I guess my argument with Dennett and Dawkins et. al. is this: there is no such thing as absolute objectivity in the sense that it remains meaningless (useless) without a subjective interpretation of it’s value. Values are based on belief. I understand that there are appallingly ignorant and even dangerous beliefs, and that there are inspired, informed and useful beliefs; my point is that all objective scientific data is inert without a belief system within which to be of use. The question is: in our purely objective universe (clearly hostile and indifferent to human needs), what value is human existence? Can Mr. Dennett really convince me (and himself) without making subjective claims, why it is better to live then to die? Science method is our best shot, but I’m thankful for something far more interesting, rich (and messy)—-the human condition—which will always demand more than human reason to negotiate.

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Paul, perhaps you might take the time to read some of Dennett’s or Dawkins’ popular works, eh?
For they do not imply any such thing as ‘absolute objectivity’.
Indeed, both of them are excruciatingly formally careful to establish why such a thing *must* arise as a result of evolution in social groups of genes.

You may wish to visit your local bookstore forthwith.

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Brilliant and beautiful. it is easy to feel that religion is crumbling when you consider the intellectual argument which theism loses every single time, but the news reports from oh say half of the world present a different picture. And how about our own congressmen etc…

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Paul: if I say, or anyone else, that your question about life or death is irrelevant on the premisse that death is a open choice, a personal, or open alternative. What stops you from it might be, some say, like Camus, an answer in it self. What stops you is the reason for, or answer for, your question.

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Aloace: Exactly.
Paul: Can’t it be enough that it (life or death) matters to us?

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Aloace and Bill.  Thank you for your thoughtful responses to my comments. Of course, it is enough for me that my life matters to me. But that is not a statement of reason if one takes the logic of reason to its own logical conclusion. It is not reasonable to say that something matters when it does not matter within the conditions of your own chosen approach to truth: objective investigation of soulless, valueless materialism. Rather, that is a contradiction.

Reason and Christianity share some interesting similarities, I believe. They both attempt to reduce existence to parts (objective data or imagined gods), when existence is neither: it is a fundamentally uncertain and unfolding process, best negotiated with an open heart as well as an open mind.

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Paul, If I am following you, I think we are talking about the question of reference.  You are searching for the “purely objective” reference in your search for life’s meaning as if this truth lies out there in the “purely objective universe”.  My position is that this reference is a logical impossibility and that the only achievable reference (for a human being) is the one from within your own subjective existence as objectified by your living brain.  And that is enough.  Also, evolutionary biology helps us understand objectively, rationally, why our own subjective experience might be the way it is.  Why ask for more?

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Bill. We’re on the same page, I think. Here’s some last thoughts.

Rational materialist like Dennett and others view existence as a product of accidental and random forces with no intrinsic goal, purpose, meaning or values.  Fine, actually I agree.  Any goals, purpose or meaning humans experience is relative to human needs and values—-the random interaction of forces could care less.  But in a world mothered by accident, all derivatives of that world are thus accidental, including any capacity to construe “belief systems,” evolved as survival mechanisms to mystify the human mind away from its own existential absurdity. My point is this: strictly speaking, as soon as a rational materialist offers commentary on the relative merits of anything (in this case “reason” as opposed to “belief”), the rational materialist is projecting an implied meaning to their own opinions. In principle, this projection is no more superstitious than any belief in any god, because the very act of asserting a discriminating opinion implies an assessment of meaning in an otherwise accidental enterprise according to rational materialism. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not suggesting that the opinions of rational materialists are not more insightful and more productive than the opinion of ignorant fools; I’m just saying that, strictly speaking, the expressed insights of rational materialists are based on a “faith” in the meaning of human existence—-because, by their own rigorous logic, there is, at bottom, no “reason” to justify this meaning, or their need to express it. So, Dennett, Dawkins, etc. exhibit a “folly of pretense” as much as any mystified human must. In short: they “believe” in the meaning of their own words even though reason rigorously applied to the topic would conclude their words, like all words at bottom, have none—-it’s just a complex system of self-referencing with nothing at the center. 

Can life have value for its own sake?  That’s a wonderful problematic question. I would only say this: if you do believe life can have value for its own sake, then you are a kind of an idealist—-not a rational materialist.

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Paul, i agree with your philosophy and your point about self referential systems.

I would see this more as occurring because we can never extract ourselves from the language we use and the viewpoints of human experience. There are big differences in the various ways we can try and discover things about the world, but all can be undermined at least philosophically using the same ‘relative meanings’ techniques.

I live in the UK. This can be undermined as simply as saying that that is just what i remember of my experiences and that is not certain. I could be dreaming or in a coma. Perhaps i am someone elses dream. A person can then leave a conversation happy that they are correct and have philosophically undermined my claim, which they have, but then i go home in the UK.

It can be more interesting and fruitful to look at what something is really trying to discover and the means of how it gains, and claims, knowledge.

No system is perfect, no system is absolute, but some are very different to others.

I think it is possible to hold all the views we are talking about here at the same time. Life may have no absolute meaning in an external and applied sense, but this does not mean much to human experience unless it affects human experience (i’m thinking placebos and nocebos here). My life contains enough emotions of love, pleasure, pain etc as well as the responsibility to my family, children to have meaning whether i choose to see it materially or spiritually. I dont think there needs to be a difference in them either, they are charactistics of how we choose to see things, but our biology changes little so our emotions change little. We can still close our eyes and meditate, let ourselves drift and imagine ourselves in other worlds. Materialism stops non of this. All of the emotions and experiences are still on offer because we are no different, people who suggest that gateways to human experience are only through their particular doors are usually up to something and want something from you - whether it is just bums on seats and donations of money and time or something more.

Can we not be rational about the world, to the limits of the available data, while still entertaining other realities, universes, states of consciousness, various hypothesis and still allow our brains emotional centres to give sensations of meaning when we consider various ideas? What is meaning anyway and why would something like immortality simply provide it? (for example)

Idealism is a valid critisism, though i am not sure i would consider it a critisism so long as it doesnt verge outside of the supported data. I would say that all of these positive philosophies and theologies are idealistic though. Materialism features enough parts for me to not consider it overly idealistic (overly relating to synchronisation with reality), whereas other ideas feature rewards of eternal gain and notions of perfect beings and infinite powers and knowledge. Surely these are outside of normal bounds and stretching into idealism?

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Ben, I believe neither in a personal god nor a soul. I believe that the Classical world of logical consistency within which reason operates is a tiny incident emerging from a vast, fundamentally irrational state. I do not disparage reason as a valuable tool in life, but nor would I disparage (as some do) an un-reasonable embrace of the irrational. Existence is a function of both. There are serious dangers on both sides, but to have one without the other, to my thinking, is to not fully exist.  I guess I do not see existence just as a problem for reason to solve, I see it as well as game to play with no purpose other than to keep the games going (thank you J.P Carse). Though there is one excellent by-product of this play: novelty.  So, maybe not all “non-rational” views feature, as you say, “rewards of eternal gain and notions of perfect beings and infinite powers and knowledge.” There may be a third way here: a silly mime on a precarious tight-rope.

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Hi Paul, I agree with you i think, difficult to say with a paragraph. I like the idea of balancing the rational with the irrational, but it depends where it is being balanced and for what purpose. In macroscopic examples i find a greater tendency (perhaps even a full tendency with particular examples) to the rational. Both rationality and irrationality are concepts so they would need to be defined and their specific uses for both sides of the coin decided upon; if this is possible.

I guess from a philosophical point use of/application of the irrational is interesting. The rational features rules, albeit ones we can debate. The irrational is by its nature irrational, what rules do we use? In terms of self referential defeatism if the use of the irrational is itself irrational then how do we use it?

I will take it that you mean that philosophical understanding of existence features both rational and irrational aspects, rather than ‘existence is a function of both’ [rationality and irrationality], or that to have one without the other is to ‘not fully exist’. Else would an atom require both irrational and rational components for its existence? It would seem to me that what we term rational and irrational has something to do with the ways our brains work as some aspects of the theoretical sciences seem quite irrational. This implies to me we are talking about perspectives rather than reality itself.

Here we hit the definitions of rational and irrational. Once we have an explanation of something it tends to shift the boundaries between the two. In fact often the boundary seems only to lie where evidence lies, a line between that imagined and tested and that only imagined.

This is the only place where i am not fully understanding your argument. If irrationality is a useful addition to our toolset and is not simply an acceptance of a need to allow irrational conclusions (irrational because they have not yet been supported by all that needs to come between hypothesis and conclusion),  and if it really is a valid way of proposing hypothesis, and formulating irrational means of testing them to determine irrational conclusions then i accept it fully.

It seems to me though that hypothesis needn’t be defined as either rational or irrational, but if we are able to test and validate them that what once appeared to be irrational becomes the modern definition of rational. This seems to merge the terms within the scientific framework, or at least make them amenable to it and by doing so reduce their use as separate defintions.

If this is what you mean by balance between the two then i am, as stated, with you. If what you mean is that jumpy logic and thought consisting of disparate forms, holes, unsubstantiated claims etc are equal to those of good evidence then i am not, but i dont think that is fully what you mean.

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Hi Paul and Ben.  Thanks for the illuminating discourse.  It seems straight forward (and rational) to consider oneself a rational materialist when one is looking outwards, querying the universe for information and operational rules, whether about substance, energy, or other living beings.  One enters the house of mirrors as soon as they ask the question “what is the meaning of existence.  Might not the logical difficulty lie in the question itself?  What is the reference for meaning?  To whom or what?  Local or universal?  Temporary or infinite? 

Would it be eminently rational to turn away from such mind benders and turn instead to the biological sciences for objective answers to questions such as “What is the neurological substrate for philosophical query?, for happiness?, for human language?”  “Why and how might they have evolved?”  And then, “what does this tell us about ourselves and our sense of existence”?

Like Ben I wonder about the rules and boundaries were we to formalize the need for the “irrational”.  Or perhaps that is just another way of saying “this question is impossible to answer”.

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That is, “This question (what is the meaning of existence?) is impossible to answer rationally within a rational system of reference.

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Hi Bill,
  One thought that comes to mind is the idea of data. I prefer tackling ideas with data, or information. The philosophical attacks typical of this type work philosophically, but because they contain no data (just uncertainty) they fall on their feet in any constructive sense. If something is incorrect then data should show it and the philosophical uncertainty is redundant/unnecessary.

Take the examples of stating that sceptics lack wisdom because they are overconfident in their statements/the evidence, which could be wrong, or that evolutionists can not say for sure we evolved as you can never know anything to 100%. Obviously these are correct so on one level they work fine as criticisms, but i would argue that the level is superficial, especially compared to the data, though it is still relevant.

The reason i would do this is because the criticism itself contains no data that is ‘specifically’ relevant. In fact it is worse than that. The criticism is based around accepting uncertainty, but in so doing it must face its own uncertainty, which is just as relevant. So we bring an unknown uncertainty to bare against a possibility, the truth of which cannot be illuminated by the criticism in any way since it contains no specific data.

In fact this type of criticism is similar to the ad hominem attack in that it isnt really concerned with addressing the data, but with the limitations of the individual.

I would therefore try and define the balance between the rational and irrational, or the use of the irrational as a means to adding to knowledge (either of the world or human condition) based on the constructive data it could/can add to the debate.

If it ends up that the irrational can only add junk data, or that it is simply a means of imagining hypothesis to test rationally then i think its limitations are clear and i would suspect that it is more of a mask for people to hide behind.

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Bill and Ben.
I was hesitant to indulge in on-line discussions (this is my first) because so often they seem to rapidly devolve into angry diatribes. So thanks you for the civility.

Ben, you write: “I will take it that you mean that philosophical understanding of existence features both rational and irrational aspects, rather than ‘existence is a function of both’ [rationality and irrationality], or that to have one without the other is to ‘not fully exist’. Else would an atom require both irrational and rational components for its existence?”

No, I mean that existence is function of both.

An atom exists in name only. It is a set of relationshps in process, an expression of chance probabilities. What constitutes its nature is assailable to reason only indirectly. That fact that science can precisely determine the possibilities of an atoms appearance does not in the slightest disprove that that which constitutes the material world is at its source an irrational game of chance.

Life is as well a complex game of possibilities. In fact, I would assert that it is this game of possibilities which define it as life—-which define all life—-and make it rich and beautiful and beyond final analysis. You have more than once brought biology into the discussion. Then I assume that you understand that life is an “open system”: it is a “dissipative structure” in the parlance.  It maintains its homeostasis by processing (at bottom) information.  Reason dispatches logic to support its claims. The purpose of reason and logic is to create “closed systems”: order out of chaos. Fine, I love science. The scientific method is arguably the mankind’s greatest contribution to the world. But taken to extremes kills the inherent novelty constantly emerging from a chance universe.  Any biologist will tell you that a closed system is a dead system.

I can see that for Ben, it is important that that we “use of the irrational as a means to adding to knowledge.” And even that, I suspect, is a grudging concession to the irrational. So, the underlying assumption to that statement is that that which does not contribute to knowledge is of little value, if not a problem. OK.

Simply living one’s life with a healthy courage—-to face that inherent irrationality which is the first premise from which, ironically, all existence emerges—-can be a very liberating attitude, I have found. There is an intelligence (not supernatural), deeper than reason that allows us to negotiate this strange phenomena. More than a fact to know, life is an event to be lived.

Reason and religion (both follies of pretense, as far as I’m concerned) are afraid of this attitude that embraces the unknown for its own sake.

I think Bill sums it up well with: “This question (what is the meaning of existence?,) is impossible to answer rationally within a rational system of reference.” 

I just extrapolate on the underlying assumption.

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Hi Paul, thanks for your reply. I agree about the devolution of conversation, i try not to do that.

I think we largely agree and are perhaps having fun with definitions. You seem to be, to one degree or another, defining irrational systems to include highly complex, naturally unpredictable and inherently probabalistic systems.

If we include this type in our definition of irrational then obviously the universe features irrational systems, in fact it would probably have more irrational ones than rational, especially since what we already know of the very small scale appears to work in this way. Weather would obviously be another example.

Is this more what you mean? That if a system is not accurately predictable using logical rules (perhaps read mathematical rules) then it should not be called (entirely?) rational.

This would be an interesting definition and perhaps the first helpful one i have seen. The problem for me is that i would classify these types of systems as rational. Most of the real world falls under this type. Out in the real world very little is predictable, especially much into the future. The exact positions of the planets in 1000 years is not even predictable because of all the little pulls they give each other etc. Random mutation is not predictable etc.

Personal experience tends to feature in how we structure our ideas about these philosophical points. I am a geologist so tend to look on in interest at the specific troubles biologists have resulting from the random and open way their systems change. Quantum mechanics obviously results in sticky points as well, being so strange.

My question would be that if you can see overlying principles, and perhaps even quite strict mathematical rules, but the actual ‘actions’ of the system result in unpredictability, but quite a precise unpredictability constrained by the overlying principles - in what way would that be irrational?

I think though it is just how we define it, as i can see your point, it just doesn’t gel with me completely.

I think I tend to see irrational more as featuring aspects of the absurd. If the position of an electron is defined by a probability wave function that defines the likelihood of its position, and you run the experiment a billion times and see that the probabilistic spread perfectly matches the expected distribution then i would not call that irrational, or if natural selection predicts the general uptake of successful genes across a population. The exact outcome might be unpredictable over a short/long period for specific examples, but if someone expects the electron to turn into a car or natural selection to make something complex like wings appear in a single generation, then i would call it irrational.

There are better examples, but hopefully you can see how our definitions are different.

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Ben, I think we understand each other, and that we mostly agree. I think we have written enough for any disinterested third party to draw their own conclusions.

Having said that I still can’t resist expressing one or two more thoughts on the matter. You are a geologist.  I consider myself an artist. That might begin explain our respective views. I am in awe of science: its mind-boggling accomplishments, its many beautiful minds. But for me life is more of an art than a science.  I am an ambiguous human, not a machine of reason.

It is possible for reason to analyze and measure and accurately describe the neurological, physiological, behavioral, cultural, etc. behind my putting brush to paper, but none of that helps when I apply the paint. In fact, it gets in the way. That urge to create and express is not about knowing. It is about facing the unknown, the inherent ambiguities of existence frankly; saying, I will encounter the ambiguity. What emerges from such an encounter with ambiguity? What emerges is food for our psychological self: meaning—-relative and transitory, yes, but so be it. It evolves. It’s ongoing. It’s an “open-system,” a “dissipative structure.” It’s organic. It’s even alive by some current definitions. The psychological self must evolve and adapt to meet the demands of its ever-changing psychosocial environment. The self is made of meaning. The arts maintain the “why?” Reason can not ask that question.

There’s an old saying. “It’s the crack that lets the light in.” The arts voyage fearlessly into that crack—-not without a certain amount of psychological stress, though. Reason seeks to fill the crack.

The arts offer an encounter that reveals an underlying order of complexity impossible to analyze or describe in words, it can only be apprehended in the mind (let’s call it beauty)!  Our capacity to apprehend our beautiful world proceeds rational thought and its wonders. For me, it’s more than a matter of knowing, it’s a matter of being fully open to this apprehension. Dostoyevsky said that “beauty will save the world.” I guess I agree. 

A bit of a ramble, sorry.

Thanks for stimulating me to think.

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What follows was written in response to your posts #15 and #16.  I labored over it for hours and haven’t updated it in response to posts #17 and #18 because you guys are wearing me out.  The mind-body problem chased me through my dreams last night.  I am about to launch into your posts 17 and 18 but before doing so want to reiterate Paul’s comment “thanks for stimulating me to think”.  It hurts but is good for me.

Paul and Ben,

It appears to me that you are both formally trained in philosophy and it has been some time since my “Introduction to Philosophy 101” course.  I bring this up by way of apologizing if I do not always understand what is a well-travelled formal logical path, fail to understand common terms in standard usage, or use non-standard terms.  I pursue this conversation in order to improve my understanding of rational materialism.  Also, I want to thank you again for your time and to say I will understand if you don’t want to put me through school.  Like Paul, I am an Internet conversation neophyte.

I should say at the outset that I would like to think of myself as a rational materialist, but may not qualify because of lack of understanding of what the terms formally mean.  Perhaps you will tell me after you read this post.

Ben, your approach seems eminently lucid, rational, and practical.

Paul, I think we are mostly in accordance but perhaps using different terms.  When you say “irrational” can I substitute “randomness”?  Somehow the word “irrational” (and rational) for me has connotations of agency and consciousness, which are not properties I would associate with the material universe, (but would associate with sentient beings arising within it).

I agree completely with your statement that “Simply living one’s life with a healthy courage—-to face that inherent irrationality which is the first premise from which, ironically, all existence emerges—-can be a very liberating attitude, I have found.”
But I am not sure I understand the statement that religion and reason are both “follies of pretense”.  To me they seem to be completely different approaches entirely, one arising from random cultural happenstance ossified into irrational dogma, and the other from rational query, experimentation, and data.  As Ben points out, should we not value reason and demand it in others simply because the data supports it? 

What gives this discussion a sense of urgency for me is the need (desire?) for a rational materialist (if indeed I am one) to develop an ethical system without resorting to irrational constructs such as omnipotent and caring gods.  Randomness is a necessary precondition of the universe in order to escape determinism and it’s attendant ethical problems, i.e. humans as automatons, (chaos theory helps us here although I guess this is debated), but order and predictability are also necessary for us to believe the evidence of our observations, calculations, and deductions.

Even in physical systems where randomness, as described by chaos theory, is present at the microscopic level, there is a significant amount of order and predictability present at the macroscopic level.  An engineered explosion is an example of this.  So randomness and predictability (order) are not absolutely incompatible even in the same physical system. 

We see order arising from disorder in the inanimate physical world, crystals for example.  Crystal formation creates local material order at the cost of increased system randomness (universal entropy).  Similarly, biological systems are evolved, increasingly complex, ordered chemical processes that increase material order within themselves but increase randomness in the universe as they release chemical energy from ambient substrate in order to grow and achieve homeostasis.  Order (mostly) within, randomness (partly) without. 

Could we not describe reason as an ordered local chemical process existing within an ordered biological substrate (the sentient human brain) which itself exists within a random physical universe?  Could the building of rational philosophic constructs that are consistent with the evolving (improving) neurobiological knowledge base not be analogous to building better bridges as materials science advances?

Paul, does the above make any sense to you?  I might just be using different words to recapitulate your last post.  However, if I understand you, it appears that you believe that because randomness exists in the universe, both causatively at its inception and as ongoing unpredictability (chaos), everything that follows, including consciousness, reason, and existence itself must necessarily be tainted by the “irrational” as well and all to the same degree. Are you saying that we should be nihilists?

Isn’t reason inherently more meaningful (than religion) simply because it leads to a different quality of moral conclusions (rational materialists have yet to declare jihad on anyone) in the same manner that it leads to refrigerators and chocolate chip cookies?

Is there a rational way that we can “have our randomness and reason too”?

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OK, after a refreshing nap, I have read through #17 and #18.

What I was trying to say about “irrational” and probabilistic physical systems Ben says better.  I think we are more alike in our use of terms.  I am a biologist.

Paul, now I better understand where you are coming from.  For me, artistic creativity is something akin to magic.  When I see it, or hear it, it absolutely does connect me with a sense of the subliminal beauty of existence.

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Every time I think I’m done with this you get me thinking again.

One issue I’d like to address is how you (and maybe more so Ben) seem to perceive the issue strictly as reason as opposed to religion. Several times you and Ben made examples in essence asking me if reason was not preferable to, let’s say, to make my point, radical jihad. Frankly, that’s a bit of limited black and white thinking, and a false choice. I’ve tied in each entry to emphasize my fundamental support of reason as the best and most efficient means to solve our material problems. But I say “material problems” for a reason.  Because, I’m trying to argue that the fundamental problem we humans face is not a material one, it is a psychological one, and not only will reason never solve this problem, if anything reason will only exacerbate the problem as it demystifies what it means to be human—-that “human” has no essence and no ultimate purpose.

Now, I hear your objections already, because I’ve already heard them: “But can’t life have worth for its own sake?” Well, sure, I guess I might slit my wrists if I didn’t think so. But, let me remind everyone that my original argument is with Dennett and Dawkins and the rest—-not with the relative worth of my or anyone’s life.

Here’s why: I fully support the Dennett crew when they assert that reason is the best strategy for explaining how this world works. But it strikes me as hypocritical for these men to write about the “folly of pretense” when any educated person should understand that each of us live a “folly of pretence” every day of our lives—-including Dennett, et. al.

The psychological self is a fiction—-a semiotic entity. It is an emerging property of and an organizing principle of the flow of signs—-the “action” of signs. It is a linguistic entity—and a meme—-which Mr. Dawkins should appreciate—-because it is nothing more than an idea, which, in the folly of our pretense, we daily go about believing in.

But here’s what’s really important, and this is tricky. This fiction of the self, our identity, as a semiotic entity, as a function of the action of signs, cannot exist without a constant action of signs as an environment to exist in. The foremost semiotic environment for this fiction of self is narrative (though there are others). This semiotic entity needs a story as much as the body needs breath. Without this action of signs it (the concept of self) ceases to be. It is transitory and a function of information flow.  Does it exist? Here’s an analogy:

If you supply enough energy to a fluid system something interesting happens: whirlpools appear. Reduce the energy and the whirlpool disappears.  So, what is a whirlpool? Can it even be said to exist? It’s just the “shape” of the fluid. It is not separate from the fluid—it is the fluid. Similarly, the self is nothing more than the shape of semiotic action—-the shape of information organized as narrative—-the “story” of our life—-the history of the world is a story. Reduce the flow of narrative and the self sink back the way the whirlpool does. This is what postmodernism concludes and why modernity, which glorifies the self, is so rankled by postmodernism. But that’s a different topic.

This is a profoundly existential problem. And no amount of reason can address it. The self is a fiction—-a folly of pretense. The problem with religion, as I see it, is not that it is worthless in explaining reality (which clearly it is), the problem with religion is that the stories that religion offer as environments for the fiction of self are dysfunctional. They are too often a story of self that must be subordinate to authority and full of guilt and fear and punishment, a story within which one must be ‘saved” from its own miraculous, beautiful and rich existence—-the self that emerges from a story of this kind must inevitable hate itself and/or the “other,” if not life itself.  This logic is horribly played out by suicide bombers who manage to do violence to all three.

The problems for humankind are not material. Reason, in principle, easily dispatches those problems. The problems for humankind are psychological. “We” are the problem. More than reason, we need a new narrative, a new semiotic environment from which a more empowered self can evolve and emerge. This is a job for literature, for the arts, for creativity—-not reductionist reason.

Oh, by the way. Bill, I am not formally trained in philosophy. I am an informal amateur; though I would love to get paid to think.

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Hi Paul. I have to say that i am the same, i keep coming back this. This is a much more interesting discussion of the borders that exist for some of us between these different mindsets than many out there.

I agree with almost all you have said Paul and where i disagree i disagree only on scale rather than principle.

I have no doubt that scientific endeavour is the best way to tackle the material world as you put it.

I like the idea of the fundamental problem being a psychological one, rather than a material.

To expand on this notion i would say that we have to admit that our lives are bound to both dimensions and that discussions are therefore about the importance of each.

I would say that the importance is relative to particular circumstances, in an academic sense there is some privileged opportunities that do not exist if one is being chased by a lion. This example is just as relative to death/disease by pathogen etc. No matter where we draw the line (which i think is easier) and to what degree narrative and the material world can interact (in which there are many cases - so that differences might be blurred) i think it is easy to say that they are both important, but different, aspects of our single life.

So they both have there place, but can we go any further than that?

Narratives are necessary for as you say they, they provide the substrate on which we form our consciousnesses/our stories of ourselves (or whatever way we say it, language seems unable to do it in a line). They are hugely important. Are they also informed by our understanding of ourselves though, or do they do the informing?

This is to where my mind is drawn by you above remark. To the precise realities of the above understanding.

To sum it simply/quickly:

I think narrative is crucial to who we are, but while it is self generating and regulating it is also informed by reality. Our concepts of sanity and mental illness may be examples of this, as well as perhaps competence in any given field be it practical or mental.

Narratives lack any real underpinning (to link them to reality and demand reality of them would make them scientific, with increasing reality as demands were placed on them, may be this is what is happening?).

To many people the affect of narratives on real things, be them science or politics, healthcare or electricity, history etc is disturbing. In the main this is where battle lines are drawn.

My question would be, given that science also provides narrative, so that the narrative distinction is not so easy to draw and perhaps a like it/dislike it narrative distinction is better, to what degree should narratives be allowed to rule over our material interaction with the world.

Notice that i use material interaction rather than concepts such as truth etc as i think that is philosophical whereas narrative informed HIV treatment or narrative led safety rules have real affects. These are our interactions with the material world, and are perhaps more important to properly regulate scientifically rather than narratively.

As for narrative only being provided by the arts. I know as many people with full narratives provided by the sciences and updated by the sciences than by the arts. I see no conflict here. Many argue that science does not provide truth, just another narrative. They are right and they are wrong, but it surely allows us to see the complexity of trying to define the difference.

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Ben, Hi, good to hear from you. I hope this little blog does not disappear, or that you haven’t given up on it. (However, I have to say, I’m heading off on a trip and will be indisposed, so this will probably be my last post).

Anyway, you write “I think narrative is crucial to who we are, but while it is self generating and regulating it is also informed by reality.” Reality is a very tricky word. One could perhaps argue that matter has no reality in an of itself. There is no “thingness” in any thing. We label certain processes that maintain varying degrees of stability, but I do not believe in essences, spiritual—-or material. Reality is what emerges when the human brain layers its sentience with a conceptual map. As I have mentioned, I (and others) would suggest the main organizing principle for this layering process is the concept of the self, and the self emerges chiefly from the narrative. Okay, we’ve been over this.  I guess the point I’m getting at is this: science is at base measurement. When the measurements are consistent, then prediction can be made. This is an amazing thing, to be able to predict the behavior of matter (and to some extent people and societies and complex systems like economics and the weather—-short list!), and it is clearly and profoundly a powerful insight. But this insight remains dormant until it manifests as technology or as some action.

Technology is a tool, in principle, an elaborate hammer—-a hammer can not tell us what to do with it. Pound a nail? Hit somebody over the head? That‘s a decision only a human can make, and a human makes that decision within the context of his or her particular narrative. All the measurements in the world lie inert until a human incorporates that measurement into some use relative to the story the human is made of. It would seem almost stupidly obvious that humans simply need to read the consistent measurements, which lead to consistent behaviors, and say, okay, we should do this because, reason dictates that based on the findings a certain act will lead to the most beneficial results. This, I believe is the thinking of Dennett and crew. I also believe that this is quite naive. Until humanity addresses its central crisis, it will never make reasonable decisions. Sadly, if not frighteningly, all decisions by are currently made to avoid addressing that central issue.  And this central issue is well known: it’s our own meaningless.  The profane history of the world has been a panic-race away from this truth. The self needs “meaning” to be. It is made of “meaning.’ But, guess what, their is none! What a sorry state of affairs.

The frantic momentum of the 21st Century seems evidence that humanity, in it desperate fix for meaning, will continue to stuff stuff the black hole of the abyss with every imaginable distraction, like some teenage bulimic, until it vomits up the Apocalypse.  I’ve learned from experience; you cannot talk reasonable to an irrational person. We are sick—-not stupid.  We need a new story to help us through the night. Neither Dennett nor Dawkins offer one.

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Hi Paul,

I’m just back from a trip and found your and Ben’s latest posts.  I think I understand you better now but you have introduced me to some new language and concepts that I will research.  Thanks for that.

I currently understand your dialogue about “the fiction of self as narrative” as a more refined re-statement of the mind body problem.  I agree with you entirely, now that I understand you, about the “self as fiction” in a purely existential context.  But, it is interesting that we can share our experiences and perhaps agree about the nature of our narratives.

As to whether we are “sick” or just carriers of more primitive subconscious (and reflexic) narratives (or programs) inherited from ancestors without forebrains, I don’t know.  I tend to think that all behavior, even pathologic and self-destructive behaviors, are understandable and reachable through materialistic methods.

I would also like to think that the shared human experience is at least capable of advancing the shared narrative, perhaps based upon a new understanding about the intransient nature of the “self” as revealed by neuroscience.

But, pure reason got there a long time ago, without the benefit of neuroscience.  “Objects of attachment also include the idea of a “self” which is a delusion, because there is no abiding self. What we call “self” is just an imagined entity, and we are merely a part of the ceaseless becoming of the universe,” from a short essay on the “Four Noble Truths”.

I’m not practicing Buddhist, but I do find a lot of reason in their approach, and a little compassion for our “fellow sufferers” might help delay the apocalypse.

I hope your trip is a joyful one.

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Bill,

I did have a joyful time celebrating my father’s 90th birthday in Carmel, California.

I agree with all that you say, but from what I understand of Buddhism even reason is a kind “noise” in the mind that must eventually be stilled in order to intuit the nature of self and existence—-that it is empty.  The Buddha did not “reason” his way to his enlightenment. Meditation is “no-thought.” He deconstructed consciousness and everything in it.

Anyway…

When all is said and done, I consider myself a champion of reason (I did happily sign up on this page after all); however, I still feel that reason, because it is that kind of “noise” in the mind, is forever “in the box” so to speak: is forever stuck in the medium of self-reference. I feel that reality (if you will) can only be experienced outside the medium. Let me offer a silliness to make a point.

A termite walked into the bar and asked, “Where’s the bar tender?”

( ! )

I would suggest that life is not a fact to be understood. Life is a big joke. One has to “get it.”  If one has to reason out a joke there is no joke, there is no ( ! ). 

What does it take to “get” a joke? Sudden disorientation, brief existential anxiety, sudden nervous, bodily relief to this anxiety as the mind (sans reason) intuits and the ironic associations flood in—-saving us, by making sense of the world again, by again making the world a “reasonable“ place of logical consistency—-reason our Savior—-the Word, the Logos—-saving us from what? The joke? It’s the crack that let’s the light in—-not reason. Reason tries to fill the crack of existential despair as naively as the story of Jesus tries to fill the crack of our existential despair. Which is why I believe that it is a “folly of pretense” to believe that reason is the final answer to humanities ills.

I believe that until we “get” the big joke, the big “emptiness,“ the “uses” of reason will forever, in dangerous part, express humanities unconscious, and neurotic fear of this emptiness.  I believe that to face this emptiness takes an “act” of courage, not a deduction of reason.  I thoroughly understand that existence is empty; and I thoroughly understand the “reasons” why I should face the emptiness. However, I yet have the courage to face it—-to fully experience it—-or even to stumble headlong into this crack of doom—-like poor Gollum.

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Hello Bill and Paul,
  I’m not sure if you have been having the same headache as me with this. I think Paul’s point is useful in explaining it; we are narrative and since our personal narrative changes all the time, mood and point dependant, the outcome of whatever i am about to write changes daily. I swear i would have made a different comment everyday for the last week that i’ve been re-reading this.

  I think this conversation has been great, it has changed my personal narrative lets say. I agree with Paul that reason is not the be all and end all of definitions of narrative and so not the be all and end all of what we are - this is fair enough. An absolutist position on rationality in this sense would be silly.

  A few days ago i smiled when the word ‘muggle’ from Potter slipped through my mind. We humans do muddle through life. The word stuck as it seems to fit quite well when looking at how all the different narratives we adopt fit together and rub up against the non-human parts of our lives.

  Each time i consider this philosophy at length and slip into its boots i am shaken back to the surface by the weight of geological knowledge rumbling around my mind. Any physical science will do the trick though. Forget the stuff on discovery or school level, let your mind get slapped around by a science degree and it changes the narrative. I am happy still calling it narrative though, but it is a narrative of a certain shape.

  Perhaps this is where these descriptions converge. Science can be seen as a narrative trying to converge on the evidence. I think that by admitting it is unknown and not the absolute truth that it also effectively saying it is narrative, our best story so far, the story that best fits the most and strongest evidence. I dont think this bit is what we are debating, it just struck me that while the language is different the outcome is actually pretty similar.

  From this point i tend to go round in circles both agreeing and disagreeing. The physical world, the strata, fossils, genes, sex, addiction, love, lust, danger/harm, pain, cancer, sunshine, ozone depletion can all be a slap around philosophies face to remind us not to get too pretentious with our self concepts and dreams, but then we can swap it around and reduce/define or enshrine their importance in our lives if we want to.

  I think in this topic we are right down at the roots of what we both are and what we live in, far below religious attempts and a bit below reasons. This ‘meaningless’ gives us a huge power to do whatever we want with our narratives and there are no limits.

  I once had a realisation though when i actually listened to someone say ‘i believe in God’. (i use this only as an example- it is not what we are talking about here) The statement contains information about the individual, not about the universe.

  If we are going to claim that narrative is what we do, and that reality is a construct of the self then we need to be more sure we are not just talking about ourselves, just our own opinions. Again geology drags me back to the surface with a rude slap to remind me that i float on the planet, not the other way around. That it was here before me and not the other way around. Narrative may be all i have, but that does not mean that is all it is.

Is this a weakness of this debate? I am not sure, my gut tells me it is. As far as my own life is concerned i get to place whatever importance i like on any aspect of scientific or any other narrative, the trick will be in deciding if that is all there is to reality. Lets see if we can step it up now and start talking about evidence for these ideas…..

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Thank you, Ben for such an articulate response. I see by your last words (“Lets see if we can step it up now and start talking about evidence for these ideas…..”) that we are still playfully jousting here. 

My thoughts:

The problem is that, when deeply investigated, we find that, unsatisfying as it may sound to our intellect and our egos, there is no objective “evidence” to be found—-that there is no “objective proof” even for one’s own existence!—our existence(s) being the first premise for all later personal and/or collective knowledge. One’s existence can only be inferred. This is, fundamentally, the old philosophical problem of solipsism. I can never know if you’re a self-aware sentient entity, and you can never know if I’m a self-aware sentient entity. I can only know if “I” am a self-aware sentient entity—-but, of course, this knowledge is absolutely confined to the prison of my own subjective experience—-this is not falsifiable evidence, not objective, and useless in scientific inquiry.

Now, I grant you, the inference from observation is powerfully strong that we exist; however, strictly speaking, again, if you take the time to think it through, I think you will see that the conclusion that you exist is still based solely on inference and/or subjective experience. (Be that as it may: “I could bound myself in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space”—-Shake.). 

Do the wind chimes ring? Is there sunlight through the window? Actually—-no, the chimes do not ring and the sunlight is not through the window—-these are phenomena of the brain (based, that is, on the best we can infer).  Now, there is information encoded in air molecules, and information encoded in electromagnetic waves (based, that is, on the best we can infer). But information is itself neither sound nor light—-until an apparatus translates that information into a qualitative presentation there is no sound or light. But, let me ask you, further, what is sound made of? I mean, the molecular and electromagnetic information may be is necessary to for the sound to happen—-but, it’s not sufficient to explain the sound itself. Sound and light are an ineffable phenomenon of the brain. What is why, as I read him, Dennett refuses to acknowledge that consciousness exists, to do so would admit to something outside of materialism—-something outside of scientific investigation.

Now, please don’t insist that sound and light can be measured and manipulated, therefore, they exist. You can never “prove” that they exist objectively—-that’s my point. Our existence is entirely inferred, but we live daily in this inference and little notice. (See Bishop Berkeley.)

Why is this important? For all practical purposes, reason can observe and infer and make this ultimately un-provable existence more than tolerable. Absolutely—-I couldn’t agree more. But, I have four lovely daughters; and I so desire to see them live to old age in world free from conflict. And at the heart of human conflict, I believe, is not an inability to reason out the world (what beautiful minds we are endowed with!), it is a more problematic inability to accept the fundamentally unverifiable nature of our existence. That’s too scary to contemplate, so we don’t—-we sublimate the fear and express it in destructive ways. That’s my point. I’m not against reason. I relish Harris’s scathing debunking of ignorance. I would simply like to encourage Harris and crew, with their articulate and public voices, to as well “get” that it’s the arts—-that it’s the artist’s on-going encounter with the fundamental paradox of being, that must take the lead and lead us all to face the fact of the biggest “pretense” of all——our own existence.

To do this is not nihilism. In fact, I would argue that it represents a kind of final liberation and freedom from that ignorance and fear which is the source of all ignorance and fears.

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Hi Paul,

  Thanks for the reply.

  I agree with you, it would of course be difficult not to. I do love philosophy!
  Naturally i have a few comments on it as well though
  Firstly are you so certain that the fact that it is impossible to prove that we exist in this sense gives any more credence to an artistic approach over a scientific one? If we have no consciousness and do not exist then why lend one approach any more meaning than another.
  I would say that both views have very high importance, though they do different things. Whatever science discovers in the future and whatever art makes of it all all i really worry about is what we do with that information, how we react to it. I do not think there is some sort of scale of relevance to the human condition over the arts and sciences. They are both crucial and both satiate the same and different needs in different people and at different times.
  Now, what does it matter if we can never prove objectively that we exist? It is also true in the same vein that you can never objectively prove that this argument is true. This argument only means that it is possible we do not exist. Is this important though?
  Let us say that the step in the chain right down at the bottom, our very existence, is incorrect. Both the sciences and the arts are speaking about the same content, namely this universe and our experiences within it.
  Existence is also an undefined term in this context. Let us say that we create a computer program that believes it is sentient, in what context would it not exist? If we are some program running on an alien computer in what sense would we not exist. It has sometimes seemed to me that these debates miss a greater truth, that is doesnt really matter. I am sure it is enough to you that your daughters seem to exist as it is to me with my own family, more than enough. This in no sense diminishes your argument, perhaps this is the art talking above the science, meanwhile there is a consistent entity entwined with our thoughts, that builds the substrate of our bodies and forms the world we interact with, no matter whether it be imagined or not. If we are imagined then it is imagined, or if it is we are etc, we are at terminology here, we will need to define existence, and we need both art and science to do this.

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Wow, just when I thought you guys were done, I find a four-course meal of brain food.  I am still digesting.

Does it add anything to the discussion to bring up shared experience and language?  It seems from my limited exposure to philosophy the usual perspective for considering the nature of existence is that of the individual sentient mind “reasoning” its way along.  Yet, assuming existence is at it appears, we are certainly more than just reasoning individual intellects.  The human genome is a compilation of molecular information reaching back to the dawn of life on earth.  We are social beings engineered to interact and share with one another, both our thoughts and our feelings that transcend or defy language (is art a language for the sublime?).  It is demonstrably and measurably evident that we humans experience existence within the confines of a complex neural network whose processes can be imaged using PET scan.  We all use the same parts of the network to perform similar tasks of computation or reasoning.  Likewise emotions and even the “nothingness” of meditative states excite certain definable brain centers, some of them phylogenetically ancient.  Rather than looking for the “meaning” of life outside of ourselves in the cold universe, would it not be productive (perhaps measurably so) to examine and rationally discuss the shared human experience, both the rational part and the sublime?  Would that be enough to move us to deeper understanding and better behavior towards one another?

p.s.: Paul, thanks for the termite!

p.s.: Ben, I can’t see any point in defining existence as anything other than what it empirically and experientially appears to be.  Can you?

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Ben and Bill,

it’s been fun, but I really have to get back to work. I wish I could respond to the many questions posed by both of your last posts raised. But, I’m beginning to feel as though I’m simply repeating myself and that many of your questions and/or assertions can be addressed in my previous posts. It also looks as though we will all soon fall of the page.

One last ramble!

It is truly astounding: the insights that the powers of reason produce. For example: In a hostile and indifferent universe, existence is a “folly of pretense.” full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  And yet, I wholeheartedly and happily engage this sound and fury and daily invest in this pretense, which is why I cannot be critical of “belief” in principle, or belief in belief, as Dennett seems to be—though I assume he believes in reason. There is no compelling reason even to reason if there is no investment in this folly of pretense called a “human being”——the label for a randomly amassed conglomeration of inert matter.  Oh, but I hear some saying: “We need reason to survive!” Okay, well, how much “reason” do we really need to survive and be content? Anthropologists inform us that hunter gatherers we’re taller than us, had better teeth, and (if you take out the infant mortality stats), lived as long; also, they spent half their days dancing and playing. When the European first set foot on New England’s shore they described a “pristine paradise,” even though Native American’s had inhabited the continent, at population levels equal to Medieval Europe, for ten millennia. What has happened to the “pristine paradise” and why? I’m not recommending we all live n teepees, I’m just trying to lead up to the following—-

We reason so fiercely for same pathological psychological reasons that we believe in fairy tales—-we dread the chaos: the nothingness at the bottom of existence that repels reason. But the nothingness at bottom cannot be reasoned away, nor fairy-tailed away. However, I believe that the arts encounter this nothingness frankly, bravely.  It’s a big, scary job, but a necessary job. Like Sherazade, without a story we die at dawn. We are not evil. We are not good. We are possibilities! I believe that only the (human)ities—-the arts, creativity, the “infinite game,” in the face of meaninglessness, address the most problematic question of all—-what it means to be human, and thus maintain the ever evolving necessary “belief” in the possibilities of our humanness, and thus, in turn, the “what” of what we might accomplish with our beautiful reason.

Best wishes to you both..

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Thanks Paul and Ben.  I have enjoyed this interaction and been challenged by it.  I have saved it for further reflection.

It appears Paul will be having Art with a side of Reason and I will be having Reason with a side of Art.

Bon Apetite!

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Hi Paul and Bill,
  I have also enjoyed this. Paul, don’t be disheartened - it hasn’t been entirely circular and has had an affect on my philosophy.
  I agree almost fully with what you have said Paul. I also think this debate had a bit more left in it, but will look forward to interacting with it elsewhere.

  My last brain splurge; to get it out of my system so to speak, would be regarding setting up meaning and existence as such fundamentals in the discourse.
  Meaning is a relative term, and perhaps more of an emotion than a quality in how it is used in this argument. To say that a sentient neural network has no meaning is only a statement about the individual saying it, not about the neural network itself. I sometimes feel that the magical attributes often given to human life are setting the stage for the ‘meaning’ we give to it, so saying it has no meaning without it ends up becoming a circular or self referencing argument. This implies that culturally, or linguistically, meaning and magic have come to have a codependent meaning, which would differ from the use here philosophically and render the argument weaker, if you see what i mean.
  Existence is also tricky for similar reasons. If we are going to say that we cannot objectively prove we exist then i think we at least have to have a definition of what we mean so we can have some standard of telling whether the argument is true, else we hand alot of power to an argument that might not even be right.
  As per Bill’s point i do not see much point in defining reality beyond what experimentally appears to exist. To a philosopher though this is immediately a very weak argument, as it should be. The word ‘experimentally’ can be played with, of course. The content of dreams for example would not generally be said to exist, but the dreams do.
  In this we can see the truth. We muddle through all this. Any number of philosophies can be described, but not all will be true. Using just philosophy as the tool you cannot differentiate between the true and false ones, we need another tool. Science is what we use right now. We all agree that it is exceptionally powerful, but we have not really discussed why that might be and what consequences that might have for the different philosophies possible.
  After toying with those ideas i think it would have been good to discuss, for its implications for the logic of this argument, the possibility that existence is more of an artistic quality that a scientific one. If you want to find out whether there is a nuclear submarine in your back garden you can do it scientifically, but here we are mixing the two and trying to do it artistically as well. Art has funny things to say on the subject. Maybe you are the submarine, maybe the garden is.
  Here we reach the end. Paul is right, meaning is subjective, perhaps ultimate existence is too (unless we awaken and find this is a dream in which case it enters the scientific real). We can never know anything to 100%, science tells us this just as much as philosophy - this of course applies to existence as much as gene selection. This doesnt stop us rooting out bad ideas though.
  Living well in the future will require a combination of the humanities as well as the sciences. Science can handle the meaning of things, the arts handle what things mean to us. Both are crucial - and both interact.

  Ultimately i feel a bit as if philosophy has been used here to try and prove that ultimate reason above all else is not the answer, whereas i dont think we need to get bagged down in the philosophy for that. I know that every time i get bored of a scientific paper and pick up my guitar, though i dont concern myself with the science of why i enjoy the guitar.

Take care everyone

Good eating…....

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I know i shouldnt come back to this, but i think i got at the heart of what had been niggling at me.

I’ve studied philosophy, though only at college level. Historically there have been many philosophies, but they do fall. Every now and then a philosopher will come along and point out how a philosophy fails in some context or aspect of logic, self reference etc.

A chunk of this argument rested on the philosophy that an inability to objectively tell what is real siezes absolute power away from reason and science.

Though i agree that life takes alot more than reason and that this input comes from the arts, and though i think that it is subjective and that for people like me we will take an artistic approach to philosophical science to fill that hole, and fill the other bits with normal humanity, music, friends, family etc so we can achieve meaning in merged ways between art and science, i think the following of the argument.

Firstly it falls foul of normal falibility. We cannot say the argument is definitely true scienitfically or logically. Limits of our comprehension and ability could well mean that in a thousand years humanity is able to answer this objectively (though the answer may be no, it would not undermine the reason that had shown it).

For that reason the argument is not scientific, it is philosophical. For this reason if we want to see whether it is valid, which i do, we need to address it philosophically and look for philosophical failings.

The argument seems sensible at first glance, but i think i have found a problem with it. Say reality is a dream, then our definition of reality is a dream. Say reality is materialistic, then our definition of reality is materialistic. The point is that we have no external definition of reality to test whether this one is real. This is not just a scientific point. I think it does real damage to the philosophical argument. Any definition of reality is internal, any attempt to define it as anything else requires imagination. If we use the reality we see to prove reality then of course we can do it objectively as it is the same frame of reference. If we use an imaginative construct to disprove objective reality then we have committed something of an intellectual sin. I believe planes cannot objectively be shown to fly because the dragons stop them. This is no different a use of imagination than attempting to use an imagined external reality as a frame of reference to examine the unreality of our [internal reality] experience.

This shows a major flaw in the cohesion of the philosophy. It doesnt matter that without inspection the philosophy of inability to objectively confirm reality appears flawed, we now have an example of either a circular referencing (fatal) or use of a purely imagined construct (damaging).

I leave this is for what it is worth. I think it is close to a philosophical fatal blow, never mind what it might be worth if it was blown into a proper idea.

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Ben,

Are we two stubborn egos? I’d like to think we are two (three including Bill) reasonable individuals who enjoy on-going reflection and the many possibilities that open up as a consequence of these on-going reflections.  (You can determine your own motives, of course.) And so, for my part, it’s not about striking the “fatal blow” against my friend’s ideas.

I have witnessed too often among my scientist friends an almost obsession with the need for finality—-a need to produce the “final blows” to any inquiry. I believe this need for finality stems from the same deeply rooted psychological fear that drives Fundamentalists and others need to believe in fairy tales—-fear of the only certainty we know: the chaos of death. The problem, of course, is that science cannot answer this question. (I’m not denying that approximation is good enough for material purposes—-but if you still want to make that point then you’re missing my larger point entirely. No amount of “how?” can ever satisfy psychological entity made of “why?”).

So, given all that, what are the options? How do we deal with the nothingness at bottom that repels reason? Well, a) we pursue scientific investigations out of a psychological fear of this ambiguity, this uncertainty, thinking we can finally solve the big puzzle with some TOE; or, b) we pursue scientific investigation as an open-minded search for predictable results with a healthy and humble appreciation of existences’ endemic paradoxical nature. Both are, by necessity, follies of pretense, but a) is a folly of pretense based on existential dread, b) on the other hand, is an art; an art because it acknowledges the existential uncertainty and yet sallies forth with an open-minded “faith” in a creative advance into possibilities. In other words: first and foremost it is our “faith” in the human ability to encounter the inherent novelty of existence that makes it possible our reason to be useful in human terms.

I hear you possibly agreeing with some of this. But do you really? Let’s look further into this.

You write of my “philosophy”: “Firstly it falls foul of normal fallibility.” Well, so does the fiction“Ben”.  Please look in the mirror and tell me what you see? Do you see Ben? I see an accidental conglomeration of highly organized energy and forces manifesting in time and space—-an ”unreality of colored air” (Hawthorn). To belief in Ben is a “folly of pretense.” 

I believe my consistent implied thesis here, from the beginning, has been that so-called men of reason should exhibit the courage to follow reason to its logical conclusion and confront our “folly of pretense,” frankly. To me, to “say” you’re an atheist is as slick and meaningless as to “say” you believe in god—-or love, or any trite word for our deep and complex human needs. One does not deal any “fatal blow” to one’s meaninglessness and nothinglessness so glibly…

…so they maintain their folly of pretense with little honest reflection on it.

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First I have to comment on the weird, wonderful, strangeness of having this little hidden niche on the intertubes where I can go see what Paul and Ben are thinking.

I’m smiling now because after reluctantly saying farewell six days ago, here I am, late at night, putting down a good book to check if maybe, just maybe, the conversation might have started up again, and lo I find that it has.  This is a good thing, let’s see where it goes.

Paul, I would be interested to hear what direction you go after accepting the “big nothingness”.  I mean this both philosophically and practically in your life and art.  How do you construct an ethical system for living?

I ask because I agree with you about the essential meaninglessness of existence from the universal standpoint.  Also, I get the problem of systems of reference and “knowing”. 

I accept both of these but attach less emphasis to them than you appear to think I do.  Speaking in terms of your example above, I chose “b”. 

Once we “men of reason” have accepted our folly we have to get on with the business of living together.  Can’t we agree that science, whatever its epistemologic weakness, is the most useful system of advancing knowledge and decreasing human suffering?  Rather than philosophic certainty let’s settle for practicality.

p.s. I happened upon this today, http://killingthebuddha.com/manifesto/ ,and it struck me as relevant to our discussion but from another perspective.  Perhaps that is what nudged me to check back tonight.

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Bill,

Is this what they refer to as guilty pleasures? 

Anyway, you ask the important question consequent to the obvious logical problem with my view. “How do you construct an ethical system for living?” when nothing matters?

My straight forward response to that is this: since we don’t need an ethical system to create a fair and civil society, we don’t need to know “how to construct” one.  The reason (you might wonder), why we don’t need an ethical system is because there is no such thing as right or wrong, good/evil, etc.; these are fantasies of a deluded mind.

Are we condemned to moral and ethical chaos? No.

If you believe you need a system of ethics, then you assume that ethical behavior is a learned process. We reason out the ethics, codify it, then we are asked to obey the codes—-and all is well. It is top down, authority/obedience relationship. Further, this presumes a human nature that cannot be trusted to act in ethical ways of its own accord.

But there is another approach to creating a civil society, and it does not require an ethical system (though ethical behavior and its codification, I believe, would emerge from this approach). To put it in very simple terms: happy people do not seek to do violence upon themselves or others. Why? Because individuals who get their basic physical, emotional, intellectual and social needs met have no motive, or desire to harm self or others. 
 
The Danes are, according to recent article, the “happiest” nation. They are also one of the most civil societies on the planet. Hmmmm. I would contend that the Danes are a happy and civil society NOT because they sit around all day studying ethics, or because they have some extraordinary, Danish self-discipline to suppress the supernatural evil within them. I would contend that one important reason the Danes are so happy and civil is because they have created a society that tries to meet, if not empower, its citizen’s basic physical, emotional and social needs. Maybe we spent a little less time browbeating people with what is good and moral, and a little more time and money creating environments that encourage and cultivate healthy, happy individuals, we might actually have a decent, civil and happy populace. 

Am I naïve? Sure. But, it strikes me as vastly more naïve to believe that behavior based on guilt and dread and repression will not destroy itself and everything it encounters as it historically plays out the symptoms of its pathology. Nothing is perfect: it’s a matter of best options.

Like most people who sign up for this site, I am frustrated with the extreme ideologies and ignorance behind so much “religion” in the world. But, although I am appalled with the stupidity of religions explanations of the material world, I am more appalled, and worried, by the destructive influence religion’s grand narratives have had on the collective human psyche throughout history.  Our behavior good or bad is consonant with our psychological well-being, not with fantastic demons or a lack of ethical studies. How about a story that promotes the spirit—-the human spirit!—-Because we believe in the human spirit, regardless of that “folly of pretense.”

We are not made of atoms, we are made of language. Humans have to believe in something to exist. Belief is the environment within which the fiction of the self exists. Why not admit we “believe” in reason? That it is a belief system? (IT IS!) Strictly speaking, Dennett is wary of belief or even a belief in belief—-whew!  Okay—-well, all knowledge is self-referenced. That means knowledge can exist only as a part. Therefore, the whole cannot be known.  If we can never know the whole, how can we be sure of the part? The greatest ignorance is to “believe” that nothing can exist outside of human knowledge. As reasonable people, why don’t we admit this and admit our “belief” in reason and vigorously promote our belief in its great story, in its great potential for the only life we are sure of. There is something moral in humility.

You write: “Can’t we agree that science, whatever its epistemologic weakness, is the most useful system of advancing knowledge and decreasing human suffering?”  I guess I still hold that “the most useful system” for decreasing human suffering is any system that makes us healthy: physically, emotionally, mentally.  The scientific process decreases human suffering only to the extent we employ its discoveries to those ends—-but it’s not a given.  Before any science, the human mind requires a healthy “faith” in both the value and possibilities of being before that happens.

Thanks for the “Killing the Buddha” site. It looks interesting.

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Paul,

Thanks for your thoughtful and thorough reply.  It may take me a few days to think and respond.  At first pass I find nothing to disagree with but feel the need to reinterpret from a biological basis. 

In the mean time I happened upon this, very on point:

http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2009/08/consciousness-control-and-responsibility.html

through Micheal Drake’s site, a favorite.  http://www.strangedoctrines.com/

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Thank you for the links, Bill. Discussions on agency, I believe, are at the edge of contemporary inquiry.

My thought is that culture is a story making machine, and each ego in the culture is a derivative of culture’s story. The ego is a remarkably adaptable story making machine. I would assert that the function of the ego is to rationalize behavior already prescribed by preconscious intelligence. However, when the demands of the body, the emotions, the construed self, begin to run contrary to accepted social behavior, the ego will create whatever outlandish stories it needs to in order rationalize the behavior. When the story I need to maintain my reality is that I am the Messiah (delusions of grandeur [I am the chosen one by the way ]), then we see that it’s called insanity—-I am insane. So we see evidence that the story of self is a secondary function of a broader, preconscious encounter at work. Yet, in principle, don’t we all maintain a certain degree of insanity in order to maintain our “folly of pretense?” We accept our harmless levels of self-delusion, because, well, we’re all equally deluded that we’re in control, and thanks to evolution—-it works well enough to keep the species from dying out—-so far anyway.

What I wonder is whether or not the above described long evolved capacity for mystification that keeps the species going, and which maintains it stability based on the stability of semiotic flow, will remain stable when semiotic flow breaks apart consequent to rapid advances in information technology? My prediction, borne out, I believe, by the fragmentation consequent upon the postmodern condition (tweet! For Pete sake??) is that we’re in for a rough ride, and those who hold on to “meaning” are in for the roughest ride.  It’s not about control, it’s about encounter. Narrative will become reality, become truth, and the possibilities are endless—-scary! Can you surf the wave? That, I believe [the chosen one states! ], will the talent required to survive the next century.

Surfs up! cThanks, Bill

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Hi Paul,

First, apologies; as I read more in order to compose a thoughtful response to your post #36 I found no solid theoretical or evidentiary ground upon which to base a reply.  Tonight, after reading this:
http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2009/09/free_choice_may_not_be_as_free.php
I find the very possibility of free will, agency, and a system of ethics to be threatened by, of all things, biologic evidence.  Your post above anticipates this state of affairs.  Surf’s up indeed.

However, I think that there is a lot more we could and should say about a rational approach to ethics, society, and governance as science illuminates the nature of our biological existence in the material universe.  The article above and the previously referenced one on “Consciousness, control and responsibility” have basically destroyed my fragile basis for agency and ethics, using biological evidence no less,  but the issue demands a thoughtful, communicable rationale or we truly are in for a rough ride.

Paul, as I have said before, I have enjoyed and been changed by our conversation.  I would be interested in hearing more from you as you encounter evidence or analysis that you consider relevant to our discussions.

Ben, I hope you have something to say about these articles as well.

I’ll be checking back periodically.

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Hay Paul and Bill,

I’ve been looking back and have been meaning to comment for a while. Good topics and comments, though i think it would be alot easier now if we were all around a table discussing this over beer. It is getting harder in these small posts.

Paul’s idea’s have shifted the way i think about things to quite a degree. Not so much the way evidence based data is merged into a structure we call science based knowledge, but on the way i perceive my own interaction with it as a person who cannot understand it all and must formulate my own story of meaning based on the bits i do understand.

A podcast i was listening to today gave an example of a problem with past preoccupations and with some religions in general being ‘an attempt to find a single meaning’. I guess you all know what i am referring to. Perhaps we all want life to be explained in a nice easy single factoid, and perhaps it is no surprise that we want some sort of ultimate meaning from this ultimate factoid.

I guess sciences attempt to distill universal principles down into at least a single construct (or the feeling of having one; im thinking theory of everything etc) is suspiciously similar to religions attempt to actually define a single ultimate meaning.

That we can be suspicious that we have a biological/neurological imperative driving our desire for a narrative of this type no matter what direction we come from in an attempt to get this type of answer.

I desire this type of narrative too. Maybe it is just the simplest and by far the easiest form to feel fulfilled with – that we naturally prefer one answer to a million. As a scientist i already know that it doesn’t exist (to me) in the same sense as a God would give (if one existed). Science may be trying to arrive at a single comprehensive answer for the nature of all the myriad events/things in our universe, but already it is much more complex in its constituent parts than the God type ideas. Such things as the unified theory may give me a sensation of an ultimate answer, but i am already aware that that answer would contain enough parts that it would only be a sensation of a simple single answer. My biological desires for a single narrative of meaning are already denied by reality in anything other than a simple sense of sensation of meaning.

Next to this we have modern secular culture starting to suggest that meaning does not exist. Many atheists have come to terms with this and it certainly appears from the scientific data and models today that previous hunts for single ultimate meaning will be in vein. That it is now time to start admitting that there isn’t one and that meaning comes from within and from all the millions of things we will do before we die.

We play with our kids, with our friends, family or even computer games in our sparse moments of free time; or we blog. We drink wine and eat our favorite foods, help others and give to charity. These will be the meaning of the future; perhaps more personal in nature and less linked to ideas of single external meanings.

How will we cope? Well we are doing ok, at least in Northern Europe. I am happy; as are most people I know. This societal change will not be too terrible, so long as it happens slowly enough. Separation between narrative and state will probably be very important, lest people who wish to control narrative get their way. So long as people are allowed to make up their own minds then I think left to its own devices narrative change over the next hundred years is highly likely to occur and also be peaceable. I don’t think people will be able to ignore what science will reveal in the future. Perhaps it will be traditional materialists and atheists who will have to change to better concepts of God, who knows. The point is that change will occur; people on average are interested in the world and given the freedom want to learn about it. Things like nuclear proliferation or the affects of small sets of very strict narratives are more of a danger than any tendency of self destruction of the human race on large levels due to narrative uncertainty. Though this opinion is complicated by the possibility that religions like Islam might be too closed and gaps between people could become very wide narratively. This is probably a greater threat than adjustments to personal meaning or other forms of meaning.

Sorry for not dealing with the morality issue very much. Morality is a tricky thing. Hopefully it will continue down the path of letting people do what they want so long as it is between consenting adults and causes no harm. Ideas of societal health concern me, though there are some valid ones, they are often about restricting peoples rights. Uphold freedom of speech (no matter how vulgar or offensive) and set ‘do unto others as you would want to be done unto you’ as central to a moral core and your on the right track. Ideas of beings that can look into your mind and judge you, committing you to what in effect would be Guantanamo Bay set in North Korea with torture the likes of which the world has never witnessed, forever, should never have had any place in a moral construct. It amazes me that people still cannot see that you cannot be both a moral person and construct fabrications meant to scare children and adults on that sort of level. I would never do that to anyone, never mind a child. I could also never punish anyone I loved to that sort of degree, no matter the crime.

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I had a thought this morning, rather an obvious one in retrospect, but one i had previously taken for granted.

  Our notion of morality is relative - though we might choose some things as permanent moral absolutes - not killing etc. From the perspective of narratives then morality is also a narrative.

  This can be even more strongly shown when we look for good and evil outside of the human species. Was the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs evil? Perhaps from our own selfish point of view it was actually good. Is a falling rock evil? Is it if it falls on the head of a child, killing the child? Perhaps only when we ascribe intention to it, but intention is often a part of our narratives.

  This relates to my previous comment in how it ties into meaning. Good and evil are often part of our meaning constructs so it struck me when i suddenly percieved them as narratives, rather than something i had taken for granted. All pretty obvious when you think about it.

  Given how much time people can spend searching these [philosophical] attempts at finding meaning it occurred to me that since good and evil are often such important parts of the construct of that meaning, but they themselves are narratives we apply to our lives. It makes searching for meaning all the harder in this respect - it seems to me that it almost removes one of the criteria that people might use to identify meaning because it is part of our narrative rather than something else.

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Wow—-Ben. Great stuff. Reading your and Bill’s posts have really made me think and re-assess and focus and learn. As it should be.

We’re having a micro-brew beer-tasting festival downtown tonight. Sans being “around a table discussing this over a beer,” I’ll have one for both of you.

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Hay Paul, Thanks.

Have to say that my perspective has almost entirely shifted towards a narrative viewpoint in our interface with evidence.

There is much more to say of course as each choice we make and every experiment we perform relates or affects our narratives and I feel that there is much further to go to identify each aspect of our relationship with narrative – which parts we have taken for granted, such as good and evil.

To me there are still differences in narrative types, but some, such as meaning, are more obviously narratives than others, such as bee’s making honey or plate tectonics which seem better narratives for describing honey production or mountain building than dragons for example. Education in the evidence still seems to be the best way of telling the quality of narrative as a possible story of nature. In a sense I am still interested in deciding which ways might help narrative converge on whatever nature is, though I now see it much more from a narrative perspective.

I am not an artist (though my mother is) so narratives of painters such as Monet or Michelangelo could be anything (without education). I could adopt a position of incorporating into my own story that they were builders, not painters. In the same way people can choose to disavow evolution or geology. I listened to an audiobook of Brian Greene’s popular physics book The Fabric of the Universe (I have the book too, but wanted it for the car), i’ll tell you something here that i found fascinating, though whether you do will depend on how interested you are in the history of the universe and modern physics, as well as my ability to describe it; so whack your physics hat on.

If you were given a puzzle, a solid gold block on highly accurate scales, and told to somehow change the weight on the scales, how would you do it? You are not allowed to chip a bit off the block, or add a bit. In fact you are not allowed to change the number of atoms in the block at all. Nor are you allowed to push on it, or blow on it (or change gravity, if you could).

Newton would have said that it could not be done, and given up (possibly), claiming it impossible. Einstein however suggests a solution. Energy and mass are equivalent, change the blocks energy and you change its mass. So you increase the temperature of the block and low and behold the weight changes, though by a millionth of a pound.

Now you are set another challenge. Do the same again, change its weight, but this time you are not allowed to change its temperature.

Again Einstein offers a solution. One other variable in relativity that can affect the mass-energy of the system is pressure. Changing the pressure increases the energy in the system and so its weight would change on the scales. So if you imagine a jack-in-a-box, pressing the lid closed increases the pressure, this increases the energy so increases the mass-energy relationship and the weight increases.

Now here is the thing. If you increase the mass-energy then you increase gravity, no surprise there. More equivalent mass means more gravity right. However there is an interesting twist. Under certain conditions pressure can be negative. Negative pressure means a negative gravity, i.e. you get a repulsive gravity force, instead of the normal attractive one. If you have ever wondered, this is the explanation for the mysterious negative energy that physicists think is driving the expansion of the universe.

So a force is applying negative pressure to spacetime, which in turn is creating a repulsive gravitation and driving universal expansion. In the very early universe, if I understood it correctly, this force is called the Inflaton Field, and it drove the massive expansion period after the big bang, the period called Inflation. I guess this Inflaton Field still exists today, driving expansion, but it has slid down to a low potential energy state, which it did in the first second of the universe as it drove universal expansion.

Now here was the cool part. Imagine a box full of ping pong balls. The box is fully enclosed with no energy lost to the outside. However the walls of the box can expand. You might imagine that the energy of the ping pong balls inside the box would stay the same; no energy is being lost to the outside after all. However as the balls hit the walls of the box they cause it to expand and in turn they lose a little energy. Now imagine an elastic band tied to two sides of the box. As the box expanded the elastic band would be stretched, increasing its energy, increasing its tension (negative pressure). Can you see where this is going now! 

Our universe is expanding and gravity is the equivalent of the elastic band. As the universe expands the energy given to gravity increases, but this is a fuel source for the Inflaton Field so as the universe expands the Inflaton Field gains energy. To summarise, as the universe expand matter and radiation lose energy to gravity, while the Inflaton Field gains energy from gravity.

Now the really cool part. In the normal big bang theory mass-energy has been decreasing since the big bang – as the universe expanded, so at the big bang the mass-energy of the universe had to be unimaginably high to account for all the mass-energy seen spread though out the universe today. Therefore it doesn’t offer an explanation of where the mass and energy currently seen in the universe comes from.

In inflationary cosmology though the opposite is true. The question is whether the Inflaton Field can explain where all the mass and energy comes from. By heck yes – without even breaking a sweat. The Inflaton Field is a gravitational parasite and so the total energy the Inflaton Field carries increases as space expanded. Or mathematically (and I have had to go back to source now) the energy density of the Inflaton Field remained constant throughout the inflationary period (where the size of the universe doubled every ten to the minus 37th of a second), implying that the total energy it embodied grew in proportion to the volume of the space it occupied – a colossal amount (around ten to the 90th power or even more, since space expanded by ten 30th power and we are talking a cubed volume). Therefore, and amazingly, the Inflaton Field did not have to start with much energy as it was about to receive a colossal amount from the expansion – which it was about to drive though its negative pressure.

A simple calculation (apparently/for physicists I bet!) reveals, again quoting from source, shows that a tiny nugget of space around ten to the minus 26th power cm’s across and filled with a uniform Inflaton Field weighing just 20 lbs (!) would through the ensuing expansion period acquire enough energy to account for all the mass energy we see in the universe.

Now, to me, that is amazing, although my girlfriend doesn’t think it is very interesting at all, when I explained the same to her, but she isn’t at all interested in the sciences.

Now back to the original comment and sorry for the long winded explanation, but I had to tell someone. How does the above differ from the narrative in Lord of the Rings, or the Bible, or any other book? If there is no evidence for it then I think it doesn’t, however if evidence mounts, is cross checked by skeptics etc etc then I think it starts to take on a new type of position in narrative, something that should raise it somewhere above Lord of the Rings as a description of nature. Though still something that will always remain narrative, though in a different slot to what we would call ‘fiction’.

How do you two feel we should draw distinctions between fiction and evidence? Or try to tailor narrative to nature?

Great to chat

Ben

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Hi Ben and Paul,

Thanks for the great posts Ben.  I have spent the last few days thinking about your posts #40 and #41.  I too have become comfortable with the idea of “narrative”, but arrived at the same question(s) you raise.  Must all narratives be therefore equal?  Is choosing one a “folly of pretense”?  What are there criteria we could use to choose between them?  And finally, which can plausibly serve as a basis for ethical behavior and social justice?  (Thank you for re-introducing morality to the discussion).

After reading post #43 I am struck by one observation:  Evidence based narratives will be increasingly at a disadvantage when used as the basis for morality narratives because of their complexity.  How can a thought such as “the energy density of the Inflation Field remained constant throughout the inflationary period” be made comprehensible to the average man?  How can it compete with simple revealed wisdom such as Sharia law?  What are the implications for society?

That is perhaps an aside.  Our real issue remains finding a “rational” narrative that pleases our intellect and somehow connects to “meaning”. Frankly, at this point in our discussion I am more at sea than when we started.  Maybe “I’m OK, you’re OK” is the best we can do.

One last question: the article http://gfp.typepad.com/the_garden_of_forking_pat/2009/08/consciousness-control-and-responsibility.html
seems to indicate that, at least for certain physical behaviors, the brain chooses before the mind comprehends.  This is neither surprising nor disturbing for behaviors such as protective reflexes, or even “mindlessly” driving home, but raises obvious questions about agency that Paul noted earlier.  “I” (the conscious me) am comfortable sitting in the passenger seat of the car being driven by my brain for many “trips” but not the whole journey.  Can the mind physically alter the brain?  If so, does this help us on our journey to morality assuming we can choose a common narrative?

Thanks,

Bill

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Hay Bill,

Good to hear from you.

I agree. I am sure that all narratives are not equal. I think the question though is what are they not equal at.

There is definitely a school of thought that thinks all narrative should be considered equal. I agree with them when it comes to the narratives of Narnia verses Lord of the Rings versus crime fiction, versus romantic comedy etc. Both have their great value. This is a truly relativistic value though since the childhood scribling’s of my son have more value to me than any masterpiece in their emotional content even if not their skill.

Looking at science through this lense produces a viewpoint that will be contradictory to our ideas of evidence based reality. It is an entirely relativistic view of understanding. In fact it completely dismisses understanding in its philosophy, though it appears, at first glance, that it is not doing so since it upholds a principle of valuing all things as equal instead of being different things entirely. I would argue that equal value in explanatory terms for issues like vaccination or energy production is really of no value at all. They are just too far apart.

Pauls original comments about people searching for psychological meaning are relevant here. It feels to me as if many people are searching for a meaning they like, then perhaps because the psychology of belief manifests itself in only one way the meaning they like gets tied up in reality. If people could only say that they had found a meaning they liked, but accepted that it wasn’t actually reality then we would be a step further – especially where sciences search for reality and politics mingle.

Rules for testing whether something is fiction, fact or unknown are already well established. It is not that mankind has not yet discovered them. There is however an attempt at mystification to undermine either what we already understand (or the degree to which it is understood), or to highlight what is not understood. This is actually the same tactic used by the oil industries and anti global warming groups during the 80’s and 90’s – the injection of uncertainty. It is a common tactic if you do not have your own evidence and works very well when people do not understand the evidence or do not care.

I think it is important to realize that these debates are occurring outside of science. They are more to do with cultures accepting narratives rather than how they are generated within science.

Perhaps the attacks on the philosophy of science (also a good approach to increase uncertainty when you have no evidence) can be considered an attempt to equalize the narrative importance of each argument – to ‘up’ your own position in the absence of evidence.

I agree completely that the complexity of reality does not lend itself to simple narratives; easily digestible (intellectually and emotionally). This probably isn’t a good thing – especially where trying to educate children is involved.

Religion, for example, is now quite well tailored to evoke emotion easily without much thought. Using simple emotional switches such as (promise of and involvement of) love, parenthood, protection, and gifts of what we desire (eternal pleasure/happiness, numbers of virgins, eternal life, life without pain) it can activate powerful neural circuitry actively affecting the way we think and feel, even without a need to prove itself. To me this is becoming more of a moral issue, we should hold lying or even misusing philosophy to such extents to be an immoral act. I am being led down this path by the thought that most people doing this are trying to be good people and might be approachable using this type of argument, though I havn’t really voiced it as I am not yet sure of the actual rights in a moral framework of philosophy vs evidence. Though I think ‘this might all be a dream and you might not even be real’ or the relativistic nature of morality would not be a defense for theft or any other crime, so there are clear limits already imposed on philosophy vs evidence.

Scientific factual knowledge purposefully does not play with the emotional switches that religious arguments invoke – through memetic design perhaps (in the case of religion). It would be bad for science to condition children to love and see evolution as their savior’s - ideas in evolution (and all ideas in science) need to be free to change, they are not about fixed narrative. Even if in principle it could be done few, if any, would regard it a good thing. Emotionalising factual content is possible, but is a very good way to lay down the rail tracks that thought processes will then probabilistically follow. To control a persons heart is to control a persons mind (?). That might be a bit forceful in its language, but you would only need it to be slightly true to affect the statistics of decision making over a population and if you can do that then over time you can come to affect culture, and I think that it is more than just 5% true.

Back to morality I think this all plays into it. The differing brain involvement in religious belief as opposed to more ‘rational’ factual belief as shown by Sam’s research () shows something interesting. Morality must surely have an empathic and emotional basis. Sciences rationality can inform morality by affecting our understanding of our assumptions on which our emotions can be based – removing the magicality of the soul from blastocysts to allow stem cell research is a good example. There have been so many examples where magical thought has misguided our moral intuitive values (demons and epilepsy, praying for children instead of seeking healthcare etc), whereas animal welfare or the point of brain death and life support of coma victims are secular places where science informs morality, but I still think that it is this intuitive empathic value that we should be talking about, even though it would still result in greater diversity than writing rational laws down on paper.

Sam’s research shows something important. Rational thought would seem to not be using the emotional side of our brains so much. This is fine for deciding on the age of the earth or the effectiveness of aspirin or a cancer treatment, but for a more general approach to morality I would hope for the involvement of the other emotional aspect. This is the fear expressed by many who oppose a rational sense of morality, that it will also be unemotional. I do not think this is correct in any way. Rationality can be used to guide the inputs to our moral sense - in particular where there are magical inputs at the moment, plus other assumptions we make that we don’t see yet.

Animal welfare is guided by the input of knowledge of neural complexity. We do not care so much about swatting a fly compared to testing drugs on dogs. Perhaps we should. A cell is still ‘alive’, but its lack of a neural system for feeling pain makes us feel completely amoral to its destruction, in fact if it is cancerous we love to kill it. Oral sex is considered immoral in some parts of the world, yet an understanding that it causes no harm can guide our moral intuition. Ultimately it is such things as realization of harm weighed against freedom of choice that forms our morality.  Both of these are inputs to the decision because they are things we personally care about. We sense our own wellbeing enough to apply the same feeling to others; think mirror neurons.

The structure of morality can easily be built around what we value as individuals guided by inputs from rational thought pointing out incorrect assumptions about pain, suffering, healing and meaning.

I think what I have spoken about above is the simpler side of morality. It is perhaps more like your and my morality is likely to be. Still human, still emotional, but with the choices guided by rational findings affecting our ‘value statements’ about pain and suffering and in turn affecting our moral decisions.

The much harder aspect is where morality takes narrative as an input. Here I do not refer to the scientific narrative. Obviously science will continue to inform our ideas of harm. The harder part is in deciding the role of more fictional narrative in morality. Whether there is a place for it at all. I tend to think that the morality informed by science will probably be internally cohesive and humanistically complex enough at any one point that applying fictional narrative to it will only serve to make it more complex, counterintuitive (which might risk endangering the way moral sense is informed and creating immorality in otherwise moral people, such as happens today) and as a whole more contradictory. I cannot see this helping.

One last point to tackle here is meaning itself. Meaning has, in the past, been involved in forming the cultural idea set that has been used to inform our moral principles. Bare in mind that the moral sense is plastic; not in what the individual feels (our pain receptors are set by biology, not culture) as much as controlling the inputs that create the ‘rationality’ of the moral framework. The currently empty factual knowledge about ultimate meaning has created a void into which institutions have been able to control the inputs to the moral framework. (does that make sense?)

This is only really useful to the institutions though if they can control the cultural understanding of meaning itself. I think this is why we so often see the argument that science cannot add meaning. Not because it cannot; it clearly can since so many people, myself included, find meaning in it and since it actually provides real answers to these big questions that people search for the answers to. Controlling meaning in a culture (i.e. controlling what people grow up to consider meaning) is an important part of religious strategy. From this particular angle of the argument if you lose control of meaning then you have lost an input to the moral framework, and you lose some power.

Though I think many people would still not like the answers science comes out with, so would direct belief and meaning elsewhere, I think that the conditioning of belief and meaning in children is likely to be skewing the true value of this affect away from the real baseline of reality denial/reality preference.

In culture we have a hierarchy. Astrology is the narrative of astronomy; biblical creation is a narrative of geology. Just like some fables of Gods doing battle in the sky with nefarious giants was once the narrative of thunderstorms. Science is the (only serious attempt of a) narrative of reality.

As for the brain being affected by the mind or the subconscious being behind our actions. Hmmmm. I would like further research into this and for it to be popularized so I can understand it. So far it feels like the start of a subject rather than one in full swing.

I would start by addressing what it means to ‘feel’ like we ‘want’ to do something. If I feel like I want something to eat or my lust for my partner drives me in a certain direction of thought the process doesn’t have to begin with my conscious activity. Usually I become consciously aware I want something when I experience the emotion informing me I want it – I suspect this is quite important in ways I don’t understand – the emotion often comes first and what does that say? In many ways I go with the idea, in this example, that my consciousness is me having a veto of my desires. I don’t feel this needs to degrade my idea of consciousness (which after all is in many ways a narrative I create anyway – at least the story of ‘I’ is even if the biology is a bit different). We are obviously quite a mish-mash of sub-conscious drives and desires overlayed by a conscious ability that roughly approximates free will. I can starve myself to death I suppose, even if when I lapse my consciousness (day dream) I may find myself at the fridge. There is a feedback which my consciousness is definitely involved in, even if it isn’t the whole picture.

If we consider the evolution of consciousness on the long road of simple neural activity and response, through to something where some animals have something akin to subconscious activity without conscious thought (though this may just still be seen as plain old neural activity?) and finally through to the evolving veto emerging on top of all this maybe we have a hypothesis for our mish-mashed experience of consciousness. One thing is for sure, we are already far ahead in the complex ideas and evidence being generated than ancient ideas of symbiotic energy entities (the soul).

I have said a lot very quickly. I re-read it and some of it looks a little impenetrable without being on the thought trail I was on when I wrote it. Sorry that it is a little long winded.
Ben

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Hi Guys,

  Apologies for the previous essay. Please ignore the couple of grammatical errors; also the bit where i meant to get the reference Sams’s article - http://www.reasonproject.org/archive/item/the_neural_correlates_of_religious_and_nonreligious_belief/

  OK, i’ve had a thought regarding morality.

  What if so far we have been messing it up a little.

  I think there is such a thing as morality, but based around harm to the individual and the individuals rights.

  A simple starting point for this would be the immorality of violence, since it causes personal harm. In this i am going to refer to this as the ‘base morality’, since no matter the degree of moral relativism it can always be there. Pain caused by harm to the body is not relative to culture (though i accept that experience of pain might be in some respects).

  Now what if the notion of relativistic morality is a bit of a smoke screen. What if by changing the terms we can see it in a new light, something we could call ‘narratitive morality’. Where the narrative structure of the setting is actually used as an input to not just judge moral values, but actually define them.

  We now end up with a new means of analysing morality. Partitioning it in two, to a basal (non narrative) morality combined with a narrative component.

  Then we have something to debate. What should the role of the narrative component be? Given the natural relativism of narratives in culture, that they change over time, is it even moral to allow the narrative component to exceed the non-narrative component?

  I would start by stating the idea that the non-narrative component be defined by ‘do unto others what you would have done to yourself’. This is purely personally and physically defined. It does not need narrative. If you are happy being incarcerated without evidence or having your sex life controlled by the state then so be it, but it needs no narrative component. The same with what degree of pain/torture you are personally willing to accept in your own world, this would be the definition of what you would be happy with in others.

  The narrative component is more complex, but it strikes me that it will likely be less personal overall (less involved with the individual and more with the idea) and will probably be defined by ‘narrative content’ rather than personal physical boundaries and liberty boundaries. It will be most obvious in groups that have ‘idea sets’ they wish to apply to everybody else, and that will probably contain an obvious amount of narrative.

Ben

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Hi Ben,

I just wanted to make contact and let you know I am thinking about your thoughts above but absolutely overwhelmed at work and unable to put together a coherent reply.  I am working on a large construction project for my organization and hopefully I will see light of day before the years end (if we stay on schedule).

I came across this today though and thought it relevant to our discussion.

http://www.ted.com/talks/henry_markram_supercomputing_the_brain_s_secrets.html

Regards,

Bill

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Jeeze, you guys bring up so many interesting ideas that it’s hard to know where to begin to respond. 

I guess I will cut to the chase and get back to one of my first assertions; that is: the function of “narrative” is not to establish facts, or even represent reality. The function of narrative is to create a semiotic environment.  The psychological self is made of the action of signs: narratives: texts. These texts are woven together from all the narratives grand and not-so-grand that we encounter through our cultural experience , from personal to social.  The psychological self, made of narratives, requires a larger narrative environment, or context, within which to exist (all meaning being contextually based). 

So, I guess I take some small umbrage when Ben’s mind-boggling descriptions of the Big Band are described as narratives. As much as I appreciate and am moved by such accounts, in principle, this information is not dissimilar from a descriptions of billiard balls on a pool table, in that they describe the predictable causal relationship of material (or the probabilities of sub-atomic) processes. This can never be a true narrative; this is just a description of cause and effect.

Science is not about narrative. Science, if anything, is anti-narrative in that is seek closure. A true narrative, on the other hand, is a purposefully ambiguous an open structure that begs, that demands, closure. It is in the begging, this demand, for closure where meaning and possibility are engendered. A narrative is ALWAYS an open encounter. It must be for the universe to evolve, for human experience to strive in any vital way. 

I guess my position is that the narratives that much of the world lives by (religions) were written by ancient, ignorant individuals. Instead of destroying narrative with facts, I would encourage brilliant minds like Dawkins and Harris (forget Hitchens—high verbal I.Q.—zero as a thinker), to write narratives, stories, on the possibilities that Reason and science offer—-on the possibilities they offer, not on the answers they offer. Can science and reason with all their facts and data give “meaning” to our lives? Never. Can’t these smart people understand that the human existential predicament demands not facts, but purpose? Science offers humanity no purpose, just explanations of material phenomena. It doesn’t have to be this way. 

I have to confess, as a thinking, rational individual, it really kind of bugs me that smart men like Dennett can’t seem to grasp that the idea of “Dennett” is no less a “Folly of Pretense” than any Fundamentalist’s idea of god. We are caught in a paradox. We are figments of our own imagination. We can either rail against this paradox and die of meaninglessness, or we can assess the paradox for what it is, and, as smart, rational scientists, seize the day and make a more compassionate world. This stubborn need for facts as realty is so, frankly, intellectually immature.

The analogy I would cite is this: placebos work. People who “believe” that a sugar pill will help them actually do better. Now, instead of debunking the placebo effect (in essence Dawkins and Harrises’ science-based attack on the placebo of religion), why can’t smart, rational individuals see the “science” in this finding and use it to their advantage. In other words, instead of attacking religion, how about promoting science as something to (YES!) believe in!

I believe in science. I believe in its possibilities. No thanks to the famous atheist—-much thanks to Jules Verne.

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Hi Ben and Paul,

My attempts to respond are being rejected by the server.  I’ll keep trying.

Bill

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Perhaps it was too long.  In pieces then….

Hi Ben and Paul,

Paul, I must admit that I am still struggling with the concept of narrative as you understand it.  Perhaps Ben is as well.

Your paragraph connecting narrative to meaning is lucid.  That is, if I understand your usage, narrative (and therefore meaning) is “a figment of our imagination”.  But isn’t there also an element narrative in our science based cosmologies?  A “best fit line” connecting the data points that involves inference and therefore “narrative”?  That interpretation was understood, perhaps incorrectly, from your previous posts.

In any case, for me anyway, the interesting part of this discussion still has to do with the connection between the data of science and the narrative.  I think you do a disservice to science and scientists by saying that science seeks closure.  I don’t think that most scientists see their work this way at all.  Most (of us) see the scientific endeavor as an endless “serial adventure”, each new data set serving as a chapter in a never ending adventure mystery, the excitement and wonder stretching into infinity.  What new adventure will our hero (humanity) encounter?  Can they possibly escape their fate?  Stay tuned for our next exciting data set!

I also think you do a disservice to Dennett, one of the most sophisticated thinkers I have encountered.  I suspect he would be the first to agree with you that “Dennett” is a figment of his own imagination.

If I may abuse your patience once again, you might enjoy this recent lecture from Lawrence Krauss, a more entertaining speaker on the connection between science and meaning than I am a writer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ImvlS8PLIo&feature=player_embedded#

and here is another great mind at work who, in the end, makes connections similar to yours, from neuroscience to meaning and ethics.  Robert Sapolsky’s outstanding Stanford lecture on “The Uniqueness of Humans” : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s&feature=player_embedded

I hope you find these talks as interesting as I did. 

In case , if it isn’t already apparent, your posts and Ben’s tend to rattle around in my head for a while.  It always takes me a while to process and in the meantime I encounter similar threads of thought that seem relevant to the conversation.

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Ben,

I really appreciated your posts #43, #45 and #46 although I have a hard time following the science of inflationary fields (my limitations).  I agree (now) that it makes no sense to look outward into the cold, irrational, expanding!, universe for a foundation for morality and that instead we must look inward.  Your “two component” approach seems practical and methodologically sound.  “Do unto others…” has always seemed instinctively to be a good start towards morality.  I would be interested in your impressions from the Sapolsky lecture as it appears that “do unto others” is not unique to our species and therefore biologically determined.  Does that fact weaken it somehow?  Or is being true to our biological nature one definition of a moral existence?  Perhaps not just “being true” but carrying these biologically determined principles to hyper biological levels?

One last note, again connected to a piece of writing that seemed relevant to our discussions, humans, by nature and neurobiology are forward looking creatures.  A lot of our creation beliefs and moral systems, especially organized religions, have to do with looking forward and dealing with the issues of uncertainty, death, and eternity in a way that is reassuring, as opposed to “being in the moment”.  Your proposed basis for moral behavior escapes the typical fear based trap of typical religion and can be implemented entirely ”in the moment”.  I like it.

What follows is an elegant essay from the NY Times that covers a lot of the same ground Paul has discussed in previous posts but with an additional twist: we need to die in order to give our lives form and meaning. 

Here is the link,

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/happy-ending/?scp=9&sq=happiness&st=cse

but if you don’t subscribe, here is the essay.

November 2, 2009, 8:25 pm
Happy Ending
By TODD MAY
In the spring of 2004 I took a flight from my home near Greenville, S.C., to New York to visit my dying step-grandmother. We had been close, and it would be one of the last times I would get to see her. As the flight was about to land, it abruptly ascended and headed toward the Empire State Building. The passengers on the plane became quiet; the aura of 9/11 was hanging in the air.
We flew over the Empire State Building (but too close to the antenna for my comfort) and circled back to La Guardia. As it turned out, a small commuter plane had decided to land without taking account of our aircraft, so the pilot had had to make a quick move. But in those moments when it seemed I was aboard another human missile, I revisited my life. I realized, almost to my surprise, that I would not have traded it in for another life. There had been disappointments, to be sure, but my life appeared to me to have been a meaningful one, a life I did not regret. This is not to say that I was not nearly paralyzed with fear. I was. At the same time, strangely, my life appeared to me as worth having lived.

There are two lessons here. The first, and most obvious one, is that death is terrifying. Here in the United States, we have the technology to defer death, so we often pretend it will never really happen to us. There is always another procedure, always a cure in sight if not in hand. But in our sober moments we recognize that we will indeed die, and that we have precious little control over when it will happen.
The harm of death goes to the heart of who we are as human beings. We are, in essence, forward-looking creatures. We create our lives prospectively. We build relationships, careers, and projects that are not solely of the moment but that have a future in our vision of them. One of the reasons Eastern philosophies have developed techniques to train us to be in the moment is that that is not our natural state. We are pulled toward the future, and see the meaning of what we do now in its light.
Death extinguishes that light. And because we know that we will die, and yet we don’t know when, the darkness that is ultimately ahead of each of us is with us at every moment. There is, we might say, a tunnel at the end of this light. And since we are creatures of the future, the darkness of death offends us in our very being. We may come to terms with it when we grow old, but unless our lives have become a burden to us coming to terms is the best we can hope for.
The second, less obvious lesson of this moment of facing death is that in order for our lives to have a shape, in order that they not become formless, we need to die. This will strike some as counterintuitive, even a little ridiculous. But in order to recognize its truth, we should reflect a bit on what immortality might mean.
Immortality lasts a long time. It is not for nothing that in his story “The Immortal” Jorge Luis Borges pictures the immortal characters as unconcerned with their lives or their surroundings. Once you’ve followed your passion — playing the saxophone, loving men or women, traveling, writing poetry — for, say, 10,000 years, it will likely begin to lose its grip. There may be more to say or to do than anyone can ever accomplish. But each of us develops particular interests, engages in particular pursuits. When we have been at them long enough, we are likely to find ourselves just filling time. In the case of immortality, an inexhaustible period of time.
And when there is always time for everything, there is no urgency for anything. It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments. It would become boring, but more deeply it would become shapeless. Just one damn thing after another.
This is the paradox death imposes upon us: it grants us the possibility of a meaningful life even as it takes it away. It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many.
I prefer to think that the paradox of death is the source not of despair but instead of the limited hope that is allotted to us as human beings. We cannot live forever, to be sure, but neither would we want to. We ought not to mind the fact that we will die, although we really would rather that it not be today. Probably not tomorrow either. But it is precisely because we cannot control when we will die, and know only that we will, that we can look upon our lives with the seriousness they merit. Death takes away from us no more than it has conferred: lives whose significance lies in the fact they are not always with us.
Our happiness lies in being able to inhabit that fact.

Cheers,

Bill

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Bill,

I do subscribe, and saw the piece you posted, and was moved and I agree.  I haven’t yet looked at the link Krauss and Sapolsky links you posted, but I will.

You write: “I think you do a disservice to science and scientists by saying that science seeks closure.  I don’t think that most scientists see their work this way at all.  Most (of us) see the scientific endeavor as an endless “serial adventure”, each new data set serving as a chapter in a never ending adventure mystery, the excitement and wonder stretching into infinity.  What new adventure will our hero (humanity) encounter?  Can they possibly escape their fate?  Stay tuned for our next exciting data set!”

I’m attracted to science for perhaps the same “ah-ha!” experience it offers you. Just reading Ben’s description of the origins of matter gives me tingles. One cannot open a decent science journal these days and not go “ah-ha!”  In fact, I would say that for me the discoveries of science offer something close to a “spiritual” experience, but!—- for specific reasons.

I my life, I have come to see that whatever spiritual events I have had are all reducible to a fundamental process—-that is: they deconstruct the narrative of the self. When we look into the Grand Canyon, an infants hand, a single cell, a star-studded night sky (their stupendous distances), we feel awe and insignificance. Well, of course, outside of our own narrative we ARE insignificant. And if we peer deeply enough into ourselves, we find not only that we have no significance, but we find that we don’t even exist at all, that we are, in fact a “folly of pretense” in our own minds. To the extent science directly or indirectly demystifies this narrative of self, we go “ah ha!” And I guess this leads me back to your statement, because any “adventure” we feel from science is as well still based, I would posit, on this deep seated narrative of self (perhaps even evolved and hard-wired within us) that can persistently infer and thus evoke a feeling of adventure out of random meaninglessness.  In short, there’s no narrative in science without first a solid “faith” in the folly of pretense called self. (Strange paradox!)

Also, it interesting that you use the word “hero.”  It’s no leap to claim that the “hero” in Western Literature represents the ascendant “agency” in our collective consciousness (especially in the West, with its two pillars of Will and Reason).  The hero represents the “I”; the free self; agency in the world, and, yes, for our brand of humanity to continue on as it does, it must have a hero.  But, all heroes are mythological. Without the myth—-no adventure. 
Without the myth of self (folly of pretense): no science.

And again: “each new data set serving as a chapter in a never ending adventure mystery, the excitement and wonder stretching into infinity.  What new adventure will our hero (humanity) encounter?”
But I would suggest that science relishes these mysteries not so much for their mystery as for the opportunity they offer to dispel yet another mystery, as it marches along on a mission to demystify existence—-stubbornly refusing ( too cowardly?) to demystify its own “folly of pretense” that drives it.

(You recommend Krauss and Sapolsky. I would recommend a book by brain scientist Rodolfo Llinas, “The “I” of the vortex”.)

I keep thinking “last post” but I keep coming back.

Later

And believe me, when all is said and done, I hold nothing but the deepest respect for Dennett. I guess I’m just trying to emphasize a point with sarcasm.

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Hi All,
 
  Really sorry I haven’t been around. I have a three year old and a six month old so I have very little time at the moment. It is early in the morning though so I thought I would pen a quick reply.
 
Bill,
  I haven’t had enough time to really mull over any of the above, but my first thoughts are that in the same way that we can definitely say that bathing in 1000 degree lava will kill you, that drinking deadly poisons will do the same, or that jumping from the top of a tall building will very likely hurt badly or kill, we can also say that the reason morality has its relativity is because it simply does not exist in the same way.

  I might be tempted to go further and say that it exists, but in the same way as money. There is existence, and then there is Existence. Money is real, but it disappears if humanity does, it is our creation. The bits of paper will remain for a while of course and perhaps being composed of matter gives form to reality so that cars and buildings might exist for a while without us; so we can at least say they are more real than concepts such as money, or indeed, morality. What I mean to say is that some things are more concepts than real, and that concepts, by their nature, do no Exist – they exist.

  Behavior exists, of course, and morality falls into this bracket. The way we build a boat exists, though it is different to how it was done in the past. Boat building exists, but the way we build boats is relative. Behavior is relative.

  That is probably complicated as I would say genes Exist and genes can create behavior. With morality though genes are creating a background to any rules we might create through creating the emotional and intuitive systems that guide us (overlain by culture and experience through the eyes of the cultural experience). They may lay down a few rail tracks for our social behavior that create certain mathematical solutions, which include altruism, kin favourship, covert and occasional overt deceit etc, but, at least for us, they do not force our behavior. We could call them weak rather than strong factors in the mental systems on which the relativity of morality occurs.

  Given evolution even biology is relative so my attempt to underpin a description of a base morality using neurons and pain is relative, but I would argue that it is the least relative and though it might be relative in deep time it is not really relative on a day/year level, though it changes more on a person person level when brain dysfunction occurs. It will do for a base to morality for us, stuck in our bodies, built with these genes, over this short time scale. If we healed like Wolverine and felt very little pain (perhaps through genetic manipulation) or were immortal then the rules of morality would surely change in many situations.

  Because of this morality itself cannot be weakened if other animals display ‘do unto others’. The fact that we are biological and that we exhibit biological features need not affect our view of our biology, so to speak. We might start to get a bit crazy, as societies, if we let it. Ideas of morality being special to us certainly can be weakened by this though, and this should be understood in the context of our morality having many biological aspects, but these not being entirely recognized in the history of our species, meanwhile philosophy had free reign to design interpretations of morality as it saw fit. I.e. the philosophical/theological (since theology is the daughter of philosophy) through simply lacked the insight and knowledge to understand the biological basis of morality, created there own, and now we are simply confused about it. It is only this confusion that can lead to questions about whether morality can be undermined by knowledge of its biological relationships. (We are still free to fight for morality in terms of human rights, individual rights, limitation of suffering etc)

  I would only add that this be understood in the context that while behaviors exist, the limitations we choose to place on behavior do not, at least not in any physical sense. I guess the idea of God derived morality was an attempt to make them ‘Exist’ in some way.

  So pain is real (it Exists), and we don’t like it, all for biological reasons. We want to personally avoid it, and have evolved to literally feel pain in a similar, though watered down fashion, if we see harm occurring to others in the way it might to us. So empathy can be seen as an attempt to get us to control our environment in a way that reduces pain to others and hopefully ultimately to us. Or more directly as simply we don’t like our mirror neurons firing and causing us pain when we see it happening to others, so we try and stop it. This is the selfish gene in action, with its greater ramifications, and exhibiting the social and co-operative features that people find hard to understand as being ‘selfish’. Genes being selfish is obviously a different thing to people being selfish in that genes can make us moral to their own selfish advantage – though you need to throw in sexual selection to achieve this. Perhaps we like mates who try to minimize the pain caused to us by our own mirror neurons and we are all in a giant mirror neuron feedback loop and are trying to reduce it since it really does hurt, and this drives us to minimize the pain of others.

  So what of the romantic view of morality? That view of morality that is pure and without any of the negative aspects that the pure morality would itself judge to be immoral? I would argue that this is the narrative. Philosophers and theologians (theologians in particular) have taken notions from our moral base and blown them into romantic narratives of the underlying biological morality. It is this narrative that creates the confusion with regard to selfish actions being permissible in moral actions.

  I am just as intuitively confused about this as everyone else. I was raised with the narrative and am left with the confusion. My gut tells me that morality (or maybe the idea of morality) must be pure and that nothing inconsistent with morality can be used to form morality. I would say to myself that this is not the case. We can accept the nature of morality without degrading it. Accepting that we are trying to reduce pain to others because we do not like it (to be reductionist - it makes our mirror neurons fire and causes us to feel pain) we can progress to create infrastructure and legislation that seeks this goal. Just like not sticking our hands in fire, we try to reduce the pain of others. Better, we can feel good when we see others feeling good (positive mirror neuron activity?), while we don’t feel as good when we don’t put our hands in the flames.

  I like the essay about death being important to framing our lives, but it misses a couple of things. The writer is assuming that while being immortal we would have an infinite memory, which need not be an assumption. As important as this, things in life create pleasure because we have pleasure centers in our brains. If these were still there then there is no reason that something couldn’t trigger them. Boredom might be a problem, though it is not clear that we can become bored by an infinite number of things. However I am not disagreeing with him, an infinite amount of time is forever after all. The universe isn’t even expected to last that long! This should be seen as a nihilistic view of immortality though. It might be nicer to have it and just be able to forget. Maybe people will know one day. People are already asking what it might be like to upload our minds into a computer. Anything confined to this universe will not be truly immortal of course, if our universe is finite, but ask the lucky people who live it what they think and they might not choose death as preferable to thousands or millions of years of virtual reality limited only by imagination.
 
  Right now though much of our philosophy, art, culture, architecture, beliefs (affecting global politics) is about the battle of coming to terms with death; whether this is responsible or not is for everyone to judge.

That is all the time I have for now, there were other points by us all to address. Hopefully we will have the time.

Ben

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