Alex’s Heresies - embracing a physical reality

As soon as you jetison the supernatural, you as a naturalist are forced to see human morality as strictly human affair without divine fear or favour. If unlike most, you want to think about morality and moral decision-making, here are naturalised resources that may help. You’ll need to think about the type of decisions that qualify as moral ones and, as Steven Pinker points out below, the boundaries of moral and non-moral issues shift and change. Also you should look at how how we currently make these decisions and typically they are make at a subconscious level. And, finally, what methods or tools can be used to reflect on moral decisions. Don’t forget that ethics and morality is a big part of philosophy and can provide useful ideas for reflection.

Neuroscience is doing a lot of research today on how we make moral decisions - links below. I’ve also provided links for some interesting research areas about humans in a physical world - (1) Marc Hauser and moral grammar; (2) Lakoff and Johnson “Embodied realism” and (3) evolutionary psychology.

A good place to start is with Steven Picker’s article The Moral Instinct (NYT, 13 Jan 2008).

Alex McCullie

Neuroscience

Scientific American - Mind Matters (see feed on this site) regularly covers recent research. Like the rest of science, neuroscience is about describing how we make moral choices and not the best ones for a good life. Here is some recent research to whet your appetite - Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Thinking about Morality.

Joshua Green, Harvard University, conducts neuroscience research into moral decision-making using iMRI scanning techniques. You can download his PhD thesis and other papers.

Patricia Churchland, Philosophy University of California. To quote her website “I explore the impact of scientific developments on our understanding of consciousness, the self, free will, decision making, ethics, learning, and religion and issues concerning the neurobiological basis of consciousness, the self, and free will, as well as on more technical questions concerning to what degree the nervous system is hierarchically organized, how the difficult issue of co-ordination and timing is managed by nervous systems, and what are the mechanisms for the perceptual phenomenon of filling-in. Also check my links sections for links to YouTube videos.

Moral Minds - Marc Hauser

Marc Hauser, Psychology & Biology Harvard University proposes that we evolved a common moral grammar enabling rapid moral decision-making at a subconscious level.

Radio broadcast              Interview with Discover magazine

Complete an online moral sense test (hosted by Harvard)

Book reviews - (NYT by Richard Rorty) (The Guardian)

Embodied realism - George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

George Lakoff Linguistics, Berkeley and Mark Johnson Philosophy Oregan University with others have developed a theory from neuroscience, linguistics and philosophy that sees the brain, correctly, as an embodied within our bodies and, therefore, brain processing should be seen as a natural consequence of our interactions with our environments. Furthermore our cognitive processing is seen as metaphoric with the higher-level concepts being processed metaphorically by the same responses used by lower level perceptions.

Books:

Lakoff, G and Johnson, M 1980, Metaphors We Live By, University of Chicago

Lakoff, G and Johnson, M 1999, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, Basic Books

Johnson, M 2007, The Meaning of the Body: Aesthetics of Human Understanding, University of Chicago

Book reviews: (NYT)  (Steen)

Edge interview with George Lakoff

Evolutionary Psychology/Biology

This applies the implications of evolution on our behaviour including moral decision-making. Even though a controversial area the area of study contributes to our understanding of human moral behaviour.

Steven Pinker Evolutionary psychology, Harvard - many articles available

Other articles

Jon Haidt, Psychology Virginia - Moral Psychology article (The Edge)

I’d like to discuss one or two topics as part of the final session. Here is a suggestion:

• Are the “new atheists” just like other religious fundamentalists?
• Are we naturally religious and, if so, are atheists really evolutionary mutations?

Feel free to email other suggestions.

Alex McCullie

Robert Green Ingersoll was a very popular orator of the late 19th Century in the US. He spoke regularly promoting free thought and agnosticism as well as criticising religious belief. Ingersoll used his speeches – often long and fully memorised – to advocate radical social views on religion, slavery and woman’s suffrage.

After serving in the American Civil War, Ingersoll became the State Attorney General in Illinois. Ultimately he was unable to pursue a federal political career while still holding his agnostic beliefs and speaking on the need for major social reforms.

Robert Ingersoll was born in 1833 to an abolitionist Presbyterian preacher. He established a law practice with his brother after being admitted to the bar. Ingersoll formed the Illinois Cavalry Regiment and served as a Colonel in the Civil war. After following a state political career and being a famous and popular orator, he died in 1899 of heart failure.

…”What is greatness ?”

A great man adds to the sum of knowledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from the Bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas, gives new islands and new continents to the domain of thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind. A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks for truth ; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he ascertains he gives to others. A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine are sometimes changed to men. If the great had always kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians now.

A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in superstition’s night, an inspiration and a prophecy. Greatness is not the gift of majorities ; it cannot be thrust upon any man ; men cannot give it to another; they can give place and power, but not greatness.

The place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king. Greatness is from within.

…

Voltaire! a name that excites the admiration of men, the malignity of priests. Pronounce that name in the presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have made a declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will fall, and from the mouth of forgiveness will pour a Niagara of vituperation and calumny. And yet Voltaire was the greatest man of his Century, and did more to free the human race than any other of the sons of men.

(Voltaire - A Lecture by Robert G Ingersoll 1895)

Nearly, every people have created a god and the god has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved, and he was invariably found on the side of those in power. Each god was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise and flatter, and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted upon having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people, and the principal business of these priests has been to boast about their god and to insist that he could easily vanquish all the other gods put together.

(The God, Their Lectures by Robert G Ingersoll 1876 - Oration on the Gods)

© 2008 Alex McCullie

Naturalism combines physicalist view of the world with the values of secular humanism. It is a very popular worldview for atheists and agnostics who seek to understand the world in physical or material terms without any supernatural beliefs.

http://www.naturalism.org is an excellent site for those who want to explore naturalism. Thomas Clark who maintains the site has assembled articles in a very accessible booklet, Encountering Naturalism. Clark introduces and promotes naturalism as a very realistic and moral view point that maintains a physical view of reality. Topics include What Do We Know?; Who Are We?; The Self and Relationships; and Naturalizing Spirituality.

I haven’t seen this booklet in Australia yet but it is available from Amazon. Highly recommended.

© 2008 Alex McCullie

Relatively unknown today baron d’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry, was a popular Parisian author and philosopher renowned for hosting dinner parties with intellectuals and politicians from around Europe and beyond. Educated in classics and law and having financial support from his uncle, Holbach pursued many intellectual endeavours including translating German and English scientific and philosophical works into French as well as writing polemics critical of the Roman Catholic Church.

Holbach was born in Edesheim, Germany in 1723 but spent most of his life in France where he died in 1789. Over his lifetime he authored or co-authored 50 books and over 400 articles.

Being fluent in German and English, Holbach translated German chemistry and mineralogy works into French. He also translated philosophical works from English including Hobbe’s Human Nature. Holbach contributed some 400 articles to Denis Diderot’s Encyclopédie. Diderot was a close friend and a regular guest at Holbach’s dinner parties. David Hume, Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were also on his guest list.

Holbach advocated a strongly materialistic view of nature – consisting of matter and motion only - and was a very harsh critic of the church. He published anonymously to avoid prosecution such as attributing Christianity Unveiled (published 1767) to Nicholas Boulanger, who died in 1759. However Holbach’s major work was The System of Nature (1770), which was later summarised in Common Sense, (1772) – available from Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

From Common Sense:

“There is a vast empire, governed by a monarch, whose strange conduct is to confound the minds of his subjects. He wishes to be known, loved, respected, obeyed; but never shows himself to his subjects, and everything conspires to render uncertain the ideas formed of his character.

The people, subjected to his power, have, of the character and laws of their invisible sovereign, such ideas only, as his ministers give them. They, however, confess that they have no idea of their master; that his ways are impenetrable; his views and nature totally incomprehensible. These ministers, likewise, disagree upon the commands which they pretend have been issued by the sovereign, whose servants they call themselves. They defame one another, and mutually treat each other as impostors and false teachers. The decrees and ordinances, they take upon themselves to promulgate, are obscure; they are enigmas, little calculated to be understood, or even divined, by the subjects, for whose instruction they were intended. The laws of the concealed monarch require interpreters; but the interpreters are always disputing upon the true manner of understanding them. Besides, they are not consistent with themselves; all they relate of their concealed prince is only a string of contradictions. They utter concerning him not a single word that does not immediately confute itself. They call him supremely good; yet many complain of his decrees. They suppose him infinitely wise; and under his administration everything appears to contradict reason. They extol his justice; and the best of his subjects are generally the least favoured. They assert, he sees everything; yet his presence avails nothing. He is, say they, the friend of order; yet throughout his dominions, all is in confusion and disorder. He makes all for himself; and the events seldom answer his designs. He foresees everything; but cannot prevent anything. He impatiently suffers offence, yet gives everyone the power of offending him. Men admire the wisdom and perfection of his works; yet his works, full of imperfection, are of short duration. He is continually doing and undoing; repairing what he has made; but is never pleased with his work. In all his undertakings, he proposes only his own glory; yet is never glorified. His only end is the happiness of his subjects; and his subjects, for the most part want necessaries. Those, whom he seems to favour are generally least satisfied with their fate; almost all appear in perpetual revolt against a master, whose greatness they never cease to admire, whose wisdom to extol, whose goodness to adore, whose justice to fear, and whose laws to reverence, though never obeyed!

This EMPIRE is the WORLD; this MONARCH GOD; his MINISTERS are the PRIESTS; his SUBJECTS MANKIND.”

Highlights:

• French author, encyclopaedist, philosophy during the French enlightenment
• Born in Edesheim, Germany but brought to Paris by his rich uncle and educated in the classics and then law at University of Leiden in Netherlands
• Famed for his dinner parties in his Paris home entertaining such people as Denis Diderot, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Benjamin Franklin. These meetings appeared to be more than the meeting of atheists and materialists with members of the clergy frequently attending.
• Contributed some 400 articles to Diderot’s Encyclopédie; also translated German works on chemistry and mineralogy as well as philosophical works from English.
• Published anonymously to avoid persecution as well as attributed his works to other authors e.g. Christianity Unveiled (1767) to Nicholas Boulanger who died in 1759.
• Three early works were The Holy Disease, A Critical History of Jesus Christ and Table of Saints
• His major work was The System of Nature (1770) where he argues that science, experience and reason explain all things in the universe and that all things must conform to the laws of physics. Hence there is no need for supernatural causes including god.
• Wrote a more concise version, Common Sense, and is available from Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page.
• Later translated Hobbes’s Human Nature to French
• Advocated a reversal of special church privileges and separation of church and state. Also saw a moral society without the need for superstition and religion.
• Considered by some to have laid the foundation for the French Revolution.

 Another atheist to consider is French priest Jean Meslier (1664-1729). He was an extreme critic of the church.

© 2008 Alex McCullie

The short answer is no, just an uneasy truce. Scientists agree to not declare the “resurrection” and other miracles as highly improbable, unsupported by evidence and contradictory to all other known physical principles. Similarly many religionists accept scientific theories (partially) and not engage in war against science, while still maintaining traditional creeds of god created all things and gave human beings everlasting souls. This is my very sceptical view of the broad “understanding”.

Science and religion seek to explain our existence and the world about us. Science uses empirically-based evidence to provide physical explanations for our world. Religions use ancient texts and interpretations by religious leaders and intellectuals to impart their vision of god’s will for us and our world. Given changes in scientific knowledge, religions may re-interpret their sacred texts to be more acceptable or simply deny science and retain their ancient explanations.

Science assumes a strictly physical reality that displays a non-designed regularity that can be understood. Science investigates the world with a bottom-up approach so it examines the parts to understand the whole - so-called reductionism. Moreover science encourages skeptical thinking by seeing all knowledge as provisional. Over the last 500 years science has proved amazingly successful at explaining our world by using this empirically-based research, disciplined testing and regular peer reviews. Many superstitions have been replaced by scientific explanations.

Religions assume that all existence has a purpose and that we, as humans, have special significance. Typically an all powerful entity exists in the non-physical reality but created all things in our physical one. Humans, unlike all other living things, exist in both worlds with non-physical souls and a physical body. Most religions use ancient texts and later interpretations to describe the world, its origins and as well as human purposes. Believers are expected to have faith - belief without evidence - that these words were written by people and inspired by god. Even though many people see some of the religious stories as metaphorical or naive inventions of earlier civilisations, conservative believers still take these stories as literal truth.

When religions talk about god and even souls there is probably no clashing with science. However when religions make pronouncements about the physical world - as they must to have any relevance - then they are on science’s patch. Scientific methods can be used to check the likelihood of religious physical claims. Not surprisingly this creates flash-points of dispute. Some obvious examples come to mind. Firstly, there is no independent physical evidence that any miracles - violations of natural laws - have occurred. Also, secondly, Evolution presents enormous metaphysical problems for most religions. All life evolved naturally; our existence came by chance; and humans are like other living things and therefore unlikely to have non-physical aspects such as souls are some of the obvious implications. Everyday, finally, neuroscience is chipping away at the sanctity of a separate mind with physical descriptions of our mental processes.

Technically religions and science could exist in parallel if religions never talked about the physical world and science continues to ignore any non-physical existence. Unfortunately, as even the religious leaders know, the physical reality affects our everyday concerns. Talking about gods, ghosts and spirits without mentioning our actual physical world is of little practical interest to anyone.

Alex McCullie

What is the difference between pantheism and panentheism?
Is Christianity a millenarian sect?
What’s Xenu got to do with scientology?
Who is Occam as in Occam’s Razor?

Isms & Ologies by Arthur Goldwag (published by Quercusis, 2007) a wonderful collection of words, definitions and, most importantly, ideas. The book covers many fields of human endeavour including religion, philosophy, history, science, foreign words and economics. I keep this beside me at all times - when reading books on people and ideas or just browsing. My latest find is Fauvism. What? Buy the book to find out for yourself.

The book is available in bookstores in Australia and also from Amazon.

Alex McCullie

Atheists often seek better responses when confronted by believers. Here they are in a straightforward, funny and gentle way. In 50 reasons people give for believing in a god (Prometheus Books, 2008) Guy Harrison works through atheist responses to the 50 most common reasons used for believing in god. All the familiar arguments are here but broken down as discussions for each reason. My god is obvious; atheism is another religion; some very smart people believe in my god; and atheism is a negative and empty philosophy are only some.

50 reasons is highly recommended for that next argument - sorry I meant discussion. I haven’t seen it in Australia yet, but it is available from Amazon.

Highly recommended

Alex McCullie

pdf: Science and Our Fall From Grace (right-click to save)

500 years ago most people believed that god created the universe with Earth at its centre and created all living things. Man and woman were made in god’s image and endowed with non-physical souls that continued after death. This was the teaching of the Christian church. Using the bible, Archbishop Usher (Ireland) in 1654 calculated the age of Earth as 6,000 years old and even named the date and time of its creation.

Today science tells us that humans evolved through physical processes like all other living things over millions of years. Our planet is 4.6 billion years old and revolves around a sun that is situated in a remote part of a very large universe. Science explains our perceptions, thinking and emotions in physical terms without needing souls, separate ‘minds’ and after lives.

So what happened?

Three scientific developments have severely shaken beliefs in our special role in nature; in fact have lead to our “fall from grace”. The Copernican revolution showed that the Earth is not the centre of the universe. Theory of Evolution proposed a strictly natural explanation for the development of all living things including humans. And, over the last 30 years, Neuroscience is providing physical explanations for our perceptions, feelings and thoughts - traditionally seen as part of a non-physical mind.

What is science?

There are many definitions of science.

“Science is the concerted human effort to understand or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding” (Bruce Railsback, Professor, Department of Geology, University, of Georgia)

“The scientific method seeks to explain the events of nature in a reproducible way, and to use these reproductions to make useful predictions. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions. It provides an objective process to find solutions to problems in a number of scientific and technological fields.” (Rutherford & Ahlgren, Science for all Americans 1990)

These definitions and others show that science is empirically-based. Ultimately its knowledge is based on observations of the physical world from a third-person perspective. Scientific work - observations, experiments, hypotheses and theories - is conducted rigorously to reduce the effects of human wishful thinking and biases. Conclusions are open to criticism through peer review before being published in journals. The scientific community attempts to minimise deference to authority and not to rely on unchallenged texts and claims. Many writers refer to the methods of science as methodical materialism or methodical naturalism. Even scientists with strong religious beliefs conduct scientific research on this basis.

By using empirical methods, modern science has successfully replaced superstitions with reliable physical explanations in our world. Science generally takes a bottom-up approach when researching and explaining the world by examining the parts to understand the whole. Religions, on the other hand, usually provide edicts, rules and explanations from broad articles of faith and apply them to specific situations in a top-down fashion.

Science works with a number of widely-acknowledged assumptions, namely:

1. Nature is orderly, i.e., regularity, pattern, and structure. Laws of nature describe order.
2. We can know nature. Individuals are part of nature. Individuals and social exhibit order; may be studied same as nature.
3. All phenomena have natural causes. Scientific explanation of human behaviour opposes religious, spiritualistic, and magical explanations.
4. Nothing is self evident. Truth claims must be demonstrated objectively.
5. Knowledge is derived from acquisition of experience - empirically - through senses directly or indirectly.
6. Knowledge is superior to ignorance.

Assumptions are adapted from Chava Frankfort-Nachmias and David Nachmias, Research Methods in the Social Sciences. New York: St. Martin’s Press. 1996

Finally we should say what science is not. Firstly science is not art with individual artistic expression. Nor is it technology, such as nuclear power plants, even though technology utilises scientific knowledge. And, finally, science isn’t philosophy or religion. Science does not attempt to talk about human purpose or happiness even though scientific research may contribute to understanding our place in the world.

Copernican revolution

Between 1543 and 1633 Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo published theories and research that overturned people’s traditional view of Earth at the centre of the universe. Their work replaced the traditional Ptolemaic Earth-centred view with a new heliocentric model. Not only did they challenge people’s natural intuitions about Earth but also the church teachings about god and man’s special place. Despite powerful church opposition like Galileo’s conviction of “grave suspicion of heresy”, the heliocentric model became the accepted view of Earth and the solar system.

So we were not at the geographical centre of god’s creation after all.

Theory of Evolution

In 1859 Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species overturning the universal belief that we were the special product of creation. The theory of evolution saw humans as having evolved naturally like all other living things. Adaptation of organisms to local environments was proposed as the primary process driving the evolutionary development of living things.

Evolution directly contradicted the creation stories of most religious texts including the Genesis story of the Christian bible. In particular, evolution questioned notions of implicit human progress towards perfectibility as well as our natural superiority and dominion over other living things. The view that the world was populated with a hierarchy of fixed species became obsolete. Worse still, human beings were now seen as having evolved from the same ancestors as “Iesser” animals and, under different circumstances, may not have evolved at all.

Evolution is almost universally accepted by the scientific community with overwhelming evidence from a variety of disciplines. However, not surprisingly, evolution continues to be seen as threat for many religious people and is regularly challenged by well-funded groups. Creationism and Intelligent Design movements are recent examples.

So humans have evolved through natural and blind processes of chance and adaptation.

Neuroscience

Over the last 30 years the neurosciences have researched mental processing as physical brain activity. Specifically, neuroscience is effectively exorcising the “ghost in the machine” – the soul.

There are three areas of study. Firstly, cognitive neuroscience directly relates thoughts, perceptions and emotions to the functioning of the brain using advanced imaging techniques. Behavioural genetics links genetic information with behaviour through research programs such as with separated twins. And, finally, evolutionary psychology examines the mental capabilities as an evolved brain with a series of sub-systems that resulted from environmental adaptations.

Neuroscience research is new and ever-changing. However some conclusions seem clear. Firstly, our brain and its processing are more like a chaotic Chinese restaurant than a well-designed computer. Secondly, most of our mental processing is subconscious with very little reaching a conscious level. Thirdly, our brains are very creative at filling information gaps with explanations that may or may not be true. In most situations our folk theories and rule-of-thumb processing work satisfactorily as we evolved that way for survival. However our thoughts, feelings, attitudes and beliefs can also be very unreliable and self-deceiving. A final conclusion suggests that we need to rethink our understanding of free-will. Neuroscience suggests much less freedom than we intuitively believe.

Neuroscience tells us that our mental processing operates in a very approximate, self-fulfilling way and suggests the need to maintain a healthy scepticism regarding information and situations we come across. Finally don’t forget that most cognitive processing is handled subconsciously by our brains.

Final Comments

Today’s science provides better grounded and less mysterious explanations for the physical world than religions did some 500 years ago or even today. The results of scientific research with the reasoning of philosophy offer wonderful opportunities to explore the human condition and to lead to more fulfilling lives less reliant on wishful thinking, revelations, faith and superstition.

References

Kitcher, P 2007, Living with Darwin, Oxford University Press
Hauser, M 2006, Moral Minds, HarperCollins
Pfaff, D 2007, The Neuroscience of Fair Play, Dana Press
Mayr, E 2001, What Evolution Is, Basic Books
Lakoff G & Johnson, M 1999, Philosophy in the Flesh, Basic Books

Good reading

© 2008 Alex McCullie

From Naturalism.org

This article reviews and supports the new book The Secular Conscience by philosopher Austin Dacey. It provides are very good discussion of secularism with comments about worldviews and the need to keep naturalism separate. (full article)

Alex McCullie