Church of the Churchless

"No preachiness" reminder for commenters

Ah, how soon they forget. Some preachy-prone commenters on this blog have been asking, "Dude, where's my comment?"

Unpublished, guy or gal. Guess you've forgotten my post of a few months ago about a new commenting policy.

Starting today, I'm going to be less accepting of publishing comments that include a lot of preachy religious dogma.

Some people have been using comments on my "churchless" posts as an opportunity to share their irrelevant (to the post) religious beliefs. 

They might make a passing brief reference to something I said in the post, then launch into a lengthy description of how great this-or-that religious belief system is.

From now on, I'd like those commenters to do the reverse: use your personal critical/logical thinking skills to make some cogent observations about the content of the post, with maybe a brief reference to their religious beliefs.

I mean, it's fine to say "I'm a Christian" or "I'm a follower of Sant Mat."

But this is a freaking churchless blog! I don't want to publish comments filled with Christian or Sant Mat dogma. There's plenty of other blogs and web sites where religious true believers can share that stuff.

For example, I just wrote about the mystery of existence. Comment away on this post if you want.

But say something about the freaking mystery of existence -- not something like, "God created everything" or "Just meditate at the eye center and you'll know."

I look upon blogging as much more of a conversation, than as a free speech forum. If a group of people is talking about some topic, it is discourteous and disruptive to burst into the conversation by saying something completely irrelevant.

Though this happens on the Internet all the time, I don't want it to happen here.

Sharing fresh, creative ideas is great. Just make them at least somewhat relevant to the topic at hand -- what's been written about in a blog post.

Even God can't explain the mystery of existence

Re-reading the first chapter of Luther Askeland's "Ways in Mystery" this morning (one of my favorite meaning-of-life books), I liked how Askeland addressed The Seemingly Really Big Question of Existence.

The Way of Unknowing chapter starts off with a Wittgenstein quote:

Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.

Now, I've come to doubt that this that mystery is really as mystically mysterious as it appears to be.

Maybe the classic question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" simply should be rephrased as a statement: "There is something rather than nothing."

Offering support to  this way of looking at existence, Askeland says:

Whenever we try to account for the existence of someone or something, we do so by referring to some other being... our explanations for the existence of things involve the prior existence of other things. Since there were other things, however, there clearly must already have been a "world"... But if we are looking for an explanation of the world's existence, we obviously cannot make that assumption.

It is becoming evident that the question "Why does the world exist?" is radically different from the question "Why does A exist?"

The latter question assumes that something that is not A and that existed before A led to A. But what existed before the world? Only "nothingness." The latter question wants to find the something that leads to something else. The former asks how we get from nothing to something... It is looking for something in a place where it is simultaneously assuming there is nothing at all.

This is why I have an intuitive -- hey, why not call it mystical -- understanding that as New Agey as this may sound, the "is'ness" of the cosmos needs to be accepted as our best current knowledge of why existence exists. 

And by current, I'm being overly optimistic, since there is good reason to argue that "It just is" always will be the foundational truth about existence. 

I've written a lot of blog posts about the mystery of existence. It fascinates me more than any other question about the cosmos. It's most intriguing quality is the lack of ability to answer it, as noted in my "Mystery of existence eludes both religion and science."

God, whether viewed as a personal or impersonal power, fills precisely the same role in theology as do the laws of physics in science.

That is, a given. Something for which no cause is offered. A brute fact, wihout which no other facts are possible.

OK. To me, it's a tie. Both religion and science are clueless about the ultimate question: why is there something rather than nothing? Each offers up an answer that doesn't satisfy.

"God created the universe." Fine. So tell me, what created God?

"The universe was created by a quantum fluctuation." Fine. So tell me, what created the quantum fluctuation?

What is simply is. There is something rather than nothing. I find this eminently satisfying. More than that, actually, much more. It's awesome. Mindblowing. Astoundingly meaningful.

Why? LIke existence itself, there's no why.

Askeland addresses the issue in this way.

It is important to note that if we explain the world's existence by reference to a divine Creator, we are only postponing and complicating the dilemma. For then we can account for why the world exists, but how are we to account for the fact that God does?

...The question here is not whether God exists. Rather, even assuming that God exists, the question here is how this is possible. How do gods "happen"? How are we to explain the fact that there is an eternal God instead of no eternal God? Further, along what lines might we even try to imagine a conceivable answer? 

If we again postulate a prior being or higher divinity, we are only postponing the dilemma once more. But if we don't posit another being -- if we posit nothingness as the alternative -- we find ourselves once again hopelessly looking for some kind of explanation or cause within that very nothingnesss.

...Apparently we have raised a question that has no possible, plausible, or even conceivable answer. All the intellect can do is repeat the question, "Why does the world exist?" while recognizing that nothing coherent accompanies the sound and that no toehold seems possible anywhere.

What we and our intellects have run up against is the absolutely unique, irreducible, impenetrable, astonishing fact of being. The central fact of existence, the wholly unintelligible fact that the world is, that, we can now say with Wittgenstein is "the mystical."

In the rest of his book, Askeland elaborates upon the implications of this.

In previous blog posts (type "Askeland" in the Google search box in the right sidebar to find them) I've tried to describe his subtle, sensitive, honest approach to spirituality. One attempt is a 2013 post, "In this moment, be the mystery of existence."

It ends with...

This is one of Askeland's creative insights. Religiosity, mysticism, spirituality -- these are just other ways we use to pretend to ourselves that we've got some sort of grasp on the mystery that can't be grasped. We expand our repertoire of illusory mystery-penetrating mechanisms to include supposedly metaphysical ways.

Same difference. 

We still imagine, in other words, that we can name and describe the world, ourselves, and our spiritual lives, only we now add to our repertoire world by adding to it images of a perfect condition contrasting sharply with our present state... we imagine that this perfected condition as one that will someday be ours.

In all this, however, we are just like a chick that, still enclosed in the egg, thinks it knows what the world is like, for we have at that point no more knowledge of other "worlds" than does the chick in the egg or the butterfly still working free of its cocoon. 

Here's the thing: there's no outside of the egg, no freedom from the cocoon. 

How could there be? How is it possible to get outside of existence, to be free of "God" -- whatever you want to call the mystery of the source?

Give it up, dudes and dudettes. In this moment, says Askeland, is all there ever was and ever shall be. Mystery. The mystery of us is identical with the mystery of the cosmos. 

Accept that you will never know either. Because it isn't possible to get outside of either yourself or the cosmos and know it as an object. Best approach, no, the only approach, says Askeland, is to open up a hole of mystery within, or as, yourself.

Then the mystery within and the mystery without are realized as a single mystery. Which doesn't make it less mysterious. Just a much more intimate mystery.

Which brings me to closing time. And a final sip of coffee. Now.

Thoughts on "Let's find out" in science, religion, and everyday life

One of the perks of my utterly unpaid blogging "career" is being able to interact with intelligent, thoughtful, well-spoken people who are interested in exploring the same subjects I care about.

A commenter on this blog who goes by Appreciative Reader is one such person. Whenever I read something from him, I'm much impressed by the quality of the ideas being expressed. 

Below is a message that was emailed to me by Appreciative Reader. As you'll read, he felt it was lengthy enough to be unsuitable as a blog comment. I, though, felt it was perfect for a blog post.

Since, Appreciative Reader and I have exchanged more ideas on the subjects he addresses. My initial response follows his message. We tend to repeat ourselves, saying somewhat similar things in different ways, but this is natural.

As noted in his message, science, or the search for knowledge in general, isn't about finding unchangeable truths. It is a never-ending process of inquiry.

Read on...

Dear Brian,

 

About that “Let’s find out!” comment of mine, my thoughts on the agnostic-atheist debate.  I’ve put together my thoughts here one more time, and I’d love to know what you think about it.

 

For reasons I won’t bore you with, I’ve not been able to spend much time at your blog these last few days.  And in any case, when trying to get my thoughts together coherently and properly in my (offline and stand-alone) journal just now, I find I’ve filled up three full Word doc pages : and I suppose it would be bad form to hog the dance floor at your party by uploading such a gargantuan comment on to your blog.  So instead of inserting this as a comment at some appropriate place in your blog, I’m simply sending this across to you as an email.  

 

What I’m saying is this : that atheists basically take a blinkered view of rationality and of science.  

 

And what I’m saying here is so very ordinary and simple and entirely common-sense that one would imagine it would be obvious : and yet, surprisingly, it does not seem to be obvious (at least I haven’t seen this very straightforward point-of-view explicitly voiced in the course of my admittedly scattered reading of the atheist point of view and even more scattered one-on-ones with people on the subject of the “supernatural” and the supra-normal).

 

But first, a brief note on definitions.  People generally use the terms “atheist” and “agnostic” to mean many different things, and often end up speaking at cross purposes.  We’ve already spoken of this.  

 

For the purpose of this discussion, let’s define the Agnostic as someone who, when he thinks of “supernatural” stuff, simply says “I don’t know” ; while the Atheist, when faced with the same question(s), reacts somewhat differently : while naturally not presuming to pronounce with full certainly that such things CANNOT be, he is so very strongly inclined towards active disbelief that the difference (with an active belief in the negative) is more a technicality than anything else.  

 

The atheist, in other words, does not seriously consider questions about the supernatural, except to “debunk” those questions by the easy expedient of simply pointing out the absence of evidence that generally accompany claims of extra-normal/supernatural experiences and/or realization.  

 

(This agrees with how you’ve defined the term Atheist in your blog recently, in a comment ; although you’ve also, elsewhere in your blog, defied the Atheist in more general terms.)

 

Needless to say, both these animals (as defined above) are essentially rational and will certainly, if actually provided incontrovertible proof (either of the existence of God, or—were that possible—of His non-existence) will go with the evidence.  It is their thoughts and actions now, in the absence of clinching evidence one way or the other, that defines them as Atheist and Agnostic.

 

So : when faced with anything “supernatural”, the atheist falls back on the formula that goes “Show me the proof!”.  He (the atheist) refuses to engage seriously with any discussion on God or indeed on anything “supernatural” unless such discussion is actually proved.  Now logically this position is sound.  The onus of proof that God exists, or that “supernatural” phenomena exist, or that supernatural realities and/or dimensions exist, naturally does lie with the person positing such entity or phenomenon.

 

However, the atheist’s position, while logically sound, is blinkered ; and the taking up of such a position arises out of an imperfect understanding and/or appreciation of what “science” is.  And that, in short, is the point of what I’m saying here.

 

It seems to me that the atheist imagines that “science” comprises some sets of “scientifically proven facts”.  He insists on staying within the bounds of these “known and scientifically proven facts”.  And he thinks that anyone looking beyond these “scientifically proven facts” is—unless they come equipped with incontrovertible proof—being unscientific and irrational.

 

Wrong!  Here is what I think and believe science is.  

 

The scientific method is a method, a PROCESS, of making sense of, well, everything.  Of making sense of the world around us, and also the world “within” us (hence medical science and psychology and psychiatry, et al).  And this very fundamental point is something I believe atheists confuse (in practice, that is, when speaking of their atheism : even while they agree with this description of science in abstract terms).

 

To take a very basic example : we know that the earth rotates round its axis, and revolves round the sun.  Now it isn’t as if this “fact” is scientific : what is scientific is, actually, the process by which we have arrived at this explanation.  These explanations, theories, they are provisional.  We accept them for now, but we are (at least, the scientist is) always open to this belief (to these theories) being overturned by some new advance in science.  Even something as apparently elementary and “obvious” as the heliocentric solar system is no more than a model (a model that is always open to change if new observations and/or theories so warrant) : and that is something the true scientist never loses sight of.

 

The scientist himself does not conflate his models with “reality”.  It is the layman who loses sight of this, and who ends up seeing science as a static collection of facts.  The scientist, who realizes and understands what science actually is, is always open to having the bounds of scientifically proven knowledge further and beyond currently known limits.  That is how science progresses and knowledge grows.  

 

(And it may well happen that some bona fide scientist may end up thinking unscientifically and layman-like when dealing with some things outside his immediate expertise, I suppose in the same way as—to take a diametrically opposite example that still illustrates the point—Newton reportedly attributed “creation” of the universe to a Creator who did his creating and then stood aside to let the Universe follow the laws He’d set for it, and in so positing a “Creator” was being wholly unscientific, despite being a top-dog scientist himself.)

 

Here are some questions :

 

One : Might life have not arisen on earth, but instead have been brought down to us via meterorites?

Two : Can we go faster than the speed of sound without being reduced to broken bits and pieces?

Three : Are there any intrinsic and theoretical limits (as opposed to technical/technological and practical limits) to stuff?  Stuff like, for instance, the velocity of a spaceship, or the accuracy of our observations of nano-particles?

Four : Can some form of energy, hitherto unmapped by science, be unleashed from/near the base of our spine through to our crown, thereby giving us access to extraordinary knowledge, extraordinary abilities, and extraordinary and lasting bliss?

Five : Can an averagely built man of average height successfully fight off, unarmed, four tall and sturdy men attacking him?

 

Assume that you do not already know the answers (for instance : that you do not know that non-catastrophic supersonic travel is commonplace today ; that you haven’t heard of the speed-of-light limit or the Uncertainty Principle ; that you haven’t heard of, far less actually practiced, martial art disciplines, etc).  The issue is this : how do you deal with these questions in the absence, at this time, of incontrovertible answers?  

 

The believer’s answer to these questions will be will be : Yes!  He’ll probably also sonorously add a Hallelujah, or an Amen, or an Om,  or an Inshallah Taalah.  And he’ll produce some joss sticks from his pocket and start singing hymns to the holy Brother-in-Law of God who lives on meteorites, Who looks after people trying to go faster than sound, and Who protects solitary people who’re attacked by four murderous giants, et cetera.  And he will also either slyly start wearing funny dog collars and collecting 10% of the contents of people’s pockets, or naively start emptying his own pockets into the collection plate held before him.

 

The atheist—logical but blinkered—will say, Show me the proof, or stop talking!

 

While it is the agnostic who will say, to every such question that he does not know the answer to : “I have no idea, I do not know”.  And sometimes he will also add “Let’s find out!”  And if he’s moved by this spirit of “Let’s find out!”, then he’ll set out trying to rigorously examine the possibility of the presence of carbon compounds on comets, or the mechanics of supersonic travel, or the practicability of systems of martial arts.

 

So on whom, then, lies the onus of proof?  The believer will say, Faith needs no proof.  The atheist will say, The onus of proof lies on the person who posits that life came to earth from comets (or whatever)—and in so saying, he will be logical but blinkered ; he will not be wrong but he will be only half-right.  And the true scientist will say, The onus of proof lies on the person who cares enough about the question to want to find out the answer to his satisfaction, and to spend time and effort to arrive at such answer.  The scientist will say, “Let’s find out!”

 

And it is this spirit of “Let’s find out!” that is the very backbone of science.  Without it, science is dead.  It is as dead as is religion.  

 

Think about it : When faced with the question, “Why do these things in the sky behave as they do?”, if Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler, instead of hypothesizing and then setting off to prove (or disprove) their hypotheses, were content to say to themselves and to one another (when they thought of some explanation) “Yes, but where is the proof?  There is no proof of this, so this is nonsense”, then the proof would never ever have been forthcoming, would it now?  

 

Forget the heliocentric cosmology of Copernicus, we would then not even have had the earlier earth-centric cosmology (posited by Aristotle, I think?  I’m not sure of this, but whoever) but instead have to rest content with weird stories of sun gods running off to seduce moon goddesses, or some such nonsense.  

 

Or if, firmly and consistently logical and rational, we did not accept even those mythological stories without proof, then we would simply have to say to ourselves “One big yellow ball in the sky by day, and a thousand twinkling points in the sky by night, and that is all we know, nothing else”.  Perhaps that is exactly what dogs and cats and elephants think (if they can think at all), when they see the sun and the stars?  (“Bow wow!  Bark bark!  Look, yellow ball!  Look, twinkling lights!  Now let’s go eat, and then let’s go copulate!”)  But this is NOT science, not really—even though it is “logical” and “rational”.

 

It is human nature to seek explanations and deeper layers of reality, layers and depths which are not immediately apparent.  It is this propensity to seek deeper-than-immediately-apparent explanations that have let us humans progress to where we are today.  

 

What science does is give us a way to direct this propensity of ours to seek answers, to channel this propensity of ours to seek explanations, away from dysfunctional routes like religion and blind faith and weird myths.  But it is, nevertheless, just a method ; and can yield knowledge only when we loudly and repeatedly chant out the mantra of “Let’s find out!”.  

 

Without someone willing to take the trouble—even a great deal of trouble—to find out by actually carrying out experiments and research (as you yourself did, Brian, with your years and decades of meditation), science is just as dead as is religion.  The actual result of the experiment, and therefore the particular answer of a “scientist” to a particular question, is far less important (in this particular discussion of ours, I mean to say) than is the fact that someone actually did perform the experiment properly and fully, that someone did say “Let’s find out!”, instead of either unthinkingly accepting (or, like the atheist, half-thinkingly rejecting) whatever idea they were faced with.

 

And that is why I say the atheist is blinkered and only half-correct.  That he does not seem to fully appreciate what science is.

 

I’ll look forward to hearing your views on this, Brian.

 

With best wishes,

“Appreciative Reader”.

 

P.S.  It is obvious enough where exactly the atheist is coming from.  When you have a red-faced fundamentalist breathing loudly down your neck, telling you in a loud voice that you’ll go to hell for not believing, then obviously you need to shout out “Where’s your proof?  Show me your proof, or get lost!”.  

 

You need to ask this Where’s-your-proof question bluntly and loudly and repeatedly, both of the religious fanatic and, even more importantly, of your own self, to stop yourself from starting to half-believe in the universally accepted religious nonsense.  Yes, it is easy enough to understand and to empathize with the militancy of “militant atheists”.  

 

However, there is a time and a place, beyond which such an attitude is unnecessary.  Someone brought up in a violent ghetto or slum may quite justifiably react to some stranger coming too close to them in the street at night by hitting out at them ; but when they’ve moved away to more civilized environs, it is dysfunctional (perhaps even psychotic) to persist with that same kind of behavior and thinking.  Thus with the “where’s the proof?” atheist.

 

P.P.S.  So what is one to do?  Should everyone then spend two or three decades meditating an hour each day, like you yourself did?  The answer to that question is the same as the answer to the question “Should everyone spend years, even decades, in understanding advanced math and physics and cosmology, and in trying to work out stuff like relativity and quantum mechanics and the mathematical basis of black-holes theories?”, and the same answer that you yourself had suggested to me once (in a different context).  And that answer is : Only if they want to!

This was my initial response to Appreciative Reader.

Great message. Assume you won’t mind if I share it as a blog post, with a few introductory remarks. I agree with pretty much everything you said.  

My main reaction, after a quick read, is that the summary “show me the proof!” of atheists actually does reflect a respect for the scientific method as you accurately described it.

 

Meaning, this is just a shorthand way of saying, “your faith-based belief needs to be transformed into a testable hypothesis that is amenable to a scientific approach of understanding reality.” 

 

It isn’t possible for every atheist, or every anybody, to personally investigate all of the unanswered questions of the cosmos. As noted before, I’m confident that virtually every scientifically-minded atheist would happily accept solid evidence of the supernatural, were it to be presented to them.

 

That “show me the proof!” isn’t a denial of the possibility that something divine, supernatural, or such might exist. It is a statement that, so far, demonstrable proof is lacking of this.

 

In just about every science book I’ve read, and I’ve read a lot of them, the author will say something like “we can’t rule out… [some weird religious or mystical belief], but the probability of this is very low given our current understanding of the universe.”

 

So my feeling is that virtually all of the closed-mindedness is on the religious side of the fence. Along this line, in a different context, someone recently left a comment on one of my HinesSight posts about planning for a new police facility in my town. 

 

http://hinessight.blogs.com/hinessight/2015/03/salem-police-facility-task-force-meeting-makes-my-head-explode.html

 

His comment said:

Salem governance is THE indisputable proof that organizations are subject to the Dunning-Kruger Effect as much as individuals are.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

Check out that link. Makes sense. Basically, incompetent people’s incompetence extends to their believing that they are competent. Whereas competent people understand their limitations, so consider themselves less competent than they really are. 

I think this applies to scientists and religious believers. The former are always hedging their statements, because they know that nothing is 100% certain. This is wise and true. But religious people express an unjustified confidence in their beliefs, which appeals to those who desire unthinking certainty rather than doubtful questioning.

 

     — Brian

Indiana legalizes religious discrimination. Glad I live in Oregon.

Indiana has passed a Freedom to Discriminate bill. That's the name Matthew Tully, an Indianapolis Star columnist, prefers over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Here's some excerpts from his "Statehouse Republicans embarrass Indiana. Again."

Let's call it what it is. It's discrimination wrapped up in a legislative bow. It's divisiveness painted as something holy. It's tired and cynical politics weakly masked as a principled stand.

Sure, it is cleverly labeled with a market-tested name (the Religious Freedom bill), but please don't be fooled: This is nothing more than a government endorsement of discrimination. Yes, in this land of liberty, our state's government is prepared to push into law a measure allowing one group of people to tell others that they are not equal and not welcome at their businesses.

...Once again, Statehouse Republicans have found a way to divide our state. They've done so with a bill that will allow business owners to judge the morality of their potential customers and to decide whether those customers are worthy of spending their money in their shop, bakery, or whatever.

My goodness, can Indiana Republicans just get past an anger over gays and lesbians that borders on the obsessive? Apparently, they cannot. And, so, after losing their war over same-sex marriage last year, Statehouse Republicans have joined a national conservative effort to create a crisis that doesn't exist. Along the way, they are making clear that yesterday — or, to be more accurate, the last century — still controls today's Grand Old Party. 

Some relatives on my wife's side live in Indiana. Being good-hearted people, naturally they're aghast at what bigoted Republicans in their state have wrought. 

I enjoyed this Facebook post from one of them:

Since our wonderful Indiana state legislature has decided that it is ok to ignore laws if you disagree with them based on religion, I'd like to announce my religious beliefs. My religion forbids me from following posted speed limits signs, as they are an abomination. I am required to drive at whatever speed I feel in my heart is appropriate. 

I'll announce other laws that my religious beliefs exempt me from as I come across them. Thanks.

Naturally I had to leave a comment on the post.

Excellent idea. I recommend making the unlimited use of alcohol and psychoactive drugs part of your religion also. Makes more sense than hating gays does, or whatever other religious craziness Indiana now allows.

I've had similar thoughts about the absurdity of letting people ignore laws in the name of their religion. In "No, Ben Sasse, religious beliefs don't allow someone to ignore laws," I said:

Should people get a free pass to break whatever laws they want under the banner of religion? What prevents someone from forming the Church of Drunk Driving whose holy sacrament is tossing down a six-pack and then jumping in a car?

As already noted, "Religion" is just a name for a collection of unsubstantiated, nonfactual personal beliefs that are held by enough people to give them some sort of social acceptance.

If you hear an outside voice in your head telling you to do something, you'll be considered crazy. Unless you say that the voice is God --then you'll be revered as a religious devotee. 

I don't see why religious beliefs should be treated any differently under the law as any other subjective individual belief. If we start allowing people to ignore laws they don't believe in, there will be no end to the law-breaking.

For me, the only positive aspect about Indiana granting businesses a license to discriminate is that it makes me feel good that I live in Oregon, where we're considerably more enlightened. 

Today I came across an encouraging article, "This is the most godless city in America." Which is... Portland. Yay, Oregon!

If you don’t believe in God, you might want to move to the Pacific Northwest.

Portland, Ore., is No. 1 on the list of metropolitan areas with the most religiously unaffiliated residents (42%), according to the nonpartisan and nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Atlas, a survey of 50,000 people. Seattle and San Francisco were tied at second place (with 33%) on the list, and Denver (32%) and Phoenix (26%) were third and fourth.

Indianapolis, predictably, was 19% religiously unaffiliated. And probably it is more open-minded than rural parts of Indiana. Some of our relatives live near Bloomington, though, which is a pretty cool university town.

This Idea Must Die -- great idea for both science and religion

Browsing through Portland's amazing bookstore, Powell's, I came across "This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress" in the new non-fiction area.

Couldn't resist it. The back cover said:

Few truly great ideas are developed without first abandoning old ones. In the past, discoveries often had to wait for the rise of the next generation to see questions in a new light and let go of old truisms. Today, in a world that is defined by a rapid rate of change, staying on the cutting edge has as much to do with shedding outdated notions as adopting new ones.

In this spirit, John Brockman, publisher of the online salon Edge.org, asked 175 of the world's most influential scientists, economists, artists, and philosophers: What scientific idea is ready for retirement?

Just asking this question, and getting so many thoughtful responses, is a big reason why I love science so much. 

It is open-minded, receptive to change, embracing of new ideas. Sure, scientists become wedded to outmoded ideas just as everybody does. But science recognizes this as something to be avoided, whereas religion, by and large, sees steadfast faith in unproven ideas as a virtue.

How often do leaders of a religion ask, "What theological idea of ours is ready for retirement?" Rarely.

And usually these aren't core ideas, but peripheral ones. Like whether women should be able to become ministers, or same-sex couples should be able to marry. Yet in science, vigorous debates occur over important questions.

Some of the Amazon reader reviews of "This Idea Must Die" criticize the many short essays for being shallow. Well, I like the pithy nature of them. Refreshing in a science book, which tend to be wordy. 

Plus, these aren't intended to be sophisticated critiques of outdated notions. They're zingers, short and sweet, concise hard-hitting calls for this or that idea to be revisited and possibly replaced by a better one. 

I haven't gotten very far into the book. So far I've liked all the essays, with these four being especially noteworthy for me. Here's the title and author, along with a brief excerpt.

Infinity, by physicist Max Tegmark
Let's face it: Despite their seductive allure, we have no direct observational evidence for either the infinitely big or the infinitely small.

The laws of physics are predetermined, by physicist Lawrence Kraus
We've come to accept the notion that life is not preordained; we also need to give up the quaint notion that the laws of physics are. Cosmic accidents are everywhere -- it's possible that our entire universe is just another accident.

Essentialism, by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins
But I mainly want to call attention to our society's essentialist determination to dragoon a person into one discrete category or another. We seem ill equipped to deal mentally with a continuous spectrum of intermediates. We are still infected with the plague of Plato's essentialism.

Human nature, by environmental scientist Peter Richardson
Human nature implies that our species is characterized by a common core of features that define us. Evolutionary biology teaches us that this sort of essentialist concept of species is wrong.

Whether or not these scientific ideas are worth disposing of, I think everybody can benefit on a personal level from examining their own cherished viewpoints.

This isn't easy, I readily admit. Science uses peer review, open discussion of findings, and such to subject scientific notions -- even long-established ones -- to a Truth Test. 

Individuals can do something roughly similar. It just takes more effort and determination. Some of our ideas are simply so damn enticing! Partly because, as Dawkins notes in his essay, we like to categorize everybody, including ourselves, into discrete categories.

Such as: Good guys and bad guys. Right guys and wrong guys. Moral guys and immoral guys. (Pretty easy to guess which categories we usually put ourselves in.)

It's impossible to look at ourselves, or at our beliefs about the world, from an objective standpoint. After all, we look out at things from our inner subjective consciousness, not as a detached observer. 

Still, pondering what ideas we hold that could profitably be discarded strikes me as a good thing to do. Especially when it comes to religious, mystical, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs. Just as science progresses by letting go of less-desirable ideas and grabbing on to more-desirable ideas, so should we.

Throughout our lives, not just when we are young. Most people tend to try out many kinds of belief systems when they are adolescents and young adults, then settle in to steady ways of believing as they get older.

Nothing wrong with this. Except when there is.

If some idea isn't working well for us; if some idea no longer fits with how the world actually seems to be; if we begin to feel uncomfortable with an idea that used to satisfy -- maybe it is time to let go of it.

Science says, "Sorry, no such thing as soul"

Delving into a bag of books and magazines yesterday, I pulled out a 2013 issue of Skeptic. Thumbing through it, I found a highlighted article that must have been the reason I saved the magazine.

Good title: "What Science Really Says About the Soul," by Stephen Cave. Being fairly short, I'll include the piece in its entirety at the end of this post, after sharing some selected quotes.

His arguments against the existence of some sort of non-material bubble of divine consciousness are pretty darn good. I've made most of them myself in my own highly-persusive blog posts during the past 10+ years. 

They're difficult to refute. 

One is what I like to call the Baseball Bat Argument. If an eternal non-physical conscious soul is our genuine essence, why doesn't some sign of it manifest when the brain is injured, like after the head is hit with a baseball bat?

Cave says:

The evidence of science, when brought together with an ancient argument, provides a very powerful case against the existence of a soul that can carry forward your essence once your body fails.

...every part of the mind can now be seen to fail when some part of the brain fails.

...But if we each have a soul that enables us to see, think and feel after the total destruction of the body, why, in the cases of dysfunction documented by neuroscientists, do these souls not enable us to see, think and feel when only a small portion of the brain is destroyed?

...But if the soul can see when the entire brain and body have stopped working, why, in the case of people with damaged optic nerves, can’t it see when only part of the brain and body have stopped working? In other words, if blind people have a soul that can see, why are they blind?

...In fact, evidence now shows that everything the soul is supposed to be able to do—think, remember, love—fails when some relevant part of the brain fails. Even consciousness itself—otherwise there would be no general anesthetics.

Cave goes on to present an oft-heard explanation for why damage to the brain results in malfunctioning consciousness: soul consciousness is like electromagnetic waves, and the brain is like a television. The waves are separate from the television, but can't be received/perceived without a TV as long as we are alive.

Not a good argument, as Cave demonstrates.

Most believers expect their soul to be able to carry forward their mental life with or without the body; this is like saying that the TV signal sometimes needs a TV set to transform it into the picture, but once the set is kaput, can make the picture all by itself. But if it can make the picture all by itself, why does it sometimes act through an unreliable set?

...Second, changes to our bodies impact on our minds in ways not at all analogous to how damage to a TV set changes its output, even if we take into account damage to the camera too. The TV analogy claims there is something that remains untouched by such damage, some independent broadcaster preserving the real program even if it is distorted by bad reception. But this is precisely what the evidence of neuroscience undermines.

...Which suggests we are nothing like a television; but much more like, for example, a music box: the music is not coming from elsewhere, but from the workings within the box itself. When the box is damaged, the music is impaired; and if the box is entirely destroyed, then the music stops for good.

Not good news. But reality isn't set up to deliver what humans prefer. Reality is what it is. Understanding that "it is" is the goal of science, whereas religion specializes in "what we'd like to be."

For many years, 35 or so, I managed to be semi-scientifically-minded while still holding to a belief in soul and spirit. Why? Because it felt good to do this.

I didn't like the idea of dying and being gone forever (still don't, for that matter).

So I embraced the feel-good stories told by a mystical Indian teaching and rejected the evidence of science in this regard. Now, though, I resonate with Cave's final paragraph.

There is much about consciousness that we still do not understand. We are only beginning to decipher its mysteries, and may never fully succeed. But all the evidence we have suggests that the wonders of the mind—even near-death and out of body experiences—are the effect of neurons firing. Contrary to the beliefs of the vast majority of people on Earth, from Hindus to New Age spiritualists, consciousness depends upon the brain and shares its fate to the end.

The full Cave article can be found in a continuation to this post.

Hurting children in the name of religion -- unacceptable

I dislike faith-based religious belief for lots of reasons. A big one is that innocent people often are hurt by irrational, science-denying dogmas.

Like, the crazy notion that vaccines somehow are ungodly. Or even that all sorts of medical care are. 

Driving around yesterday, I was channel-surfing on satellite radio and came across an interview with pediatrician Paul Offit on Radio Times. He's written a book called "Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine." 

What he said pushed the child-protecting buttons in me.

I'm OK with people endangering their own health (physical and mental) in the name of religion. But I firmly agree with Offit that it is utterly wrong, wrong, wrong to endanger a child just because a parent thinks God is pleased by foregoing urgently needed medical care.

Offit noted that it would be illegal for a parent to drive a car with a child not properly secured in a car seat or safety belts. Ditto if a parent was allowing a child access to dangerous substances, or not feeding a child.

But putting a child at risk because a parent thinks vaccinations are unnecessary since God, Jesus, or some other imaginary friend will take care of true believers better than modern medicine can, often that religious belief will be accepted as a good reason to engage in what is properly termed child abuse.

Why? There's no good reason, just as there is no good reason to believe in God. 

So, bizarrely, all too often these two no good reasons combine to produce a societally acceptable reason for religious parents harming their children in the name of a divinity that, almost certainly, doesn't exist. Whereas, of course, children definitely do. 

In a New York Times opinion piece, "What Would Jesus Do About Measles?", Offit writes about a serious measles outbreak in Philadelphia in 1990-91.

To prevent doctors from violating his church’s beliefs against vaccination, the pastor of the Faith Tabernacle Church asked the American Civil Liberties Union to represent him. It refused. “There is certainly a free exercise of religion claim by the parents,” said Deborah Leavy, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Pennsylvania, “but there is also a competing claim that parents don’t have the right to martyr their children.”

When spring came and the epidemic faded, C.D.C. officials published the results of their investigation. Over a third of those infected — 486 of 1,424 — belonged to one of those two churches, as did six of the nine dead children.

At the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, we saw more than 200 children in our emergency department and admitted about 40. Children would come in, covered in rashes, squinting in the bright light (a side effect caused by eye irritation), struggling to breathe and often extremely dehydrated. It was like being in a war zone. When I asked their parents why they had done what they had done, they all had the same answer: “Jesus was my doctor.”

In the Radio Times interview I recall Offit relating a story about parents wanting a religious exemption from vaccination requirements to bring in a "note" from their religious leader (pastor, rabbi, whoever) that cited the reference in a holy book which prohibits members of that faith from being vaccinated.

Almost all of the world's religions, Offit correctly said, had their origins in times prior to modern medical knowledge and vaccine research. Thus not only is there no fact-based justification for denying vaccines to children (other than for rather rare medical reasons), there isn't even a sound religious reason.

Rather, Offit writes in the New York Times piece:

It seems to me that if religion teaches us anything, it’s to care about our children, to keep them safe... Parents shouldn’t be allowed to martyr their children — or in this case, those with whom their children have come in contact. Religious exemptions to vaccination are a contradiction in terms. In the good name of all religions, they should be eliminated.

I heartily agree. Check out some previous blog posts on this subject.

Oregon should eliminate non-medical reasons for not vaccinating
Letting children die isn't a valid religious belief
Faith-healing parents let child die. Religion is guilty.

Offit was asked by the interviewer what should be done to get religious parents to give their children necessary medical care. Is education the answer?

No, he replied. We need laws that force parents to take proper care of their children. Makes sense.

Religious beliefs are by their very nature highly resistant to logic and facts. The goal shouldn't be to convince parents that their religious beliefs are wrong, but to ensure that their children aren't harmed by those beliefs.

Of course, it isn't only religious believers who are anti-vaccination, or anti-other medically necessary care. This is a point made by a reviewer of Offit's book.

And Dr. Offit’s paradigm ultimately doesn’t explain very much. The anti-vaxxer community, to take the obvious example, includes libertarians, conspiracy theorists and New Agers who are deeply skeptical of biblical religion. Irrationalism, including the fear of science, courses through America’s veins, and it’s only sometimes religiously inspired.

 

Best statement about reality, in just thirteen words

Back in 2006, I called my post about it "The best one-sentence metaphysics ever written." I still feel that way. But if anyone has another contender for this honor, share it in a comment.

Dick's adage came to mind today when I gave some thought to another quotation by Gregory Bateson that I see mentioned fairly often in science books.

Information is a difference which makes a difference.

So let's ponder the notion of "God" a bit from the perspectives of what Dick and Bateson said. Or, if you like, of supernatural religiosity in general.

What difference does the divinity so many people believe in make in their lives? I'm not talking about their belief in God/divinity, but the reality that "when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

I talked about this in my original post about Dick's quote.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see a white hold-the-newspaper-down rock on the patio table where my laptop sits. Whether or not I believe in the rock, it’s there. My wife senses it too. So does everyone else who walks onto our deck. The rock is real, no doubt about it.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve thought once about God today. Certainly not this evening. I was focused on playing ball with our dog, eating dinner, and then watching a recording of the Oregon State—Boise State football game. 

God hasn’t been in evidence, unlike the rock. Ditto for Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, Holy Spirit, Tao, Big Foot, Godzilla, King Kong, and every other entity that requires a thought to bring it into existence. Beliefs are sustained by thoughts. No thoughts, no beliefs. (Or so I believe; I could be wrong; but even if there is such a thing as a thoughtless belief, I’ll bet that it was born through thought).

Religious believers sustain their faith through (duh...) believing. Without concepts, thoughts, ideas, emotions, and such, God or some other form of divinity fails to exist.

So when religious people talk about God making a difference in their lives, that actually isn't true. Their believing brain is what makes the difference. No beliefs, no difference.

Sure, religious believers feel good when they worship; they are uplifted by their rituals; they get consolation from the words in holy books. And so on, and so on. All of these positive feelings arise from thoroughly worldly experiences.

Being in a church. Taking part in a ritualistic action. Reading books. Sensing a supposedly sacred object or person. 

These are part of the reality Dick speaks of which doesn't require belief to exist. These things don't go away when belief does (though the inner experience associated with them likely will change). God, though, does go away when believing in divinity disappears.

There's nothing wrong with believing. We all believe in things that aren't objectively true, because doing this makes us feel subjectively good. Believing is part of being human.

However, we should keep in mind that everything within our mind isn't part of objective reality. That's the beauty of Philip K. Dick's one-sentence metaphysics -- perhaps better termed ontology.

It reminds us that not believing in something is the best way to determine whether it is part of the reality outside our own head. 

For example, stand on a first-floor balcony and get yourself to believe that an invisible floor extends beyond the railing. Which is equivalent to not believing in falling through empty space. Then jump off the railing. See what happens.

If you fall to the ground, hopefully without breaking any bones, you've learned something about the reality that doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. 

You can do the same with God, of course.

Stop believing in God. I've done this, as have many others. What I've found is that nothing changes. Nothing went away, other than my belief in God. Because, I'm quite sure, there is no God outside of human belief.

Leaving religion can be like dogs facing imaginary doors

Recently I came across a couple of videos that reminded me of (1) how hard and scary it can be to leave religious beliefs behind, and (2) how easy and joyful it can be.

There is nothing preventing you from walking through the empty door of freedom from dogma, blind faith, and moralistic confinement.

You just need to take a step or two. Be confident that the only thing holding you back is a false belief that something is.

Then, rejoice in your newfound freedom.

See how these videos strike you..

 

 

Consciousness is a fundamental property of matter

After attending a talk in Portland, Oregon by neuroscientist Christof Koch (see here), I've been re-reading his book, "'Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist."

In his talk, as in my blog post about it, Koch emphasized his search for the neural correlates of consciousness. That is, the specific goings-on in the brain that produce a specific "percept," like seeing the color red.

A few commenters have correctly noted that this doesn't answer the Hard Problem question: how and why we have phenomenal awareness in general, leaving aside the question of how and why this particular bit of awareness comes to be.

The organizers of Koch's talk included a slip of paper where attendees could write down questions they'd like Koch to answer in a Q & A session. 

Mine went something like this: "Do you think the Hard Problem of consciousness may turn out to be an illusory problem? Meaning, instead of answering it, we will realize that the Hard Problem never really existed in the first place?"

Not surprisingly, I liked my own question. It wasn't brought up by the moderator, though. 

So I've been paying special attention to Hard Problem-related content in Koch's book as I re-read it, trying to imagine what he would have said about my question if he had been asked it.

I think he would have agreed with my premise, pretty much. After all, in my first blog post I said:

"Consciousness is a physical thing," Koch told us. "It's the brain."

In his view, consciousness is an integral aspect of the universe, like time, space, energy, matter. Organized pieces of matter have an additional property, Koch said, consciousness. 

We don't talk about the Hard Problem of time, space, energy, or matter. These things just are. As noted here, some brilliant minds acknowledge the "facticity" of the universe. Simply put, it is what it is. Especially as regards its fundamental aspects.

Koch writes:

I believe that consciousness is a fundamental, an elementary, property of living matter. It can't be derived from anything else; it is a simple substance, in Leibniz's words.

Well, actually it seems that Koch considers consciousness a property of all matter, not just living matter. Here's another quote:

You and I find ourselves in a cosmos in which any and all systems of interacting parts possess some measure of sentience. The larger and more highly networked the system, the greater the degree of consciousness. Human consciousness is much more rarified than canine consciousness because the human brain has twenty times more neurons than the brain of a dog and is more heavily networked.

I find this notion, which is akin to panpsychism, attractive in both a scientific and intuitive sense. Koch goes on to say:

By postulating that consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe, rather than arising out of simpler elements, integrated information theory is an elaborate version of panpsychism. The hypothesis that all matter is sentient to some degree is terribly appealing for its elegance, simplicity, and logical coherence.

Once you assume that consciousness is real and ontologically distinct from its physical substrate, then it is a simple step to conclude that the entire cosmos is suffused with sentience. We are all surrounded and immersed in consciousness; it is in the air we breathe, the soil we tread on, the bacteria that colonize our intestines, and the brain that enables us to think.

Note that Koch is thoroughly materialistic. He doesn't believe in a supernatural, divine, other-worldly substrate to the cosmos. He dismisses the idea of soul or spirit being the essence of consciousness as nonsensical "hand waving." 

Consciousness, rather, is another side to the universe. It isn't non-physical, yet in a certain sense it is:

A kind of blue is fundamentally different from electrical activity in the cone photoreceptors of the eyes, even though I'm perfectly cognizant that the latter is necessary for the former. One is intrinsic to my brain and can't be inferred from the outside, whereas the other has objective properties that can be accessed by an external observer.

The phenomenal hails from a different kingdom than the physical and is subject to different laws. I see no way for the divide between unconscious and conscious creatures to be bridged by more neurons.

To my understanding, the reason is that no such divide actually exists.

Consciousness is omnipresent in the universe. However, it comes in an infinity of guises, since consciousness is a continuum, not a duality (on or off; conscious/unconscious).

Thus arguably the Hard Problem truly is an illusion, a meaningless question. Again, it's akin to asking "why do we have the sense of space, or the perception of time?"

Because time and space are fundamental properties of the universe. There's isn't any why? to something fundamental. It just is.

Koch bases his ideas on those of Giulio Tononi. I wrote about them in "Phi, integrated information, the fountain of phenomena." Reading that post should help make this one more comprehensible.

Christof Koch's brain talk points to the material nature of consciousness

Last night my wife and I, along with two neighbor friends, attended a talk in Portland, Oregon by neuroscientist Christof Koch. Title: "The Quest for Consciousness."

What is consciousness? What is hiding in our unconscious mind? And how can you harness both for a more fulfilling life? Consciousness is like an orchestra, and our brain is its conductor. Stemming in part from a long-standing collaboration with the late Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, Christof Koch, Ph.D., will be exploring how the flickering of nerve cells in the brain leads to information processing and the unforgettable experiences that make us who we are.

Koch, like virtually all neuroscientists, considers that consciousness arises from goings-on within the physical brain. 

He made a point that I've frequently emphasized in my blog posts: if someone hits you in the back of the head with a baseball bat, you'll "see stars." And maybe lose consciousness. Ditto if you're given anesthesia.

This alone does a pretty good job of demolishing claims that consciousness somehow is immaterial, or that we possess a conscious soul/spirit. If this were the case, why do people lose consciousness when the brain is impacted?

During the question and answer period, Koch said that he had taken part in meetings with the Dalai Lama and some leading Buddhist monks. 

The monks would try to argue that consciousness is non-physical, the supernatural equivalent of radio waves filling space. A brain, according to the monks, is needed to receive and interpret the consciousness "signal," but the signal is immaterial.

Koch said that when he asked the monks to explain how something non-physical (consciousness) could interact with something physical (a brain), "I got a bunch of hand-waving." Meaning, nonsensical pseudo-explanations.

"Consciousness is a physical thing," Koch told us. "It's the brain."

In his view, consciousness is an integral aspect of the universe, like time, space, energy, matter. Organized pieces of matter have an additional property, Koch said, consciousness. 

Consciousness doesn't require language or self-consciousness.

That inner voice which speaks inside our heads much of the time isn't needed for consciousness. Koch is an avid runner and rock climber. He said that doing these things, along with biking, motorcycling, and other activities requiring a lot of focus, can put us in a pleasant state of "flow" where we just do, rather than thinking I must do..."

Figuring things out comes into play when we encounter a problem, like a stretch of rock face that doesn't seem to have any hand-holds. Then, Koch said, the brain has to engage in some logical problem-solving.

Otherwise, most of what we do arises from unconscious processes. We don't consciously decide how to speak, write, move our hands, walk, or do most of our daily activities. Likewise, our bodily organs -- liver, heart, and so on -- don't require consciousness to function.

At least, apparently they don't.

Koch didn't have time to get into the details of how it is possible to tell the difference between entities that have consciousness, and entities that don't. Personally, I like the idea that consciousness is a continuum, with plants, for example, possessing a small degree of consciousness and us humans, a lot. 

One of his chief quests as the chief scientific officer at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle is to search for the neural correlates of consciousness, NCC. Wikipedia defines this as "the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept." 

At the Institute, they've set out to map the entire mouse brain. Koch said that it is obvious that the NCC for vision isn't in the eye, because we can "see" things in our imagination and dreams. And hallucinate what isn't seen by the eye. 

With the human brain having 89 billion neurons, each connected to thousands of other neurons, obviously the search for neural correlates of consciousness, and understanding of how the brain works generally, is hugely complex. 

Yet the cortex, Koch demonstrated, is about the size of a sheet of pizza dough. He flopped around a thin piece of flexible material, saying that human consciousness is contained within a similarly-sized bit of brain matter (what I like to term, "brain meat").

This, for me, was the unsurprising, yet still deeply fascinating, centerpiece of Koch's talk: that consciousness is thoroughly material, and also thoroughly mysterious. Not in a supernatural sense, obviously -- a natural sense.

Which stimulates as much awe, if not more, than religious, spiritual, and mystical conceptions of consciousness.

Koch concluded his talk with a several minute-long video of a journey through a cubic millimeter of mouse brain. Various parts of the brain -- neurons, synapses, other connections? (can't remember) -- were shown in different colors.

It was sort of like an actual Fantastic Voyage, a tour of the very, very small bits of brain that, combined, make it possible for mice, humans, and other conscious creatures to be aware of the vast wide world.

Just this single cubic millimeter of mouse brain, with its 100,000 neurons (remember: the human brain has 89 billion!) was astoundingly complex. Bit by bit, the video tour "descended" through the various levels of this 1 millimeter, showing the intricate neuronal interconnections.

This, albeit on a vastly grander scale, is who we are, as a Homo sapiens brain.

Matter. Energy. Chemicals. Electricity. All organized in such a fashion as to make it possible to ponder in a self-reflective/reflexive manner the brain that is both being pondered, and doing the pondering.

Near the end of Koch's book, "Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist," he says:

The pioneering generation of stars had to die in spectacular supernova fashion to seed space with the heavier elements necessary for the second act of creation -- the rise of self-replicating bags of chemicals on a rocky planet orbiting a young star at just the right distance.

The competitive pressures of natural selection triggered the third act of creation -- the accession of creatures endowed with sentience, with subjective states.

As the complexity of their nervous systems grew to staggering proportions, some of these creatures evolved the ability to think about themselves and to contemplate the splendidly beautiful and terrifyingly cruel world around them.

Along with the amazing world within them. Which, in fact, is them: the brain that makes consciousness possible.

Timeless naturalism vs. temporal naturalism? I like temporal.

I'm still making my way through a thick, serious, thoughtful, well-written science/philosophy book, "The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time." 

(Previous posts about the book are here and here.)

The authors, Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin, wrote different parts of the book. I've just started reading Smolin's chapters. He's a philosophically minded physicist, while Unger is a scientifically minded philosopher.

A couple of topics particularly interested me in Smolin's opening Cosmology in Crisis chapter. 

First, the notion of naturalism -- which he says comes in two flavors, timeless and temporal. Smolin defines naturalism this way:

Naturalism is the view that all that exists is the natural world that is perceived with, but exists independently of, our senses or tools which extend them; naturalists also hold that science is the most reliable route to knowledge about nature.

He adds that "my definition doesn't claim that science is the only path to knowledge, nor does it call on nor require that there be a scientific method."

A central theme of this book is that time is the most real thing in the universe, a view that is at odds with the basic philosophical perspective of a majority of modern scientists (for example, in relativity theory time usually is considered a "fourth dimension," which puts it in the realm of space).

Here's how Smolin describes two ways of looking upon naturalism. This was a fresh insight for me, sort of a merging of science and spirituality.

One way to frame the project this book advances is to emphasize how fundamentally our conception of nature is shaped by our understanding of time. The notion of a law of nature is much changed if one thinks that the present moment and its passage are real or are illusions hiding a timeless reality.

If one holds the latter view, then laws are part of the timeless substance of nature, whereas on the former view this is impossible, as nothing can exist outside of time. Even the creed of naturalism, i.e. that the natural world is all that exists, can mean two very different things, depending on whether you think existence is only real in each moment or only applies to timeless entities such as the history of the universe taken as one.

To make this distinction clear I propose to call the view we set out in this book temporal naturalism, and to distinguish it from its opposite, timeless naturalism.

Temporal naturalism holds that all that is real (i.e. the natural world) is real at a moment of time, which is one of a succession of moments. The future is not real and there are no facts of the matter about it. The past consists of events or moments which have been real, and there is evidence of such moments in presently observable facts such as fossils, structures, records, etc. Hence there are statements about the past that can have truth values, even if they refer to nothing presently real.

Timeless naturalism, on the other hand, holds that the experience of moments of time and their passage or flow are illusions. What really exists is the entire history of the universe taken as a timeless whole. Now is as subjective as here and both are descriptions of the perspective of an individual observer. There are, similarly, no objective facts of the matter corresponding to distinctions between past, present, and future.

There's a lot to mentally digest here. Just these two contrasting sentences encapsulate a heck of a lot of scientific and spiritual/religious/mystical philosophizing.

(1) Temporal naturalism holds that all that is real (i.e. the natural world) is real at a moment of time, which is one of a succession of moments.
(2) Timeless naturalism, on the other hand, holds that the experience of moments of time and their passage or flow are illusions.

I'm reminded of the similarly different cosmic perspectives of Buddhism/Zen, which is in line with (1), and Hinduism/Vedanta, which is in line with (2). 

Many spiritual people subscribe to a Be Here Now outlook. Others, to a Flee This Illusion viewpoint.

For many years, thirty-five or so, I believed that it was possible to achieve a change in consciousness through meditation and other means that led to an experience of a timeless transcendent reality. This wasn't naturalism, of course, but supernaturalism.

It bore a lot of resemblance, though, to Smolin's timeless naturalism -- with a "super" added to the last word.

Smolin spends the rest of his chapters arguing for the scientific relevancy of temporal naturalism, as Unger did in a more philosophical manner in the first part of their book.

Emotionally and intuitively, I can tell that I'm already on board with temporal naturalism. It provides answers to some questions that have perplexed me. Like, where are the laws of nature? And why is there something rather than nothing?

More accurately, temporal naturalism dissolves such questions. 

From what I've read so far, Unger and Smolin say that the laws of nature aren't separate from natural phenomena. They appear to be unchanging and outside the bounds of time, but this is only because of the nature of our cooled-down world. 

At the moment of the big bang, and in other extreme parts of the present-day universe (like black holes), the laws of nature were/are different from how we typically see them now. Unger writes:

In these very early moments of the history of the universe, as the earlier discussions of the second cosmological fallacy suggested, causal connections may not have assumed law-like form and the division of nature into enduring natural kinds may not yet have taken shape.

More simply put, Unger and Smolin direct our attention to the now of the present moment which is, as noted in the passage quoted above, all that is real. 

Meaning, in temporal naturalism there is no search for the eternal, the infinite, timeless laws of existence beyond what exists in this one and only natural world.

There is a search of a different kind: for an understanding of how the universe is put together and functions now, which entails a concomitant understanding of the causal connections between previous states of nature and what is evident now.

Makes sense to me. Both scientifically and as a guide to everyday life. 

Religious people have no right to discriminate against gays

Oh, man. As if I needed another reason to hate religious bigotry.

But there it was, couldn't be ignored... a New York Times story that got my moral blood boiling: "Anticipating Nationwide Right to Same-Sex Marriage, States Weigh Religious Exemption Bills."

So what do these religious jerks want to be exempted from? Treating homosexual people with the same dignity and respect due everybody else. 

As it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage later this year, state legislatures across the country are taking up bills that would make it easier for businesses and individuals to opt out of serving gay couples on religious grounds.

Many states are now reliving a version of events that embroiled Arizona in February 2014, when Jan Brewer, then the Republican governor, vetoed a bill that would have allowed businesses to use their religious beliefs as a legal justification for refusing to serve gay customers.

What's next, religious zealots? How far down the slippery immoral slope do you want to slide?

Should you be able to discriminate against people of color? Women? Jews? Muslims?

Why not form a religion that teaches Democrats like me are evil? Then you could require a Republican voter registration card before choosing to serve someone.

It's highly disturbing that this sort of crap is treated at all seriously in the 21st century.

Religious dogma has been used as an excuse for discrimination before. Slavery supposedly was God's will. As was denying women the right to vote.

Soon this sort of hatred in the name of religion will be viewed by people in the future with the same How the hell could they be so stupid? attitude that anti-black and anti-female views are looked upon today.

(Of course, those prejudices are still common among many true believers.)

This goes to show that if someone cares about morality, they should run from any form of religiosity.

Religions are notorious for promoting an egotistical "We're special, and you're not" viewpoint. In this case, it is gays who are God's unchosen people, while religious believers who choose hatred over love consider themselves, bizarrely, the chosen ones.

I'd very much like to have a religious person comment on this post and explain why he or she feels gay people should be discriminated against. 

Give me one good reason, just one.

I already know that no one can do this. I just want to show, as has been done on this blog countless times before, that true believers use religion to justify unethical behavior that wouldn't be tolerated by society otherwise.

It's absurd to give intolerance a pass just because someone conjures up a religious basis for it. The laws for religious people should be exactly the same as those for everybody else. 

If you want to act like a bigot, go ahead and face the consequences. Just don't make up crappy excuses for your prejudices like "God agrees with me." 

Naturally the moral high ground is not to believe in any god at all.

But if you have to rely on a religious crutch to make you feel like you're doing the right thing, choose an All-Loving God -- not the god of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or other divisive religions (which includes just about all of them).

Rejoice! Your essence is brain-meat, nothing more

I guess this shows how I've really dived into the churchless, irreligious, naturalistic deep end. Reading the current New Scientist issue last night, I came across an article, "Meet your other brain." 

Online version has a different title and subtitle.

Brain boosting: it's not just grey matter that matters. Inside your head, another brain is hiding in plain sight – one that responds to your cognitive needs and self-heals. It's time to make the most of your myelin

Myelin, I learned, is "the fatty sheath that envelops most neurons." Rather than it merely being like cable insulation, scientists have found that "it is dynamic and autonomous, customizing itself to match the brain's demands."

My body-embracing Aha! moment -- one that I've had numerous times before -- came after I read this passage about the brain's rate of myelination growth.

The finer circuitry is complete by the time we reach our 40s, but from the 60s onwards the coverings start to fray and degenerate, which fits with the common experience of cognitive decline as we age. As myelin degenerates, the signals get fuzzier.

Since I'm in my 60s, seemingly these words shouldn't have made me feel good. But they did. The thought, I'm just brain-meat, filled me with, if not joy, a strong sense of relief. 

Relief that in my now non-religious state, I don't have to worry about my supposedly immaterial soul being trapped in a cage of physicality. This dualistic view, held by most religions, creates a giant gap between humans and everything else.

Relief that I no longer feel like I'm someone special, a soul-drop of spiritual consciousness whose cosmic destiny is to return to a divine godly ocean. 

Relief that however this natural world is, I am very much the same: composed of physical matter and energy, guided by laws of nature which apply equally to everything else, a part of the whole we humans call Universe.

What's strange, of course, is that a thought so obvious, I am the brain in action, would feel so unusual.

The reason is that us members of Homo sapiens are unique among other animals in being able to conceive of ourselves as other-worldly. Meaning, having an essence that transcends physicality. We feel ourselves as looking out from behind our eyes, a free-floating consciousness unconstrained by meaty brain stuff.

Which is an illusion.

There is essentially zero evidence that we are anything other than the goings-on of the brain. To even say "of our brain" is incorrect, since there is no separate self other than what the brain conjures up, and then tells stories to itself about.

I've blogged about this before.
Great news! You are your brain.
Brains are us: a fresh thought for a New Year
Benefits of realizing you're just a brain

I realize that this Joy of Being Brain-Meat attitude likely sounds strange to most people. Well, all I can suggest is doing what I've found helpful: meditating (broadly speaking) on the subject.

If you find yourself thinking, "I'm more than just my brain," envision that this thought is your brain talking to itself. Even if this sounds crazy, let that hypothesis -- which most neuroscientists would say is fact -- sink in to your psyche.

When I do this, I start to feel pleasantly giddy.

I'd like to be able to say something more cogent, but this is one of those times when using more words would take me away from the truth of my direct experience. 

A dialogue between two brain experts, David Eagleman and Raymond Tallis, reflects some of what I'd like to say, if I was capable of saying it. Here's Eagleman's final thought.

Neuroscience is uncovering a bracing view of what's happening below the radar of our conscious awareness, but that makes your life no more "helpless, ignorant, and zombie-like" than whatever your life is now.

If you were to read a cardiology book to learn how your heart pumps, would you feel less alive and more despondently mechanical? I wouldn't. Understanding the details of our own biological processes does not diminish the awe, it enhances it.

Like flowers, brains are more beautiful when you can glimpse the vast, intricate, exotic mechanisms behind them.