In response to a student who complained that he didn't understand quantum mechanics, Von Neumann is supposed to have answered: nobody understands it. You just get used to it. Of course, quantum physicists have a set of mathematical tools that -- though they do not allow one to visualize what is going on in the subatomic world, at least allow one to make predictions that coincide with measurements -- and so they have something to work with which helps in "getting used to it".
Believers, in response to arguments against religion from non-believers, claim that such arguments do not take mystical reality into account -- that God, or more generally, the transcendent, is real, but ordinary language is incapable of dealing with it. The non-believer responds with charges of obscurantism, that the believer is evading the issue by taking refuge in nonsense.
But there are two issues here. The first is whether or not there is anything that is real but where all attempts at description -- staying within the confines of common sense language and Aristotelian logic -- fail. The second is what we do about it. I would argue, first, that the subatomic world is such a reality, though that alone does not grant license to the believer to believe (in God or whatever). To the objection that there is a mathematical language (which of course obeys Aristotelian logic -- the laws of identity, contradiction, and the excluded middle) for quantum physics, I repeat that this language does not describe the reality -- it just allows the physicist to make predictions. Hence there are a multitude of interpretations of that world, all of which are metaphysical positions, not scientific.
But, secondly, I would argue that there is an even more obvious reality that qualifies, namely plain, ordinary, everyday consciousness. The reason it qualifies is that the "now" is not an instant -- a point on time's continuum, but instead is extended over a small stretch of time (and space). Because the now is extended, I don't see any way that it could emerge from a strictly spatiotemporal process. In a spatiotemporal process every event is separated in time and/or space from every other event. Consciousness, on the other hand, puts together zillions of these separated events to form the "now". Within the "now" is the experience of time passing, but how is that possible? Consciousness somehow connects those zillions of events into one flowing whole, while within a strictly spatiotemporal process there is no way for events to aggregate as experience of anything larger than a single event. As I see it, this means that consciousness transcends time (and space), and so cannot itself be a consequence of a spatiotemporal process.
Granted, the argument in the preceding paragraph is no more than arm-waving. But there is enough of a mystery to consciousness that it leads a diehard materialist like Colin McGinn to assert that he doesn't expect there ever to be an explanation of consciousness, and another (David Chalmers) to hypothesize what he calls "naturalist dualism" to account for consciousness. What I propose instead is to assert the reality of the non-spatiotemporal (which in theological language is called the eternal -- not to be confused with time everlasting). What if the reason that quantum reality defies comprehension is that it too is non-spatiotemporal? That would "explain" how an unobserved electron could be in a superposition of states, that the position/momentum uncertainty is there simply because -- unobserved -- quantum particles are simply not at definite spatiotemporal locations, because at that level there is no space and time. And, of course, it would "account for" the non-locality observed in the Aspect experiments. But note that I put the words "explain" and "account for" in scare quotes, because appealing to non-spatiotemporal reality is not an understandable answer. But the point is that if one buys into this line of argumentation, then one should not expect one. Yet something definite has been argued for: that there is a reality for which our ordinary language fails.
What clinches the argument for me -- and is the reason I became religious -- is that mystics have been saying for millenia that fundamental reality is not spatiotemporal. And they have said so, or so they claim, by virtue of knowledge (of "experiencing" non-spatiotemporal reality), not by metaphysical guesswork. Should we believe them? Given the argumentation above I have no problem believing them. But it should be pointed out that mystics also say something else, that just arguing from consciousness and/or quantum physics does not, and that is that the eternal is not merely real, but also Good, and that it is possible to realize that Goodness. It is that addition that turns all this from metaphysical speculation to religion.
This, then, is my answer to the first issue: there is a reality that defies common sense language, and why it must be dealt with. Still to come: how to forge a language to deal with it.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
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21 comments:
Hi, is the now not instantaneous? In my experience it is... Time seems to flow quite smoothly for me. I don't feel that I am existing in an instant, of course, but spread out; but then, time is a continuum... I am presently aware of some previous perceptions. (That 'presently' indicates a duration, but only as a matter of linguistic convention.) I am never aware of an isolated instant; but then, even my immediate perceptions are awarenesses of what my sense-organs and brain have already processed, and I am aware of those products smoothly...
I would think that quantum physics raises doubts over saying that time is continuous. If the concept of a duration less than 10^-45 seconds is meaningless (in quantum physics), then the continuity of time would appear to be a mathematical abstraction (which, by the way, might mean that the supposed refutation of Zeno's paradoxes through the concept of limits might not work, but that's another topic). And calling the now an instant is simply working from the viewpoint of that abstraction.
In any case, my "now" (what I am experiencing) certainly is not a point -- which is what I take an "instant" to be. I could not be hearing an A above middle C unless the duration of the now includes enough time to include enough air vibrations to make it a sound -- some significant fraction of a second.
As I see it, you are making unwarranted assumptions when you say "my immediate perceptions are awarenesses of what my sense-organs and brain have already processed...". Further, I think with more effort than the quick arm-waving I did in the post (that is, with more elaborate arm-waving), one can see how those assumptions don't hold up. What I suspect is that space and time are secondary qualities (like sound and color), not primary, so that rather than saying that consciousness transcends time, it is better to say that it produces time in the act of perception. The brain's function, then, is to act as a multi-dimensional metronome, to make sure that the different senses and mental activity align, both within an organism, and in interaction with other organisms. But this is all rash speculation, given that we are unable to think what it is like to be timeless.
I just finished The Private Life of the Brain by Susan Greenfield which attempts to describe consciousness as related to a sea of interconnected and interacting neurons in the brain. She does distinguish subjective feel from these objective brain events and goes on to say, I believe, that the emotions constitute this subjective feel related to the objective neuron sea. But isn't this just replacing one question by another; i.e., why are the emotions conscious? Well, I suppose I should ask her that. Anyway, it's probably true that the whole body is involved in consciousness... Just some random thoughts based on your very interesting post.
Yes, I would say that what is left unexplained (and in my view unexplainable) is how interconnection adds up to anything as long-lasting as feeling angry. Maybe an electron absorbing or emitting a photon experiences some sort of proto-emotion, but how are all those emotional bits combined into something larger?
I should point out that my argument for eternity from consciousness does not disprove the mind-brain identity hypothesis. Just that any theory based on that hypothesis must incorporate the non-spatiotemporal. Or to put it another way, if it is going to be modeled on a computer, you'll need a quantum computer.
I'm still trying to follow your argument for why consciousness is non-spatial-temporal. Let's look at it from a process point of view. As I experience something a process is going on, neurons are being activated and stored. I become conscious of this flow via emotion which stimulates bodily chemistry, reactions, etc., which ARE consciousness. Also, why bring in discrete time steps? 10^-45 seconds is way too small a time step to be even involved. We're at a macro level here. Maybe philosophical one could argue that consciousness is non-spatial-temporal, but I don't see how scientifically you can do it. Clearly, from your standpoint, I'm totally confused!
Seev,
What I am arguing is that it is impossible to come up with a scientific explanation of consciousness -- which argument, of course, cannot itself be scientific, and must be philosophical. On the other hand, in the absence of a scientific explanation of consciousness, to say that there must be one is also just philosophical. I would point out, for example, that your statement that "I become conscious of this flow via emotion which stimulates bodily chemistry, reactions, etc., which ARE consciousness" has no scientific basis whatsoever. All that science can do is correlate certain conscious activities with certain neuronal activities. What it cannot do is explain how one gets the former from the latter.
In particular, no scientific evidence can distinguish between two hypotheses: the television model of consciousness and the emergence model. The latter is what is assumed by materialists -- that consciousness "just is" neuronal activity of sufficient complexity. The former is that neuronal activity serves to tune something mysterious into our spatiotemporal sensations. Now clearly, the TV model has a problem in the appeal to "something mysterious", but I would argue that the emergence model has a worse problem in that you can't get there (consciousness) from here (neuronal activity), and the reason one can't is the spatiotemporal separation of each neuronal event from all others. The many separated neuronal events cannot be added together to get the macroscopic events we perceive. (Why not? Try it: An event happens. So does another. What is there that can combine those events? Only another event on the same scale as the other two, but which somehow must -- as a single event -- be more complex than the other two. But if it is more complex, then it must be decomposable into simpler events -- spatiotemporally separated from each other -- and we are back where we started.)
So the debate is necessarily philosophical. And what tipped it for me toward the TV model is partly the questions raised about reality from quantum physics, but mainly it is the evidence of mystics.
My referring to the limit of time to a minimum of 10^-45 seconds has relevance only in that it indicates that time (and space) are not what they were assumed to be in classical physics. Which makes it uncertain that in trying to get a scientific explanation of consciousness, whether one can simply assume that it can be done within the parameters of classical physics.
OK, I agree with your first paragraph. All that can be shown is a correlation.
In your second paragraph, could you say that "spatiotemporal sensations" are the same as what McGinn and Chalmers call qualia? But I'm still pondering "the spatiotemporal separation of each neuronal event from all others". Is this theory your own? Have you published the ideas in your second paragraph?
I'm still concerned about applying quantum physics here because of the scale. At a macro level we have classical physics. But you're saying this is happening at a micro-level.
Perhaps you have seen the Stuart Hameroff Quantum Consciousness papers? I haven't read much in this area but maybe you're drawing on ideas from these papers?
Yes, I am talking about qualia. I agree with Chalmers that they need to be "taken seriously", as he puts it. I disagree with him that it can be done within a naturalistic framework.
No, I haven't published anything. I do not have the academic credentials to get away with it for one thing, but also because it is a a difficult argument to state, much less understand. Maybe, by exposing it here to criticism, that argument can get tightened up, but that would just mean a better type of arm-waving, not getting past it altogether.
All I've taken from quantum physics is a sense of suspicion with regard to space and time. That is, one way to interpret the weirdness of quantum physics is to say that at the subatomic level there is more going on than fits into a spatiotemporal framework. But that interpretation is metaphysical (as are all the others), so I do not expect to find answers to consciousness there. I've looked at Hameroff's ideas, but can't say I'm too interested. My own opinion is that consciousness cannot be explained by anything, because it is fundamental. Everything else is to be explained in terms of consciousness. But since I cannot prove this, I see it merely as placing a bet -- I think it is more likely than the materialist view, so I will use it as my starting point for understanding "things in general".
Yes, you may be right. Consciousness may be fundamental. Your ideas are fascinating and I'll keep working on understanding them.
Hi,
There may well be an ultimate reality that is non-spatiotemporal. This IS a metaphysical problem that we can't get at because there is no known way of determining if there is 'anything' that is non-spatiotemporal. We can't examine the non-spatiotemporal, so we can't tell if it's real, or if ultimate reality is 'it'.
There may be other reasons we can't get a grip on quantum mechanics; it might not be non-spatiotemporal. We simply don't know yet.
McGinn may be wrong. We simply don't know enough about consciousness yet. We're not even in a position to conclude that dualism a real representation of the mind/brain issue. Nothing rules out a physicalist possibility.
What mystics claim may be incorrect. I can accept they experience something, but it could be a delusion. A significant point is that it isn't possible to distinguish between knowledge about something 'real' and a delusion. We simply don't know enough about the mind/brain yet.
Getting on to Good. This only has any significance when set against evil, or sin. But there is nothing that could make us conclude evil, sin or good are anything other than human interpretations of events in the context of how those events involve humans and animals, and sometimes inanimate things (e.g. the planet).
If you start out with the pre-condition that God exists and so does sin, which theists appear to do, then Good, as experienced by the mystics, might simply be the blissful emptiness that occurs in the mind when sin is removed from the equation. They may be experiencing nothingness, in a state of mind, which when compared to the physical world around them (including 'evil' human actions) does appear to be so blissful and peacefull that they perceive as good.
Further more, if God is defined as he often is, as neither existing or not-existing, non-spatiotemporal, etc., then I'm not surprised that when someone switches off consciousness and stops experiencing our customary perceptual, thinking, take on reality, that he might associate this experience with God. It doesn't mean he is really experiencing any knowledge of Good or God. He's simply switched of most of his normal faculties.
"...mystics have been saying for millenia that fundamental reality is not spatiotemporal. And they [mystics] have said so, or so they claim, by virtue of knowledge (of "experiencing" non-spatiotemporal reality), not by metaphysical guesswork."
- The fact they've been saying something means nothing. It's merely a claim.
- They claim it by virtue of knowledge. That claim should be challenged. How do they know this?
- of "experiencing" non-spatiotemporal reality. Again. I'd ask how they know this.
- not by metaphysical guesswork. Sounds like guesswork it to me.
"[mystics say] that the eternal is not merely real, but also Good" - How do they know this? Does this actually mean anything?
Your two posts together appear to beg the question in this respect. You appear to have already decided that we are sinful to begin with, which in itself pre-supposes God. Then you introduce metaphysical problems here that can't be shown to be associated with God in any way, you just think they are. Then you discuss the experiences of mystics, and how they come by some knowledge that you appear to accept unchallenged. This 'knowledge' appears to be sufficient to convince you to believe. But you already believed, otherwise you wouldn't be treating sin and Good (and that we need saving) with the seriousness that you do.
"It is that addition that turns all this from metaphysical speculation to religion." - It was already religion, you already believe; but it still remains metaphysical speculation. You have a belief in God and have taken some metaphysical speculation and think that in someway this supports your existing belief. It doesn't.
If you insist on believing, knock yourself out. But what you have here is a pseudo-rational explanation of you pre-belief based on massive leaps of faith in metaphysical speculation.
Ron,
Before this argument occurred to me, I was an agnostic. In other words, it is simply not true that prior to my accepting this metaphysical argument I believed in God or Original Sin. In fact, I still do not believe in these things. I just consider the religious outlook as described in these posts to be more reasonable than the secular outlook I used to have.
What I don't understand is why you think you are different. Note all the "may's" and "might's" in your comment. Yes, all mystics might be deluded, but some of them might not be. Yes, the eternal might not be real, but it might be. I have simply added up all that I know and decided to bet on the eternal being real. You, I assume, have decided to bet on its not being real. How is one any less of a metaphysical choice than the other?
ha ha good point, Scott. The materialist -- I'm more than half through Dawkins' The God Delusion -- takes as his or her default position that there is no mystery, other than problems that haven't been solved yet through reason and/or measurement. Fine. But that the world itself is a mystery is something I can't get out of my silly head. Perhaps I'm in good company though: “Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is.” said Ludwig Wittgenstein. Might add Heidegger here too.
Hi Scott,
Metaphysically there is no difference, but we are not simply metaphysical beings. The "might's" and "may's" are there simply to acknowledge that we don't have all the answers, and that in some areas we don't have any answers.
"In fact, I still do not believe in these things." But from an earlier post, "Sin: In my view, religion isn't religion unless it acknowledges Original Sin, or something similar." Perhaps the italicised believe means something. Would you care to expand. The rest of your blog posts appear to be steeped in theology that goes beyond mere metaphysical questioning, but without any apparent justification.
"Before this argument occurred to me, I was an agnostic." - As you say elsewhere, you got religion. I'm not particularly commenting on how you got it, but I am saying that it now appears to be a pre-requisite to the rest of your reasoning.
On some other points:
1) "Yes, all mystics might be deluded, but some of them might not be." - How do you tell the difference?
2) "Yes, the eternal might not be real, but it might be." - How do you tell the difference?
3) Fairies might exist, and they might not. How do you tell the difference?
4) "...quantum mechanics... You just get used to it." - So is quantum mechanics telling us something or not? How do you tell the difference? "...though they do not allow one to visualize what is going on in the subatomic world, at least allow one to make predictions that coincide with measurements."
The key difference between 1-to-3 on the one hand and 4 on the other is that 4 is testable, falsifiable, repeatable and allows prediction of outcomes, while 1-to-3 do not.
The material world appeared to hold most of the answers to our questions, but then hit upon this apparently non-sensical world of quantum mechanics. What was the solution? Was it to ignore it as merely strange and unknowable? Was it to mystify it in language and build a religion around it? No. The solution was to investigate it scientifically, use its results where we can, and continue to investigate it rigorously. Do we have all the answers yet? No. Does that mean we should give up on science and turn to mysticism? No. When did mysticism ever solve any problems in this world? It never has, unless you want to call the introverted introspective reclusiveness of personal mysticism and religion a solution. As I said before, we are not simply metaphysical beings.
Hi seev,
If you're reading The God Delusion then that book, and atheism generally needs to be put into context. Dawkins is trying to cover a lot of ground with a popular book, so of course there will be gaps in it.
The contextual problem is this. Many, possibly the majority, of Christians and Muslims (and others, but these two are currently dominant) want to use the metaphysical uncertainty that we all share, attribute real known truth to it, dress it up in theology add religious ritual, make claims about 'holy' books, and then, with all that instantiated certainty, press that view on the world.
How do you get from unanswerable metaphysics to deciding that homosexuality or adultery are sins? How do you even explain sin?
This is the main thrust of Dawkins' book, a challenge to religous bigotry. In places the book may appear a little abrasive, but this is tame compared to the centuries of vitriolic scare mongering and damning that non-believers have endured. Many theists still think that some people should be put to death because their activities infringe some religous law or other.
This is the context in which the book should be read.
If you want to discuss metaphysics with Dawkins that's another matter. He may or may not be interested, I don't know.
Scott and seev,
What follows is my personal view. It is not sacrosanct. It is open to criticsism.
I think metaphysical contemplation is a beneficial, both personally and as an organised human quest for understanding. Philosophy poses some great questions and makes tentative attempts to answer them. Sometimes questions that where once considered to be metaphysical are brought into the scientific realm and are answered sufficiently reliably that philosophers generally no longer ask the questions.
The cornerstone of philosophy is scepticism. The unwillingness to accept dogma without question. The problem I have with theology is that it rarely asks difficult questions. In some areas, such as religious dogma, it gives up on scepticism. It appears to ask difficult questions, but in practice only those that can't be answered. So questions of ultimate origins can be debated. The nature of reality can be debated by atheists and various forms of theists and deists.
But once you start coming into this world theology starts to invoke what amounts to magic. When do you ever see serious in depth debates between Christians and Muslims - any debates end up in stand-off. Theists are in the difficult position, in that if they successfully criticise another religion the very same criticisms can be used against their own theology.
Take the Quran. If you ask a Muslim why he believes the Quran should be considered the authentic word of God, one of his answers will be because it says so. If you ask how one can be certain that Mohammed isn't simply some deluded 'prophet' that merely thinks he conversed with an angel. He'll answer that he believes it because it is true. Scepticism has gone out the window.
Similar questions arise with regard to Christianity. What would make one believe that some guy named Jesus was the Son of God? Other than some other guys said so. Where is the philosophical scepticism?
In short, I find metaphysical questioning reasonable. What I don't see any good reasoning about or evidence for is the mystical trail that leads from some unanswered question, through theism, to religion and religious dogma.
Yes, Ron, it's hard to understand how this might exist: ....the mystical trail that leads from some unanswered question, through theism, to religion and religious dogma.
But I think you overstate in the case of quantum mechanics. Very few scientists of any repute are still trying to question the paradoxes that arise, i.e., the wave particle duality, the non-existence of a state until a measurement is made, the non-locality phenomena. I recently finished Paul Davies The Cosmic Jackpot. Many well-known scientists are turning to philosophy, some to mysticism, which is almost a relief from the strangenesses of some scientific speculations and questions on origins of the universe(s). Not saying this proves mysticism, but I am saying there are questions that can't be answered by a Richard Dawkins type of reductionism.
Ron,
When I'm being careful, I use the word 'know' for things I've experienced, like what I had for breakfast this morning. I use the word 'believe' for things that I haven't actually experienced, but have no reason to doubt, like most historical events and most scientific results. I've never seen a gene, but I believe that they exist and do things like determine eye color.
For religious and metaphysical issues, I don't have a word, but in those cases where I've come down on one side or the other, the phrase "I think it likely that..." probably comes closest. I think it likely that fundamental reality is eternal, loving intellect, and I think it likely that there is something fundamentally wrong with me. I also think it likely that we survive death in some manner. And so forth. But I could be wrong about some or all of this.
1) "Yes, all mystics might be deluded, but some of them might not be." - How do you tell the difference?
By reading them and seeing if they sound reasonable. What "sounds reasonable" means is, of course, not readily specifiable. And, of course, I can never be 100% sure.
2) "Yes, the eternal might not be real, but it might be." - How do you tell the difference?
I gave my reasons in my post. How do you tell the difference? Or are you agnostic on the matter?
3) Fairies might exist, and they might not. How do you tell the difference?
If they existed they could be seen, heard, etc. Since I have no reason for thinking they exist, and since neither I nor anyone I know has experienced them, I assume they don't exist. Eternity, or the transcendence of subject-object duality, or Original Sin, on the other hand, are not empirical objects, so different rules apply.
4) "...quantum mechanics... You just get used to it." - So is quantum mechanics telling us something or not? How do you tell the difference? "...though they do not allow one to visualize what is going on in the subatomic world, at least allow one to make predictions that coincide with measurements."
The key difference between 1-to-3 on the one hand and 4 on the other is that 4 is testable, falsifiable
See above. One can only be empirical if the question at hand has to do with empirical objects. So another thing I do not understand is why you would think there is some point in comparing science to religion (assuming fundamentalists are not in the conversation). Of course science gives reliable results, but that is because it restricts itself to that about which one can get such results. Religion does not provide reliable (testable) results because it deals with that about which such results are impossible. Yet you seem to have opinions about these matters, so how did you arrive at them?
Hi Scott,
"I think it likely that..." - This implies some thought process that evaluates that likelihood. Your assessment here seems to be based on the question of whether there are other forms of reality where common sense language and logic fail. First, why does that failure anywhere else say anything about God or the Eternal. Second, why would you say that your examples, the subatomic world and consciousness are particular examples? Just because we can't explain things yet, or even ever, doesn't mean they form some other reality - any failure with respect to those examples says nothing more about anything else. We have very basic senses that have diffculty examining anything outside our genetically programmed range: the acuteness of sight and hearing, the limited electromagnetic spectrum we can detect. If it wasn't for the many instruments that have been invented to translate these out-of-range phnomena into human sense inputs we wouldn't be able to observe lots of stuff. Some planets are nothing more than wondering stars to the naked eye, and others are invisible. We don't attribute other realitiness to them. To conclude, or to find it 'likely' that these knowledge gaps imply God is to invoke the God of the Gaps.
Mystics - "sounds reasonable" - Unfortunately it's very easy to be taken in by what sounds reasonable. This sounds like Swinburne's Principle of Credulity and Principle of Testimony, which itself sounds like the most unreasonable irrational principles to hold; a charter for gullibility.
Fairies - "If they existed they could be seen, heard, etc." - Not if they are invisible, never present themselves to humans, but magically make some things happen some of the time. Fairies are not empirical objects, so different rules apply. To anyone who actually thinks fairies exists Swinburne's principles hold?
The problem here is that whatever criticism you have of fairies can be applied equally well to mystical claims. Every time there's what we might call a sensible objection, simply change the definition. The definition of God is constantly changing - in some cases it appears to change according to the arguments that question the existence of God, such as, "He neither exists or doesn't exist." Theism's history has consisted of eternal rationalising God in the face of challenges, both from withing religious circles and without. Another example is that God is unkowable. Well, there are an awful lot of claims made on his behalf for an entity that is unknowable.
The Eternal - I am agnostic, but it requires clarification.
1) A non-purposeful unexplained, undefined in terms of time, entity (for want of a better word) that resulted in the this universe, and possibly others, but with no subsequent interaction on a causal level with what happens in the current universe.
2) A purposeful unexplained, undefined in terms of time, entity (for want of a better word) that resulted in the this universe, and possibly others, but with no subsequent interaction on a causal level with what happens in the current universe.
3)A purposeful unexplained, undefined in terms of time, entity (for want of a better word) that resulted in the this universe, and possibly others, and which has subsequent interaction on a causal level with what happens in the current universe.
4) ... others that approach various forms of theistic God.
I'd say we cannot distinguish between (1) and (2). We might want to speculate, and we may even attempt to apply reason. As I said previously, I think these are worthwhile activities. I see no reason to give up on trying to understand our origins, even if currently the result is out of reach.
The problem with (3),(4) and other hypotheses associated with religious beliefs is that if there is some interaction with this universe then in principle there should be material evidence of it. There isn't, as far as I know. Centuries of atheists asking for evidence from theists has produced none. There's no more evidence of God than there is of fairies.
So, where does that leave us from my point of view? Take your choice, (1) or (2). Become a mystic if you wish. If you want to say, by definition, that God is outside of the material world and therefore outside science, fine; but that's going on in your head, and nowhere else - you can't show it to be anything more than a concept, a human mental construct. If you want to use that mysticism to guide how you should lead your life, and you want to make that public, or want to share it with the world, then expect questions and criticism. If you want to go further, as many theists do, and attempt to persuade or even impose your views on the world, then expect even more searching questions, and expect objections.
If you go down the route of (3), (4), ... expect even more questions, and probably some ridicule, because to many people it's just pie in the sky. You might as well be talking fairies. "So another thing I do not understand is why you would think there is some point in comparing science to religion." - Because religion does claim interaction with this world. You discuss 'sin' in your blog. Sin is something humans 'are' (sinful) or 'do' (to do evil), and humans are material beings, and sin and evil in a religious context says something about how these material beings should behave (e.g. don't perform homosexual acts, don't blaspheme, etc.) This is in the realm of science.
I've considered the above, and from what I can tell it doesn't make one jot of difference to my material life whichever of (1) or (2) I decide to use as a working model of our origins. What about my mental life? Anything that I have ever read or witnessed in the behaviour of other people, particularly on matters of how I behave, myself, or how I behave towards other people, takes nothing from any religious sources that isn't already available from human experience.
In other words, it's all irrelevant in my life, outside my interest in philosophy and science. And, what's more, it's no business of the Archbishop of Cantebury, or whoever one's local God Scout is, what I do with my personal or public life, as long as I'm not asking other people to live by my stanards.
From another perspective, we interact with the material world all the time. The body is so used to interacting with the material world that most of it's actions are automatic. We are material creatures. There is no evidence that we might be other than purely physical. We appear to have minds, and they give the impression of consciousness, so we play out our lives as if we do have consciousness, particularly with respect to interacting within the material world. Some people have experiences which to them appear to 'transcend' the material. But this could be an illusion, and to all intents and purposes we can act as if it is an illusion, because to ignore those experiences has no impact on the material world, other than the way in which some people choose to interpret those experiences.
We have the materialist model that works well most of the time. Other than death there is no way of escaping this material world view. It's in your face all the time. There are other models, or world views, which are obscure, esoteric, insubstantial; but whether you believe them or not appears to have no impact on the meterial world.
Many claims have been and continue to be made about other models of reality, some are what we call theistic, or religious. If someone makes claims for any other model that the most obviously most reliable one, then they need to provide good reasons for accepting it. "sounds reasonable" doesn't really do it for me.
Ron,
So far, in your comments, you have not addressed my argument about consciousness. You seem to think that it consists of "science has no explanation for consciousness, therefore there is eternal reality", but it is more specific than that. It says: IF one assumes an atomistic, spatiotemporal reality, THEN because of the spatiotemporal separation of events there can be no awareness of anything larger than one of those events. There is awareness of larger things. Therefore, reality cannot be fundamentally as thought of in classical physics. Now, of course we know that classical physics does not explain everything, so what the argument says is that at a minumum, to explain consciousness one would have to invoke something like quantum weirdness, such as the superposition of states and non-locality, i.e., that which does not fit into a spatiotemporal framework.
That is all that I am claiming from the consciousness argument alone. Hence, I can't rule out that some explanation along the lines of Stuart Hameroff's might someday bear fruit, though I can rule out that there will ever be a conscious (non-quantum) computer.
As for the rest, all I see in your comment is your arm-waving for "I think it likely that materialism is true" in opposition to my arm-waving for "I think it likely that materialism is false". And that all boils down to whether or not one takes mystics seriously. (Actually, there is more to it than that, but that's all I've mentioned. Another reason I have arises from reading Owen Barfield's work, especially Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, on the evolution of consciousness, but going into that takes us off in other directions. I hope to post about him by and by.)
Really, all I can say is that I am quite familiar with all your arguments, having been thoroughly exposed to them -- and for a long time having agreed with them. But now I find them not only not compelling, but wrongheaded. I suppose I could go through your last comment, rebutting each point, but I know that will not accomplish anything, just as your rebutting of each of my points does not accomplish anything. About all I can say is: read Franklin Merrell-Wolff (the mystic who to me most "sounds reasonable"), and read Owen Barfield's book. Or don't, but if you don't we don't really have anything to say to each other. Or if you do, yet find Merrell-Wolff unreasonable, and Barfield's arguments unconvincing, there is nothing more that I can do to convince you, just as there is nothing you can say to convince me.
Which we never could. I did not start this blog to convince atheists to be religious. My intent was to present an alternative way of being religious (rather than the traditional one based on faith in a particular revelation), one that I think is more appropriate in this age of pluralism and doubt. As such, it is mostly directed toward the existing religious community, though I do admit I would hope it provides an alternative possibility for those who reject traditional religion, for the usual reasons, yet are also not happy with materialism.
Hi Scott,
"...IF one assumes an atomistic, spatiotemporal reality, THEN because of the spatiotemporal separation of events there can be no awareness of anything larger than one of those events. There is awareness of larger things. Therefore, reality cannot be fundamentally as thought of in classical physics...to explain consciousness one would have to invoke something like quantum weirdness, such as the superposition of states and non-locality..."
1) To assume atomistic, spatiotemporal reality does not mean it is the case. Even if current science indicates that this is the case that tells us only what current science is telling us, which is not necessarily what reality is. At an even lower level reality might be continuous. We don't know.
2) Saying what we can't be aware of (i.e. of anything larger than an event IF atomistic) does not say anything about what we can be aware of, particularly consciously, at least directly. It may be possible, as is the case with some areas of knowledge, that scientific instruments can give us indirect information that we can't directly be aware of. But directly through consciousness? How do we know what that can tell us?
3) How can you tell what is required to explain consciousness? Consciousness hasn't been investigated sufficiently from the scientific, materialist point of view, and it's not clear what conscious beings are able to understand about their own personal consciousness using their minds alone. There's simply no evidence to suggest mystical experiences have any bearing on reality.
And this is partly why I think mystics can't say that what they are experiencing is a representation of reality. Whatever they are experiencing they are not in a position to say what it is.
Merrell-Wolff's idea that reality as we usually understand it may be brought into existence by consciousness sounds like a plausible hypothesis, but that's all it is. Just as materialism as one level of representation of reality, despite some of it's problems, is also a plausible hypothesis.
The main difference is that the evidence for materialism is abundant - we appear to interact with the world so convincingly that it would require very good evidence persuade most people that it's only an illusion. Even if, in deeper reality, it is an illusion, it's so effective that it is actually useful to us. It's a good working model of reality.
Merrell-Wolff's view is merely a concept as far as we can tell, despite his claims to the contrary. His mystic methods for accepting his view appear more like self-hypnosis or self-delusion than real enquiry. If you open yourself up to belief in some idea, swamp yourself with it by repeated exposure, holding criticism at bay, then you might well convince yourself that it's reasonable. Similar methods have been used in the political sphere throughout the 20th century. So, though it presents a view of reality as a model, it hasn't been particularly productive as a working model.
I don't think that there is much diffrence, in terms of our thinking on reality (that it is something beyond our reach and that materialism is only a representation of reality). I think our difference in views starts from there - when try to decide how we can get at reality in the most reliable way, and what we take from it or make of it.
I've read about Merrell-Wolff but I've not ready his work directly. I've not read Barfield's book. I'll look into both further.
A few things:
A.) Paragraph 3. Certainly I agree with you that quantum physics is merely a language that allows physicists to make predictions, and predictions only. But, in order for this to work, what is the analogous religious language? (or better put mystic language) and/or what form does it take? Furthermore, how does it speak to and/or predict, and what does it predict. Essentially, it seems like that’s a loose end here.
B.) Paragraph 4. I smell some Kant and Pirsig here. Pirsig said in some way or another that Quality is that tiny moment of time which exists between the moment you sense (in this case see) something, and the time you intellectualize over/about it. (the whole analogy of the train and the cars and bla-bla-bla, you know Pirsig) NOTE: I take Pirsig's word intellectualize to be a package word that contains within it the process of Kants transcendental aesthetic and the idea of synthesis, he was a fan afterall). I take you to be saying the same thing here - which is that your using the language "spatiotemporal" in the place of Quality and that our consciousness makes connections via synthesis after the fact - or rather, after that tiny moment. But I’m not certain where you get “your” tiny moment from (your extended now)? I’m with you, but how do you lock that? Certainly quantum physics is fuzzy enough that it looks to be there, (I’m thinking of the photon light test and the slits in paper bla-bla-bla). I’m missing something.
C.) Second to the last paragraph. You state, "It is that addition that turns all this from metaphysical speculation to religion." I'm curious to know what you mean by religion. Certainly if we're talking about Buddhism sure, but I'm not so certain this translates to western Christian traditions and Muslim traditions (essentially western Plutonic traditions). Unless of course we're talking about forms of Gnostic Christianity. Not only that, but where is God in all this? And how do you define God? Are you saying he’s the eternal? Is God “Quality”.
I think this is some great sht here by the way.
PS,
I always thought it was interesting that Pirsig came up with the only philosophical trinity. Quality/object/subject. father/son/holy ghost. Where the father is transcendental, the son is objective, and the holy spirit is internal and subjective. Interesting, but perhaps childish.
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