Paul P. Mealing

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Monday 30 November 2020

Social norms determine morality

 The latest issue of Philosophy Now (Issue 140, Oct/Nov 2020) has Hegel as its theme. I confess that really the only thing I knew about Hegel was his ‘dialectic’ and that he influenced Marx, though, from memory, Marx claimed to have turned Hegel’s dialectic ‘on its head’. Hegel’s dialectic has relevance to politics and history, because, basically, he claimed that if someone proposes a ‘thesis’ someone else will propose its ‘antithesis’ and we end up with a ‘synthesis’ of the two. Some people claim that this is how history has progressed, but I’m not so sure. 

 

However, I do agree that if someone promotes an ideology or a social agenda, you will invariably get opposition to it, and the stronger the promotion, the stronger the opposition. We see this in politics a lot, but a good example is religion. Militant atheism only tends to occur in societies where you have militant fundamentalist religion, which is usually Christian, but could be Muslim. In societies where no one really cares about religion, no one cares too much about atheism either. 

 

I know this, because I live in a culture where no one cares and I’ve visited one where people do, which is America (at the dawn of the 21st Century). Mind you, I grew up in 1950s Australia when there was a division between Catholic and protestant that even affected the small rural town where I lived and was educated in. That division evaporated in the 1960s pretty much, with a zeitgeist that swept the Western world. It was largely driven by post war liberalism, the introduction of the contraceptive pill and a cultural phenomenon called rock and roll. But what I remember growing up in the 60’s, leaving school, going to university and entering the workforce in a major city, was that we males grew our hair long and everyone, including women, questioned everything. We were rebellious: there were marches against our involvement in the Vietnam war and an Australian academic by the name of Germaine Greer published a book called The Female Eunuch.

 

And all of this is relevant to the theme of my thesis, which is that morality is really about social norms, which is why morality evolves, and whether it evolves for the better or worse is dependent on a lot of factors, not least political forces and individuals’ perceptions of their own worth and sense of security within a social context.

 

But getting back to Hegel, many saw the rebellious attitude in the 1960s as a backlash against conservative forces, especially religious based ones, that had arisen in the 1950s. And this in turn, was a reaction to the forces of fascism that had ignited the most widespread and devastating conflict in the whole of human history. There was almost no one who had not been affected by that in Europe or Asia or North America. Even, in far-flung Australia and New Zealand, it seemed that every family had a member or knew someone who had been directly involved in that war. My family was no exception, as I’ve written about elsewhere.

 

In the same issue of Philosophy Now, there is an article by Terrence Thomson (a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy in Kingston University, London) titled, Kant, Conflict & Universal History. I’ve written about Kant elsewhere, but not in this context. He’s more famously known for his epistemology, discussed in some detail in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), which was the subject of my essay. But, according to Thomson, 3 years later (1784), he published an article in a ‘prominent intellectual newspaper, titled: Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective.’ Without going into too much detail, Kant coined a term, ‘unsociable sociability’, which he contended is ‘a feature of human social interaction’, and which he defined as the human “tendency to enter into society, a tendency that continually threatens to break up this society”. Quoting Thomson (interpreting Kant): ‘...it is a natural human inclination to connect with people and to be part of a larger whole; yet it is also part of our natural inclination to destroy these social bonds through isolationism and divisiveness.’ One has to look no further than the just-held, US presidential election and its immediate aftermath to see this in action. But one could also see this as an example of Hegel’s ‘dialectic’ in action.

 

As I explained in my introduction, Hegel argued that a ‘synthesis’ arises out of an opposition between a ‘thesis’ and its ‘antithesis’, but then the synthesis becomes a new ‘thesis’, which creates a new ‘antithesis’, and so the dialectic never stops. This could also be seen as similar to, if not the same as, the dynamic that Thomson attributes to Kant: the human inclination to ‘belong’ followed by an opposing inclination to ‘break those social bonds’.

 

I take a much simpler view, which is that humans are inherently tribal. And tribalism is a double-edged sword. It creates the division that Kant alludes to in his ‘unsociable sociability’, and it creates the antithesis of Hegel’s dialectic. We see this in the division created by religion throughout history, and not just the petty example I witnessed in my childhood. And now, in the current age, we have a new tribalism in the form of political parties, exemplified by the deep divisions in the US, even before Donald Trump exploited them to the full in his recently eclipsed, 4 year term.

 

And this brings me back, by a very convoluted route, to the subject of this essay: morality and social norms. Trump did his best to change social norms, and, by so doing, change his society’s moral landscape, whether intentionally or not. He made it socially acceptable to be disrespectful to ‘others’, which included women, ‘grab them by the pussy’, immigrants, Muslims, the former President, anyone in the Democratic party, anyone in the GOP who didn’t support him and his own Intelligence community and Defence personnel. He also made white supremacy and fringe conspiracy theorist groups feel legitimised. But, most significantly, beyond everything else, he propagated a social norm whereby you could dismiss any report by any authority whatsoever that didn’t fit in with your worldview – you could simply create your own ‘facts’.

 

In most societies, especially Western democratic societies, we expect social norms to evolve that make people feel more inclusive and that constructively build collaborative relationships, because we know from experience, that that is how we get things done. As a retired naval admiral and self-ascribed conservative (in a TV interview prior to the election) pointed out, Trump did the exact opposite, both at home and abroad: he broke off relations and fomented division wherever and whenever he could. I’ve argued in previous posts that leaders bring out the best in the people they lead, which is how they are ultimately judged; contrarily, Trump brought out the worst in people.

 

In one of my better posts, I discussed at length how a young woman, raped and fatally tortured on a bus in India, exposed the generational divide in social norms in that country at that time, and how it directly affected one’s perception of the morality of that specific incident. 

 

From a Western perspective, especially given the recent ‘me-too’ movement, this is perverse. However, in the late 60s, early 70s, when I was entering adulthood, there was a double-standard when it came to sexual behaviour. It was okay for men to have sex with as many partners as they could find, but it was not alright for women to indulge in the same activity. This led to men behaving more predatory and it was considered normal for women to be ‘seduced’, even if it was against their better-intentions. The double-standard of the day really didn’t encourage much alternative. The introduction of the contraceptive pill, I believe, was the game-changer. Because, theoretically, women could have the same sexual freedom as men without the constant fear of becoming pregnant, which was still a stigma at that time. Now, some of my generation may have a different rear-vision view of this, but I give it as an example of changing social norms occurring concordantly with changing moral perceptions.

 

I write science fiction, as a hobby or pastime, rather than professionally. But what attracted me to sci-fi as a genre, was not so much the futuristic technologies one could conjure up, but the what-if societies that might exist on worlds isolated by astronomical distances. In a recent work, I explored a society that included clones (genetically engineered humans, so not copies per se). In this society, female clones are exploited because they have no family. Instead, they have guardianships that can be sold onto someone else, and this becomes a social norm that’s tacitly accepted. Logically, this leads to sexual exploitation. I admit to being influenced by Blade Runner 2049, though I go in a completely different direction, and my story is more of a psychological thriller than an action thriller. There is sexual exploitation on both sides: I have a man in authority having a sexual relationship with a character by blackmail; and I have a woman sexually exploiting a character so she can manipulate him into committing a crime. Neither of these scenarios were part of my original plot; they evolved in the way that stories do, and became core elements. In fact, it could be argued that the woman is even more evil than the man.

 

Both characters come undone in the end, but, more importantly to me was that the characters should be realistic and not paper cut-outs. I asked someone who’d read it what they thought of the man in power, and they said, ‘Oh, people like him exist, even now.’ 


Wednesday 18 November 2020

Did mathematics create the universe?

 The short answer is no; there is no ‘fire in the equations’. One needs to be careful not to conflate epistemology with ontology. Let’s look at the wave function (ψ) which is a fundamental entity in quantum mechanics (QM). It’s a mathematical formula that gives probabilities of finding a particle existing before the particle is actually ‘observed’. However, there is also some debate about whether the wave function exists in reality. 

 

Mathematics, from a human perspective, is a set of symbols that can be arranged in formulae that can describe and predict physical phenomena. The symbols are human-made, but the relationships, that are entailed in the formulae, are not. In other words, mathematical relationships appear to have a life of their own independent of human minds.

 

So there is a relationship between mathematics, the physical world and the human mind, (probably best explored, if not explained, by Roger Penrose’s 3 worlds philosophy). The relationship between the human mind and the physical world is epistemological - epitomised by the discipline called physics. And mathematics is the medium we use in pursuing that epistemology.

 

Eugene Wigner famously wrote an essay called The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences, and it still causes debate half a century after it was written. Wigner refers to the 2 miracles inherent in the Universe’s capacity to be self-comprehending: 

 

It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here… or the two miracles of the existence of laws of nature and of the human mind’s capacity to divine them.

 

Or to quote Einstein: The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe is that it’s comprehensible.

 

The point is that Wigner’s ‘miracles’ or Einstein’s ‘incomprehensible thing’ are completely dependent on mathematics. But Wigner, in particular, brings together epistemology and ontology under one rubric. Ontology is ‘the nature of being’ (dictionary definition). At its deepest level, the ‘nature of being’ appears to be mathematical.

 

None other than Richard Feynman weighed into the discussion in his book, The Character of Physical Law, specifically in a chapter titled The Relation of Mathematics to Physics, where he expounds:

 

...what turns out to be true is that the more we investigate, the more laws we find, and the deeper we penetrate nature, the more this disease persists. Every one of our laws is a purely mathematical statement in rather complex and abstruse mathematics... Why? I have not the slightest idea. It is only my purpose to tell you about this fact.

 

The ’disease’ he’s referring to and the ‘fact’ he can’t explain is best expressed in his own words:

 

The strange thing about physics is that for the fundamental laws we still need mathematics.

 

In conclusion, he says the following:

 

Physicists cannot make a conversation in any other language. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in. She offers her information only in one form.

 

Many scientists and philosophers argue that we create mathematical models that give very reliable and accurate descriptions of reality. All these ‘models’ have epistemological limits, which means we use different mathematics for different scenarios. Nevertheless, there are natural constants and mathematical ‘laws’ that are requisite for complex life to exist. Terry Bollinger (in a Quora post) explained the significance of Planck’s constant in determining the size and stability of atoms, from which everything we can see and touch is made, including ourselves. The fine structure constant is another fundamental dimensionless number that determines the ‘nature of being’ upon which the reality we all know depends.

 

So mathematics didn’t create the Universe, but, at a fundamental level, it determines the Universe we inhabit.



Footnotes: 


1) This was in answer to a question posted on Quora. I did receive an 'upvote' from Masroor Bukhari, who is a former Research Fellow and PhD in Particle Physics at Houston University.


2) Will Singourd, who asked the question, wrote the following:


Thank you for that outstanding answer. This is the most thorough & best answer I've seen on Quora. I've printed it out for reference.

I appreciate all the thought you put in it, plus your elucidating writing skills.

 

Tuesday 3 November 2020

An unprecedented US presidential election, in more ways than one

It’s the eve of the US presidential election, which both sides are arguing will determine the country’s (and by extension, the world’s) trajectory for the foreseeable future. More than that, both sides are contending that if they fail, it will be dire for the entire nation. Basically, they’re arguing that the very soul of the nation is dependent on the outcome. So I’m writing this before I know the result.


In some respects, what’s happening in the US mirrors what’s happening in many Western nations, only, in the US, it’s more extreme. This is a case where emotion overrules rationality, and some would say it’s a litmus test for rationality versus irrationality, to which I would concur.


If one looks at just one aspect of this race, which, in fact, should determine the outcome because, like the presidential election itself, is unprecedented in recent history (literally the past 100 years): I’m talking about the coronavirus or COVID-19. In its third wave, the US broke the daily record for new cases just recently (for the entire world, I believe). My point is that America’s COVID-19 record highlights the irrational side of American politics – in fact, it’s a direct consequence of said irrationality.


I’ve made the point before, because I’ve witnessed it so often, that in an us-them situation or ingroup-outgroup (to use psychology-speak), highly intelligent people often become irrational, and partisan politics is the perfect crucible for ingroup-outgroup mentality.


Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a recent interview compared what’s happened in America with Melbourne, Australia’s response to its second wave (which is where I happen to live). To quote The Guardian:


America’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, has praised Melbourne’s response to the coronavirus, saying he “wished” the US could adopt the same mentality.


The major difference is that the pandemic was not politicised like it was in the US, or at least, not nearly to the same degree. There have been some people on the fringe who protested against the lockdown but they gained little sympathy from the mainstream media, the general public or politicians (on either side). In Australia, medical expertise and medical advice was generally accepted with little dissent.


From my external viewpoint, based on what I’ve seen and read, Donald Trump’s ‘base’ includes fringe groups like QAnon, white supremacists and conspiracy theorists of many stripes, but especially conspiracies concerning the ‘deep state’, many of which Trump initiated himself during his incumbency.


I’m one of those who believes that the US was divided before Trump took office, which means the divisions started and were exacerbated during Obama’s terms, especially his second term, when a divided Senate effectively stonewalled any of his proposals. Trump is a symptom of the US’s division, not its cause. But Trump has exploited that division better than anyone before him and continues to do so. Whoever wins this election, the division will remain, and healing America will be a formidable and potentially impossible task for the next incumbent.




Postscript, 8 Nov 2020: The election result is now known, or at least been given by reliable media outlets in the US, although Trump has declared he will challenge the results in some of the so-called battleground states in the courts. It’s part of Trump’s modus operandi, that he’s transferred from the corporate world, that anything and everything can be overcome if you have enough lawyers on your side. It should be pointed out that the result is not officially given until the ‘electoral college’ meets on Dec.,14.


Apparently, there was the highest voter turnout since 1900; that means for both sides of politics. It indicates how deeply and passionately divided the US is. I would just like to make a point that no one else (to my knowledge) has made. In the week of the election, the daily record for new cases of COVID-19 was broken twice. That so many Americans voted for Trump, in the light of his gross mismanagement of the pandemic, indicates the enormous proportion of the population who don’t take the coronavirus seriously; especially, when one looks at the response in other countries. 


Trump’s former political strategist and advisor, Steve Bannon, in a YouTube video, made the extraordinary rhetorical demand that the heads of Dr Anthony Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray be put on pikes outside the White House. Not surprisingly, YouTube took the video down. Only in a democracy like America, could someone make such an incendiary comment without being put in jail. But it highlights the perverse logic of Trump supporters that they hold the only credible scientist in the Administration responsible for the carnage caused by the pandemic. As I said, the election was, at least partly, a litmus test for rationality versus irrationality.