Life, God, the universe and everything

Recently, I was involved in a forum on Stephen Law’s web site (see my blog roll) which critiqued Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion. Stephen, in effect, set up a book club, whereby we went through all of Dawkins’ 10 chapters, one by one, over a period of about 12 weeks. My involvement was miniscule, and the nature of the beast meant that discussions went off on all sorts of tangents. Atheism reigned, as most of Stephen’s contributors, though not all, are staunch Dawkins’ supporters.

I should point out that I have used many of Dawkins’ arguments myself against religious fundamentalists, without knowing they were his. But I don’t share Dawkins’ apparent contempt for religion per se. In Australia, Dawkins tends to be seen as alarmist, but maybe it’s because the politics of religion, and the history of religion in politics, are different here. As Thomas Keneally (Booker prize-winning author of Schindler’s Ark) once said: Australians, generally, have a healthy disrespect for religion (or words to that effect).

I didn’t contribute much to Stephen’s forum at all, but somewhere in the midst of it I threw in a grenade by asking the existential question: ‘What’s the point?’

In addition to The God Delusion, I also read Paul Davies’ God and the New Physics, published in 1983, which covers much of the same material, some of it in greater depth if not greater overall length; but unlike Dawkins, Davies doesn’t have an axe to grind. It was after reading Davies’ book that I submitted the following comment.

‘The more I read about this and the more I contemplate it, the more I tend to conclude that the universe is not an accident. In other words, it’s purpose-built for life. This does not axiomatically lead to the existence of God, as both Paul Davies and Christian de Duve point out. The ‘God’ question is almost irrelevant; it’s the wrong question. The question should be: What’s the point?

Imagine the universe with no consciousness at all, and then ask yourself: what’s the point? There are only 2 answers to this question: there is no point; or the point is consciousness, because that’s the end result.’

Now, by asking the question in the paradoxical context of imagining there is no consciousness, it highlights the very enigma one is attempting to grasp. As someone pointed out, without consciousness, who asks the question?

The first response to this (on Stephen’s site) came from an ‘anonymous’ contributor, who seemed personally insulted, and, following a short diatribe, asked, ‘What’s wrong with no point?’ To which I responded, ‘Nothing wrong with no point. We agree to disagree.’ After all, I’d already said it is one of only two answers in my view. My antagonist allowed this through to the keeper (to use a hackneyed cricketing metaphor) and pursued it no further.

Recently, in another post, I speculated that we may never truly understand consciousness, because it is an emergent property, and we are now faced with the epistemological possibility that emergent properties may never be explained in terms of their underlying parts, at least, mathematically (see my Oct.08 post, Emergent phenomena).

But there is more to this: according to Dawkins, we are all just ‘gene-replicating organisms’; so consciousness is totally irrelevant – a byproduct of nature that allows us to ask totally irrelevant existential questions. I’ve said before that if we actually didn’t experience consciousness, science would tell us that it doesn’t exist, just like science tells us that free will doesn’t exist (see my Sep.07 post on Free Will). This suspicion was reinforced earlier this year, when I read an article by Nicholas Humphrey in SEED magazine, who concluded that consciousness is an illusion, and its sole (evolutionary) purpose is to ‘make life more worth living’, which could be translated into one word: ‘happiness’. So, syllogistically, one could conclude that happiness is an illusion too. As a pertinent aside, I wonder how Humphrey can distinguish his dreams from reality. (Refer Addendum below)

Paul Davies attempts to tackle this conundrum head-on in his book, The Goldilocks Enigma, and concludes, if I interpret him correctly, that the universe exists because we are in it - in a sort of causal loop. He’s elaborated on an idea originally formulated by his mentor, John Wheeler, more famously known for coining the term, ‘Black Hole’.

So in a way, Dawkins and Davies represent 2 polar views on this, and I tend to side closer to Davies. Davies, who is an astro-biologist, as well as a physicist and philosopher, says that he’s ‘agnostic’ about life existing elsewhere in the universe, but, while he may be scientifically agnostic, he’s said elsewhere that, philosophically, he favours it. Davies is far from a crank, I might add – even Dawkins treats him with respect.

In another post, earlier this year (Theism as a humanism, Aug.08), I postulated the completely ad-hoc idea that God is the end result of the universe rather than its progenitor. Now, I’ve said on many occasions, that the only evidence we have of God is inside our minds, not ‘out there’, yet the experience of God, because that’s what God is (an experience) always feels like it’s external. There is actually neurological brain-imaging evidence to support this (New Scientist, 1 Sep.2007, pp 32-6) by Andrew Newberg at the University of Pennsylvania, showing that ‘Religious feelings do seem to be quite literally self-less…’ In the same context, I’ve also quoted Ludwig Feuerbach: ‘God is the outward projection of man’s inner nature.’ My conclusion is that there are as many different versions of God as people who claim to experience him, her or it. So God is, at least partly, a projection.

Where is all this leading? Fuerbach’s assertion, and all our cultural attributions, would suggest that God is the projection of our ideals. But, if one takes Feuerbach’s postulate to its logical and literal conclusion, then God could be the emergent property of all of our collective consciousness. In that case, the universe really would have a purpose.

Addendum (4 April 2010): I may have misrepresented Nicholas Humphrey - please read the addendum to my post Consciousness explained (3 April 2010)

Is psychology a science?

This is another letter I wrote to New Scientist in response to an article by Dorothy Rowe, an Australian psychologist apparently, and author of What Should I Believe? No, I haven't read her book, but the article is erudite and intellectually provocative enough to suggest that she's worth reading.

I have to point out that I don't have a degree in psychology or science, or philosophy, for that matter, but I've studied all three at tertiary level, and I've read widely in all fields. The reason I was prompted to write this is that I've always held an opinion on it ever since I did study psychology at Uni and was struck by the obsession of the faculty to be taken seriously as a science. Having also studied science, and physics in particular, I was always aware that there were differences. This is not to denigrate psychology, at all, but to point out that whilst the study of psychology becomes more technical I believe there are fundamental aspects of psychology that make it uniquely different to the study of other 'natural phenomena', which is how I define science.

Below is the letter I wrote. By the way, I haven't really addressed Dorothy Rowe's article, which was titled, Ask better questions, just responded to her opening question.

'Is psychology a science?' is the opening question in Dorothy Rowe's article in New Scientist (1 November 2008, p.18). Somehow, psychology still seems to sit somewhere between science and philosophy, involving both, but not belonging to either. Human behaviour will never be distilled into a set of laws, even remotely like physics, or even biology. In other words, the ability to predict behaviour outcomes, will be statistical at best. In psychology, an aberrational datum will be seen as an outlier, whereas, in physics, it's either an error or the genesis of a new theory. Also, different theories attempting to provide insight into the same behaviour, generally don't provide any synergy. Example: attachment theory and Lee's 6 types of love both deal with relationships, but have no common ground. This is not an atypical example.

I was taught that psychology was a dialectical process - opposing theories are combined into a new thesis; like the nature and nurture debate (genes versus environment) having to be both taken into account. Science is also a dialectic process, though, between theory and experiment, rather than between opposing theories.

I found that psychology is a very good tool for tackling philosophical problems, like the social dynamics that lead to acts of evil (see my Oct.07 post on Evil). So, at the end of the day, they deal with different issues, different problems. Science may tell us where we came from, but it can't tell us why we kill each other. So I still see them as separate, but having some methodologies in common.

Emergent phenomena

A couple of weeks ago in New Scientist (4 October 2008), there was one of those lesser featured articles that you could skip over if you were not alert enough, which to my surprise, both captured and elaborated on an aspect of the natural world that has long fascinated me. It was titled, ‘Why nature is not the sum of its parts’.

It referenced an idea or property of nature, first proposed apparently by physicist, Philip Anderson, in 1972, called ‘emergence’. To quote: ‘the notion that important kinds of organisation might emerge in systems of many interacting parts, but not follow in any way from the properties of those parts.’ As the author of the article, Mark Buchanan, points out: this has implications for science, which is reductionist by methodology, in that it may be impossible to reduce all phenomena to a set of known laws, as many scientists, and even laypeople, seem to believe.

The article specifically discusses the work of Mile Gu at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, who believes he may have proved Anderson correct by demonstrating that mathematical modeling of the magnetic forces in iron could not predict the pattern of atoms in a 3D lattice as one might expect. In other words, there should be a causal link between individual atoms and the overall effect, but it could not be determined mathematically. To quote Gu: “We were able to find a number of properties that were simply decoupled from the fundamental interactions.” To quote Buchanan quoting Gu: ‘This result, says Gu, shows that some of the models scientists use to simulate physical systems have properties that cannot be linked to the behaviour of their parts.’

Now, obviously, I’ve simplified the exposition from an already simplified exposition, and of course, others, like John Barrow from Cambridge University, challenge it as a definitive ‘proof’. But no one would challenge its implication if it was true: that the physics at one level of nature may be mathematically independent of the physics at another level, which is what we already find, and which I’ve commented on in previous posts (see The Universe’s Interpreters, Sep.07).

This is not dissimilar to arguments produced in some detail by Roger Penrose in Shadows of the Mind, concerning the limitations of formal mathematical reasoning. According to Penrose, there are mathematical ‘truths’ that may be ‘uncomputable’, which is a direct consequence of Godel’s ‘Incompleteness Theorem’ (refer my post, Is mathematics evidence of a transcendental realm? Jan.08). But Penrose’s book deals specifically with the enigma of consciousness, and this is where I believe Anderson and Gu’s ideas have particular relevance.

I would argue, as do many others (Paul Davies for one) that consciousness is an ‘emergent’ phenomenon. If science is purely reductionist in its methodology, as well as its philosophy, then arguably, consciousness will remain a mystery that can never be solved. Most scientists dispute this, including Penrose, but if Anderson and Gu are correct, then the ‘emergent’ aspect of consciousness, as opposed to its neurological underpinnings, may never be properly understood, or be reducible to fundamental laws of physics as most hope it to be.

The philosophy of Philippe Petit

I never intended to write movie reviews but this is certainly relevant to philosophy in more ways than one. Last night I saw the film, Man On Wire, which is the story of Philippe Petit, who walked between the New York Trade Centre twin towers in 1974, after he walked between the north pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1973 and between the Notre Dame towers in 1971.

After the film, we were then privileged by an interview with Philippe, now 59, who, also, at his own insistence, answered questions from the audience. The film won an award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, and deservedly so. It’s an extraordinary film about a truly extraordinary man, and to see and hear him in the flesh is just as revelatory as watching him in the film.

When you meet someone like Philippe you realise that this is evolution in action. He is such an unusual person, who really doesn’t fit in normal society, yet he can do things that the rest of us can’t even contemplate doing. He made the comment in another interview (that I read) that curtailing his activities is like cutting a bird’s wings – it’s what they are meant to do. To quote: ‘Where is imagination? Where is the beauty of living? I am not advocating danger, but at the same time, to force birds to carry a leash is to kill the idea of what a bird is.’

In the interview, I was lucky to be audience to, he continually surprised us with his answers, at once candid and honest, and also deeply profound. He said he does not think about death – he won’t even use the ‘D’ word, it is the ‘L’ word, Life that he looks in the eye, while surrounded by terror. When he is aerial, he truly lives in the moment – I cannot think of anyone more Zen than he is, yet he is typically French: animated, talkative, elfish even, yet, in his own way, deeply philosophical and wise. 'I don't believe in God, but God believes in me,' he said in response to one question.

Go and see the film, and be contaminated by his madness and his energy that is, paradoxically, so, so sane.

Who is the best philosopher?

Once again this is a 'Question of the Month' (though last month) in Philosophy Now. You might have noticed that I haven't created a category or label for this because I haven't got one that really fits. I thought of 'historical' but it seemed a nonsense to create a label just for one post. (I changed my mind.)

As you can tell from my introduction I even question the question: is it really possible to evaluate the 'best philosopher'?

Below is my submission.

By what criteria does one judge this? The philosopher with the most influence over historical time? The philosopher who made the greatest contribution to ethics or to epistemology? The philosopher who provided the best answers to ‘all the big questions’? I’m not sure there is a ‘best philosopher’, because philosophy is not a competition like the Olympics. Instead, I will approach this by asking another question: who is my favourite philosopher? Even this is not easy, because there are three who immediately spring to mind, all living in the same century: Buddha, Confucius and Pythagoras. But I will settle with Pythagoras because I believe he really has had the biggest influence historically, and because he was a true polymath, even though all evidence of his teachings, his discoveries and his ‘school’ are second hand at best.

Pythagoras’s most outstanding discovery was not the right triangle proof that bears his name, but the realisation that musical pitch had a mathematical relationship. But the real legacy of Pythagoras’s philosophy was another, not unrelated, revelation. Mathematics had been used by various cultures well before Pythagoras, for the purposes of commerce and accounting, as well as measurements and geometry for construction projects, but it was Pythagoras who appreciated that mathematics was an inherent aspect of the natural world and could provide answers to questions concerning the mysteries of nature, including questions of astronomy. This is a paradigm that is still with us today, and, arguably, has driven science since the time of the Renaissance, 1,000 years after Pythagoras.

The connection is Plato, and consequently, Aristotle. According to Kitty Ferguson (author of The Music of Pythagoras), Plato actively sought out Pythagoras’s most accomplished student, Archytas of Terentum, and back in Athens, Plato set up his famous ‘Academy’ using a ‘Pythagorean curriculum’, that he adopted from Archytas, known as the ‘quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music’. There is no doubt that Plato’s Pythagorean curriculum, and its influence on Aristotle, paved the way for the paradigm of mathematical scientific enquiry that eventually led us to Newton’s theory of gravity, Maxwell’s equations, thermodynamics, Einstein’s theories of relativity, quantum mechanics and chaos theory, with all the technological spin-offs of flight, space travel, computers and diverse engineering marvels that we embrace in the modern age. So I would argue that, historically, Pythagoras is the most important philosopher in the pantheon and that makes him eligible for the best.

Theism as a humanism

Yes, I know, it’s an oxymoron, but it’s appropriate to my worldview. For over 2 weeks I observed and participated in a discussion on Stephen Law’s blog (see side-bar) with a guy called Sye, who maintains he has a proof for the existence of God. Sye’s idea of an argument is to make an assertion, call it a proof ‘by the impossibility of the contrary’, then insist that you prove him wrong. His favourite ploy is to ask you to prove something that doesn’t exist, doesn’t exist, or something that has never happened, never happened. ‘Prove the Bible is not the Word of God.’ ‘Explain how God did not reveal Himself as an objective reality.’ When I say, ‘I can’t explain something that never happened’, he says, ‘It’s your assertion, you prove it.’ In this way, he deludes himself that he can beat the best ‘atheist’ minds at their own game. But his victory is so hollow that it’s not even hot air, more like a vacuum. Yes, I know, I shouldn’t mix my metaphors. (Sye’s web site, by the way, is www.proofthatgodexists.org)

Stephen was patient in the extreme, and kept coming up with new and original arguments, which was an education in itself, and refused to be drawn into the ‘intellectual black hole’ as someone aptly called it. But even arguing with someone who thinks an argument is an endless round of assertions and refutations, and whose most common response is ‘prove it’, can help you to better understand and appreciate your own beliefs – hence the subject of this post.

Ludwig Feuerbach was a 19^th Century philosopher, whose most famous quote was, ‘God is the outward projection of man’s inner nature’, which I used in the introduction to my essay: Is there a God? (Jun.08). Feuerbach, by the way, claimed he wasn’t an atheist, but perhaps he would have been, if he had lived in an age when being an atheist didn’t make you an instant pariah and social outcast. As I’ve said before, I’m not an atheist, and I live in a different age, so I don’t have the same problem. He saw religion as a ‘consciousness of the infinite’ or as ‘the infinity of the consciousness’, but his attempts to elaborate on this conceptually are not very edifying; at least, not to me. But, more significantly, he saw that God, in whatever guise we perceive Him, Her or It (perhaps One is the best label) does not exist independently of humanity. And this was the particular approach I took in my arguments with Sye on Stephen’s blog. At the risk of offending some people, I have to say that I have ‘issues’ with the Bible, not least, because I believe it was a contributing factor to my neurosis as a child, and that’s all I care to say on the subject.

So how do I justify the statement: theism is a humanism? Well, firstly, I don’t believe God exists independently of humanity, or perhaps, even life, and it is only through human expression that God is given human traits – look no further than the Bible. I read somewhere, possibly in a magazine on Eastern philosophy, when I was studying it, a supposition that the collective karma of humanity creates God. If this is true, then we would not only get the One we believe in, but the One we deserve. So I would suggest, rather provocatively, that we are responsible for God rather than God being responsible for us, simply by living our lives. It's an 'existential' view of God, if you like. And it certainly overcomes the ‘problem of evil’ as philosophers like to call it (read Stephen Law’s satirical post on ‘The God of Eth’). In this worldview, even atheists contribute to the One just by being humanists. Which is why I don’t have a problem with atheists: it is not their beliefs that I judge them on, but their actions and attitudes towards the rest of humanity. And, likewise, I judge all theists as humanists.