One of my pet peeves is when people confuse the fallacy of authority with the argument from authority. The former is better called the fallacy of irrelevant authority, since it's when you use the views of someone who is an authority in a particular subject to justify positions outside of that subject. It's the irrelevant part that makes it a fallacy, not the authority part. For example, I often see letters to the editor, editorials, and essays where the writer uses his status as an academic to promote his political views, even though his academic standing is in a field completely unrelated to political science. Such a person's political views carry no more weight than yours or mine or anyone else's.
By contrast the argument from authority is a perfectly valid form of argumentation in informal logic. It takes as its premise that an authority on a subject is more likely correct about that subject than not. In my opinion the most it can do is shift the burden of proof to one who is denying or arguing against the authority's position. Also, in order to have any strength, I think it has to be an argument from the consensus of authorities on a subject, since you can always find some authority in some discipline willing to make outrageous claims.
In formal logic, however, arguments from authority are invalid. This is because the validity of a syllogism is completely distinct from the person presenting it. However, again, some people think this means that any appeal to authority is invalid, regardless of whether it falls into formal or informal logic. For example, I've actually had discussions with people who think Jesus never existed, and when I mention that their view contradicts those of virtually all historians who have written on the subject, they yell, "Appeal to authority! Invalid!" Of course it's not invalid at all. It's perfectly appropriate to look to those who have devoted their lives to the study of the subject under debate to see how they have assessed the evidence. Again, I think it only goes so far -- it's a weak argument -- but it's still a valid argument, as long as you're working outside of formal logic.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Anthropic Principle for Misanthropes, part 2
(See also part 1)
In part 1 I explained what the Anthropic Principle is and gave some examples to illustrate it. Basically, the idea is that certain conditions must be met in order for life to be possible anywhere in the universe at any time in its history. These conditions are so numerous and so unlikely that, when added together, they make it virtually impossible for there to be a planet capable of supporting life -- at least advanced life -- anywhere in the universe if left to chance. Since there is a planet capable of supporting life (Earth in case you were wondering) it suggests that it wasn't left to chance, that someone intended that the universe would be hospitable to life.
However, while the basic facts are not disputed by scientists in the relevant disciplines, the theistic conclusion is a matter of controversy; some scientists accept it, others don't (here's an interesting sample). In this post I'll go over some of the most common objections made against this inference. I'm saving two objections that require lengthier responses for the next post.
1. "We would not be here to observe the universe unless the very unlikely did happen, so of course we're going to notice how the universe 'just happens' to have the necessary conditions for life." This was my first thought when I heard about the Anthropic Principle for the first time. However, it really doesn't hold any water if you think about it for more than a few seconds. The fact that we are here of course proves that the necessary conditions for life's existence have been met, regardless of how unlikely it is; but the question is not whether these conditions have been met but how they've been met. And the fact that they are unlikely to the point of being impossible shows that they were not met by chance.
The common analogy I've seen in the philosophical literature is the firing squad. If a man were sent to be executed by a hundred sharpshooters and he survives the experience, he could draw two conclusions: they all missed by chance, or they intended him to live (by missing on purpose or filling the guns with blanks for instance). But he would not take the fact that he was alive as evidence that it happened by chance. He would not say, "I wouldn't be here to observe the fact that I'm alive unless I survived -- therefore they must have missed accidentally." In fact the more unlikely his "being alive" was, the more rational it would be for him to conclude that someone decided he should live. In the same way the rational conclusion to draw from the incredible degree of fine-tuning we find in the universe is that someone decided we should live.
2. "We don't have enough information to warrant drawing any conclusions, much less theistic ones." There is certainly some truth to this; the Anthropic Principle is a relatively young field of study, and we should bear this in mind. However, it should also be borne in mind that all of the research has consistently pointed in the same direction: that the prerequisites for life's existence are very specific. Perhaps future scientific discoveries will overturn this evidence, but this could be said of virtually any scientific claim (although it's less implausible for younger fields of study than older ones). At any rate, this isn't really an objection to the theistic conclusion, but to the data itself, and virtually all scientists in the relevant disciplines acknowledge the data.
I also have to say I find it interesting that when scientific discoveries can be seen as going against belief in God, this objection is rarely given. It's only when science seems to point to God that people start suggesting that we can't really draw any conclusions.
3. "We don't have any other universes to compare this one with, so we can't say how likely or unlikely it is for these conditions to be what they are." In the first post I stated that there are two levels to the Anthropic Principle: the conditions that have to be met within the universe, and the conditions that have to be met in the universe as a whole. The conditions that fall into the latter category are initial conditions that are simply given in the Big Bang itself. Since they are initial conditions, there are no prior physical conditions that force them to be the way they are, by definition. There are only two possible conclusions from this: first, that these initial conditions could have been different. Or second, that there were non-physical conditions forcing the universe's physical conditions to be what they are. The first leads to the problem the Anthropic Principle poses: that the universe simply shouldn't be able to support life if left to its own resources, and yet it does. The second leads to the conclusion that there is some non-physical reality, external to the universe, that is able to exert some degree of power over the universe. Thus, both of these conclusions have theistic repercussions.
As for the the conditions that have to be met within the universe, some of them are indeed speculative. For example, while we have no reason to think that planets inherently form with exactly the same surface gravity or axial tilt as Earth, we have not discovered enough extra-solar planets to test it directly. However, many of these conditions are not speculative, but are easily calculable. For example, in order for a planet to be able to support life it must be in a certain type of galaxy, in a certain part of the galaxy, orbiting a certain type of star, etc. It is easily observable and demonstrable how common these conditions are.
Moreover, the fact that we have a sample size of one actually supports the theistic conclusion. This will be demonstrated in the response to one of the objections in the next post.
4. "Chance and intent are not the only two explanations possible. There's also natural law. If there's a law which makes the universe and planets capable of supporting life, the odds of there being other possible life-sites in the universe would be very likely." Well, as pointed out above, the conditions necessary for the universe as a whole are initial conditions. As such, there is no preceding natural law forcing them to be they way they are by definition. The necessary conditions within the universe could, theoretically, be shown to be the result of as-yet-undiscovered natural laws. But in the absence of any evidence for such laws, this suggestion is completely ad hoc, since virtually anything could be explained as the result of some natural law we just haven't discovered yet. Besides, this would only push the problem back to the level of the universe as a whole: any law that makes the universe hospitable to life would have to be exactly what it is in order to ensure that the specific properties necessary for the existence of life are met. The universe would still be fine-tuned for the existence of life, and we'd still need an explanation for why this is the case.
5. "If you change one physical constant it may throw everything off-kilter, but then you can change the other physical constants to compensate for it, and bring it back to being a universe hospitable to life." Incredibly enough, scientists already thought of that. The obvious problem is that changing the other constants does not merely compensate for changing the first one; it would also have dramatic effects which would require us to change more constants, which would have their own effects requiring further changes, etc. There are a few cases where you could do this and end up with a life-permitting universe, but they would be extremely rare. It's like taking a medication that has significant side effects. You then have to take other medications to regulate these side effects, but then these medications also have side effects, so you need to take more medications...
Of course, this analogy only goes so far: taking more medications may actually bring some degree of health to the body. With the universe's physical constants, however, it is almost impossible to alter them and still end up with a life-permitting universe.
6. "Someone wins the lottery, and it would be irrational for that person to think that the extreme improbabilities involved in her winning would demonstrate that someone set it up for her to win. Similarly, life is the result of this universe. This doesn't allow us to think it was set up intentionally to be this way." To illustrate this objection, say you had, for some ungodly reason, billions of ping pong balls and inscribed each one with someone's name until you had one for every person in the world. Also say you had a big enough basket to hold all of them. You then mix them all up and pull one out while blindfolded. Obviously someone's name will be drawn, even though the odds were one in several billion that you would select that particular ball. Similarly, the fact that we have a universe with the specific properties it has may have been improbable, but that does not allow us to draw any conclusions about whether it was "arranged."
But this is a bad analogy. A better one would be if, every time you tweak the universe's properties, you paint a ping pong ball black if it permits the existence of life, and just leave it white if it does not. What you would end up with is an ocean of white ping pong balls with only a handful of black ones scattered throughout. Now of course the odds that you would pull any particular ping pong ball out is equally improbable; but the odds that you would pull out a white ping pong ball is enormously more probable than the odds that you would pull out a black one. Similarly, the odds that the universe would be life-prohibiting is vastly more probable than for it to be life-permitting -- unless someone decided to make it hospitable to life.
This objection seems to be suggesting that life -- the result of this universe -- is arbitrary. Any other universe would have had results too. The problem with this is that all the other possible universes would have had essentially the same result: just matter and energy in motion, and often not even the motion. Ours has something on a whole different level, and the universe must be balanced on a razor's edge in order for it to be that way.
In part 1 I explained what the Anthropic Principle is and gave some examples to illustrate it. Basically, the idea is that certain conditions must be met in order for life to be possible anywhere in the universe at any time in its history. These conditions are so numerous and so unlikely that, when added together, they make it virtually impossible for there to be a planet capable of supporting life -- at least advanced life -- anywhere in the universe if left to chance. Since there is a planet capable of supporting life (Earth in case you were wondering) it suggests that it wasn't left to chance, that someone intended that the universe would be hospitable to life.
However, while the basic facts are not disputed by scientists in the relevant disciplines, the theistic conclusion is a matter of controversy; some scientists accept it, others don't (here's an interesting sample). In this post I'll go over some of the most common objections made against this inference. I'm saving two objections that require lengthier responses for the next post.
1. "We would not be here to observe the universe unless the very unlikely did happen, so of course we're going to notice how the universe 'just happens' to have the necessary conditions for life." This was my first thought when I heard about the Anthropic Principle for the first time. However, it really doesn't hold any water if you think about it for more than a few seconds. The fact that we are here of course proves that the necessary conditions for life's existence have been met, regardless of how unlikely it is; but the question is not whether these conditions have been met but how they've been met. And the fact that they are unlikely to the point of being impossible shows that they were not met by chance.
The common analogy I've seen in the philosophical literature is the firing squad. If a man were sent to be executed by a hundred sharpshooters and he survives the experience, he could draw two conclusions: they all missed by chance, or they intended him to live (by missing on purpose or filling the guns with blanks for instance). But he would not take the fact that he was alive as evidence that it happened by chance. He would not say, "I wouldn't be here to observe the fact that I'm alive unless I survived -- therefore they must have missed accidentally." In fact the more unlikely his "being alive" was, the more rational it would be for him to conclude that someone decided he should live. In the same way the rational conclusion to draw from the incredible degree of fine-tuning we find in the universe is that someone decided we should live.
2. "We don't have enough information to warrant drawing any conclusions, much less theistic ones." There is certainly some truth to this; the Anthropic Principle is a relatively young field of study, and we should bear this in mind. However, it should also be borne in mind that all of the research has consistently pointed in the same direction: that the prerequisites for life's existence are very specific. Perhaps future scientific discoveries will overturn this evidence, but this could be said of virtually any scientific claim (although it's less implausible for younger fields of study than older ones). At any rate, this isn't really an objection to the theistic conclusion, but to the data itself, and virtually all scientists in the relevant disciplines acknowledge the data.
I also have to say I find it interesting that when scientific discoveries can be seen as going against belief in God, this objection is rarely given. It's only when science seems to point to God that people start suggesting that we can't really draw any conclusions.
3. "We don't have any other universes to compare this one with, so we can't say how likely or unlikely it is for these conditions to be what they are." In the first post I stated that there are two levels to the Anthropic Principle: the conditions that have to be met within the universe, and the conditions that have to be met in the universe as a whole. The conditions that fall into the latter category are initial conditions that are simply given in the Big Bang itself. Since they are initial conditions, there are no prior physical conditions that force them to be the way they are, by definition. There are only two possible conclusions from this: first, that these initial conditions could have been different. Or second, that there were non-physical conditions forcing the universe's physical conditions to be what they are. The first leads to the problem the Anthropic Principle poses: that the universe simply shouldn't be able to support life if left to its own resources, and yet it does. The second leads to the conclusion that there is some non-physical reality, external to the universe, that is able to exert some degree of power over the universe. Thus, both of these conclusions have theistic repercussions.
As for the the conditions that have to be met within the universe, some of them are indeed speculative. For example, while we have no reason to think that planets inherently form with exactly the same surface gravity or axial tilt as Earth, we have not discovered enough extra-solar planets to test it directly. However, many of these conditions are not speculative, but are easily calculable. For example, in order for a planet to be able to support life it must be in a certain type of galaxy, in a certain part of the galaxy, orbiting a certain type of star, etc. It is easily observable and demonstrable how common these conditions are.
Moreover, the fact that we have a sample size of one actually supports the theistic conclusion. This will be demonstrated in the response to one of the objections in the next post.
4. "Chance and intent are not the only two explanations possible. There's also natural law. If there's a law which makes the universe and planets capable of supporting life, the odds of there being other possible life-sites in the universe would be very likely." Well, as pointed out above, the conditions necessary for the universe as a whole are initial conditions. As such, there is no preceding natural law forcing them to be they way they are by definition. The necessary conditions within the universe could, theoretically, be shown to be the result of as-yet-undiscovered natural laws. But in the absence of any evidence for such laws, this suggestion is completely ad hoc, since virtually anything could be explained as the result of some natural law we just haven't discovered yet. Besides, this would only push the problem back to the level of the universe as a whole: any law that makes the universe hospitable to life would have to be exactly what it is in order to ensure that the specific properties necessary for the existence of life are met. The universe would still be fine-tuned for the existence of life, and we'd still need an explanation for why this is the case.
5. "If you change one physical constant it may throw everything off-kilter, but then you can change the other physical constants to compensate for it, and bring it back to being a universe hospitable to life." Incredibly enough, scientists already thought of that. The obvious problem is that changing the other constants does not merely compensate for changing the first one; it would also have dramatic effects which would require us to change more constants, which would have their own effects requiring further changes, etc. There are a few cases where you could do this and end up with a life-permitting universe, but they would be extremely rare. It's like taking a medication that has significant side effects. You then have to take other medications to regulate these side effects, but then these medications also have side effects, so you need to take more medications...
Of course, this analogy only goes so far: taking more medications may actually bring some degree of health to the body. With the universe's physical constants, however, it is almost impossible to alter them and still end up with a life-permitting universe.
6. "Someone wins the lottery, and it would be irrational for that person to think that the extreme improbabilities involved in her winning would demonstrate that someone set it up for her to win. Similarly, life is the result of this universe. This doesn't allow us to think it was set up intentionally to be this way." To illustrate this objection, say you had, for some ungodly reason, billions of ping pong balls and inscribed each one with someone's name until you had one for every person in the world. Also say you had a big enough basket to hold all of them. You then mix them all up and pull one out while blindfolded. Obviously someone's name will be drawn, even though the odds were one in several billion that you would select that particular ball. Similarly, the fact that we have a universe with the specific properties it has may have been improbable, but that does not allow us to draw any conclusions about whether it was "arranged."
But this is a bad analogy. A better one would be if, every time you tweak the universe's properties, you paint a ping pong ball black if it permits the existence of life, and just leave it white if it does not. What you would end up with is an ocean of white ping pong balls with only a handful of black ones scattered throughout. Now of course the odds that you would pull any particular ping pong ball out is equally improbable; but the odds that you would pull out a white ping pong ball is enormously more probable than the odds that you would pull out a black one. Similarly, the odds that the universe would be life-prohibiting is vastly more probable than for it to be life-permitting -- unless someone decided to make it hospitable to life.
This objection seems to be suggesting that life -- the result of this universe -- is arbitrary. Any other universe would have had results too. The problem with this is that all the other possible universes would have had essentially the same result: just matter and energy in motion, and often not even the motion. Ours has something on a whole different level, and the universe must be balanced on a razor's edge in order for it to be that way.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Man on Fire
Denzel Washington's movies have increasingly had religious, and specifically Christian, elements in them. A few years ago, I saw Man on Fire, and it demonstrated this point well. Washington stars as a former assassin named Creasy. At the beginning, he asks an old friend (also a former assassin, played by Christopher Walken) if he thinks God could ever forgive them for what they’ve done. Walken says no, and Creasy agrees.
Walken gets him a job as a bodyguard for a little girl named Pita (played by Dakota Fanning). She’s a complete charmer, but Creasy resists for fear of caring for someone. Further events with religious or spiritual aspects take place: he describes himself to the mother superior at Pita’s school as the "sheep who got lost". Pita’s mother walks into Creasy’s room and sees an open Bible. "You read the Bible?" "Yeah, sometimes". "Does it help?" Yeah, sometimes". He tries to commit suicide, but the bullet has some flaw and doesn’t go off. Divine intervention?
Eventually, Pita wins Creasy over and shows him "it’s all right to live again" as Walken’s character puts it. Not long after, as he reaches for his nightly bottle of Jack Daniels, he pauses, puts it back, and then opens his Bible instead.
If it had ended here, it would have been an uplifting story about how none of us are beyond the pale, beyond the hope of redemption. It also would have been an after school special instead of a Hollywood action movie. Spiritual growth is boring.
Of course you already know what happens. They never have characters like Pita in movies unless they are put in mortal danger in order to tweak our emotions. The truly good person, the one who doesn’t deserve to suffer, suffers. The little girl is kidnapped. So Creasy goes back into assassination mode and starts torturing and killing -- in very artistic ways as Walken’s character again puts it -- everybody involved in the kidnapping.
Revenge movies like this usually employ a sense of divine justice -- that is, the protagonist has suffered at the hands of others, and so wreaks his wrath upon them mightily. The bad guys have exerted their wills against the good guy: "If you love your son/daughter/ husband/wife/mother/father/whatever, you’ll do what I say". But then the good guy exerts his will against the bad guys, so they get what’s coming to them. Thus you have the miracle of payback.
Ultimately this type of movie is about people exerting power over others. But nobody can actually live this way. As long as we encounter other people, we are faced with other egos who have as much free will, as much value and worth, and as much right to live as we do. It may make you sound tough to say that you will never give an inch, and that nothing and no one can stop you. But it’s false. This is why Sartre said that "Hell is other people". This is why Nietzsche wrote that his philosophy was more aesthetically pleasing than the "traditional" ideas of love and respect.
This is also why movies such as Terminator are so popular, especially with guys. Arnie played the ultimate male fantasy: he gets whatever he wants, he can’t be stopped, and anyone who gets in his way is eliminated without any remorse. Did you catch that? Not only does he kill anyone for any reason, he is free from any sense of recognizing others as individuals, as sacred, as having any existential value. It’s why Brad Pitt said in Fight Club "It’s only after you’ve lost everything" (i.e. your sense of self-worth and value) "that you’re free to do anything" (i.e. reject the worth and value of others as well). Once you reject the value of other people, you are no longer enslaved by the idea that you should take them into account as you live your life. You're free to live life on your own terms.
But again, this is all an illusion. As long as there are other beings in existence -- and you have to figure that the odds for that are at least 2 to 1 -- their rights, their needs, their wants and desires have to be taken into account. The only alternative to this is psychopathy.
Walken gets him a job as a bodyguard for a little girl named Pita (played by Dakota Fanning). She’s a complete charmer, but Creasy resists for fear of caring for someone. Further events with religious or spiritual aspects take place: he describes himself to the mother superior at Pita’s school as the "sheep who got lost". Pita’s mother walks into Creasy’s room and sees an open Bible. "You read the Bible?" "Yeah, sometimes". "Does it help?" Yeah, sometimes". He tries to commit suicide, but the bullet has some flaw and doesn’t go off. Divine intervention?
Eventually, Pita wins Creasy over and shows him "it’s all right to live again" as Walken’s character puts it. Not long after, as he reaches for his nightly bottle of Jack Daniels, he pauses, puts it back, and then opens his Bible instead.
If it had ended here, it would have been an uplifting story about how none of us are beyond the pale, beyond the hope of redemption. It also would have been an after school special instead of a Hollywood action movie. Spiritual growth is boring.
Of course you already know what happens. They never have characters like Pita in movies unless they are put in mortal danger in order to tweak our emotions. The truly good person, the one who doesn’t deserve to suffer, suffers. The little girl is kidnapped. So Creasy goes back into assassination mode and starts torturing and killing -- in very artistic ways as Walken’s character again puts it -- everybody involved in the kidnapping.
Revenge movies like this usually employ a sense of divine justice -- that is, the protagonist has suffered at the hands of others, and so wreaks his wrath upon them mightily. The bad guys have exerted their wills against the good guy: "If you love your son/daughter/ husband/wife/mother/father/whatever, you’ll do what I say". But then the good guy exerts his will against the bad guys, so they get what’s coming to them. Thus you have the miracle of payback.
Ultimately this type of movie is about people exerting power over others. But nobody can actually live this way. As long as we encounter other people, we are faced with other egos who have as much free will, as much value and worth, and as much right to live as we do. It may make you sound tough to say that you will never give an inch, and that nothing and no one can stop you. But it’s false. This is why Sartre said that "Hell is other people". This is why Nietzsche wrote that his philosophy was more aesthetically pleasing than the "traditional" ideas of love and respect.
This is also why movies such as Terminator are so popular, especially with guys. Arnie played the ultimate male fantasy: he gets whatever he wants, he can’t be stopped, and anyone who gets in his way is eliminated without any remorse. Did you catch that? Not only does he kill anyone for any reason, he is free from any sense of recognizing others as individuals, as sacred, as having any existential value. It’s why Brad Pitt said in Fight Club "It’s only after you’ve lost everything" (i.e. your sense of self-worth and value) "that you’re free to do anything" (i.e. reject the worth and value of others as well). Once you reject the value of other people, you are no longer enslaved by the idea that you should take them into account as you live your life. You're free to live life on your own terms.
But again, this is all an illusion. As long as there are other beings in existence -- and you have to figure that the odds for that are at least 2 to 1 -- their rights, their needs, their wants and desires have to be taken into account. The only alternative to this is psychopathy.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Anthropic Principle for Misanthropes, part 1
One of the ways in which contemporary science has appeared to undergird religious belief is the Anthropic Principle. This is the investigation of the necessary conditions for the existence of life. It's an entire field of study, so obviously my treatment here is not even remotely exhaustive. There could easily be a blog entirely devoted to this subject reporting on new discoveries and studies on an almost daily basis.
The Anthropic Principle has its origins in the 1960s with scientists trying to determine the likelihood of other possible life-sites in the universe. It was thought at the time that the universe is so huge, there must be plenty of habitable planets, potentially with life and advanced civilizations already present.
What they have discovered is that the number of conditions that have to be met in order for a planet to be capable of supporting life are so numerous and so unlikely that, even when factoring the size of the universe into the equation, the odds of there being any planet anywhere in the universe that would meet all of the necessary conditions by chance is essentially zero. But this raised an obvious problem: there is a planet that meets all of these conditions. You're sitting on it. Since the Anthropic Principle demonstrates that it's improbable to the point of being impossible for this to have come about by chance, it suggests that these conditions are the way they are because someone intended that Earth should be able to support life.
There is debate as to whether the Anthropic Principle applies to all life or only to complex life. Many scientists argue that simple, unicellular life might be able to survive outside of the severe parameters necessary for advanced life, and could even be widespread. Probably the most popular book arguing this point is Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. If we grant this for the sake of argument, we're still left with a universe in which advanced life simply shouldn't exist, if left to its own resources. And yet, as you may have noticed, it does.
There are really two levels to the Anthropic Principle. The first is what has already been mentioned: the necessary conditions that must be met within the universe. For example, the planet must be in a particular part of a particular type of galaxy -- in a spiral galaxy and in between spiral arms. It must also have a particular interstellar history, such as nearby white dwarf binary stars that have lost some of their surface material to interstellar space in order to provide flourine. It must orbit a particular type of star with particular types of outer planets. The planet must have a particular axial tilt, a particular magnetic field, have a moon of a particular size and distance, etc., ad infinitum. Again, it's not an issue of individual criteria being met -- the universe is so big that there will be other places that meet even extremely improbable conditions. The point is that it has to meet them all, and when the conditions are combined it shows, even given the unfathomable size of the universe, that the odds are absurdly improbable that there would be a place that would be able to support life.
One of the properties on this level that has impressed me the most involves the Kuiper Belt. This is an asteroid belt outside the orbit of Neptune. A few years ago, scientists decided (ex cathedra) that Pluto isn't actually a planet, but is just a fairly large and fairly close Kuiper Belt Object.
The gravitational effects from the Kuiper Belt stabilize Neptune's orbit. If the Kuiper Belt's mass were any different (either less or greater), it would start a domino effect, throwing off Neptune's orbit, which would in turn throw off Uranus', then Saturn's, and then Jupiter's. Then the orbits of the inner planets, including Earth, would be disrupted to the extent that none of them would have an orbit stable enough to permit life. It just blows me away that life on Earth is dependent on an asteroid belt outside the orbit of Neptune.
Recently, astronomers have found that our dependence on the Kuiper Belt is even greater than was previously thought (see here, here, and here). Using computer modeling of our solar system's development, they discovered that early on, Uranus and Neptune were much closer to the sun (as was the Kuiper Belt) and possessed much more eccentric orbits. The gravitational effects between the Kuiper Belt Objects and Neptune and Uranus had to be very specific in order for all of them to drift further away from the Sun and then establish the stable orbits they have today.
The second level of the Anthropic Principle is the universe as a whole. Scientists have formed mathematical models with the laws of nature slightly tweaked, and used this to investigate what must be necessary for the existence of life. What they've discovered is that if most of the laws were different by very slight amounts -- if gravity was slightly weaker or stronger for example -- it would prevent any kind of life from existing anywhere in the entire history of the universe. This implies, again, that whatever Agency brought the universe into existence did so in such a way that it could support the existence of life.
The best examples of this are the universe's mass density and its space-energy density (or "dark energy"). The former essentially refers to how much matter the universe contains. As the universe expanded outward from the Big Bang, the amount of matter affected the speed, since the more mass there was, the greater gravity would slow it down. If the mass density was any greater by even a tiny amount, it would have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, causing the universe to collapse back on itself. If it was any weaker, then the expansion would overwhelm gravity enough that galaxies would never form, and without galaxies you don't have enough nearby stars to provide the heavier elements on which life depends. Specifically, the mass density has to be exactly what it is to within one part in 1060 in order for life to exist in the universe.
The second factor mentioned above is dark energy. This refers to the "stretchiness" of the space-time fabric. This concept has its origins in Einstein's cosmological constant (symbolized by the Greek letter lambda), a force that counteracts gravity which he posited in order to escape the Big Bang singularity. He suggested that the further away two objects were, the more they would repel each other. However, no such force could be detected, much less at the strength required for Einstein's scenario. In the past several years however, scientists have managed to detect this force. It's far, far too weak to be used in the way Einstein intended -- to avoid a beginning of the universe -- but it does have a positive value. This force accounts for a very unusual phenomenon: that as the universe expands, it actually seems to be speeding up. The further the universe stretches, the more quickly it stretches. The reason this is called "stretching" is because it's not just a matter of stars and galaxies moving away from each other: the fabric of space-time is actually stretching out further. You yourself are getting slightly bigger each year as the universe expands. And you thought it was the donuts.
If the properties of dark energy were slightly different, it would affect the rate at which the universe expands, and this leads to the same problem as the mass density: either the universe would collapse upon itself (if it wasn't stretchy enough) or it would not form stars and galaxies and the heavier elements upon which life depends would not be available (if it was too stretchy). In fact, dark energy has to be fine-tuned to an even greater degree than the mass density is. It has to be exact to within one part in 10120.
As far as I know, the fact that the universe is balanced on a knife's edge -- that if dozens of its properties were different in the slightest degrees, life (or at least advanced life) could never exist at any time and any place in its history -- is recognized by all scientists in the relevant disciplines. Accounting for this is a different matter. As I've suggested above, many scientists have thought that the fine-tuning of the universe demonstrates that, in Fred Hoyle's terms, "a superintellect monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology." But of course there have been many objections made against this inference. I'll deal with a few of the more common ones in future installments.
The Anthropic Principle has its origins in the 1960s with scientists trying to determine the likelihood of other possible life-sites in the universe. It was thought at the time that the universe is so huge, there must be plenty of habitable planets, potentially with life and advanced civilizations already present.
What they have discovered is that the number of conditions that have to be met in order for a planet to be capable of supporting life are so numerous and so unlikely that, even when factoring the size of the universe into the equation, the odds of there being any planet anywhere in the universe that would meet all of the necessary conditions by chance is essentially zero. But this raised an obvious problem: there is a planet that meets all of these conditions. You're sitting on it. Since the Anthropic Principle demonstrates that it's improbable to the point of being impossible for this to have come about by chance, it suggests that these conditions are the way they are because someone intended that Earth should be able to support life.
There is debate as to whether the Anthropic Principle applies to all life or only to complex life. Many scientists argue that simple, unicellular life might be able to survive outside of the severe parameters necessary for advanced life, and could even be widespread. Probably the most popular book arguing this point is Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. If we grant this for the sake of argument, we're still left with a universe in which advanced life simply shouldn't exist, if left to its own resources. And yet, as you may have noticed, it does.
There are really two levels to the Anthropic Principle. The first is what has already been mentioned: the necessary conditions that must be met within the universe. For example, the planet must be in a particular part of a particular type of galaxy -- in a spiral galaxy and in between spiral arms. It must also have a particular interstellar history, such as nearby white dwarf binary stars that have lost some of their surface material to interstellar space in order to provide flourine. It must orbit a particular type of star with particular types of outer planets. The planet must have a particular axial tilt, a particular magnetic field, have a moon of a particular size and distance, etc., ad infinitum. Again, it's not an issue of individual criteria being met -- the universe is so big that there will be other places that meet even extremely improbable conditions. The point is that it has to meet them all, and when the conditions are combined it shows, even given the unfathomable size of the universe, that the odds are absurdly improbable that there would be a place that would be able to support life.
One of the properties on this level that has impressed me the most involves the Kuiper Belt. This is an asteroid belt outside the orbit of Neptune. A few years ago, scientists decided (ex cathedra) that Pluto isn't actually a planet, but is just a fairly large and fairly close Kuiper Belt Object.
The gravitational effects from the Kuiper Belt stabilize Neptune's orbit. If the Kuiper Belt's mass were any different (either less or greater), it would start a domino effect, throwing off Neptune's orbit, which would in turn throw off Uranus', then Saturn's, and then Jupiter's. Then the orbits of the inner planets, including Earth, would be disrupted to the extent that none of them would have an orbit stable enough to permit life. It just blows me away that life on Earth is dependent on an asteroid belt outside the orbit of Neptune.
Recently, astronomers have found that our dependence on the Kuiper Belt is even greater than was previously thought (see here, here, and here). Using computer modeling of our solar system's development, they discovered that early on, Uranus and Neptune were much closer to the sun (as was the Kuiper Belt) and possessed much more eccentric orbits. The gravitational effects between the Kuiper Belt Objects and Neptune and Uranus had to be very specific in order for all of them to drift further away from the Sun and then establish the stable orbits they have today.
The second level of the Anthropic Principle is the universe as a whole. Scientists have formed mathematical models with the laws of nature slightly tweaked, and used this to investigate what must be necessary for the existence of life. What they've discovered is that if most of the laws were different by very slight amounts -- if gravity was slightly weaker or stronger for example -- it would prevent any kind of life from existing anywhere in the entire history of the universe. This implies, again, that whatever Agency brought the universe into existence did so in such a way that it could support the existence of life.
The best examples of this are the universe's mass density and its space-energy density (or "dark energy"). The former essentially refers to how much matter the universe contains. As the universe expanded outward from the Big Bang, the amount of matter affected the speed, since the more mass there was, the greater gravity would slow it down. If the mass density was any greater by even a tiny amount, it would have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, causing the universe to collapse back on itself. If it was any weaker, then the expansion would overwhelm gravity enough that galaxies would never form, and without galaxies you don't have enough nearby stars to provide the heavier elements on which life depends. Specifically, the mass density has to be exactly what it is to within one part in 1060 in order for life to exist in the universe.
The second factor mentioned above is dark energy. This refers to the "stretchiness" of the space-time fabric. This concept has its origins in Einstein's cosmological constant (symbolized by the Greek letter lambda), a force that counteracts gravity which he posited in order to escape the Big Bang singularity. He suggested that the further away two objects were, the more they would repel each other. However, no such force could be detected, much less at the strength required for Einstein's scenario. In the past several years however, scientists have managed to detect this force. It's far, far too weak to be used in the way Einstein intended -- to avoid a beginning of the universe -- but it does have a positive value. This force accounts for a very unusual phenomenon: that as the universe expands, it actually seems to be speeding up. The further the universe stretches, the more quickly it stretches. The reason this is called "stretching" is because it's not just a matter of stars and galaxies moving away from each other: the fabric of space-time is actually stretching out further. You yourself are getting slightly bigger each year as the universe expands. And you thought it was the donuts.
If the properties of dark energy were slightly different, it would affect the rate at which the universe expands, and this leads to the same problem as the mass density: either the universe would collapse upon itself (if it wasn't stretchy enough) or it would not form stars and galaxies and the heavier elements upon which life depends would not be available (if it was too stretchy). In fact, dark energy has to be fine-tuned to an even greater degree than the mass density is. It has to be exact to within one part in 10120.
As far as I know, the fact that the universe is balanced on a knife's edge -- that if dozens of its properties were different in the slightest degrees, life (or at least advanced life) could never exist at any time and any place in its history -- is recognized by all scientists in the relevant disciplines. Accounting for this is a different matter. As I've suggested above, many scientists have thought that the fine-tuning of the universe demonstrates that, in Fred Hoyle's terms, "a superintellect monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology." But of course there have been many objections made against this inference. I'll deal with a few of the more common ones in future installments.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Tale of a Comet
It is well-known that people who lived before the Enlightenment were hopelessly superstitious. They believed, for example, that "odd" occurrences in the sky were omens signifying that odd occurrences would soon happen down here on Earth. The most blatant example of this took place when Halley's Comet appeared in 1456. While it was still visible, the siege of Belgrade by the Turks began; thus it was feared that this portent in the heavens had some relevance to the battle. Halley's Comet so upset Pope Callistus III that he resorted to drastic measures: he excommunicated it.
For years, this story was repeated as an example of how absurd and superstitious religion is, especially when contrasted with science. Carl Sagan referred to it in his book on comets. But of course, you know where I'm going with this: it didn't really happen. The story appears to have been popularized by Pierre-Simon Laplace at the end of the 18th century; Laplace, in turn, apparently got it from Vitæ Pontificum, a 15th century work, by Bartolomeo Platina. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Platina dutifully translates the relevant text as follows:
Laplace took Platina's account and suggested that Callistus sought to exorcize Halley's Comet -- and I can't help but wonder if he intended this as a metaphor. Regardless, subsequent writers took it literally, and replaced "exorcize" with "excommunicate" since all those religious terms mean the same thing anyway. The final paragraph of the afore-mentioned article summarizes this development well.
Of course, no doubt there were people who thought Halley's Comet had something to do with the siege of Belgrade. That's the kernel of truth in this story. For that matter, it may very well be true that people in the 15th century were in general more superstitious than people today tend to be. But we still have astrology. Most newspapers print the horoscope every day.
What interests me is how people who hold themselves up as skeptics were taken in by such a ridiculous story as this. Carl Sagan was, by any account, a brilliant man. Yet he uncritically repeats an urban legend in order to show how other people are gullible. What this shows, I think, is that there are no true skeptics. People are only skeptical of things that they want to be skeptical about.
For example, in his book My Life Without God, William Murray describes how his mother Madalyn Murray O'Hair would tell groups of atheists that religious people were so stupid that nobody realized sex led to pregnancy until the 19th century. This is difficult to write without chuckling, but her throng of skeptics bought it. O'Hair herself attended seances, and believed she could talk with dead people. Murray wrote that, as far as he knew, his mother never tried to reconcile this with her belief that there is no afterlife. The skepticism with which she and her fans approached religion was obviously not consistently applied.
The point of all this is that we should be skeptical of our skepticism. The reason why an intelligent person like Carl Sagan could be taken in by such a silly story as a Pope excommunicating a comet is because it fit with his views on the nature of science, the nature of religion, and the relationship between the two. Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her followers were completely contemptuous of religion and religious believers, so any claim that justified this attitude, no matter how insane, was plausible to them.
I have different biases: I am skeptical of the claim that science and religion are opposed to each other. This makes me prone to accept stories that seem to affirm this bias without showing them the same level of critical analysis that I would show to a story that contradicts it. I have to examine myself to determine, as far as possible, what my biases are, and how they might be influencing my beliefs.
For years, this story was repeated as an example of how absurd and superstitious religion is, especially when contrasted with science. Carl Sagan referred to it in his book on comets. But of course, you know where I'm going with this: it didn't really happen. The story appears to have been popularized by Pierre-Simon Laplace at the end of the 18th century; Laplace, in turn, apparently got it from Vitæ Pontificum, a 15th century work, by Bartolomeo Platina. The Catholic Encyclopedia article on Platina dutifully translates the relevant text as follows:
A maned and fiery comet appearing for several days, while scientists were predicting a great plague, dearness of food, or some great disaster, Callistus decreed that supplicatory prayers be held for some days to avert the anger of God, so that, if any calamity threatened mankind, it might be entirely diverted against the Turks, the foes of the Christian name. He likewise ordered that the bells be rung at midday as a signal to all the faithful to move God with assiduous petitions and to assist with their prayers those engaged in constant warfare with the Turks.Now there are a couple of things to note right away. First, there is no mention here of the Pope excommunicating the comet. Second, while the Pope had indeed issued a papal bull calling upon people to pray, and while Halley's Comet did appear in the sky at about the same time, there was simply no perceived link between the two. The bull doesn't even mention the comet. Platina just tied two events together that had no connection.
Laplace took Platina's account and suggested that Callistus sought to exorcize Halley's Comet -- and I can't help but wonder if he intended this as a metaphor. Regardless, subsequent writers took it literally, and replaced "exorcize" with "excommunicate" since all those religious terms mean the same thing anyway. The final paragraph of the afore-mentioned article summarizes this development well.
Of course, no doubt there were people who thought Halley's Comet had something to do with the siege of Belgrade. That's the kernel of truth in this story. For that matter, it may very well be true that people in the 15th century were in general more superstitious than people today tend to be. But we still have astrology. Most newspapers print the horoscope every day.
What interests me is how people who hold themselves up as skeptics were taken in by such a ridiculous story as this. Carl Sagan was, by any account, a brilliant man. Yet he uncritically repeats an urban legend in order to show how other people are gullible. What this shows, I think, is that there are no true skeptics. People are only skeptical of things that they want to be skeptical about.
For example, in his book My Life Without God, William Murray describes how his mother Madalyn Murray O'Hair would tell groups of atheists that religious people were so stupid that nobody realized sex led to pregnancy until the 19th century. This is difficult to write without chuckling, but her throng of skeptics bought it. O'Hair herself attended seances, and believed she could talk with dead people. Murray wrote that, as far as he knew, his mother never tried to reconcile this with her belief that there is no afterlife. The skepticism with which she and her fans approached religion was obviously not consistently applied.
The point of all this is that we should be skeptical of our skepticism. The reason why an intelligent person like Carl Sagan could be taken in by such a silly story as a Pope excommunicating a comet is because it fit with his views on the nature of science, the nature of religion, and the relationship between the two. Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her followers were completely contemptuous of religion and religious believers, so any claim that justified this attitude, no matter how insane, was plausible to them.
I have different biases: I am skeptical of the claim that science and religion are opposed to each other. This makes me prone to accept stories that seem to affirm this bias without showing them the same level of critical analysis that I would show to a story that contradicts it. I have to examine myself to determine, as far as possible, what my biases are, and how they might be influencing my beliefs.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Islam, Christianity, and Euthyphro
Euthyphro is one of Plato's dialogues which presents us with a meta-ethical dilemma that has been addressed throughout philosophical and theological history (meta-ethics being the study of the ground or foundation of ethics). In this debate, Socrates asks Euthyphro why God assigned the particular moral laws he did, such as to not commit murder or adultery. The problem this creates is that if God assigned these laws because they are good in and of themselves, then there is a "higher" reality than God, and God commands them because he must align himself with this reality just as much as we do. God, in other words, is not absolute; neither the ground of morality nor of reality. But if we say that these laws are not good in and of themselves, then these laws are simply arbitrary, and God could have made them differently. The "good" would have been to commit murder and adultery if God said so. In this case, God is not intrinsically good because the appellation of "good" is entirely arbitrary (this is the position that Euthyphro takes in the debate).
Traditionally, Christianity has split the horns of this dilemma. Moral laws are intrinsically good, not arbitrary. But their goodness is not derived from something outside of God; rather, they are derived from God's own intrinsically good nature. The ground of morality, in other words, is identical to the ground of reality. The error of the Euthyphro dilemma is that it tries to put the two concepts -- the goodness of certain acts and God's command of them -- into a cause-and-effect relationship with each other. If the goodness of these acts is what causes God to command them, then they are higher than he. But if his command of them is what makes them good, they are arbitrary. Neither, however, is the case: these two concepts are both effects from a common cause, namely, God's own nature.
Now, as far as I can tell, this option would be available to any general theistic position. But in my (admittedly limited) knowledge of Islam, Muslim theologians have not availed themselves of this resolution. A core doctrine of Islam is that God is completely transcendent; that is, he transcends even our moral and rational categories. God may give moral commandments, but ultimately, they are not expressions of his nature -- if they were, then he would not transcend them. Since they have their origin in his command of them, but not in his nature, they could have been different, and are therefore arbitrary, as Euthyphro thought.
Thus, in the Qur'an, God is represented as capricious. For example in the battle of Badr, God had told Muhammad (indirectly -- since God is completely transcendent there is no direct communication between him and humanity in Islam) that he would outnumber his enemies. When Muhammad's army got there, they found to the contrary that the enemy outnumbered them; but there was no way to avoid the battle at that point, and the Muslims ended up winning anyway. Later, when Muhammad asked why God told him that they would outnumber the enemy at Badr when they didn't, the response in the Sura of the Spoils of War is essentially, "If God had told you the truth, you wouldn't have gone".
Or take the Qur'an's explanation of Jesus' crucifixion, which Muslims deny: God made it seem that Jesus was crucified, but he really wasn't. Islamic tradition explains this by claiming that God put the image of Jesus on someone else (sometimes thought to be Judas Iscariot), and this person was crucified instead of Jesus. In any case, God made things appear differently than they really are in order to accomplish his objectives. So it seems that Islam has pitched its tent with Euthyphro, by accepting that the moral laws are good because God commands them, and that they are thus arbitrary.
In contrast to this, the God of the Bible cannot lie; not that he merely does not or will not, but he cannot. Unlike Islam, in Christianity morality and rationality are two things that put us in touch with God, because of their origin in his nature. God does not transcend morality and rationality, he is their very ground. That's part of what it means to say that we are created in his image -- there is a connection between humanity and God, even after the fall. We are created in his image because we have the capacity for morality and rationality. There's more to it than that of course, but that's at least some of it.
Traditionally, Christianity has split the horns of this dilemma. Moral laws are intrinsically good, not arbitrary. But their goodness is not derived from something outside of God; rather, they are derived from God's own intrinsically good nature. The ground of morality, in other words, is identical to the ground of reality. The error of the Euthyphro dilemma is that it tries to put the two concepts -- the goodness of certain acts and God's command of them -- into a cause-and-effect relationship with each other. If the goodness of these acts is what causes God to command them, then they are higher than he. But if his command of them is what makes them good, they are arbitrary. Neither, however, is the case: these two concepts are both effects from a common cause, namely, God's own nature.
Now, as far as I can tell, this option would be available to any general theistic position. But in my (admittedly limited) knowledge of Islam, Muslim theologians have not availed themselves of this resolution. A core doctrine of Islam is that God is completely transcendent; that is, he transcends even our moral and rational categories. God may give moral commandments, but ultimately, they are not expressions of his nature -- if they were, then he would not transcend them. Since they have their origin in his command of them, but not in his nature, they could have been different, and are therefore arbitrary, as Euthyphro thought.
Thus, in the Qur'an, God is represented as capricious. For example in the battle of Badr, God had told Muhammad (indirectly -- since God is completely transcendent there is no direct communication between him and humanity in Islam) that he would outnumber his enemies. When Muhammad's army got there, they found to the contrary that the enemy outnumbered them; but there was no way to avoid the battle at that point, and the Muslims ended up winning anyway. Later, when Muhammad asked why God told him that they would outnumber the enemy at Badr when they didn't, the response in the Sura of the Spoils of War is essentially, "If God had told you the truth, you wouldn't have gone".
Or take the Qur'an's explanation of Jesus' crucifixion, which Muslims deny: God made it seem that Jesus was crucified, but he really wasn't. Islamic tradition explains this by claiming that God put the image of Jesus on someone else (sometimes thought to be Judas Iscariot), and this person was crucified instead of Jesus. In any case, God made things appear differently than they really are in order to accomplish his objectives. So it seems that Islam has pitched its tent with Euthyphro, by accepting that the moral laws are good because God commands them, and that they are thus arbitrary.
In contrast to this, the God of the Bible cannot lie; not that he merely does not or will not, but he cannot. Unlike Islam, in Christianity morality and rationality are two things that put us in touch with God, because of their origin in his nature. God does not transcend morality and rationality, he is their very ground. That's part of what it means to say that we are created in his image -- there is a connection between humanity and God, even after the fall. We are created in his image because we have the capacity for morality and rationality. There's more to it than that of course, but that's at least some of it.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
A Case of Projection
Part of the whole "science vs. Christianity" metanarrative is that science has consistently shown that human beings aren't as significant as religion claims. Thus, Copernicus showed that the earth isn't at the center of the universe, astronomy has shown that we're a tiny speck in a vast cosmos, and Darwin showed that the human being is just an animal. Freud then appealed to this idea in order to validate his psychological theories, since they presumably showed that the human being is merely a sick animal.
For now I'll deal with the last link in this chain, and save the other links (as well as the chain taken as a whole) for other posts. Freud argued in The Future of an Illusion that people who believe in God were projecting a father figure onto the universe, motivated by a sense of helplessness. And, if religious beliefs are merely the result of psychological and sociological factors, then there's no point in asking whether or not they're true. This was considered by many to be proof from medical science that religion is bogus, in particular, Judaism and Christianity. The reason these two were singled out is because they most clearly define God as a father figure.
While Freud suggested that religion has a stabilizing effect on society as a whole, for the individual, belief in God should generally be treated as a psychological dysfunction. I say "generally" because psychological theories are never absolute; there are always exceptions which don't necessarily refute the theory. Nevertheless, Freudian psychologists have often held that treatment could only be considered successful once the patient has relinquished belief in God.
Of course, there were a few problems with this. Probably the most obvious is that it is a textbook example of a classic logical fallacy. The genetic fallacy is committed when you think that by explaining how a belief originates, you are thereby showing the belief to be false. But this is obviously not the case. If I was raised to believe that murder is bad, pointing this out does not show that murder is not bad.
The point here is that it's necessary to make a distinction between how we come to believe something and whether the object of that belief is true. Any belief has to be judged on its merits, not on the alleged psychological predispositions of its proponents. Freud's projection theory is guilty of reasoning in a way that has been recognized as sloppy thinking by virtually all the great intellects in human history.
Another problem with the projection theory is that Freud didn't have any actual evidence for it. As Os Guinness writes in The Long Journey Home, "the founder of psychoanalysis had astonishingly little experience either in probing the psychology of belief in God or in caring for patients who were religious." To his credit, Freud privately acknowledged that the projection theory was just his personal opinion.
But since Freud's time, plenty of evidence has been collected, and it shows the exact opposite of what Freud thought it would. Guinness writes "Religious life, in fact, has been demonstrated to go hand in hand with better physical health, greater psychological well-being, and a generally positive social influence." It doesn't show any evidence of being the psychological dysfunction Freud believed.
A final problem with the projection theory is that it's actually a better explanation of non-belief in God than belief. Paul Vitz, a psychologist at NYU demonstrates in his book The Faith of the Fatherless, that the most militant atheists had major father issues. He lists Nietzsche, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Ayn Rand, H. G. Wells, Stalin, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and Freud himself among many others, stating "We find a weak, dead, or abusive father in every case." Often, this connection was openly acknowledged by the atheist. There are, of course, exceptions to this, perhaps the most prominent being John Stuart Mill. But it certainly seems to be a valid psychological theory which explains a majority of cases.
Now, it needs to be stated as clearly as possible that this does not constitute an argument against atheism. Vitz recognizes this. To think it does would be to simply commit the genetic fallacy in the opposite direction. Atheism has to be judged on its intellectual merits, not on the home life of its advocates. Rather, the point of this is that the projection theory seems to be itself a projection. Those who had a problem with their fathers and projected this into a problem with God, then projected this projection itself onto those who don't have a problem with God. They tried to explain belief in God with the same categories that influenced their disbelief in God.
In other words, Freud committed another logical fallacy. The tu quoque fallacy is committed when you accuse your opponent of something that you're guilty of. "Tu quoque" is Latin for "Oh yeah? So are you! Nyaah!" This may make for good rhetoric, but, once again, it's sloppy thinking.
For now I'll deal with the last link in this chain, and save the other links (as well as the chain taken as a whole) for other posts. Freud argued in The Future of an Illusion that people who believe in God were projecting a father figure onto the universe, motivated by a sense of helplessness. And, if religious beliefs are merely the result of psychological and sociological factors, then there's no point in asking whether or not they're true. This was considered by many to be proof from medical science that religion is bogus, in particular, Judaism and Christianity. The reason these two were singled out is because they most clearly define God as a father figure.
While Freud suggested that religion has a stabilizing effect on society as a whole, for the individual, belief in God should generally be treated as a psychological dysfunction. I say "generally" because psychological theories are never absolute; there are always exceptions which don't necessarily refute the theory. Nevertheless, Freudian psychologists have often held that treatment could only be considered successful once the patient has relinquished belief in God.
Of course, there were a few problems with this. Probably the most obvious is that it is a textbook example of a classic logical fallacy. The genetic fallacy is committed when you think that by explaining how a belief originates, you are thereby showing the belief to be false. But this is obviously not the case. If I was raised to believe that murder is bad, pointing this out does not show that murder is not bad.
The point here is that it's necessary to make a distinction between how we come to believe something and whether the object of that belief is true. Any belief has to be judged on its merits, not on the alleged psychological predispositions of its proponents. Freud's projection theory is guilty of reasoning in a way that has been recognized as sloppy thinking by virtually all the great intellects in human history.
Another problem with the projection theory is that Freud didn't have any actual evidence for it. As Os Guinness writes in The Long Journey Home, "the founder of psychoanalysis had astonishingly little experience either in probing the psychology of belief in God or in caring for patients who were religious." To his credit, Freud privately acknowledged that the projection theory was just his personal opinion.
But since Freud's time, plenty of evidence has been collected, and it shows the exact opposite of what Freud thought it would. Guinness writes "Religious life, in fact, has been demonstrated to go hand in hand with better physical health, greater psychological well-being, and a generally positive social influence." It doesn't show any evidence of being the psychological dysfunction Freud believed.
A final problem with the projection theory is that it's actually a better explanation of non-belief in God than belief. Paul Vitz, a psychologist at NYU demonstrates in his book The Faith of the Fatherless, that the most militant atheists had major father issues. He lists Nietzsche, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Voltaire, Feuerbach, Ayn Rand, H. G. Wells, Stalin, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, and Freud himself among many others, stating "We find a weak, dead, or abusive father in every case." Often, this connection was openly acknowledged by the atheist. There are, of course, exceptions to this, perhaps the most prominent being John Stuart Mill. But it certainly seems to be a valid psychological theory which explains a majority of cases.
Now, it needs to be stated as clearly as possible that this does not constitute an argument against atheism. Vitz recognizes this. To think it does would be to simply commit the genetic fallacy in the opposite direction. Atheism has to be judged on its intellectual merits, not on the home life of its advocates. Rather, the point of this is that the projection theory seems to be itself a projection. Those who had a problem with their fathers and projected this into a problem with God, then projected this projection itself onto those who don't have a problem with God. They tried to explain belief in God with the same categories that influenced their disbelief in God.
In other words, Freud committed another logical fallacy. The tu quoque fallacy is committed when you accuse your opponent of something that you're guilty of. "Tu quoque" is Latin for "Oh yeah? So are you! Nyaah!" This may make for good rhetoric, but, once again, it's sloppy thinking.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Matrix Reevaluated
I’m one of those people who thinks the first Matrix movie was really good, but the sequels pretty much sucked (although I have to admit that the burly brawl and the car and motorcycle chases in Matrix Reloaded were pretty cool). But these movies contain some interesting religious allusions, and a lot of people think they are specifically Christian themes (such as naming the ships the Nebuchadnezzar and the Logos).
For example, "Neo" is supposed to represent the "new covenant" mentioned by Jeremiah in the Old Testament, and which is fulfilled (according to Christians) by Jesus and the New Testament. However there is another element to this: in the movie, the "old" system is the Matrix and its agents, which are clearly evil. This obviously does not parallel the Bible, which asserts that the old covenant came from God and is good. Rather, the Matrix's idea here seems to parallel that of some Gnostic sects (like Marcionism), which argued that the God of the Old Testament was an inferior and lower god than the God of the New Testament.
Another allegedly Christian allegory in the Matrix is the whole idea that the world is largely illusory, and that the real world is very different from it. Again, this might fit in well with some religious views, but I do not think it does so with Judaism and Christianity. The idea that the world is deceptive and unreal sounds very much like some of the great Oriental religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. In these religions, the world is the veil that hides reality. The spiritual quest, then, is to divorce oneself from the physical world, because in doing so one is opened up to the real world.
This kind of concept is not particular to religions. It has played a part in some philosophical systems as well. Kant made a distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal. The phenomenal is the world as it appears to us, and the noumenal is the world as it actually is. We can never uncover the noumenal, because by definition we can only uncover the phenomenal. We can never get outside ourselves to see what things are independently of how they appear to us.
Now Kant’s philosophy doesn’t necessarily lead to the same conclusions as Hinduism or Buddhism; just because we can't know what the noumena is, it doesn't follow that it is completely discontinuous from the phenomena. But some certainly took it this way. Schopenhauer wrote extensively about Kant's philosophy, and tied it together with "the veil of Maya". He thought that the world was just a manifestation of the will to live, and that one should try to escape, at least temporarily, from its enslavement.
Compare these ideas with the Matrix: "The matrix is everywhere, it is all around us...it is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth”.
But I don’t think this idea fits well with the great Occidental religions, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In these religions the world isn’t an illusion: it’s just not all that there is. The world is as real as it seems to be, but there is a higher level of reality, a spiritual level. In fact, the physical world reflects the spiritual world. Perhaps one could say that in comparison to the spiritual world, the physical world is just its shadow. But this shouldn’t be understood as a denial of the reality of the physical world.
In fact, this imagery is behind the movie Shadowlands about C. S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." Incidentally, I’m also one of those people who thinks the original BBC version of Shadowlands was really good, but the Hollywood version pretty much sucked.
For example, "Neo" is supposed to represent the "new covenant" mentioned by Jeremiah in the Old Testament, and which is fulfilled (according to Christians) by Jesus and the New Testament. However there is another element to this: in the movie, the "old" system is the Matrix and its agents, which are clearly evil. This obviously does not parallel the Bible, which asserts that the old covenant came from God and is good. Rather, the Matrix's idea here seems to parallel that of some Gnostic sects (like Marcionism), which argued that the God of the Old Testament was an inferior and lower god than the God of the New Testament.
Another allegedly Christian allegory in the Matrix is the whole idea that the world is largely illusory, and that the real world is very different from it. Again, this might fit in well with some religious views, but I do not think it does so with Judaism and Christianity. The idea that the world is deceptive and unreal sounds very much like some of the great Oriental religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. In these religions, the world is the veil that hides reality. The spiritual quest, then, is to divorce oneself from the physical world, because in doing so one is opened up to the real world.
This kind of concept is not particular to religions. It has played a part in some philosophical systems as well. Kant made a distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal. The phenomenal is the world as it appears to us, and the noumenal is the world as it actually is. We can never uncover the noumenal, because by definition we can only uncover the phenomenal. We can never get outside ourselves to see what things are independently of how they appear to us.
Now Kant’s philosophy doesn’t necessarily lead to the same conclusions as Hinduism or Buddhism; just because we can't know what the noumena is, it doesn't follow that it is completely discontinuous from the phenomena. But some certainly took it this way. Schopenhauer wrote extensively about Kant's philosophy, and tied it together with "the veil of Maya". He thought that the world was just a manifestation of the will to live, and that one should try to escape, at least temporarily, from its enslavement.
Compare these ideas with the Matrix: "The matrix is everywhere, it is all around us...it is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth”.
But I don’t think this idea fits well with the great Occidental religions, namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In these religions the world isn’t an illusion: it’s just not all that there is. The world is as real as it seems to be, but there is a higher level of reality, a spiritual level. In fact, the physical world reflects the spiritual world. Perhaps one could say that in comparison to the spiritual world, the physical world is just its shadow. But this shouldn’t be understood as a denial of the reality of the physical world.
In fact, this imagery is behind the movie Shadowlands about C. S. Lewis. Lewis once wrote "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." Incidentally, I’m also one of those people who thinks the original BBC version of Shadowlands was really good, but the Hollywood version pretty much sucked.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Camus and Christianity
A few years ago, I bought the book Albert Camus and the Minister by Howard Mumma. Camus was an existentialist -- although he didn't like that label -- who was famous for claiming that the primary philosophical issue is suicide: that is, determining whether or not life is worth the trouble of being lived. Some of his most well-known works are The Myth of Sisyphus, The Plague, and The Stranger (the latter book's title is sometimes translated as The Outsider, although my wife insists that it's best translated as The Foreigner). Sisyphus refers to the Greek myth of a man in the underworld condemned to roll a heavy boulder up a steep hill for eternity. As soon as the boulder reaches the top, it rolls back down to the bottom, and Sisyphus has to start all over again, ad infinitum. His punishment was to be forced to perform a meaningless act for eternity. Camus thought this was an excellent metaphor for the human condition. Should we continue engaging in the meaningless activity of rolling the boulder up the hill by going on living? Or should we just give up and commit suicide?
Camus thought Sisyphus should continue rolling the boulder up the hill. Even though he knows it is futile and will end in nothing, he should devote himself to it and invent his own meaning for it. It's kind of like the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray was stuck repeating the same day over and over, and nothing he did carried over to the next. He went through several stages: first, he indulged himself (because there were no consequences), then he despaired, then he ended up just doing everything he could to make everyone's day happier. Even though the next morning, everything would be set back to the beginning as if he hadn't done anything, and all the difficulties would have to be dealt with again, he just tried to make everyone as happy as he could.
This is problematic for two reasons, which are also true of existentialism: first, the choice to make other people happy is arbitrary in this scenario. Bill Murray tired of self-indulgence, but he would have tired of helping others as well if doing so didn't have any ultimate meaning. Second, it amounts to the claim that we should pretend that life has meaning even though it really doesn't. So we have to simultaneously believe that the world is both meaningless and meaningful. Maybe "problematic" isn't a strong enough term, but you get the idea. I know a philosopher who became a Christian after reading The Plague.
In the 1950s, Camus met Howard Mumma, an American minister preaching in Paris at the time, and they became friends. Mumma is a journaler and so he kept a detailed journal of the conversations he had with Camus. Albert Camus and the Minister just came out in 2000, because Mumma decided that with Camus 40 years dead (and Mumma himself in his 90s) it was no longer necessary to uphold the confidentiality of their discussions. Actually, only the first half of the book is about Camus. In the second half Mumma discusses other people he encountered that had a strong impact on his life, like Albert Schweitzer. As such, the book amounts to his memoirs.
The conversations between Camus and Mumma centered on Christianity. Camus had heard Mumma preach some sermons, and was very intrigued. Mumma was something of a neo-orthodox theologian, taking many aspects of the Bible metaphorically. At one point, Mumma told him how the fall of Adam and Eve and the subsequent banishment from Paradise refers typologically to our separation from God.
James Sire, a philosopher, wrote an article about this book for Christianity Today entitled "Camus the Christian?" Sire summarizes the book, and points out that that when Camus published The Fall in 1956, many people thought that he had accepted the existence of God. An excellent essay which comments on Mumma's book is "Taking Doubt Seriously", by historian Preston Jones. If you have the time, I highly recommend reading this article.
Mumma comes from a tradition that doesn't "re-baptize", and since Camus had been baptized as an infant, he declined. He tried to get him to engage with a Christian congregation and be confirmed, but Camus wanted it to be a private affair, "something between me and God". He was a celebrity at the time, so a public confession of faith would have caused an uproar. The following year Camus died in a car accident, and Mumma believes that he committed suicide (although this is incorrect, since Camus was not the driver). Regardless, Mumma believes that he failed him by not baptizing him.
Despite my misgivings, I recommend Albert Camus and the Minister. It's very unusual. In many ways, it shows how close existentialism is to Christianity.
Camus thought Sisyphus should continue rolling the boulder up the hill. Even though he knows it is futile and will end in nothing, he should devote himself to it and invent his own meaning for it. It's kind of like the movie Groundhog Day where Bill Murray was stuck repeating the same day over and over, and nothing he did carried over to the next. He went through several stages: first, he indulged himself (because there were no consequences), then he despaired, then he ended up just doing everything he could to make everyone's day happier. Even though the next morning, everything would be set back to the beginning as if he hadn't done anything, and all the difficulties would have to be dealt with again, he just tried to make everyone as happy as he could.
This is problematic for two reasons, which are also true of existentialism: first, the choice to make other people happy is arbitrary in this scenario. Bill Murray tired of self-indulgence, but he would have tired of helping others as well if doing so didn't have any ultimate meaning. Second, it amounts to the claim that we should pretend that life has meaning even though it really doesn't. So we have to simultaneously believe that the world is both meaningless and meaningful. Maybe "problematic" isn't a strong enough term, but you get the idea. I know a philosopher who became a Christian after reading The Plague.
In the 1950s, Camus met Howard Mumma, an American minister preaching in Paris at the time, and they became friends. Mumma is a journaler and so he kept a detailed journal of the conversations he had with Camus. Albert Camus and the Minister just came out in 2000, because Mumma decided that with Camus 40 years dead (and Mumma himself in his 90s) it was no longer necessary to uphold the confidentiality of their discussions. Actually, only the first half of the book is about Camus. In the second half Mumma discusses other people he encountered that had a strong impact on his life, like Albert Schweitzer. As such, the book amounts to his memoirs.
The conversations between Camus and Mumma centered on Christianity. Camus had heard Mumma preach some sermons, and was very intrigued. Mumma was something of a neo-orthodox theologian, taking many aspects of the Bible metaphorically. At one point, Mumma told him how the fall of Adam and Eve and the subsequent banishment from Paradise refers typologically to our separation from God.
Suddenly, Camus threw up his arms and said, "Howard, do you remember what Augustine said: 'Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in thee.'?" His face lit up dramatically. Camus was excited by my explanation of man's being cast out from the garden -- which related to his own interest in man's estrangement. I said to myself, here is a man who is on the road to becoming a Christian. Here was a key moment, a turning point in this man's life. I could tell by the light in his eyes, the expression on his face, that Camus was experiencing something new in his life.This seems so odd -- that Camus was seriously considering Christianity -- that I find myself doubting the veracity of Mumma's account. According to the book, their relationship culminated with Camus asking Mumma to baptize him. He wanted to become a Christian and devote his life to God. This would be a bizarre thing to make up, but it's difficult to accept on its face. Some friends of mine who know Camus better than I do have read this book, and are basically split on it: some think it's quite plausible, while others don't.
James Sire, a philosopher, wrote an article about this book for Christianity Today entitled "Camus the Christian?" Sire summarizes the book, and points out that that when Camus published The Fall in 1956, many people thought that he had accepted the existence of God. An excellent essay which comments on Mumma's book is "Taking Doubt Seriously", by historian Preston Jones. If you have the time, I highly recommend reading this article.
Mumma comes from a tradition that doesn't "re-baptize", and since Camus had been baptized as an infant, he declined. He tried to get him to engage with a Christian congregation and be confirmed, but Camus wanted it to be a private affair, "something between me and God". He was a celebrity at the time, so a public confession of faith would have caused an uproar. The following year Camus died in a car accident, and Mumma believes that he committed suicide (although this is incorrect, since Camus was not the driver). Regardless, Mumma believes that he failed him by not baptizing him.
Despite my misgivings, I recommend Albert Camus and the Minister. It's very unusual. In many ways, it shows how close existentialism is to Christianity.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Evolution and Islam
Here's an interesting article that points out that many scientific, medical, and philosophical advances were made in the Middle Ages by the Islamic world. This is something that needs to be pointed out, since some people don't want to see anything valuable coming out of Islam.
I have a minor point of contention with the author, namely that he slightly exaggerates the advances and insights of the Muslim scientists and philosophers. I find this understandable, but unfortunate, since when such exaggerated claims are debunked, it makes one suspicious of all such claims. I've written about this before. For example, there was an article a couple of years ago about 20 Muslim inventions that Western civilization used. When you look at it, however, it turns out that almost none of the inventions were actually made by Muslims. After this, one could be forgiven for taking similar claims with a grain of salt.
The article in particular begins with a foreshadowing of Darwin's theory of evolution on the part of a fairly obscure 9th-century author named al-Jahith, who wrote
I think this is an interesting passage, but it's not as impressive as the article implies. For one thing, any agrarian society knows that animals compete in a struggle for existence, and that they vary in ways that make their individual survival less or more likely. I'm more impressed by al-Jahith's claim that "new characteristics" arise; but Jews and Christians had already been claiming for centuries that the various differences among human ethnic groups arose after humanity's creation. So it doesn't strike me as a revolutionary claim.
Darwin's genius did not lie in pointing to a struggle for existence (natural selection); rather, it was his application of it. Others had looked at this struggle as something that accounted for the diversity within a species (or natural group). Darwin used it to account for the diversity across species as well; in fact, it accounts for the origin of the species in the first place. Al-Jahith's quote simply doesn't address this.
A view that strikes me as being closer to Darwin than al-Jahith's comments is the doctrine of rationes seminales, or seminal principles, that was conceived by the ancient Stoic philosophers, and was accepted by many early Christian philosophers before the advent of Islam, such as Athenagoras, Tertullian, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. This position held that God created the world in "seed form" or with certain potentialities which then unfolded or developed.
This may sound harsher than I intend it; the article is very good overall, and his exaggeration is slight. He even points out that al-Jahith's comments seem to be derived from folklore rather than scientific observation. So I recommend it.
I have a minor point of contention with the author, namely that he slightly exaggerates the advances and insights of the Muslim scientists and philosophers. I find this understandable, but unfortunate, since when such exaggerated claims are debunked, it makes one suspicious of all such claims. I've written about this before. For example, there was an article a couple of years ago about 20 Muslim inventions that Western civilization used. When you look at it, however, it turns out that almost none of the inventions were actually made by Muslims. After this, one could be forgiven for taking similar claims with a grain of salt.
The article in particular begins with a foreshadowing of Darwin's theory of evolution on the part of a fairly obscure 9th-century author named al-Jahith, who wrote
Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring.
I think this is an interesting passage, but it's not as impressive as the article implies. For one thing, any agrarian society knows that animals compete in a struggle for existence, and that they vary in ways that make their individual survival less or more likely. I'm more impressed by al-Jahith's claim that "new characteristics" arise; but Jews and Christians had already been claiming for centuries that the various differences among human ethnic groups arose after humanity's creation. So it doesn't strike me as a revolutionary claim.
Darwin's genius did not lie in pointing to a struggle for existence (natural selection); rather, it was his application of it. Others had looked at this struggle as something that accounted for the diversity within a species (or natural group). Darwin used it to account for the diversity across species as well; in fact, it accounts for the origin of the species in the first place. Al-Jahith's quote simply doesn't address this.
A view that strikes me as being closer to Darwin than al-Jahith's comments is the doctrine of rationes seminales, or seminal principles, that was conceived by the ancient Stoic philosophers, and was accepted by many early Christian philosophers before the advent of Islam, such as Athenagoras, Tertullian, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. This position held that God created the world in "seed form" or with certain potentialities which then unfolded or developed.
This may sound harsher than I intend it; the article is very good overall, and his exaggeration is slight. He even points out that al-Jahith's comments seem to be derived from folklore rather than scientific observation. So I recommend it.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Book Review: The Discarded Image
A little while ago I had the opportunity to read one of C.S. Lewis's more technical books, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature. I was expecting it to be drier than his books about Christianity, which are written for the layman, not to mention his fiction. But I found it very readable, and very interesting. It was also his last book, being published posthumously in 1964.The "discarded image" refers to the Medieval model of the universe, and how intellectually satisfying it is -- not in the sense that we can still believe it to be correct (it was a geocentric model, after all), but in the sense that they conceived the universe as intricately organized, with "a place for everything and everything in its place." To this end, Lewis is constantly correcting common misperceptions about what the Medieval model actually was.
One of the myths that Lewis debunks is that the medievals thought the earth is flat. Lewis refutes this rather easily by simply quoting and referencing some of the myriad of statements in the ancient world as well as the early and late Middle Ages that the earth is round. If you want to do some more research on this, I recommend Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Jeffrey Burton Russell, a historian at the University of California at Santa Barbara. To put it simply, every educated person from the third century BC onwards knew that the earth is round, and most of the uneducated ones did too.
Another belief that is commonly ascribed to the medievals is that they thought the universe was small. There is a half-truth here: they certainly believed the universe to be orders of magnitude smaller than what modern science has revealed. But as Lewis repeatedly points out, they still thought it was unimaginably large. He writes,
the fact that the height of the stars in the medieval astronomy is very small compared with their distance in the modern, will turn out not to have the kind of importance you anticipated. For thought and imagination, ten million miles and a thousand million are much the same. Both can be conceived (that is, we can do sums with both) and neither can be imagined; and the more imagination we have the better we shall know this.
A third distortion that Lewis addresses is that, by placing the earth at the center of the universe, they were attributing to it a position of privilege or significance. Actually, precisely the opposite is the case: the center of the universe was the least privileged and the least significant place therein. That's why they also placed hell in the center of the earth, and Satan at the center of hell. The reason the physical center is the least prestigious place in the universe is
Because, as Dante was to say more clearly than anyone else, the spatial order is the opposite of the spiritual, and the material cosmos mirrors, hence reverses, the reality, so that what is truly the rim seems to us the hub... We watch ‘the spectacle of the celestial dance’ from its outskirts. Our highest privilege is to imitate it in such measure as we can. The medieval Model is, if we may use the word, anthropo-peripheral. We are creatures of the Margin.
Again, this is something that can easily be verified by reading the medieval writers. The earth wasn't so much at the center of the universe as it was at the bottom of the universe.
Lewis devotes the Epilogue of The Discarded Image to a fourth, and the most controversial, point; an issue he had addressed before in "The Funeral of a Great Myth" in Christian Reflections and to a lesser extent in "Is Theology Poetry?" in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses. The issue in question is the popular conception of evolution, that life -- and by extension the entire universe -- is slowly improving. Lewis makes a sharp distinction between this popular conception and the actual theory of evolution as held by scientists, which is about change rather than improvement. I want to make this as clear as possible: Lewis takes it for granted that evolution has occurred, as he makes abundantly clear in "Funeral of a Great Myth". What he challenges is the popular view.
His point of challenge is the idea that scientific evidence slowly showed the medieval model to be incorrect, and that we were led to replace it with the evolutionary model because of the scientific evidence. Lewis argues to the contrary that poetry, music, and literature in the 1700s and 1800s advocated for and glorified the evolutionary model, long before there was any scientific evidence for it. For example, The Ring of the Nibelung, the four-opera cycle by Wagner, which was well underway by the time Darwin published The Origin of Species, was based on this concept. Lewis's point is that we were not led to accept evolution solely by the scientific evidence. The idea of progress or improvement had already permeated itself into the imagination and habitual thinking patterns of Western culture, and it was only then that scientific evidence came along to confirm it (although, again, the scientific evidence doesn't confirm the popular view).
Again, I want to reiterate that Lewis accepted evolution. What he is challenging is that it was originally conceived and accepted in a purely scientific atmosphere, where the desire for it to be true played no role. As such, it is invalid to look down upon the medievals for not proportioning their belief to the evidence when we don't do it either.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)