is more suitable for mantra meditation. The question of the day is whether introducing the idea of “God” into one’s meditation makes the practice more beneficial.

"Mantra meditation: what's in a word?"

So, what’s in a word? What’s the point of saying a mantra over and over, whether it be during a designated meditation period or at other times during the day?

Christians use mantras. “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me” was endlessly repeated by the Russian whose tale is told in “The Way of a Pilgrim.” Buddhists use mantras. “Namu amida butsu” (I take refuge in Amida Buddha) is chanted by the Pure Land school of Buddhism. “Om,” “Ah,” “Hu,” these one-syllable mantras are but a few of the countless other words that are repeated by millions of devotees in every corner of the world.

So what? All of us speak words all of the time, sometimes aloud, sometimes silently. Why is a mantra any better than the stream of verbal consciousness that normally courses through the mind?

"Mantra meditation: it's all about melting."

This is why a meaningless mantra is to be preferred over a mantra with meaning. Meanings are what we have now: theologies, philosophies, metaphysical systems. If these were keys that could unlock the door that stands between us and Mystery, we’d be through it by now and know what lies on the other side.

I want to break down that door. Dissolve it. Make it go Poof! and disappear. Yet every meaningful effort that I make in this regard just adds to the thickness of the meaning that constitutes the barrier I’m trying to do away with.

There’s got to be another way. A wayless way. One that melts away meanings and leaves us with pure formless mystery.

"Mantra meditation: wax on or wax off?"

This points to the problem with the mantra meditation hypothesis. A mantra can just as easily obscure as it clarifies. It all depends on whether you are waxing on or waxing off. I’ve come to believe that a mantra filled with meaning is akin to the greasy cloth that my wife used to try to clean my glasses.

That word, or words, leaves a mental residue. For example, a traditional Christian mantra is “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” Assuming that you know English, it would be almost impossible to repeat those words without thinking about Jesus and mercy. You may stop yourself from thinking about other things, but Jesus’ mercy is certainly going to be on your mind.

"Sant Mat's 'five holy names' aren't so holy."

True enough, in my experience. But I'm coming to see that Tucson Bob's there's a predator analogy is apt. When we're really open to clear and present reality, we don't want any self-generated sounds or images, meaningless or not, coming between us and whatever is out there.

However, failing complete emptiness I still believe that having a single meaningless sound in my mind is better than the largely random voluminous chatter that all too often fills my psyche. When I need to think in words, I should think in words. Most of the time, I don't. A simple mantra serves to remind me to shut the fuck up.

We are animals. March to the beat of your own beastly drummer.

Recently I got an email message from a woman who told me about some difficulties she is having with both her meditation, and with life -- she said her entire life has been turned upside down.

She asked, "I need to connect with someone who understands. Do you think you could shine a little light this direction?"

Here's my reply. I didn't give it a lot of thought, which is probably why I liked what I said when I re-read it. I've added a few links.

Hmmmmm. I think I understand, because we all are so similar. Yet also, so different. All I can do is share a few personal thoughts that will echo stuff I’ve shared in blog posts.

 

(You can use the Google search box in my blog’s right sidebar to find blog posts I’ve written on all kinds of topics over the past 10 years or so; kind of scary how wordy I’ve been, but I’m a wordy guy.)

 

I no longer enjoy feeling special in the same way I did before. If there is a theme in my meditation these days, it is “be as little and insignificant as you can be.”

 

The rest of the day, I do engage in a lot of active activities. But even in those I try not to take myself as seriously as I did in my Sant Mat days, when everything that happened to me was viewed as having some sort of cosmic significance. 

 

Hey, stuff happens. It happens to everybody. Some people have to deal with crappier stuff than others, some have to deal with nicer stuff than others. We all have to deal with whatever we’re dealing with, though.

 

I honor and respect our special human capabilities. However, staying in touch with our animal nature is important also.

 

Our dog seems to be generally happier than my wife and I are. She lives in the moment. She doesn’t ponder the meaning of her life. She doesn’t worry about what is going to happen after she dies, or even what will happen tomorrow.

 

She eats. She smells. She poops and pees. She runs and plays. She sleeps. She enjoys being patted. She likes to go to the dog park. She seems to enjoy dog training classes. 

 

Our human capacity for introspection and abstraction is great. It also can screw us up. 

 

As I wrote in last night’s Churchless blog post, I really enjoy going to a local brewpub on their Science Night. Two days ago I drank a beer, ate fries and a hemp burger, and enjoyed a biology teacher’s talk about evolution.

 

He echoed the fact: we are animals, and we can benefit by watching how other animals deal with their lives. (His theme was that teaching evolution should be based on some lessons about how other species teach their young.)

 

So I guess my “little light,” which really is little, amounts to a few simple thoughts.

 

Relax. Laugh. Do things you want to do. Don’t do things you don’t want to do.

 

Especially, don’t do or not-do something just because you used to believe that was a good thing to do or not-do. Look at how you feel today, this moment, the only time that really exists. Take chances. Feel like a part of life, because you are.

 

Flow. Breathe. Dance.

 

If I sound like I’m talking to myself, I am. I’m me, not you. So much or all of what I just said may not resonate with you at all. March to the beat of your own drummer, not anyone else’s. 

 

Last thought, for what it’s worth:

 

Perhaps for much of your life you’ve followed a drummer who wasn’t yourself. Maybe you’ve worried about doing the right thing, because you looked outside yourself for guidance as to what that thing is.

 

Who knows? Could be that what you’ve been looking for isn’t far away at all. It’s you, the way you are right here and right now.

 

   — Brian

 

OK. That's a 500+ word response to the "little light" my email correspondent asked for. Here's a two minute dance video that speaks more eloquently. One of my favorites. Blogged about it in Alex and Twitch's dance message: "Get out of your mind!"

 

(Couldn't embed the You Tube video, so watch directly.)

Religion isn't true, like science, but it is appealing

This is how I like to "worship" these days: at the altar of science, with an Oregon craft beer, fries, and a hempburger at hand.

Such is possible here in Salem every third Thursday, when Gilgamesh Brewing holds its Science Night at the brewpub. 

I don't drink beer very often. But, man, Gilgamesh's Hopscotch (on the right) really rocks.

Beer has come a long way from the not-so-good old days of Budweieser and Schlitz, which my high school friends and I would consume with regularity even though it tasted like shit. The Hopscotch I drank last night was like fine wine, comparatively.

But I digress...

The speaker at this month's Science Night was Jason Niedermeyer, a biology teacher at South Salem High School who talked about how Darwin would teach evolution. It was easy to see why Niedermeyer won the 2010 National Association of Biology Teachers “Evolution Education Award.”

He could make any science subject interesting. With or without beer.

My wife and I hugely enjoyed Niedermeyer's PowerPoint aided talk. His basic point was that we can learn from other animal species about how to teach young humans. Or any humans, really. Abstractions are, well, abstract. They don't grab us like metaphors, stories, and hands-on doing does.

For example, he noted that often biology teachers try to explain Deep Time by -- strangely -- time. Meaning, they will say that if we think of the 4.5 billion year history of Earth as a day, then humans came along a few seconds before midnight (can't remember exact figure).

Niedermeyer, though, prefers a spatial analogy. He said that if you spread both arms wide, then human existence is equivalent to the width of a slight scratching of a nail file across a fingernail. Cool! 

Early on in his talk came the only statement that made me think, "Huh? That can't be right." It was when he said that science demands evidence, yet religion and science aren't necessarily at odds. When the Q&A time came, my wife told me, "You should ask him what he meant about religion and science co-existing."

I did. 

I stood up and said something like: "You told us that science requires evidence, but it is compatible with religion. I'm wondering what claim of religion can be backed up by evidence. It doesn't seem to me that science and religion are similar in that regard."

Niedermeyer's response made sense. Pretty much. Especially from an evolutionary standpoint.

What I grasped, and echoed back to him after he gave me his reply to my question, is that he differentiates (1) religion as a cultural institution and (2) religion as a means of understanding reality. That is, religions endure because they meet certain human needs, not because they promulgate truths about the universe.

Put differently: religions truly are able to meet human needs for reassurance, meaning, feeling like we belong, ritualistic behavior, and such. But only science is able to learn what is true about the laws of nature, how life evolved on Earth, history of the universe, and such.

So religions appeal to people, even though their view of reality is seriously flawed. Niedermeyer had nothing good to say about creationism, obviously, decrying attempts in certain misguided states to mandate the teaching of Biblical fantasy stories along with the scientific facts of evolution.

His attitude toward teaching evolution was reflected in an anecdote about meeting Richard Dawkins at a conference. Dawkins is a noted biologist, as well as an avid religion-basher. The subject of how to handle religious students who deny evolution came up.

Dawkins said something like "Kick them out of the classroom!"

Niedermeyer, though, feels this is a horrible way to change an uninformed youthful mind. He takes a softer, gentler approach, seeking to engage students in examining their beliefs about how life on Earth came to be as it is.

I agree with him, even though I have some Dawkins'ish tendencies myself. After all, I don't believe we humans have free will. I accept the seeming reality of determinism. Causes and effects rule, even if they often are so complex and difficult to fathom, it is impossible to predict what will happen.

Especially when it comes to the hugely complex human brain. Students, like all of us, come to a learning situation with certain mindsets formed by countless genetic and experiential influences. Teaching requires exposing them to new experiences, new information, new ways of looking at the world.

Kicking them out of the classroom if they have a creationist worldview is an experience, but not one that is likely to bring them to an understanding of evolution. 

So I think Niedermeyer is right: biology teachers should recognize the appeal of religious beliefs, even as they show their students how evolution is a much better way of explaining life on Earth than creationism.

Subjective sensations don't make souls, just people

The title of this post comes from a passage I liked a lot in Adam Gopnik's terrific New Yorker piece, Bigger Than Phil: When did faith start to fade?

“Cosmically, I seem to be of two minds,” John Updike wrote, a decade ago. “The power of materialist science to explain everything—from the behavior of the galaxies to that of molecules, atoms, and their sub-microscopic components—seems to be inarguable and the principal glory of the modern mind.

"On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires, and—may we even say—illusions composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone, in its many forms, attempts to address, organize, and placate these. I believe, then, that religious faith will continue to be an essential part of being human, as it has been for me.”

Does religion alone address the reality of our subjective sensations? It’s perfectly possible to believe that there are many things that will never be subjects of science without thinking that they are therefore objects of faith.

Human beings are unpredictable. We can’t know what songs they will sing, what new ideas they will come up with, how beautifully they will act or how badly. But their subjective sensations do not supply them with souls. They just make them people.

Since Darwin’s starting premise is that individual variation is the rule of nature, it isn’t surprising that the living things that are able to have experiences have them in varied and individual ways. The plausible opposite of “permanent scientific explanation” is “singular poetic description,” not “miraculous magical intercession.”

Absolutely. 

It's amusing when people leave comments on my blog posts accusing me of being all hyper-rational, intellectual, unfeeling, unwilling to embrace the mysteries of the cosmos. When I read crap like that, I think, What the hell are you talking about?

Today, in my churchless frame of mind, I am just as attracted to irrationality, intuition, flights of fancy, and mind-blowing experiences as I was back in my religious days.  

The only difference is that now I don't believe some supernatural entity is at the root of my subjectivity, or that my personal awareness is anything other than that: personal. 

I still look up at the night sky on an evening dog walk, while listening to owls hooting in Oregon fir trees, and feel a sense of awe that this, wherever it came from and however it will end up, is just so amazingly freakingly wonderful I'm astoundingly thankful to be a conscious life form able to perceive it.

I'm not a person who has, or is, a soul. I'm just a person. Here today; will be gone tomorrow. Just like everything else on Earth, though "tomorrow" has a different meaning for gnats and Giant Sequoias.

Adam Gopnik got a lot right in his extended book review which is so much more than that.

Yet I did feel unsettled while reading parts of his piece. In the course of Googling his New Yorker article, I came across Jerry Coyne's "Adam Gopnik on atheism in the New Yorker." This helped me understand where those feelings came from.

Coyne is mentioned by Gopnik. He knows and respects Gopnik. He also disagrees with Gopnik on some important points. Such as:

Throughout the piece Gopnik errs, I think, in mistaking instinctive likes and dislikes with religious faith. Yes, both are “irrational,” but they’re irrational in different ways. 

Our penchants and loves are the result of our experiences and genes, and often not the result of reflection but simply instinctive feelings, while one can indeed reflect on whether the tenets of one’s faith are correct.

It’s possible for me to reject (often influenced by others) the tenets of Judaism, but not my liking of a Chateau d’Yquem or the music of Smokey Robinson. In fact, I can’t even defend my love of Sauternes against someone who simply doesn’t like sweet wine.

Coyne's essay makes so much sense, it'd be futile for me to try to add anything to his critique of what Gopnik said. Coyne articulated my reservations about Gopnik's article way better than I could ever have. 

So read it.  

Free will debate continues: Harris crushes Dennett

I don't believe in free will.

There are good reasons for why I feel this way. And given the conditions of the universe at every instant during my lifetime, which encompasses those reasons, it isn't possible for me to believe or feel about free will in any way other than the way I do now. 

That's why I don't believe in free will: I understand that I'm part of a whole, as Einstein put it, called "universe." 

As I blogged about a few weeks ago, philosopher Daniel Dennett took some shots at Sam Harris, author of the excellent "Free Will."

Dennett's specious arguments in favor of his confused view of this subject -- we're sort of free, sort of not, because we feel we are -- were ably refuted by Daniel Miessler. 

Now Sam Harris has done his own refuting of Dennett. Harris' response includes some philosophical geekiness that I didn't find very interesting. But most of his piece is right on. Well worth reading, especially if you consider that you're free to think, do, and feel whatever you want.

To me, this would be a horrible way to exist. Isolated. Cut off from reality. An island unto myself. Fortunately, there's much more reason to deny free will, than to accept it.

Here's some excerpts from Harris' The Marionette's Lament.

Let’s begin by noticing a few things we actually agree about: We agree that human thought and behavior are determined by prior states of the universe and its laws—and that any contributions of indeterminism are completely irrelevant to the question of free will. We also agree that our thoughts and actions in the present influence how we think and act in the future.

We both acknowledge that people can change, acquire skills, and become better equipped to get what they want out of life. We know that there is a difference between a morally healthy person and a psychopath, as well as between one who is motivated and disciplined, and thus able to accomplish his aims, and one who suffers a terminal case of apathy or weakness of will.

We both understand that planning and reasoning guide human behavior in innumerable ways and that an ability to follow plans and to be responsive to reasons is part of what makes us human.

...We agree that given past states of the universe and its laws, we can only do what we in fact do, and not do otherwise. You don’t think this truth has many psychological or moral consequences. In fact, you describe the lawful propagation of certain types of events as a form of “freedom.”

But consider the emergence of this freedom in any specific human being: It is fully determined by genes and the environment (add as much randomness as you like). Imagine the first moment it comes online—in, say, the brain of a four-year-old child. Consider this first, “free” increment of executive control to emerge from the clockwork.

It will emerge precisely to the degree that it does, and when, according to causes that have nothing to do with this person’s freedom. And it will perpetuate its effects on future states of his nervous system in total conformity to natural laws.

In each instant, Austin will make his putt or miss it; and he will try his best or not. Yes, he is “free” to do whatever it is he does based on past states of the universe.

But the same could be said of a chimp or a computer—or, indeed, a line of dominoes. Perhaps such mechanical equivalences don’t bother you, but they might come as a shock to those who think that you have rescued their felt sense of autonomy from the gears of determinism.

...An illusion about mental freedom seems to be very widespread. My argument is that such freedom is incompatible with any form of causation (deterministic or otherwise)—which, as you know, is not a novel view.

But I also argue that it is incompatible with the actual character of our subjective experience. That is why I say that the illusion of free will is itself an illusion—which is another way of saying that if one really pays attention (and this is difficult), the illusion of free will disappears.

...In my book, I argue that an honest look at the causal underpinnings of human behavior, as well as at one’s own moment-to-moment experience, reveals free will to be an illusion. (I would say the same about the conventional sense of “self,” but that requires more discussion, and it is the topic of my next book.)

I also claim that this fact has consequences—good ones, for the most part—and that is another reason it is worth exploring.

Give me one good reason to believe in God

Come on, religious believers. I'm asking. No, begging. What is One Good Reason I should believe in God? (I'm  capitalizing those three words to show how serious I am about wanting to know.)

Believe me, I've considered all the reasons for believing. Including, for many years, not needing any reason at all except faith.

That was good enough for me back then. Not now. I love reality too much to keep on believing in God.

I doubt whether anyone can come up with a new One Good Reason that makes any more sense than the reasons that have been debated, discussed, and dismissed over many centuries. But, hey, it doesn't hurt to ask.

Share a reason, and I almost certainly will shoot it down. Unless your reason is so persuasive, I'm left dumbfounded by the brilliance of it. Unlikely, yet possible. 

Please... don't give me the "everything must have a cause to exist, except God, the always-existent" argument. That one is easy to dismiss. If something has always existed, why not assume this is the universe? Or the cosmos, assuming a multiverse. 

No need for God.

Another weak argument is called the argument from self-authentication in James Lindsay's book, "God Doesn't, We Do." This is a favorite of many commenters on this blog: I know God exists, because I just know.

Apologist William Lane Craig has boldly hung his reputation as a philosopher, but notably not as a theologian, on an impossibly narrow reed by standing firmly with his ultimate argument for the existence of God: the argument from self-authentication.

Craig often refers to it as the "self-authenticating witness of the Holy Spirit," as he is a Christian apologist and therefore argues from the perspective of the only aspect of the  triune Christian God that directly interacts with human beings since Jesus' purported ascension (the tales of Paul and Joseph Smith notwithstanding).

In brief, the argument goes like this: "Christianity is true because I have felt that it is true, and the feeling I have had about it authenticates itself because it is genuine and unmistakable."

To put it more on the level where it lies, this claim attempts to prove that God exists by saying more or less the same as many less sophisticated believers: "God exists because I know he does." This, though, does not qualify as an argument.

...The big, stupid elephant in the room with this sort of claim is that it can be used to establish vastly too much. Who wouldn't claim this of essentially any magic they wanted? All they would need to do is invent some aspect of their beliefs that subjectively interfaces with human minds, claim that aspect is self-authenticating, and then use it to support any argument they wanted!

For example, I could deny human-caused global warming by claiming that I have a profound, unmistakable connection to Gaia Spirits that inform me that the changes we are seeing are entirely natural and non-problematic, and that Gaia Spirits genuinely self-authenticate. 

It is philosophically indefensible to tell me Gaia Spirits do not exist or self-authenticate and, to assume theological privilege, rude to point out that I might be talking out of my ass.

God doesn't provide self-authenticating experiences through His Holy Spirit, but people may mistake certain psychological experiences for exactly that.

Subjective spiritual experiences can be studied objectively

Someone has a vision of God. Or feels one with the universe. Or has a near-death experience that gives them a glimpse of heaven. Or comes to know that Jesus loves her.

What should we make of such experiences?

They are undeniably subjective. Yet so is everything that we humans experience as conscious beings. I have no direct access to the consciousness of any other person, nor does anyone else have access to mine.

There are two extreme answers to the question I posed.

One is to make subjectivity unquestionable. If somebody says "I've seen God!" no one else has a right to challenge them, or look into the basis for their subjective experience. The other answer is to deny subjectivity, making truth a matter of purely objective evidence that can be rigorously substantiated.

I like the middle way espoused in Stanislas Dehaene's book, "Consciousness and the Brain: Deciphering How the Brain Codes Our Thoughts."

Dehaene, a neuroscientist, says that researchers into human consciousness need to take subjectivity seriously. There is a big difference between the brain experiencing something unconsciously, and consciously.

All this evidence points to an important conclusion, the third key ingredient in our budding science of consciousness: subjective reports can and should be trusted.

...Whatever information we are conscious of, we can name it, rate it, judge it, or memorize it much better than we can when it is subliminal. In other words, human observers are neither random nor whimsical about their subjective reports: when they report an honest-to-god feeling of seeing, such conscious access corresponds to a massive change in information processing, which almost always results in an enhanced performance.

But subjectivity shouldn't be accepted unquestioningly. People can be wrong, and often are, about the reality of what they experience.

This being said, we should not be naïve about introspection: while it certainly provides raw data for the psychologist, it is not a direct window into the operations of the mind. When a neurological or psychiatric patient tells us that he sees faces in the dark, we do not take him literally -- but neither should we deny that he has had this experience.

We just need to explain why he has had it -- perhaps because of a spontaneous, possibly epileptic activation of the face circuits in his temporal lobe.

Even in normal people, introspection can be demonstrably wrong. By definition, we have no access to our many unconscious processes -- but this does not prevent us from making up stories about them... Consider what happens when we try to make sense of our past actions. People often invent all sorts of contorted, after-the-fact interpretations for their decisions -- oblivious to their true unconscious motivations. 

...However, as a measure, introspection still constitutes the perfect, indeed the only, platform on which to build a science of consciousness, because it supplies a crucial half of the equation -- namely, how subjects feel about some experience (however wrong they are about the ground truth).

To attain  a scientific understanding of consciousness, we cognitive neuroscientists "just" have to determine the other half of the equation: Which objective neurobiological events systematically underlie a person's subjective experience?

Dehaene goes on to offer the example of near-death experiences. Some surgery patients report that they leave their bodies during anesthesia and are able to look down upon their inert body from on high. He asks, "Should we take them seriously? Does out-of-body flight 'really' happen?"

Experiments have shown that stimulating a part of the brain can produce an out-of-body experience. So...

Out-of-body flight "really" happens, then -- it is a real physical event, but only in the patient's brain and, as a result, in his subjective experience. The out-of-body state is, by and large, an exacerbated form of the dizziness that we all experience when our vision disagrees with our vestibular system, as on a rocking boat.

So, yes, every honestly reported subjective experience is real, because someone had the experience. But only by knowing what produced that experience, the neurological correlates, can we assess whether it was "merely" subjective or a reflection of objective reality.

Along this line, David Lane and Andrea Diem-Lane have written an interesting essay, "The Material Basis of Near-Death Experiences." Check it out. The essay addresses a similar theme: what should we make of a subjective claim about supernaturalism, when it can be explained by natural causes?

Ecstatic feelings can be caused by epilepsy

We are a physical brain. This is virtually certain. But even without the supernatural, mysteries abound within our cranium. 

Here's an article from New Scientist (January 25, 2014) called "Fits of Rapture." The title page said:

Why do bliss and ecstasy sometimes accompany epileptic seizures? The answer might shed light on religious awakenings, joy, and the sense of self, says Anil Ananthaswamy. 

I'll share some excerpts, along with the whole piece in a continuation to this post.

As Picard cajoled her patients to speak up about their ecstatic seizures, she found that their sensations could be characterised using three broad categories of feelings (Epilepsy & Behaviour, vol 16, p 539). The first was heightened self-awareness. For example, a 53-year-old female teacher told Picard: "During the seizure it is as if I were very, very conscious, more aware, and the sensations, everything seems bigger, overwhelming me."

The second was a sense of physical well-being. A 37-year-old man described it as "a sensation of velvet, as if I were sheltered from anything negative". The third was intense positive emotions, best articulated by a 64-year-old woman: "The immense joy that fills me is above physical sensations. It is a feeling of total presence, an absolute integration of myself, a feeling of unbelievable harmony of my whole body and myself with life, with the world, with the 'All'," she said.

...It is uncanny how these feelings of serenity, heightened awareness and a slowing of time also underpin apparent religious experiences. Have mystics over the ages been having ecstatic seizures? Picard's patients could see why some might attribute religious meaning to their seizures. "Some of my patients told me that although they are agnostic, they could understand that after such a seizure you can have faith, belief, because it has some spiritual meaning," she says.

It's ghosts all the way down

One reason I subscribe to New Scientist magazine is the letters. They're always intelligent, often wonderfully thought-provoking. 

Here's one from the January 4-10, 2014 issue called "Haunting Thought."

From Rick Bradford

I suspect the discomfort that most people feel at the notion that they are "just" their physical brain is due to an insufficient respect for matter (30 November, p. 30).

Physicists know that matter isn't the lumpen stuff we usually take it for. The closer you look at matter the more it dissolves before your eyes.

Mass, the quantification of stuff, is actually the field energy generated by the Higgs or gluon fields. And it may be that the fundamental particles will ultimately be understood as purely geometrical entities. Thus physics edges ever closer to idealism, the idea that reality is immaterial in nature.

So people shouldn't worry that there is no ghost in the machine. The truth is quite the opposite: there is no machine. It's ghost all the way down.

Wotton-under-Edge,
Gloucestershire, UK

"Buddhist Biology" book paradoxically embraces free will

This happens to me a lot, in my now-churchless frame of mind. I'll buy a book that seems to be in my sweet spot: scientific, yet also philosophical, with just enough of a spiritual-but-not-religious tone. 

Like Goldilocks, not too much, not too little. Just right.

I don't mean to sound like a crotchety literary perfectionist. I realize that the reason I like to read books is because they're written by people who aren't me.

I enjoy reading stuff I don't agree with. So long as I can understand the author's reasons for saying what he or she does.

With "Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science," I was rocking and rolling along with David Barash's explanations of how pared-down Buddhist teachings, stripped of their supernatural elements, are right in line with modern biology.

(My previous posts about the book are here, here, and here.)

But then I came to the final chapter, Meaning (Existential Bio-Buddhism?). Here Barash says that he will present his personal perspective "rather than attempting to describe objectively the interface between Buddhism and biology."

That's where my enjoyment of the book went downhill. Not all the way to the bottom, not even close. I still enjoyed "Buddhist Biology" a lot and can heartily recommend it.

I just wish that Barash hadn't interjected his personal belief in free will into the book, because free will is very much at odds with both Buddhism and modern science. 

In a footnote early on in the last chapter, Barash writes:

Personal note: my literary agent suggested that I refrain from introducing existentialism into this book, worrying that it is not only passé but also too highbrow. Although he is very intelligent and wise in the ways of Western publishing, my hope is that you, dear readers, will prove him wrong, at least in this regard.

Well, this reader thinks the agent was exactly right. Not for the reason Barash states; I enjoy existentialism; in my college days I embraced Sartre, Camus, and other existentialist thinkers. 

What irked me about the final chapter was how it contradicted so much of what Barash had argued persuasively in favor of before. Here's how I summarized this in one of my blog posts about the book:

The core of Barash's book, which I've almost finished, is that three principles underly Buddhism in all of its varied forms. However, lots is added on to these principles that can't be defended scientifically.

But this much can. Definitions are from the book's glossary.

(1) Anatman -- not-self; denial that things, animals, or people have an independent, substantial nature. In particular, neither humans nor anything else have an eternal non-material soul. Neuroscience supports this.

(2) Anitya -- impermanence; a state of constantly becoming. Change happens. Everywhere. All the time. No exceptions. Except maybe the laws of nature that proclaim "change happens." Evolution is one example.

(3) Pratitya-Samutpada -- connectedness; the dependent co-arising of all phenomena; dependent origination; interdependence of all things. Fundamental premise of ecology, biology, systems thinking.

So we humans don't have an independent nature, or self. We are constantly changing, as is everything else. We are part of an interconnected, interdependent universe where no entity is an island, complete unto itself.

Where in this view of the cosmos is there room for free will? Logically, nowhere. But I guess Barash's fondness for existentialism overrode both his scientific and Buddhist sensibilities, because his last chapter included passages that made me pen in large question marks in the book's margins.

The concept of choice turns out to be especially important here, because in the view of the existentialists, we are free; indeed, in Sartre's paradoxical words, we are "condemned to be free."

...Thus, Buddhist thought diverges from materialist biological science in asserting that genuine intentionality exists even though strict cause-and-effect thinking (supported by biology) insists that free will is an illusion.

...But that does not mean that we are stuck with an atomized, un-Buddhist mind-set, since to a large extent, minds are among those things that we are free to make up for ourselves...admittedly with a gentle shove from that array of genetically inspired tendencies that we designate "biology."

...In any event, "going with the flow" of our biologically generated inclinations is very close to existential "bad faith," wherein people pretend -- to themselves and others -- that they are not free, whereas they in fact are.

...We are free, terrifyingly free, to make these decisions, to keep the ball in the air.

Look: I'm not bothered by a belief in free will. To me, it is like a belief in God. Almost everybody in the world considers that they have free will, and also that God exists. 

Heck, I feel as if I have free will also.

I also feel that the sun rises and sets. But science tells me that the Earth rotates as it orbits the sun. Science also tells me a lot about the nature of the human brain. To me, believing in free will is as scientifically indefensible as believing that the Earth stands still while the sun moves around it.

Tellingly, Barash presents zero scientific evidence in support of his contention that "we are free, terrifyingly free." He says that "in fact," we are free. But doesn't offer up any facts in defense of that statement.

I found this deeply irritating.

Again, not so much as to detract markedly from my enjoyment of his entire book. I just mentally erased Barash's last chapter from the substance of what he said, viewing his personal belief in free will as one of those paradoxes that make people so entertainingly interesting. 

I used to work with a statistician who was fond of quoting Emerson:

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."

Absolutely.

We are all multitudes, full of messy seeming contradictions, paradoxes, inconsistencies. Yet, I'd argue (because science supports me in this) that the human brain/mind is a entity founded on and formed by causes and effects, not the free will of an independent self.

Which is what Barash also argued up until his last chapter, where he flipped over into his existentialist mode. 

I might have been able to accept an existentialism that was consistent with Buddhism, though not with biology, even though this would have gone against the theme of Barash's book: that the core of Buddhism is compatible with modern biology.

However, it sure seems that free will is at odds with Buddhism also. I offer up the Great God Wikipedia's article on "Free Will." Here's what the Buddhism section says. Pretty involved; I don't claim to understand it completely.

This Zen Buddhist perspective on free will (and the lack thereof) is easier to comprehend. 

Free will is “the freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention.” We don’t talk much about divine intervention in Buddhism, but we definitely talk about prior causes.

So, if we go with that definition, it doesn’t look like there is free will in the view of Buddha-Dharma because everything that happens, including “choice” is determined by conditions. Volition is a mental factor that arises dependent upon conditions, which is precisely what makes it not an independent self.

If there were an independent self, then it could have free will, and in fact that’s what we feel to be true as humans. We believe that “I” as a free agent can, within the limits of conditions imposed by the world, decide what to do now. Don’t we think so?

Free will may sound like a really great thing to have, but it seems to me that it would be kind of a burden to have free will. A question you can contemplate is: If it feels like “you” have to decide anything, do you feel a little bit of unease with that “freedom” of so-called free will?

If you open to the possibility that the boundless totality of conditions is determining your every move, that your “self ” is receiving its function from myriad conditions, do you feel some ease with that sense of “being controlled”?

It sure seems like Buddhism doesn't share Barash's view that "we are free, terrifyingly free." Nor, obviously, does science, including biology.

So Barash's contention that humans have free will isn't founded either in Buddhism or in biology, the twin subjects of his book. Rather, it is founded in his own feeling that he has free will -- a feeling, like I said before, that is shared by most other people.

Fine. I just would contend that Barash's belief in free will, along with my non-belief in free will, are both the result of causes and effects occurring in a marvelously complex interconnected cosmos. 

Not the result of free will. (I just had to say that.) 

True "religion" -- becoming one with nature, not God

For many years, about thirty-five, I believed in pursuing a supernatural sort of oneness. Even wrote a book about how a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, Plotinus, taught it was possible to Return to the One.

That One was viewed as the ultimate source of this physical world, through creative intermediaries. Yet returning to what could loosely be called "God" required transcending materiality and leaving behind sensory awarenesses.

I still consider that such might be possible. Heck, anything is possible. But not everything is probable. 

These days I'm much more focused on becoming one with nature. Or more accurately, realizing that I'm already one with nature. Because what isn't part and parcel of nature, this physical universe? 

Here's some passages I liked from a book by theoretical physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, "The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew."

In the end, it is easier to explain why bees construct honeycombs shaped like perfect hexagons than why human beings place identical towers on the sides of the Taj Mahal or the two grandmothers on equal sides of the mother.

The first is the result of economy and mathematics, the second of psychology and aesthetics. Perhaps in asking why the pervasive symmetries in nature are found appealing to the human mind and imitated in our human-made constructions, we are making an erroneous distinction between our minds and the remainder of nature.

Perhaps we are all the same stuff.

After all, our minds are made of the same atoms and molecules as everything else in nature. The neurons in our brains obey the same physical laws as planets and snowflakes. 

Most important, our brains developed out of nature, out of hundreds of millions of years of sensory response to sunlight and sound and tactile connection to the world around our bodies. And the architecture of our brains was born from the same trial and error, the same energy principles, the same pure mathematics that happen in flowers and jellyfish and Higgs particles. 

Viewed in this way, our human aesthetic is necessarily the aesthetic of nature. Viewed in this way, it isn nonsensical to ask why we find nature beautiful. 

Beauty and symmetry and minimum principles are not qualities we ascribe to the cosmos and then marvel at in their perfection. They are simply what is, just like the particular arrangement of atoms that make up our minds.

We are not observers on the outside looking in. We are on the inside too.

Another perspective on this is Donald Crosby's "Religious Naturalism and It's Place in the Family of Religions." Thanks to Alex Szeto from Unitarian Universalists Hong Kong, UUHK, for letting me know about this essay.

After quickly reading the piece, I emailed Alex, "Great essay. I agree with almost everything in it. The word 'religious' usually turns me off, but I think Crosby is using the word as a substitute for 'what gives life meaning,' or something like that. The sense of awe at simply being alive and part of a marvelous, vast, mysterious universe."

Here's how Crosby's essay starts off:

Religious naturalism deserves recognition as an important form of religious faith among the various religious stances and outlooks of the world. It does so especially today, when its significance is coming to be increasingly acknowledged, vigorously developed, and actively propounded.

What is religious naturalism? Simply put, it is the recognition that to be is to be natural and the conviction that nature in all of its forms and manifestations is a proper focus of religious commitment.

When I say that to be is to be natural, I am exempting from reality anything other than nature, meaning that, for religious naturalism, there is no such thing as a supposed supernatural being, beings, regions, revelations, origins, purposes, destinies, and the like.

All of reality is natural, or, to state the matter negatively, nothing beyond, beneath, or above nature and its multifarious forms exists.

This does not mean that there can be no deeply fulfilling and saving religious faith, outlook, or devotion. It means that the appropriate source and object of such faith, outlook, and devotion can rightly be regarded as nature itself. 

I'm loving True Detective's existential anti-religious honesty

HBO"s True Detective features Detectives Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson). It's a cop show like no other.

My wife and I are loving it. It's gritty and bleak, yet so marvelously acted and philosophically intriguing, we eagerly look forward to new episodes. 

Rustin Cohle breaks new ground for broadcast television. I've never heard a major TV show character speak about religion and the meaninglessness of existence in such an honest, philosophically-sophisticated way. 

Here's an example from the episode we watched a few days ago. Cohle and Hart are following up a lead in their investigation of a grisly ritualistic murder, which might be connected with an evangelistic preacher.

After arriving at a tent revival in rural Louisiana, they engage in a fascinating back-and-forth. Hart (Harrelson) is no saint. He believes in God, though, and defends religiosity. Cohle (McConaughey) has a dark perspective on life.

Watch the video of the tent scene, which, a bit over half way through, includes a flash-forward glimpse of an interview session with Cohle many years later. (The detectives are investigating another murder.) Cohle obviously has changed in appearance a lot. His worldview, though, doesn't seem to have altered much.

 

I found the initial dialogue in the tent revival scene so interesting, I transcribed it. Here it is.

Cohle: What do you think the average IQ of this group is, huh? 

Hart: Can you see Texas up there on your high horse? What do you know about these people?

Cohle: Just observation and deduction. I see a propensity for obesity, poverty, a yen for fairy tales. Folks putting what few bucks they do have into little wicker baskets being passed around. I think it’s safe to say that nobody here is going to be splitting the atom, Marty. 

Hart: You see that, your fucking attitude. Not everybody wants to sit alone in an empty room, beating off to murder manuals. Some folks enjoy community, the common good/

Cohle: Well, if the common good got's to make up fairy tales, then it’s not good for anybody. 

Hart: I mean, can you imagine if people didn’t believe, what things they would get up to?

Cohle: Exact same things they do now, it’s just out in the open.

Hart: Bull-shit! It’d be a fucking freak show of murder and debauchery, and you know it. 

Cohle: If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit, and I’d like to get as many of them out in the open as possible. 

Hart: Well, I guess your judgement is infallible, piece-of-shit-wise. You think that notebook is a stone tablet? [Cohle habitually carries around a large ledger-size notebook for his detective notes.]

Cohle: What’s it say about life? We get together, tell yourself stories that violate every law of the universe, just to get through the goddamn day? What’s that say about your reality, Marty? 

Hart: When you get to talking like this, you sound panicked.  

A Wall Street Journal piece, "The most shocking thing about HBO's 'True Detective,'" persuasively argues that Cohle's philosophizing is virtually identical to a weird fiction work by Thomas Ligotti. The piece includes this speechifying by Cohle in another True Detective scene.

I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self aware; nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody’s nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal. 

The bold-faced lines are almost exact reflections of Ligotti's writing. 

[Update: just came across a video of the great Episode 1 scene where Hart decides to ask his new'ish partner, Cohle, what he believes in. They've just started investigating the grisly murder. I love Hart's "And now, I'm begging you to just shut the fuck up!" line. Watch below.]

 

I don't feel anywhere near as bleak as Cohle does about human consciousness or the meaning of life. Yet almost always my wife and I find ourselves resonating more with Cohle, than with his partner, Hart.

It's refreshing to see something closely akin to our worldview being prominently featured in a major television show. The Wall Street Journal piece ends with:

As my friend and colleague Marshall Crook suggested in his review of the second episode, the series could end up “as bleak as it gets” following the lead of Chambers and Lovecraft — even if there is no supernatural element, and there doesn’t appear to be — as well as a philosophy similar to Ligotti’s.

Yet, it could also be revolutionary television. Millions of viewers are hearing Cohle’s worldview weekly, and many might just find that it makes some kind of troubling sense.