I like books that take some of my cherished assumptions about how the world works and chew them up into tiny pieces before putting them in a Truth Blender where they're dissolved into unrecognizable thought-mush.
"The Atheist's Guide to Reality" by Alex Rosenberg is such a book. After reading it four years ago (I blogged about it here, here, and here) I've finished re-reading the second half of the book.
And, yes, once again it has blown my mind. But in a different way from the first time, because I'm a different person now.
Being a habitual highlighter and back-of-book note writer, I've found that what struck me the most about Rosenberg's ideas back in 2011 often isn't what hits me hardest now, in 2016.
Basically, I'm finding that Rosenberg is the most radical writer about science and atheism I've ever encountered. He takes no prisoners when it comes to debunking myths about how the mind/brain works, whether these are tales told by religion, philosophy, or the humanities.
(Rosenberg is the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Duke University, so he's a heavy hitter.)
Below are some excerpts from a final chapter. This will give you a feel for the thesis of "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," though only that... a feel. It really takes reading the entire book to understand the subtleties of what Rosenberg is arguing for.
Which isn't so much complicated as, like I said, mind blowing.
I need to point out that how Rosenberg uses scientism is very different from the usual definition of the word. Here's how I described this in my first post about the book.
Standing in Powell's Books, thumbing through "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," what made me decide to buy the book was a positive mention of scientism that I came across in the first chapter.
Almost always this word is used in a perjorative manner. Meaning, scientism is considered a viewpoint that fails to recognize the legitimate limits of scientific inquiry, a reductionist philosophy which ignores aspects of reality beyond the bounds of science.
Appealingly, Rosenberg proudly appropriates this word. He stands tall for scientism, and a scientistic outlook on life.
But we'll call the worldview that all us atheists (and even some agnostics) share "scientism." This is the conviction that the methods of science are the only reliable way to secure knowledge of anything; that science's description of the world is correct in its fundamentals; and that when "complete" what science tells us will not be surprisingly different from what it tells us today.
We'll often use the adjective "scientistic" in referring to the approaches, theories, methods, and descriptions of the nature of reality that all the sciences share. Science provides all the significant truths about reality, and knowing such truths is what real understanding is all about.
You may not agree with Rosenberg. But if you read his book, I guarantee that he will make you think. He will challenge your assumptions about how the world, and you, are. I'm getting mini-revelations on almost every page.
Here's the passages from a final chapter.
Fatalism is very different from determinism. Fatalism tells us that no matter what happens, the outcome is unavoidable. It claims that no matter what route life takes you down, all roads lead to the same place. Determinism is quite a different matter.
If the universe is deterministic, then where you end up depends on where you start out (plus the laws of nature). Start at different points, and almost every time you will pass through altogether different places and come to a different end.
Determinism does not dictate that you'll end up in the same place at all.
Of course, we are all going to die. The difference between fatalism and determinism is this: If fatalism is right, you'll die of the same thing no matter what you do. If determinism is right, how you die, what you die of, depends on what you did in life.
(Did you smoke, overeat, wear your seat belt?) That's a big difference. Some deaths are worse than others. Which we experience will be determined, but not fated.
...Everything that happens in your life is determined. That doesn't mean that reading this book can't make a difference to your happiness, well-being, or adjustment to reality. That you bought, borrowed, or otherwise acquired this book was determined. So was its effect on you, if any.
If your brain is organized in roughly the same way mine is, there are neural circuits that have produced disquiet in you, along with the illusion of thoughts about the persistent questions.
Reading this book has rearranged a large number of neural circuits in your brain (though only a very small proportion of the millions of such circuits in your brain). If those rearranged neural circuits change their outputs in certain ways when triggered by inputs seeming to pose the daunting questions, then this book will have worked.
The process will be the same one psychotherapy employs when it works. It will have changed your neural circuitry, unconscious and conscious. You will acquire the correct information about the matters that keep you up at night. You will almost certainly undergo the conscious illusion of thinking about these questions in a new way, as finally having been answered.
Don't take narratives too seriously. That is the most obvious moral of our tour through science's version of reality. By now you can see why this advice is important and also hard to follow.
After all, the human brain has been shaped by millions of years of natural and cultural selection to be addicted to stories. They are almost the only things that give most of us relief from the feeling of curiosity.
Scientism has nothing against stories. It just refuses to be an enabler. Stories are fun, but they're no substitute for knowledge. In fact, the insistence on packaging information into narratives is an obstacle to understanding how things really work.
Scientific findings, along with the models, laws, and theories that explain them, can't be squeezed into the procrustean bed of a good detective story, or any other kind of story for that matter.
...This advice goes double for anyone trying to sell you on religion. But if you have read this far, you don't need to be warned off stories with spooky plots that always end well for the good guys and badly for the bad guys.
Religion and some of those who make their living from it succeed mainly because some of us are even more given to conspiracy theories than others. But none of us is entirely immune.
We need continually to fight the temptation to think that we can learn much of anything from someone else's story of how they beat an addiction, kept to a diet, improved their marriage, raised their kids, saved for their retirement, or made a fortune flipping real estate.
Even if their story is what actually happened, the storytellers are wrong about the real causes of how and why it happened. Learning their story won't help you figure out the real causal process from rags to riches, from misery to happiness.
...Once you adopt scientism, you'll be able to put lots of the strife and controversies about politics into perspective. You will also be able to cease taking seriously aesthetic and ethical judgments that offend you.
When it comes to politics, you will be able to sidestep disagreements in which other people try to force you to choose just by pointing out that the dispute is at least in part a factual one, and the facts are not in. You will be able to undercut some arguments just by pointing out that they make assumptions about reality that science has already shown to be false -- for example, that humans have souls or that there is free will or that most people are selfish.
...We can organize our own lives in the absence of real purpose and planning. We do so by reorganizing the neural circuitry that produces these very illusions of design and forethought.
I see you have stumbled upon modern restating of David Hume's 18th century philosophy. Nice.
For those of us who understand the limitations of this well-trodden and well-refuted philosophy, other parts of your post raise more interesting questions.
You write, apparently oblivious to the irony "I like books that take some of my cherished assumptions about how the world works and chew them up into tiny pieces before putting them in a Truth Blender where they're dissolved into unrecognizable thought-mush."
Which books are they, Brian? Surely not this one you're reviewing here, seeing as it is completely in accord with your atheist & scientism beliefs as expressed here over the years?
Actually, I cannot recall you reviewing or mentioning having read a SINGLE book which, actually, genuinely challenges your "cherished assumptions", over the past several years here? Did you read any of the many books I listed here a few years ago? Perhaps your opinion of your own open mindedness and willingness to challenge your own assumptions are not as close to actual reality as you would like to believe? That is just one of ways the trap of belief, in this case a belief in scientism, tricks us.
Here's another unambiguous example.
It's all well and good Alex Rosenberg banging on about "reality" and what not, but he doesn't seem too well connected to it himself. He writes:
"You will be able to undercut some arguments just by pointing out that they make assumptions about reality that science has already shown to be false -- for example, that humans have soul"
When did science "already" show the idea "humans have a soul" "to be false"?
Name the paper, the authors, the institute etc of this scientific research?
And, once we get past the entirely certain, unambiguous, factual "reality" that no such scientific research even exists, let alone shown something to be "false", we must move onto the obvious question; what makes a person distort & fabricate reality so unquestioningly? It is that old motivator dogma and belief. At least he admits it and is proud of it!
Welcome to the ChurchofScientism.
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 10:50 AM
Manjit, I'm perplexed by how you know my utterly subjective (meaning, hidden from others) mind so well.
How would you be able to tell whether I found Rosenberg's book "mind blowing" or not? Could it be that you'd just projecting your own subjectivity onto me? Well, that's what we all do to some extent. We make up stories about other people, then have fun discussing them with others.
But objective reality is different. This is what I found mind blowing about this book. It challenged me to question my long-held assumptions that "meaning" means something, that people can have purposes, that history tells us important things about possible futures.
Like I said in this post, Rosenberg does an amazing job of using science to demolish intuitive beliefs about how the mind works. We can't trust introspection to reveal how the mind/brain does its thing. What feels true to us often isn't. So science is the best (and maybe only) guide to how reality actually is.
Posted by: Brian Hines | January 11, 2016 at 11:03 AM
Sorry Brian, you've lost me - where in my post did I say anything about whether or not you found Rosenberg's book mind-blowing? Perhaps any and all projection involved here is all you?
I never once mentioned "mind-blowing". Fact.
Perhaps you are conflating my comment about you not reading anything which, genuinely, challenges your assumptions about reality? That I think is obvious to anyone and everyone reading your blog over the last few years. You are of course entitled to deny the obvious.
Sure you were "mind-blown" by Rosenberg's book. It's not hard to understand what you mean. But what I am pointing out is the entirely obvious - whilst your mind was "blown", it clearly didn't blow away the mindset within which you clearly existed before you read it. This is obvious. But please carry on.
I wouldn't argue the actual philosophy you're promoting, it's far too passé for me.
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 11:18 AM
PS - in case you missed it! I'm up for some genuine science to "challenge my assumptions":
"Name the paper, the authors, the institute etc of this scientific research?"
Are you?
Cheers.
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 11:27 AM
Manjit, here's what you said: "Actually, I cannot recall you reviewing or mentioning having read a SINGLE book which, actually, genuinely challenges your 'cherished assumptions', over the past several years here?"
I just gave you three examples from Rosenberg's book that challenged some of my long-held assumptions. To me that is synonymous with "mind blowing," because some cherished assumptions of mine were blown up and replaced with other ones more in tune with reality.
Read Rosenberg's book if you want a long list of scientific sources that support his key theses. You'll have a lot of reading to do. They're in a final section called "The Backstory."
Posted by: Brian Hines | January 11, 2016 at 11:48 AM
Ey ey Briandula ... Dogma upon dogma.. The religious scientist playa
Posted by: x | January 11, 2016 at 12:03 PM
Sorry Brian, you really have lost me there. I'm not quite sure your claim about me knowing your subjective mind and if you thought the book was mind-blowing or not is actually that coherent. I'm sure you think it is though.
In regards "scientific sources" that support his "key thesis" etc - no worries, I am thoroughly aware of all the "sources" for his philosophical world view. I, actually, have spent years reading books that would challenge "my cherished assumptions".
The question you don't seem to have understood is quite simple, as is the answer.
He writes that "science" has "already shown" the "soul" to be "false".
Now I know that, unequivocally, to be factually false. Actually, it is an absurd and meaningless claim and belies his ideological & dogmatic perspective - which when it comes to "reality", is a useless perspective.
Can you please find ONE actually SCIENTIFIC "source" for this meaningless and absurd claim? Please, please do dig through his "The Backstory" to find the reference to the scientific studies which have "shown" us this?
Why should anyone take a person with such obvious blinders seriously?
Perhaps you should read a GENUINELY challenging book which clearly undercut the ridiculous basis for these beliefs you think are so clever & progressive?
Actually, when it comes to "scientific evidence" in these areas of research, it does nothing but SUPPORT the idea of a soul?
But then perhaps because you are so astonishingly under-informed & so narrow with your beliefs & vision you also believe.....and read right on past Rosenberg's comment without blinking an eyelid .....that "science" has shown the soul to be "false", demonstrating a distinct inability to distinguish ideological beliefs from scientific facts?
At least this is done in a blog entry which openly praises "scientism". Enough said for those who understand.
What an interesting world we live in.
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 12:09 PM
Just to clarify, I do understand what YOU mean by reading a book that "challenges my hidden assumptions".
You mean like when a Beas satsangi goes to a Gurinder satsang and hears ideas that were "mind-blowing" to them, and "challenged their hidden assumptions"
What *I* mean by reading something that challenges your hidden assumptions is more akin to a Christian reading Origin of the Species.
And I think that would be obvious to anyone reading my response, as are your attempts at evading this obvious interpretation, and your obvious lack of reading anything remotely so challenging.
Cheerio!
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 12:32 PM
Again, no one is able to know how mind blowing something is other than the person whose mind is being blown. Like I said, I found Rosenberg's arguments both persuasive and highly challenging to some of my assumptions about reality.
So I totally reject your belief that you know my own subjective experience better than I do. I stand by everything I said in this post.
By the way, one reason my mind isn't blown so much anymore is that I'm in pretty damn good contact with objective reality now. Since I accept science (particle and quantum physics, evolution, big bang cosmology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, etc.), much of what Rosenberg said in his book wasn't new to me. Only some implications of scientific understanding were.
Currently I'm only mildly interested in spiritual, religious, and mystical story-telling. I can understand why you're still attached to this stuff, but it doesn't appeal to me anymore -- being 99.9% wishful thinking (maybe 100%, but I like to be generous).
Posted by: Brian Hines | January 11, 2016 at 01:04 PM
Again, never mentioned "mind blown" in my post.
I would seriously question just how "connected" you are to "objective reality".
It is, quite clearly, an unsubstantiated subjective claim.
But don't let me confuse you with facts.
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 01:11 PM
It's interesting that you mention "story-telling" and "wishful thinking". I think these ideas get to the crux of the matter.
I won't defend myself, and ask from you an explanation of just 1% of what constitutes my "99.5% wishful" "story-telling". Knowing both that you would be unable to do it, and that such a thing does not even exist in me.
But let's dig into the wishful story-telling that you engage in.
First of all, let's untangle science from ideological beliefs (stories). We need to be able to discern, on a most basic and fundamental level, that claims such as "science has shown the soul to be false" are UN-scientific, and are a STORY we tell ourselves which provides our identities with security and comfort in a vast and incomprehensible universe & existence. It is completely unrelated to the actual realm of science. It is a STORY based around the idea of science, not science itself. It is also a demonstrably false belief by the simple fact no such scientific research of any respectability exists!
Other stories we weave are those we weave around ideas "evolution" and "neuroscience". We weave the story that evolution disproves the idea of "God" (it doesn't, it merely disproves the narrative of Biblical faiths, if taken literally), or that it demonstrates there could be no such thing as "intelligence" in design and that everything happened by random chance (how can concepts of "chance", "free will", "intelligence" be anything BUT human STORIES?) etc. We weave the story that neurological correlates to experience PROVES that the brain generates and creates all experience (ignoring other simple examples which suggest alternative interpretations, such as the brain as a "receiver" of consciousness for eg, or that because an apple triggers certain parts of the brain measured under certain types of scans, that doesn't mean apples don't exist just because it's measured in the brain etc).
These are all stories weaved around the bare facts of reality.
The simple truth is we haven't got a clue how life got here, what life is, precisely how it "evolved", what consciousness is, how the universe got here (but god damn if it isn't very, very, very precisely "tuned"), what happened before the big bang, if indeed the big bang is correct.
Etc etc etc.
NONE of the biggest questions about the mystery of human consciousness and the universe have been answered. This is factual. The rest is all noise and bluster, just like that famous scientist said at the beginning of the 21st century, paraphrasing "physics is dead, there is nothing more to know. It's just a matter of dotting the i and crossing the t"......remarkable misguided arrogance!
We knew nothing then, and we know nothing now.
Look at the state of consciousness "research" (laughable)
Look at the state of quantum phsyics (who knows what the fuck is going on here! What's that about conscious observers you say? Spooky action at a distance? Woo woo alert!!)
Look at the state of medicine and biology (how much bad science and dodgy research? And whatever you do, don't mention the placebo effect!!)
Look at the state of cutting edge physics and cosmology (let's invent infinite multiverses to explain the precise fine tuning in our one! That makes sense, right?! No God here!!)
Evolution theory? Wasn't it Crick himself who said the planet hasn't even been here long enough for the process of evolution to have occurred (he believed in the theory of "pan-spermia", that basic life was brought to earth on a meteorite or something - basically it's all just one big mystery!)
I've read another post of Brian's that begun with some "realities" or some such compared to the illusions of those insane people who believe in some "spiritual" nonsense or other, and he again mentioned the "big bang theory" as one of his truths.
I guess he missed the "theory" part at the end of it.
Hey Brian, blow open your mind a little more, challenge your assumptions about the "big bang" with this top quality BBC documentary on the subject, top leading edge scientists are on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPv1sjMv37w
Nothing is certain. It's all just stories you tell yourself to make sense of your, admittedly incredibly astonishing, truely mind-blowing & incomprehensible existence and universe.
It is not that I believe there is a "God" or not, it is the sheer fact the word "God" does not do any justice whatsoever to reality itself. And once you see it, then all worship, and indeed non-worship, is acceptable. It is all, by the very fact of it's own nature, worship of that which cannot even be named.
I am describing something, and all you are seeing is the words "God" and "worship". Science & rationality won't help anyone here. An automaton will never understand a poem.
Posted by: manjit | January 11, 2016 at 02:14 PM
Nice post Manjit - I live my life in a state of uncertainty about the big questions of existence. Neither the dogmas of religion nor the dogmas of science have managed to put a dent in it. So your thoughts resonate with me.
Posted by: poohbear | January 11, 2016 at 03:08 PM
You are so religious Brian.
Posted by: x | January 11, 2016 at 03:11 PM
Omg, Mankit is so smart! This bullstinking blog's reign of terror has come to an end! It has been truly blessed in receiving his profound wisdom, spiritual insight, and poetic eloquence. Thank the hallowed all-one Mystery Gosh that his sacred soul utterances will be preserved here for all bullsmell scientismisists. Praise be to Manlit, messenger of God-(K)No-Wing!!
Posted by: Manlit | July 09, 2016 at 10:48 PM
There seems to be some potential problems with some of those author's views.
'and that when "complete" what science tells us will not be surprisingly different from what it tells us today'
This sounds like the scientific version of Fukuyama's 'the end of history', wherein liberal democracies were supposed to inevitably triumph... What if someone had made this claim of his after Newton published his work? It appears and feels like he's probably correct, but that's partially due to a number of our biases.
His argument regarding fatalism vs determinism seems unconvincing.
"Of course, we are all going to die. The difference between fatalism and determinism is this: If fatalism is right, you'll die of the same thing no matter what you do. If determinism is right, how you die, what you die of, depends on what you did in life.
(Did you smoke, overeat, wear your seat belt?) That's a big difference. Some deaths are worse than others. Which we experience will be determined, but not fated."
To an observer outside of time, what would the difference between the two be? Nothing.
Posted by: Sid | September 21, 2018 at 02:59 AM