I had to help a friend to do research on philosophy a few weeks for a college elective, and I pointed him to research the writings of Immanuel Kant Kant was not only an intelligent man, but he was an intelligent Christian as well, and greatly criticized organized religion in his writings for their failures that he candidly point out.
This made me think of an interesting topic for the Dawgtalkers Everything Else forum, more as a thought provoking exercise on the merits of religion. As well as reasons based in logic why not only are atheists dead wrong in their views, but so are most of us Christians, or [insert your religion here]. Its a really thought provoking exercise when you think about it.
(its been a few years since I read Kant so if I make any mistakes, I do apologize in advance, I am writing this off the top of my head what I remember)
Its important to understand that "Everyone" will take something different away from this. After reading this, it may change your views or your perceptions of thinking on not only matters of religion, but everything else. Lets get started:
1. Reality and experience
Simply put Kant argues that we never really experience the world or the universe. What we experience in the "phenomenal world" which is structured by the necessary features of our minds. We never have any direct experience of the "noumenal world" which greatly skews our perceptions as human beings.
This lack of vision by us as a species is pretty much the cause of every major human failure since the beginning of time.....Humans are not capable of fully experiencing the "noumenal world" as far as I remember, Only God or a higher power has the ability to experience this as far as I remember according to Kant.
Causality, Miracles, and why most views on both sides are logically flawed"
What is causality? According to Kant Causality is a reproducible, predictable cause and effect of human behavior. For example sticking your bare hand in a pot of boiling water will result in a burn. This is causality, its a scientifically proven and predictable event...you can put your hands in that water 50 trillion times and get burned 50 trillion times.
What is a miracle - According to Kant a miracle is a "exception" in the predictable and normal events of causality. That's what a miracle is. Its an exception to the established rules of causality....For example, a person crashes a car like Paul Walker did a few weeks ago, and walk away from the crash with little to no injuries. That is a miracle. Its is an exception in the normal predictable behavior of causality. Thousands of people could crash the same car, at the same rate of speed and die, and 1 person walks away from it, its a miracle because its an exception to the predictable events of causality.
Kant also determined that once any criteria, any method is introduced that a miracle can be reproduced systematically and consistently, then its no longer an exception and therefore no longer a miracle.
Why most Athesit and religious views are flawed
Kant pointed out that all views that focus solely on the presence of a miracle(religious), or the lack of a miracle(Atheist) is morally and logically an intractable position. Both sides are basing their position on an exception or the lack of an exception in the normal events of causality. It is logically an intractable position and Kant pointed this out.
Why does the existence of a God expected to suspend Causality?
There are those who refer to the "man in the sky" and those who pray to God expecting God to suspend causality or to prove his existence. Since God has supposedly never shown himself or proven himself(to some people), the Atheist side will argue he doesn't exist.
However the lack of an "exception to causality" AKA a miracle being the primary evidence they use to vindicate their claims. On the flipside, the Religious will use miracles as a vindication of proving God's existence which is equally futile.
it is unreasonable and intractable to base a faith or religious belief or disbelief on the lack of an exception.
To sum it up: To base a faith or lack of faith in a higher power on the presence of lack of an exception is an affront to ones own reason
I thought this would spark an interesting debate. I just barely scratched the tip of the Iceberg from what I remember about reading some of Kants work, but the guy was brilliant x10...pretty much every modern thinker work is based off Kant...there has been no one born in the 20th or 21st centuries that has rival Kant...Not Ayn Rand, none of the modern thinkers...its pretty incredible when you think about it.
Now this posts was not meant to sway anyone to one side or another...this post was meant to look inside yourself and examine your beliefs whatever they may be, and ask yourself if those beliefs are really logical....to ask yourself....if your beliefs are based on sound reason?
My point being...do you believe in a specific way because of what science has parroted to you? What the media has parroted to you? what the education system has parroted to you?
Pretty much I am asking, have you really looked deep down inside yourself...in that place where you hold secrets you will never admit to anyone....that place in your mind and heart that only "you" know what it holds inside their, that part that is never shared with anyone.....and ask yourself "why" you believe what you believe?
I am a bigger believer that religion and science only go so far...there is no one single truth in this world...Science can't give it to you, neither can the government or any other person...that one single truth comes from inside of you....have you explored that part of yourself?
Regardless of what you find there, there is no right or wrong answers....The answers that are found will be different for all of us,. however searching those answers and finding them we grow as not only humans, we grow spiritually, we gain greater understanding, different perspectives of looking at things, this can not be a bad thing, it can only help you in your growth and increase your knowledge of the world and yourself.
please thoughts, opinions, lay em out! I am curious what others feel about this.
Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED" "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (book one of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy series), p 50
Why do we believe in God? Perhaps a story will shed some light upon the subject:
Quote: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go on a camping trip, set up their tent and fall asleep. Some hours later Sherlock wakes his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what do you see?"
Watson replies, "I see millions of stars."
"What does that tell you?" Sherlock asks.
Watson ponders for a minute. "Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, it's evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you, Sherlock?"
Sherlock is silent for a moment, then speaks, "Watson, you idiot, someone has stolen our tent!"
There is a beautiful speech by the late Douglas Adams about the possibility of there being an artificial God. God imagined by man to fill in gaps in his understanding of the world. In one part of the speech, Adams suggests that early man, when he found that the world suited him so much, imagined that it must have been made for him, and that whoever made it must love him a lot therefore.
Let me start out by saying that I am not at all opposed to this idea. I have pondered this angle a lot and have even explored it in a post I wrote a few years ago. It is certainly possible that the idea of God came out of man’s mind and I would be lying if I said that this does not strike me as logical.
Having said that, let me also add that the idea does not negate anything in my belief system. I believe that God exists – either as an entity, or an idea, or a force, or a guy with a thousand arms and forty thousand heads – I don’t know. All I know is that he (or she or it) does exist. My personal definition of existence is very wide and allows for a whole lot of abstractions to share space with elements of the tangible universe. So when I say God exists, I may mean that he is in my head and that is quite enough for me.
But let us not make this about me. My interest in the question how God came to be is perhaps inferior to my interest in the question of why God came into being. The how-why divide may seem facile to some. So hear me out.
Regardless of whether God — a force superior to man — created him, or man imagined a superior force after he “just happened”, we are still faced with the inescapable presence of God in our lives, if not as a tangible reality, then at least as an idea.
My question is this (and try and think it over with an open mind): Why did man create God? Why did he imagine Him? What was the need for it? Why did he feel compelled to find a meaning in the world around him that there was no physical need for?
Animals don’t do this. They get along just fine without bothering with the meaning of things. Why is it only man that has this need to imagine things, to tell stories, to wonder about things higher than himself? Why does man have these fancy philosophical questions? Why does man feel humbled? Why is he always looking up? Why do we personify nature? Why do we imagine the wind to be a god? Why do we imagine the sea to be the thousand-eyed Varuna? Why to we consider the earth our mother?
Some will label it delusion of the mind. But I think that is simplifying it far too much. Imagining things is not an option that we exercise. It is a very deep-rooted human tendency. We indulge in little acts of imagination (acts of faith?) uncountable times everyday, mostly without even knowing it.
Many people cherish objects handed down to them by their parents. These can be a pen, or an item of clothing, or something like that. But to them, these are more than just simple objects. To them, these are something more. They imagine a higher meaning in them. Many people yell at their computer when it hangs. Many people find themselves considering certain places more significant than others – the house they grew up in, their first school, the bridge on which they kissed someone for the first time, etc.
These things, while they may not look related, demonstrate the same function of the human mind. Namely, the tendency to believe that the world is more than it appears to be. Belief in the existence of God is just a larger concept than imagining that the bridge on which you kissed your first girlfriend is somehow special and unique. It is all imagination.
My question (as if I have not asked it enough times already), is WHY. Why do we do all this? I have blogged before about our need for rituals and superstitions. Plus, there is scientific evidence of our brains being hard-wired to be superstitious. But that doesn’t answer the question, it only adds to it. Why is man built this way?
For the purposes of this post, I will ignore the idea of God as creator, because we started off with Adams’ suggestion of God being an artificial construct. Thus, we end up with the theory that man naturally evolved from lower animals and got to be this way. But even so, the god-damned why remains unanswered.
If man evolved from lower animals, and lower animals lack the sort of rich imaginative tendencies that man has, does it not naturally follow that what we have is something superior to what they have? Does it not say that the ability to believe and the ability to imagine meanings and the tendency to see things for more than what they seem to be, is something that we gained through the marvelously complex system of evolution by natural selection? May it not be that we evolved to believe in God? And if we did, the question that follows inevitably is – why. Why did we evolve to believe in forces higher than ourselves? Why can’t we just live our lives like animals without wondering about our place in the universe?
I don’t have an answer. But I will not pretend that the question doesn’t exist. So in order to show respect to the question, I will proceed to make some logical deductions.
Let us consider the human body to be a computer. It is a fascinating machine, capable of amazing feats. It boggles our minds. We grow curious and start exploring it. As time passes, our understanding of the computer grows better and better. We get to its very basics. We discover that it is made of metal and plastic. We go even deeper, down to the circuits. We find what makes the software work. We then sit content in the knowledge that our understanding of the computer is complete.
But what we conveniently ignore is (brace for impact) the why. Why is the computer there in the first place? Why is such amazing software installed on it? For what purpose? Ignore the question about who made the computer if you want to. What we should at least wonder about is why it exists at all.
This is, in fact, the single greatest philosophical question that has obsessed man since the beginning of time. Why does anything exist at all? What is the point of it? The name religion gives that reason, is God. Plain and simple.
And the question is not as hopelessly unanswerable as it may seem. We have the computer and we know what it can do. We know that there is an operating system (the soul?) and a web browser on it (imagination?). Does it not naturally follow that there may be a web out there, waiting to be browsed? I mean, why would we be given an Internet Explorer if there were no Internet to explore?
I think the problem here lies with our temporal way of seeing things. Humans have very definitive ways of defining concepts like “beginning”, “end”, “creation” etc. And as we have learnt more, these definitions have been challenged and, in many cases, demolished. For example, our ideas about “up” and “down” disappeared the moment we ventured into the weightlessness of outer space. Could it not be that the limitations of time (as we understand it) do not apply to the force that created us? Why does God have to be something that came “before” us? After all, there are objects in the known universe that mock “time” all the time (black holes for example).
The other idea is to look at the God concept as something resembling music. Music, as we know it today, didn’t exist till humans came around. But we definitely didn’t create music. It has always been around. What we really did was perceive it in a way that none had done before.
Why can’t this be the way man “created” God? The force that made all things may have always been around. All man did (when he got around to being able to do so) was perceive him with a faculty only he possessed — imagination.
I actually enjoy these types of discussions, as there are no correct answers, but there is always plenty to learn.
I don't believe that man created god. When you consider all the stories about god/gods, these are fantastic creatures. They fly, they leave earth, the have fantastic weapons, they can create/destroy at will, they give life and death with a thought. I don't believe any man could have pulled this off.
All legends/stories/fables/myths have a basis in truth. Robin Hood might not have been a real person, and in fact is believed to be a composite of several outlaws. There was even a grave of a man found near Nottingham, who was buried with a bow, and there was a 7 foot tall man buried next to him. There was a stone with the name Arturus found near Tintangel castle in Wales. Could this be in reference to the mythical King Arthur? Stories of werewolves are thought to have been related to ergot poisoning, which causes strange halucinations. Are these just made up creations, or do they have a basis in fact?
Can we possibly dismiss these stories of god/gods so easily? I would like to point out some of the greatest creations of man. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was though to take 20 years to build, and thousands of men and craftsmen to move and stack the blocks. At one time, this was though to be the work of slaves, but would slaves put this much effort into this monument? The walls in the Kings chamber are glass smooth. Did a mere man inspire thousands of people to build this 13 acre pyramid on a made up myth, or was there an extraordinary being directing this feat? There has to be a basis of truth in the stories of god/gods.
There is a unifying theory behind why Locke (and most premodern philosophers) and the slaves of Egypt were defending gods or building pyramids. Can you figure it out?
Not doing so meant they would be killed
Religion never stuck for me as a child. I'm not sure my father particularly believed either so that may have been the cause. As a side effect I don't really have a personal story to explain how to stop believing. I think it is possible that a belief in god may possess more emotional value than non-belief so I don't really care to refute people anymore. Atheism has yet to provide the social network, charitable aspects, centers for self reflection, and positive moral guidance that a lot of religion can provide.
If you want to poke around the arguments against it there are plenty of mainstream guys like Hitchens and Dawkins who write about it. I like Stefan Molyneux's youtube videos on the subject personally.
Quote: This lack of vision by us as a species is pretty much the cause of every major human failure since the beginning of time.....Humans are not capable of fully experiencing the "noumenal world" as far as I remember, Only God or a higher power has the ability to experience this as far as I remember according to Kant.
This is true in certain ways, and I believe an oversimplification in others. If you are saying that my perceptions influence how I perceive the world - that is certainly true. As is the fact that I can only experience the world through my own senses.
But I would argue the following: either the phenomenal world is an excellent simulacrum for the noumenal world (i.e. our perceived experiences, while colored by my own mind, are a relatively true template for the real world), in which case our phenomenal world has intrinsic meaning -- or alternatively our phenomenal world is so far removed form the the noumenal world that our actions (based on our perceived construction of the world) are meaningless and random in the context of the real world. If there is no template for how my actions affect a world that I can't perceive - then how can I be responsible or have a duty to something that I can't by construction understand?
To take it to an extreme, assume that I (or you, in this case) - am the only conscious thing in the universe. Everything else is a fake reality, implanted in my mind by a benevolent (or malevolent, it doesn't matter) deity who is inaccessible to me. My phenomenal world is entirely a lie -- however it is the noumenal world which has no value to me -- because its rules and structure are completely and entirely foreign. While I can be responsible for abusing a person in my fake reality (according to rules that either I or this deity have invented), I cannot have any responsibility for anything that happens in the actually reality.
So what I'm saying is this -- to the extent that the phenomenal world is not a true template for the real world, it is the real world, and not the phenomenal world, that loses value.
Quote: However the lack of an "exception to causality" AKA a miracle being the primary evidence they use to vindicate their claims. On the flipside, the Religious will use miracles as a vindication of proving God's existence which is equally futile.
it is unreasonable and intractable to base a faith or religious belief or disbelief on the lack of an exception.
To sum it up: To base a faith or lack of faith in a higher power on the presence of lack of an exception is an affront to ones own reason
I agree with this in theory -- but it is interesting that - Given that there are a multitude of amazing things about the world (even if it is our phenomenal world, --> see the caveat above) that we can understand -- it would appear that the presence or absence of the miraculous should be an afterthought at best. It is baffling that the majority of the planets wars are fought over the intrinsically true statement that "it's possible that there are things we can't explain."
Just a random comment, but I recently discovered that I am a decendent of Rob Roy MacGregor. He was said to have been the "inspiration of Robin Hood." Now did Robin exist himself? I'm not sure. However, I do know people who followed his actions and shared his beliefs did exist
i don't see why evolution and religion can both be right.
i know its stupid idea of mine..but what if god created the things the way they are...and waited to show himself once we evolved to the point we became intelligence species?
i dunno...something like that..
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
God and evolution aren't mutually exclusive or contradictory.
God creating man from dirt or the whole seven days thing would be contradictory. I'm not really sure how many christians care that much about those parts of the religion anyways or if they are even considered the word of god to them. Seems like a pretty unimportant aspect of the debate about god to me.
Quote: I actually enjoy these types of discussions, as there are no correct answers, but there is always plenty to learn.
I don't believe that man created god. When you consider all the stories about god/gods, these are fantastic creatures. They fly, they leave earth, the have fantastic weapons, they can create/destroy at will, they give life and death with a thought. I don't believe any man could have pulled this off.
All legends/stories/fables/myths have a basis in truth. Robin Hood might not have been a real person, and in fact is believed to be a composite of several outlaws. There was even a grave of a man found near Nottingham, who was buried with a bow, and there was a 7 foot tall man buried next to him. There was a stone with the name Arturus found near Tintangel castle in Wales. Could this be in reference to the mythical King Arthur? Stories of werewolves are thought to have been related to ergot poisoning, which causes strange halucinations. Are these just made up creations, or do they have a basis in fact?
Can we possibly dismiss these stories of god/gods so easily? I would like to point out some of the greatest creations of man. The Great Pyramid in Egypt was though to take 20 years to build, and thousands of men and craftsmen to move and stack the blocks. At one time, this was though to be the work of slaves, but would slaves put this much effort into this monument? The walls in the Kings chamber are glass smooth. Did a mere man inspire thousands of people to build this 13 acre pyramid on a made up myth, or was there an extraordinary being directing this feat? There has to be a basis of truth in the stories of god/gods.
I think it's funny that when you mention Kant's influence over the past two centuries and the fact that no modern thinker has rivaled him, the only other person you mention by name is Ayn Rand, a person who wasn't even a philosopher. Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Frege, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Russell, Peirce, Quine and a hundred others are pissed! They all take a back seat to Ayn Rand.
Quote: there is no one single truth in this world...Science can't give it to you, neither can the government or any other person...that one single truth comes from inside of you....have you explored that part of yourself?
I have no idea what this part of myself would be. Are you suggesting that a person can determine what is true exclusively through introspection? What would happen if everyone was to follow this method? What would then be the basis for social cohesion if everyone had their own truth?
Quote: there is no one single truth in this world...Science can't give it to you, neither can the government or any other person...that one single truth comes from inside of you....have you explored that part of yourself?
I disagree. There is one single truth in this world. Either God exists or he doesn't and if He does, either He is an active God in our lives or a passive God... the answers to those questions are an absolute truth.... Now, absent any proof, we are left to form our own opinions and beliefs on what that truth is.. which is, I think, what you were getting at.
If God does exist, which I believe He does, and if He created us all as most major religions claim He did and He is active in our lives, then there is a single truth... and it is what God says it is.
If God doesn't exist, then there is no such thing as truth.
If God exists but is a passive God then the answer is much more blurry for me...
Quote: Pretty much I am asking, have you really looked deep down inside yourself...in that place where you hold secrets you will never admit to anyone....
Yes but I don't really have that place you are talking about.. I talk openly and often with my pastor about my doubts and my fears and my concerns over faith, my faith, my beliefs, my questions, my path to get to where I am today, etc... I also listen and read from others who have doubts or who quite simply don't believe. I am constantly exploring my faith and why I believe what I believe.
Quote: i don't see why evolution and religion can both be right.
i know its stupid idea of mine..but what if god created the things the way they are...and waited to show himself once we evolved to the point we became intelligence species?
i dunno...something like that..
This topic isn't about evolution vs. creationism, but about Kant's views that religion is logical, and atheistic views, illogical. Evolution has nothing to do with religion, it's a Theory (scientific) that describes how species change. This is already a hairy enough conversation without bringing evolution into it.
Quote: i don't see why evolution and religion can both be right.
i know its stupid idea of mine..but what if god created the things the way they are...and waited to show himself once we evolved to the point we became intelligence species?
i dunno...something like that..
I can't argue with that swish. It could have happened that way. None of us will ever know. At least while we are still alive
Quote: but what if god created the things the way they are...and waited to show himself once we evolved to the point we became intelligence species?
Then I'd say he's not going to show himself for a very long time.
How can you say we are not intelligent? What other species can find entertainment value is the misery and asshattery(yes that is a made up word) of others?
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
Quote: If God doesn't exist, then there is no such thing as truth.
Could you explain this please?
I can try. Keep in mind I'm not talking about telling the truth. If I ask my wife if she cheated on me, there is a truthful answer and a lying answer... I'm talking about absolute truth. Wow, this is going to be harder to explain than I thought. Let me try to give you some examples.. is it a truth that I should share my food with the needy or that I should hoard it to guarantee my survival? Is it truth that I should treat people fairly or own slaves if I have the ability to have that power over them for my own benefit?
Now the obvious answer that we have always been taught is yes, you should share your food with the needy and you should treat people fairly... but if there is no God, then where does that notion come from? It's just the right thing to do... but why? The Bible (and other religious texts) drew a distinction between people and animals... if those books are fiction and we are all just higher on the evolutionary scale than other animals, then why should I treat you better than the horse or the ox or the mule if I have the ability to force you to work for me? If I have that power, doesn't that just mean that I'm slightly more evolved than you are? Why should I do anything but live by my base primal urges to care for and protect myself, using whatever means are necessary to ensure my own safety, security, and prosperity?
Cannibalism is something that occurs among a variety of creatures in the wild, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes for other reasons.. but in humans, if I get hungry enough and my only option is to hunt, kill, and eat another human being... is it a truth that it is wrong? and if it is a truth, then why?
Quote: Now the obvious answer that we have always been taught is yes, you should share your food with the needy and you should treat people fairly... but if there is no God, then where does that notion come from? It's just the right thing to do... but why? The Bible (and other religious texts) drew a distinction between people and animals... if those books are fiction and we are all just higher on the evolutionary scale than other animals, then why should I treat you better than the horse or the ox or the mule if I have the ability to force you to work for me? If I have that power, doesn't that just mean that I'm slightly more evolved than you are? Why should I do anything but live by my base primal urges to care for and protect myself, using whatever means are necessary to ensure my own safety, security, and prosperity?
Actually you did a pretty good job, and it's a very interesting perspective and explanation. In most of these explanations one could interchange the "Right Thing" with the "Moral Thing" and vice versa and still have the same outcome.
We don't have to agree with each other, to respect each others opinion.
Quote: If God doesn't exist, then there is no such thing as truth.
Could you explain this please?
I can try. Keep in mind I'm not talking about telling the truth. If I ask my wife if she cheated on me, there is a truthful answer and a lying answer... I'm talking about absolute truth. Wow, this is going to be harder to explain than I thought. Let me try to give you some examples.. is it a truth that I should share my food with the needy or that I should hoard it to guarantee my survival? Is it truth that I should treat people fairly or own slaves if I have the ability to have that power over them for my own benefit?
You're confounding this idea of absolute truth with morals, ethics and acceptable human behavior.
Quote: Now the obvious answer that we have always been taught is yes, you should share your food with the needy and you should treat people fairly... but if there is no God, then where does that notion come from? It's just the right thing to do... but why? The Bible (and other religious texts) drew a distinction between people and animals... if those books are fiction and we are all just higher on the evolutionary scale than other animals, then why should I treat you better than the horse or the ox or the mule if I have the ability to force you to work for me? If I have that power, doesn't that just mean that I'm slightly more evolved than you are? Why should I do anything but live by my base primal urges to care for and protect myself, using whatever means are necessary to ensure my own safety, security, and prosperity?
Your understanding of biology and evolution and what they say about the world needs work. There is no "higher or lower," evolved species that currently live on this planet. Evolution by necessity requires you to consider the flow of time. I am just as evolved as one of mice, but I am more evolved than something that dies millenia ago. For instance, homo sapienshave been evolving longer than a Tyrannosaurus rex. We are more evolved, meaning we have been under evolutionary pressure and undergoing evolution as a process, longer. Sure, we can out-think one or open a beer can easier, but there are many things it would best us at. Being more evolved doesn't mean that we are inherently better. Another example, a lion. I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with one on the open savanna, but put a tool in my hand, a spear maybe, and we're making the odds a bit more even. That lion is just as evolved (meaning it's been under evolutionary pressure the same amount of time) as I am. We're not any higher or lower evolutionarily than a lion, or a sheep, or a cat, dog, etc. we are just different is all. Anything alive now has been evolving the same amount of time. So this idea of yours that biology, or evolution for that matter, sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom "because we are more evolved" shows the lack of understanding you have regarding this specific topic. I think it would be apparent that Biology says since our ancestors were animals, so are we. We're all animals, different in our own ways for sure, but still animals. We can laud our intelligence, ability to understand and affect change on our surroundings to a much greater degree than other animals, but that doesn't make us inherently better (or more evolved) than anything else on this planet.
Your last question, however, is interesting. Why DO we have the capability to be altruistic, and why is that behavior acceptable where the cut-throat "I got mine" attitude isn't? The answer lies in the type of animal that we are. We are primarily social animals. Our ancestors survived by banding together and making a go of it together, rather than alone. Therefore, those that contributed to the group dynamic survived more often than those that didn't. The passed on their genes, where the loners didn't. These genes are responsible for forming areas of the brain that give us a pleasureable feeling when giving to others, and helping them out. We can get a tiny buzz when this happens, it makes us feel happy. Doing things for yourself feels good as well. When you have food to eat, things to do, etc. you feel happy. So how does this get balanced out? There's a saying in Neurobiology, neurons that fire together, wire together. That means that when two neurons are close to one another in proximity, and fire off an electrical charge within a few milliseconds of one another, those neurons will strengthen their communication between one another over time. This is how behaviors get reinforced and actions learned. When one part of the brain that says you're being altruistic fires together with an area that releases dopamine, you end up feeling better. These connections strengthen over time, reinforcing that behavior. The same thing could be said about being selfish. If you're rewarded enough for being selfish, your brain will associate being selfish with that reward, making you want to be selfish more often.
So, to answer your question, why don't we just do whats good for us and leave it at that? The answer is that we learn from an early age that helping people, in a round-a-bout way makes us feel better. Our society also tells us that this is proper human behavior for living within the group, which is another reason that we have this reaction. All of this leads to the type of behavior you're talking about.
Quote: Cannibalism is something that occurs among a variety of creatures in the wild, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes for other reasons.. but in humans, if I get hungry enough and my only option is to hunt, kill, and eat another human being... is it a truth that it is wrong? and if it is a truth, then why?
Again, this is ethics, and generally there's no right answer. Ethics likes to dance in the gray areas of moral quandries. The answer is always, "It depends." Are you going to die? Could you steal food instead? Which way is easier? Which way has less consequences? It depends.
Quote: Cannibalism is something that occurs among a variety of creatures in the wild, sometimes out of desperation, sometimes for other reasons.. but in humans, if I get hungry enough and my only option is to hunt, kill, and eat another human being... is it a truth that it is wrong? and if it is a truth, then why?
Again, this is ethics, and generally there's no right answer. Ethics likes to dance in the gray areas of moral quandries. The answer is always, "It depends." Are you going to die? Could you steal food instead? Which way is easier? Which way has less consequences? It depends.
it is your opinion that there is no right answer. you note definitively that "It depends" while many would say it is an absolute that it is wrong. let's make it as simple as possible. 2 people are stuck in a cave with no way out. they have some water but absolutely no food. after some time, they both grow weak and are near death. one of them could eat the other and potentially live longer in hopes of being rescued. is that wrong?
Quote: ....but what if god created the things the way they are...and waited to show himself once we evolved to the point we became intelligence species?
Quote: Then I'd say he's not going to show himself for a very long time.
I met god the other day.
I know what you’re thinking. How the hell did you know it was god?
Well, I’ll explain as we go along, but basically he convinced me by having all, and I do mean ALL, the answers. Every question I flung at him he batted back with a plausible and satisfactory answer. In the end, it was easier to accept that he was god than otherwise.
Which is odd, because I’m still an atheist and we even agree on that!
It all started on the 8.20 back from Paddington. Got myself a nice window seat, no screaming brats or drunken hooligans within earshot. Not even a mobile phone in sight. Sat down, reading the paper and in he walks.
What did he look like?
Well not what you might have expected that’s for sure. He was about 30, wearing a pair of jeans and a "hobgoblin" tee shirt. Definitely casual. Looked like he could have been a social worker or perhaps a programmer like myself.
‘Anyone sitting here?’ he said.
‘Help yourself’ I replied.
Sits down, relaxes, I ignore and back to the correspondence on genetically modified crops entering the food chain…
Train pulls out and a few minutes later he speaks.
‘Can I ask you a question?’
Fighting to restrain my left eyebrow I replied ‘Yes’ in a tone which was intended to convey that I might not mind one question, and possibly a supplementary, but I really wasn’t in the mood for a conversation. ..
‘Why don’t you believe in god?’
The Bastage.!
I love this kind of conversation and can rabbit on for hours about the nonsense of theist beliefs. But I have to be in the mood! It's like when a Jehova’s witness knocks on your door 20 minutes before you’re due to have a wisdom tooth pulled. Much as you'd really love to stay… You can’t even begin the fun. And I knew, if I gave my standard reply we’d still be arguing when we got to Cardiff. I just wasn’t in the mood. I needed to fend him off.
But then I thought ‘Odd! How is this perfect stranger so obviously confident – and correct – about my atheism?’ If I’d been driving my car, it wouldn’t have been such a mystery. I’ve got the Darwin fish on the back of mine – the antidote to that twee christian fish you see all over. So anyone spotting that and understanding it would have been in a position to guess my beliefs. But I was on a train and not even wearing my Darwin "Evolve" tshirt that day. And ‘The Independent’ isn’t a registered flag for card carrying atheists, so what, I wondered, had given the game away.
‘What makes you so certain that I don’t?’
‘Because’, he said, ‘ I am god – and you are not afraid of me’
You’ll have to take my word for it of course, but there are ways you can deliver a line like that – most of which would render the speaker a candidate for an institution, or at least prozac. Some of which could be construed as mildly entertaining.
Conveying it as "indifferent fact" is a difficult task but that’s exactly how it came across. Nothing in his tone or attitude struck me as even mildly out of place with that statement. He said it because he believed it and his rationality did not appear to be drug induced or the result of a mental breakdown.
‘And why should I believe that?’
‘Well’ he said, ‘why don’t you ask me a few questions. Anything you like, and see if the answers satisfy your sceptical mind?’
This is going to be a short conversation after all, I thought.
‘Who am I?’
‘Stottle. Harry Stottle, born August 10 1947, Bristol, England. Father Paul, Mother Mary. Educated Duke of Yorks Royal Military School 1960 67, Sandhurst and Oxford, PhD in Exobiology, failed rock singer, full time trade union activist for 10 years, latterly self employed computer programmer, web author and aspiring philosopher. Married to Michelle, American citizen, two children by a previous marriage. You’re returning home after what seems to have been a successful meeting with an investor interested in your proposed product tracking anti-forgery software and protocol and you ate a full english breakfast at the hotel this morning except that, as usual, you asked them to hold the revolting english sausages and give you some extra bacon. ‘
He paused
‘You’re not convinced. Hmmm… what would it take to convince you? May I have your permission for a telepathic link?’
'Do you need my permission?'
'Technically, no. Ethically, yes'
Might as well play along I thought. 'OK - you have my permission. So convince me'
'oh right! Your most secret password and its association'
A serious hacker might be able to obtain the password, but no one else and I mean
NO ONE
knows its association.
He did.
So how would you have played it?
I threw a few more questions about relatively insignificant but unpublicised details of my life (like what my mother claims was the first word I ever spoke – apparently "armadillo"! (Don't ask…)) but I was already pretty convinced. I knew there were only three possible explanations at this point.
Possibility One was that I was dreaming, hallucinating or hypnotised. Nobody’s figured out a test for that so, at the time I think that was my dominant feeling. It did not feel real at the time. More like I was in a play. Acting my lines. Since the event, however, continuing detailed memories of it, together with my contemporaneous notes, remain available, so unless the hallucination has continued to this day, I am now inclined to reject the hallucination hypothesis. Which leaves two others.
He could have been a true telepath. No documented evidence exists of anyone ever having such profound abilities to date but it was a possibility. It would have explained how he could know my best-kept secrets. The problem with that is that it doesn’t explain anything else! In particular it doesn’t account for the answers he proceeded to give to my later questions.
As Sherlock Holmes says, when you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Good empiricist, Sherlock.
I was forced to accept at least the possibility that this man was who he claimed to be.
So now what do you do?
Well, I’ve always known that if I met god I would have a million questions for him, so I thought, ‘why not?’ and proceeded with what follows. You’ll have to allow a bit of licence in the detail of the conversation. This was, shall we say, a somewhat unusual occurrence, not to mention just a BIT weird! And yes I was a leetle bit nervous! So if I don’t get it word perfect don’t whinge! You’ll get the gist I promise.
***********************************
‘Forgive me if it takes me a little time to get up to speed here, but it's not everyday I get to question a deity’
‘The Deity’ he interrupted.
‘ooh. Touchy!’ I thought.
‘Not really – just correcting the image’
Now That takes some getting used to!
I tried to get a grip on my thoughts, with an internal command - ‘Discipline Harry. You’ve always wanted to be in a situation like this, now you’re actually in it, you mustn’t go to pieces and waste the opportunity of a lifetime’
‘You won’t’ he said.
Tell you! That’s the bit that made it feel unreal more than anything else - this guy sitting across the table and very obviously accurately reading my every thought. It's like finding someone else's hand inside your trouser pocket!
Nevertheless, something (other than simply having given my "permission") made me inclined to accept the invasion, I had obviously begun to have some confidence in his perception or abilities, so I distinctly remember the effect of his words was that I suddenly felt deeply reassured and completely relaxed. As he had no doubt intended. Man must have an amazing seduction technique!
So then we got down to business…
‘Are you human?’
‘No’
‘Were you, ever?’
‘No, but similar, Yes’
‘Ah, so you are a produc.t of evolution?’
‘Most certainly – mainly my own’
‘and you evolved from a species like ours, dna based organisms or something equally viable?’
‘Correct’
‘so what, exactly, makes you god?’
‘I did’
‘Why?’
‘Seemed like a good idea at the time’
‘and your present powers, are they in any way similar to what the superstitious believers in my species attribute to you?’
‘Close enough. ’
‘So you created all this, just for us?’
‘No. Of course not’
‘But you did create the Universe?’
‘This One. Yes’
‘But not your own?’
‘This is my own!’
‘You know what I mean!’
‘You can’t create your own parents, so No’
‘So let me get this straight. You are an entirely natural phenomenon.’
‘Entirely’
‘Arising from mechanisms which we ourselves will one day understand and possibly even master?’
‘subject to a quibble over who "we ourselves" may be, but yes’
‘meaning that if the human race doesn’t come up to the mark, other species eventually will?’
‘in one.’
‘and how many other species are there already out there ahead of us?’
‘surprisingly few. Less than fourteen million’
‘FEW!?’
‘Phew!’
‘And how many at or about our level?’
‘currently a little over 4 ½ billion’
‘so our significance in the universe at present is roughly equivalent to the significance of the average Joe here on planet Earth in his relation to the human race?’
‘a little less. Level One, the level your species has reached, begins with the invention of the flying machine. The next level is achieved when a species is no longer dominated by or dependent upon it's own primary – your Sun. They are able to prosper away from their own, or indeed any other, stellar system. Humanity is only just into the flying machine phase, so as you can imagine, on that scale, the human race is somewhat near the bottom of the level one pack’
‘Do you mean we will one day control our own Sun like Kardashev and Asimov talk about?’
'quite the opposite. Those are the visions of an evolving mechanical species who imagine that bigger machines are better and stronger and that we will always need more and more energy to achieve mastery of the universe. The truth is the exact opposite. The more advanced we become, the less energy we require and the less impact we make on our environment. You manipulate matter, which requires enormous amounts of energy. We manipulate energy, which requires none. As a consequence, you would not, for example, even recognise a level two species as a lifeform unless it chose to let you '
‘ all these evolving species; they are your "children"?’
‘I like to think of them that way’
‘and the point?’
‘at its simplest, "Life Must Go On". My personal motivation is the desire to optimise the intelligence of the Universe. In your own terms, I strive to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. A great deal of pleasure, however, arises from communications between separate entities. Once you’ve achieved my level, we tend to cease to be billions of separate entities and become one ecstatic whole. A single entity that cannot die unless it loses the will to live. Advanced and self contained though I am, or perhaps, more accurately, because I am so advanced and self contained, one of the pleasures we lose along the way is that simple joy of meeting new and unpredictable minds and either learning from or teaching them. Thus, in large part, the point of the exercise is to provide company. I am the first eternal in this Universe. I do not intend to be the last’
‘so you created a Universe which is potentially capable of producing another god like yourself?’
‘The full benefit will be temporary, but like most orgasms, worth it.’
‘this being the moment when our new god merges with you and we become one again?’
‘don’t play it down, that’s the ecstatic vision driving us all, me included – and when it happens the ecstasy lasts several times longer than this universe has already existed. Believe me, it really is worth the effort.’
‘Yes, I think I can see the attractions of a hundred billion year long orgasm’
‘and humans haven’t even begun to know how to really enjoy the orgasms they are already capable of. Wait till you master that simple art!’
‘So it's all about sex is it?’
‘Sexual ecstasy is merely a reward for procreating, it is what makes you want to do it. This is necessary, initially, to promote biological evolution. However once you’ve completed that stage and no longer require procreation, you will learn that ecstasy can be infinitely more intense than anything offered by sex’
‘Sounds good to me!'
'How direct is your involvement in all this? Did you just light the fuse which set off the big bang and stand back and watch? Or did you have to plant the seeds on appropriately fertile planets?’
‘The first significant level of the intelligent self organisation of matter is the arrival of the organic chemistry which forms the precursor for biology and the first primitive life forms. That chemistry evolved, mostly, in deep space, once the stars had created enough of the heavier elements, and purely as a result of the operations of the laws of physics and chemistry which your scientists have already largely understood. All I did was to set the initial conditions which triggered the bang and essentially became dormant for nearly 5 billion years. That’s how long it took the first lifeforms to emerge. That places them some 8 billion years ahead of you. The first intelligent species are now 4.3 billion years ahead of you. Really quite advanced. I can have deeply meaningful conversations with them. And usually do. In fact I am as we speak’
‘So then what?’
‘Do I keep a constant vigil over every move you make? Not in the kind of prying intrusive sense that some of you seem to think. Let's say I maintain an awareness of what's going on, at a planetary level. I tend only to focus on evolutionary leaps. See if they’re going in the right direction’
‘And if they’re not?’
‘Nothing. Usually’
‘Usually?’
‘Usually species evolving in the wrong direction kill themselves off or become extinct for other reasons’
‘Usually?’
‘There have been one or two cases where a wrong species has had the potential of becoming dominant at the expense of a more promising strain’
‘Let me guess. Dinosaurs on this planet are an example. Too successful. Suppressed the development of mammals and were showing no signs of developing intelligence. So you engineered a little corrective action in the form of a suitably selected asteroid’
‘Perceptive. Almost correct. They were showing signs of developing intelligence, even co-operation. Study your Troodons. But far too predatory. Incapable of ever developing a "respect" for other life forms. It takes carrying your young to promote the development of emotional attachment to other animals. Earth reptiles aren’t built for that. The mammals who are, as you rightly say, couldn’t get a foothold against such mighty predators. You’ve now reached the stage where you could hold your own even against dinosaurs, but that’s only been true for about a thousand years, your predecessors didn't stand a chance 65 million years ago, so the dinosaurs had to go. They were, however, far too ubiquitous and well balanced with the ecology of the planet, and never developed technology, so they weren’t going to kill themselves off in a hurry. Regrettably, I had to intervene.’
‘Regrettably?’
‘They were a beautiful and stunningly successful life form. One doesn’t destroy such things without a qualm.’
‘But at that stage how could you know that a better prospect would arise from the ashes?’
‘I didn’t. But the probability was quite high.’
‘and since then, what other little tweaks have you been responsible for in our development?’
‘None whatsoever. I set an alarm for the first sign of artificial aerial activity, as I usually do. Leonardo looked promising for a while, but not until the Montgolfier brothers did I really begin to take an interest. That registered you as a level one intelligent species’
'If the sign is "aerial activity", how do you identify technological bird species?'
"Same way. Intelligent flyers rarely become technologists though. They tend to evolve into adaptors rather than manipulators but the few exceptions develop flying machines rather more quickly than species like your own because they have a natural understanding of aerodynamics."
'but why would a bird need a flying machine?'
'that's like asking why would your species need cars and other forms of mechanical transport. The technology lets you carry heavier loads, faster and for greater distances than just relying on your own physical abilities.'
‘OK, so what about our more famous "prophets"; Jesus of Nazareth, Moses, Mohammed…’
‘hmmm… sadly misguided I’m afraid. I am not here to act as a safety net or ethical dictator for evolving species. It is true that anyone capable of communicating with their own cells will dimly perceive a connection to me – and all other objects in this universe - through the quantum foam, but interpreting that vision as representing something supernatural and requiring obeisance is somewhat wide of the mark. And their followers are all a bit too obsessive and religious for my liking. It's no fun being worshipped once you stop being an adolescent teenager. Having said that, it's not at all unusual for developing species to go through that phase. Until they begin to grasp how much they too can shape their small corner of the universe, they are in understandable awe of an individual dimly but correctly perceived to be responsible for the creation of the whole of that universe. Eventually, if they are to have any hope of attaining level two, they must grow out of it and begin to accept their own power and potential. It's very akin to a child’s relationship with its parents. The awe and worship must disappear before the child can become an adult. Respect is not so bad as long as it's not overdone. And I certainly respect all those species who make it that far. It’s a hard slog. I know. I've been there.’
‘So, you’ve been taking more interest in us since the Montgolfiers, when was that? 1650s?’
‘Close. 1783’
‘Well, if you’ve been watching us closely since then, what your average citizen is going to want to know is why you haven’t intervened more often. Why, if you have the power and omniscience that goes with being a god, have you sat back and allowed us to endure such incredible suffering and human misery in the past few centuries?’
‘It seems to be necessary.’
‘NECESSARY??!!’
‘Without exception, intelligent species who gain dominance over their planet do so by becoming the most efficient predators. There are many intelligent species who do not evolve to dominate their planet. Like your dolphins and most of the intelligent flyers we were just talking about, they adapt perfectly to the environment rather than take your course, which is to manipulate the environment. Unfortunately for the dolphin, theirs is a dead end. They may outlive the human race but will never escape the bounds of planet earth, let alone your solar system - not without your help at any rate. Only those who can manipulate the world they live in can one day hope to leave it and spread their seed throughout the universe.
Unlike the adaptors, who learn the point of cooperation fairly early on, manipulators battle on. And, once all lesser species have been overcome, they are so competitive and predatory that they are compelled to turn in on themselves. This nearly always evolves into tribal competition in one form or another and becomes more and more destructive - exactly like your own history. However this competition is vital to promote the leap from biological to technological evolution.
You need an arms race in order to make progress.
Your desire to dominate fuels a search for knowledge which the adaptors never acquire. And although your initial desire for knowledge is selfish and destructive, it begins the development of an intellectual self awareness, a form of higher consciousness, which never emerges in any other species. Not even while they are experiencing it, for example, can the intelligent adaptors - your dolphins - express the concepts of Love or Time.
Militarisation and the development of weapons of mass destruction are your first serious test at level one. You're still not through that phase, though the signs are promising. There is no point whatsoever in my intervening to prevent your self-destruction. Your ability to survive these urges is a crucial test of your fitness to survive later stages. So I would not, never have and never will intervene to prevent a species from destroying itself. Most, in fact, do just that.’
‘And what of pity for those have to live through this torment?’
‘I can’t say this in any way that doesn’t sound callous, but how much time do you spend worrying about the ants you run over in your car? I know it sounds horrendous to you, but you have to see the bigger picture. At this stage in human development, you’re becoming interesting but not yet important.’
'ah but I can't have an intelligent conversation with an ant'
'precisely'
‘hmm… as you know, most humans won’t like even to attempt to grasp that perspective. How can you make it more palatable?’
‘Why should I? You don’t appear to have any trouble grasping it. You’re by no means unique. And in any case, once they begin to understand what's in it for them, they’ll be somewhat less inclined to moan. Eternal life compensates for most things.’
‘So what are we supposed to do in order to qualify for membership of the universal intelligentsia?’
‘Evolve. Survive’
‘Yes, but how?’
‘Oh, I thought you might have got the point by now. "How" is entirely up to you. If I have to help, then you’re a failure. All I will say is this. You’ve already passed a major hurdle in learning to live with nuclear weapons. It's depressing how many fail at that stage.’
‘Is there worse to come?’
‘Much’
‘Genetic warfare for instance?
‘Distinct Possibility’
‘and the problem is… that we need to develop all these technologies, acquire all this dangerous knowledge in order to reach level two. But at any stage that knowledge could also cause our own destruction’
‘If you think the dangers of genetic warfare are serious, imagine discovering an algorithm, accessible to any intelligent individual, which, if abused, will eliminate your species instantly. If your progress continues as is, then you can expect to discover that particular self-destruct mechanism in less than a thousand years. Your species needs to grow up considerably before you can afford to make that discovery. And if you don’t make it, you will never leave your Solar System and join the rest of the sapient species on level two.’
’14 Million of them’
‘Just under’
'Will there be room for us?'
'it’s a big place and level two species don't need much space'
‘and, for now, how should we mere mortals regard you then?’
‘like an older brother or sister. Of course I have acquired more knowledge and wisdom than you have. Of course I’m more powerful than you are. I’ve been evolving much longer and have picked up a few tricks along the way. But I’m not "better" than you. Just more developed. Just what you might become’
‘so we’re not obliged to "please" you or follow your alleged guidelines or anything like that?’
‘absolutely not. Never issued a single guideline in the lifetime of this Universe. Have to find your own way out of the maze. And one early improvement is to stop expecting me - or anyone else - to come and help you out.'
'I suppose that is a guideline of sorts, so there goes the habit of a lifetime! '
'Seriously though, species who hold on to religion past its sell-by date tend to be most likely to self destruct. They spend so much energy arguing about my true nature, and invest so much emotion in their wildly erroneous imagery that they end up killing each other over differences in definitions of something they clearly haven’t got a clue about. Ludicrous behaviour, but it does weed out the weaklings.’
‘Why me? Why pick on an atheist of all people? Why are you telling me all this? And why Now?’
‘Why You? Because you can accept my existence without your ego caving in and grovelling like a naughty child. '
'Can you seriously imagine how the Pope would react to the reality of my existence?! If he really understood how badly wrong he and his church have been, how much of the pain and suffering you mentioned earlier has been caused by his religion, I suspect he'd have an instant coronary! Or can you picture what it would be like if I appeared "live" simultaneously on half a dozen tele-evangelist propaganda shows. Pat Robertson would wet himself if he actually understood who he was talking to.
Conversely, your interest is purely academic. You've never swallowed the fairy tale but you've remained open to the possibility of a more advanced life form which could acquire godlike powers. You’ve correctly guessed that godhood is the destiny of life. You have shown you can and do cope with the concept. It seemed reasonable to confirm your suspicions and let you do what you will with that information.
I can see you're already thinking about publishing this conversation on the web where it could sow an important seed. Might take a couple of hundred years to germinate, but, eventually, it will germinate.
Why now? Well partly because both you and the web are ready now. But chiefly because the human race is reaching a critical phase. It goes back to what we were saying about the dangers of knowledge. Essentially your species is becoming aware of that danger. When that happens to any sapient species, the future can take three courses.
Many are tempted to avoid the danger by avoiding the knowledge. Like the adaptors, they are doomed to extinction. Often pleasantly enough in the confines of their own planet until either their will to live expires or their primary turns red giant and snuffs them out.
A large number go on blindly acquiring the knowledge and don't learn to restrain their abuse. Their fate is sealed somewhat more quickly of course, when Pandora’s box blows up in their faces.
The only ones who reach level two are those who learn to accept and to live with their most dangerous knowledge. Each and every individual in such a species must eventually become capable of destroying their entire species at any time. Yet they must learn to control themselves to the degree that they can survive even such deadly insight. And frankly, they’re the only ones we really want to see leaving their solar systems. Species that haven’t achieved that maturity could not be allowed to infect the rest of the universe, but fortunately that has never required my intervention. The knowledge always does the trick’
'Why can't there be a fourth option - selective research where we avoid investigating dangerous pathways?'
'There is almost no knowledge which is completely "safe". As you can see from your own limited history, the most useful ideas are also, nearly always, the most dangerous. You have yet, for instance, to achieve the appropriate energy surpluses required to complete this phase of your social development. When you've mastered the relevant technology, it will eliminate material inequalities and poverty within a generation or two, an absolutely vital step for any maturing species. Your potential paths to this bonanza include the control of nuclear fusion - which you only began to explore in the context of potential mass extinction weapons and nano engineered solar energy harvesting or hydrogen cycling. And already your leading military scientists are looking for ways to develop equally dangersous weapons based on the same technology. And they will find them. You may not survive them.
Similarly, you will shortly be able to conquer biological diseases and even engineer yourselves to be virtually fault free. Your biological life spans will double or treble within the next hundred years and your digital lifespans will become potentially infinite within the same period: If you survive the potential threat that the same technology provides in the form of genetic timebombs, custom built viruses and the other wonders of genetic and digital warfare.
You simply can't have the benefits without taking the risks'.
‘I’m not sure I understand my part in this exercise. I just publish this conversation on the web and everything will be alright?’
‘Not necessarily. Not that easy I’m afraid. To start with, who’s going to take this seriously? It will just be seen as a mildly amusing work of fiction. In fact, your words and indeed most of your work will not be understood or appreciated until some much more advanced scholars develop the ideas you are struggling to express and explain them somewhat more competently. At which point some of those ideas will be taken up en masse and searches will be undertaken of the archives. They will find this work and be struck by its prescience. You won’t make the Einstein grade, but you might manage John the Baptist!
This piece will have no significance whatsoever if humanity doesn’t make certain key advances in the next couple of centuries. And this won’t help you make those advances. What it will do is help you recognise them’
'can I ask what those advances may be?'
'I think you know. But yes - although you are at level one, there are several distinct phases which evolving species pass through on their way to level two. The first, as we've discussed, is the invention of the flying machine. The next significant phase is the development of the thinking machine.
At your present rate of progress, you are within a few decades of achieving that goal. It marks your first step on the path of technological evolution. Mapping the human genome is another classic landmark, but merely mapping it is a bit like viewing the compiled code in a dos executable. It's just meaningless gibberish, although with a bit of hacking here and there, you might correctly deduce the function of certain stretches of code.
What you really need to do is 'reverse engineer' the dna code. You have to figure out the grammar and syntax of the language. Then you will begin the task of designing yourselves biologically and digitally. But that task requires the thinking machine'
‘You say you avoid intervention. But doesn’t this conversation itself constitute intervention – even if people alive now completely ignore it?’
‘Yes. But it's as far as I’m prepared to go. Its only effect is to confirm, if you find it, that you are on the right path. It is still entirely up to you to navigate the dangers on that path and beyond.’
'But why bother even with that much? Surely it's just another evolutionary hurdle. We're either fit enough or not…'
'In many ways the transition to an information species is the most traumatic stage in evolution. Biological intelligences have a deeply rooted sense of consciousness only being conceivable from within an organic brain. Coming to terms with the realisation that you have created your successor, not just in the sense of mother and child, but in the collective sense of the species recognising it has become redundant, this paradigm shift is, for many species, a shift too far. They baulk at the challenge and run from this new knowledge. They fail and become extinct. Yet there is nothing fundamentally wrong with them - it is a failure of the imagination.
I hope that if I can get across the concept that I am a product of just such evolution, it may give them the confidence to try. I have discussed this with the level two species and the consensus is that this tiny prod is capable of increasing the contenders for level two without letting through any damaging traits. It has been tried in 312 cases. The jury is still out on its real benefits although it has produced a 12% increase in biological species embracing the transition to information species.
‘Alright, so what if everyone suddenly took it seriously and believed every word I write? Wouldn’t that constitute a somewhat more drastic intervention?’
‘Trust me. They wont’
'and so it's still the case, that, should another asteroid happen to be heading our way, you will do nothing to impede it on our behalf?'
'I'm confident you will pass that test. And now my friend, the interview is over, you have asked me a number of the right questions, and I’ve said what I came to say, so I’ll be going now. It has been very nice to meet you - you're quite bright. For an ant!’ He twinkled.
‘Just one final, trivial question, why do you appear to me in the form of a thirty something white male?’
‘have I in any way intimidated or threatened you?’
You could draw straws or have some sort of agreement on who was to die, but to do it without a voluntary agreement is wrong. At least that is my gut feel around it.
As to the absolute truth thing. I agree with the above poster saying you are using the wrong word for that. 2+2=4 would be an example of an absolute truth. You are talking about morality and ethics.
I like Stefan Molyneux's UPB on the subject of ethics but I'm really not at all well read on the subject. Some people I respect have qualms with UPB so I take it with a grain of salt. The basic premise is what I already stated...aggression against other people isn't able to be applied universally so ethical propositions can't contain aggressive actions. Aka rape, murder, theft are immoral and any supposed moral actions regardless of their stated goals that include these are in fact immoral..(Hi there Mr. tax man)
As a side note. I notice whenever people come up with ethical quandaries they never make any sense. How would you ever end up hunting a man for food? If people need food to live...and this other guy is alive...then there is probably some food around. Actual ethical quandaries exist or have existed include things like spanking children, wife beating, slave ownership, taxation and war.
I don't really know how to write about this subject without sounding like a know-it all. I assure you I don't know much at all about the subject but have read a book or two. (which already fit my biases in the first place) So I don't mean to be putting anyone down here as I know DC is a smart and nice guy
Not much to argue about there, you bring up very valid points. As I said, no one has all the answers. I think the point Kant was getting at was that:
"The Physical world (Phenominal world) is only one half of the rubix cube, only 1 side of the coin. I am big believer that energy and matter are never truly destroyed, they simply just change forms. Human brings are matter and energy and I believe when we die we change forms...perhaps when we change forms we do enter the nominal world.
I think what Kant was referring to is what we do in the "phenominal" IE the physical world really doesn't matter....there is nothing we can do in the phenominal world that will have any effect whatsoever on the nominal world...the Earth could explode into tiny little bits in the physical world, and those in the nominal world will be completely unaffected because they are not bound by the same laws as we know here in the phenominal world. That is just a theory mind you, there no way to prove that theory and still be alive mind you...so its really a catch 22
For all we know, the universe as we know may exist on the tip of a blade of grass in a much larger universe...I don't know, none of us do.
So know by science that energy and matter are never really destroyed but change forms (If I remember my school science class correctly) then its not out of the realm of theory that when we die, we too change form into something else. Something else that may not exist in the physical world, but that doesn't mean we don't necessarily exist. Its just an existence we don't understand.
As for the phenomenal world gaining value, and the nominal world losing value, that's an interesting point, a point you may be right on. However, the nominal world doesn't suffer from the same short comings as the phenomenal world...no sickness, no diseases, no wars, no loved ones dying, etc....The nominal world has its own intrinsic value. Perhaps the nominal world can't be fully appreciated until we actually experience it for ourselves at some point.
In closing though, great post! There is nothing there to refute....I just played a little devil's advocate, but there nothing there to refute. You made me think about it, so I'd say its a win-win!
Quote: There is a unifying theory behind why Locke (and most premodern philosophers) and the slaves of Egypt were defending gods or building pyramids. Can you figure it out?
Not doing so meant they would be killed
Do you really think they would have gotten the quality of workmanship they did on the pyramids with slaves? They would have needed more slaves than they had Egyptians in the country.
Quote: Just a random comment, but I recently discovered that I am a decendent of Rob Roy MacGregor. He was said to have been the "inspiration of Robin Hood." Now did Robin exist himself? I'm not sure. However, I do know people who followed his actions and shared his beliefs did exist
I hate to tell you this, but Rob Roy was born around the year 1671, where the Robin Hood stories start in the 1200s. Robin Hood is believed to be a composite character, although there was probably a man named Robin, Robert, or something similar to start the tales. The ballads told about Robin Hood were popular tavern tales sung and resung by bards throughout England.
Yes, I watch that show. I don't buy into all the alien stuff, but it is rather odd how they can make as much sense as most religions. I watch it mostly for the discussion on ancient structures. There was either a hugely monumental effort put into building most of the ancient structures of the world, or the ancient peoples were a lot more technically advanced than we are now. We have problems moving 200 ton stones today, so how the hell did they do it back then? When you consider some of the craftsmanship in their work, they had to be using tools that were as sophisticated as anything we have today. I personally believe we lost huge amounts of technology in the past, possibly in a global catastrophe of some sort.
Quote: I think what Kant was referring to is what we do in the "phenominal" IE the physical world really doesn't matter....there is nothing we can do in the phenominal world that will have any effect whatsoever on the nominal world
Not that it matters much, but your interpretation of Kant is not correct on this point. You are talking about Kant like he was some kind of Platonic dualist complete with a world beyond this one where, as you put it, there is
Quote: no sickness, no diseases, no wars, no loved ones dying, etc....
It's a lovely sentiment, but it has nothing to do with Kant's "thing-in-itself." The phenomenal world is that which appears to our senses. the noumenal world is composed of things that cannot appear to the senses. This doesn't have anything to do with a mystical paradise to which we have no access. Kant, like most other modern philosophers following Descartes, is positing a subjective observer in an objective world. There is an object "out there," outside of myself, but I do not have access to it through my senses. What I can sense is classified as phenomena, and phenomena arise from the noumenal world, but I can't really know the thing-in-itself because I am bound within a limited subjective point of view. I can't step outside myself to view the thing-in-itself from a neutral perspective.
It sounds like you've taken Kant and Plato and twisted them into some type of New Age philosophy, which is fine since you are just trying to express your personal experience, but if we're going to drag Kant into it, we should give an accurate account of his philosophy.
Also, someone above wrote that Kant argues that religion is logical. I wasn't sure from your original post if this is what you were implying, but Kant is the guy who most definitively separated religious faith from reason. He did it with the best of intentions, believing that religious faith would flourish when no longer tied to Reason. Results have been mixed depending on your personal take on faith and reason, which is precisely what this thread is about. Just know that Kant is firmly on the side of God and faith being beyond Reason.
Quote: You're confounding this idea of absolute truth with morals, ethics and acceptable human behavior.
No I'm not. I'm stating that our concepts of morality, ethics, and acceptable human behavior have been developed over thousands of years of belief in absolute truths.
Quote: Your understanding of biology and evolution and what they say about the world needs work.
Probably.
Quote: I am just as evolved as one of mice, but I am more evolved than something that dies millenia ago. For instance, homo sapiens have been evolving longer than a Tyrannosaurus rex. We are more evolved, meaning we have been under evolutionary pressure and undergoing evolution as a process, longer. Sure, we can out-think one or open a beer can easier, but there are many things it would best us at. Being more evolved doesn't mean that we are inherently better. Another example, a lion. I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with one on the open savanna, but put a tool in my hand, a spear maybe, and we're making the odds a bit more even. That lion is just as evolved (meaning it's been under evolutionary pressure the same amount of time) as I am. We're not any higher or lower evolutionarily than a lion, or a sheep, or a cat, dog, etc. we are just different is all.
Maybe that is what science teaches.. and I know how contemptuous you get when somebody dares to disagree with science.. but I disagree.
The human brain is at a point where it can defend itself, by creating tools and strategies, against far superior physical enemies, we could wipe out the forest and all of the animals in it with the push of one button if we choose.. The mouse and the sheep haven't figured that out yet, they still evade their predators the same way they did 10,000 years ago...
Quote: This is how behaviors get reinforced and actions learned. When one part of the brain that says you're being altruistic fires together with an area that releases dopamine, you end up feeling better. These connections strengthen over time, reinforcing that behavior. The same thing could be said about being selfish. If you're rewarded enough for being selfish, your brain will associate being selfish with that reward, making you want to be selfish more often.
So, to answer your question, why don't we just do whats good for us and leave it at that? The answer is that we learn from an early age that helping people, in a round-a-bout way makes us feel better. Our society also tells us that this is proper human behavior for living within the group, which is another reason that we have this reaction. All of this leads to the type of behavior you're talking about.
Which is what I said.. our notion of altruism and morality is a social construct. We are trained from an early age that being nice to people and sharing elicits a positive reaction from our parents, teachers, etc.. while being mean elicits a negative reaction... so we are nice and altruistic for basically the same reason a puppy learns to pee in the yard and not in the house.... and after millions of years, every person born has to be taught this lesson again. It doesn't seem to me like it has a whole lot to do with evolution.
Quote: Again, this is ethics, and generally there's no right answer. Ethics likes to dance in the gray areas of moral quandries. The answer is always, "It depends." Are you going to die? Could you steal food instead? Which way is easier? Which way has less consequences? It depends.
You are trying to confuse the example by adding a bunch of variables thus making it some kind of a sliding scale... It's you and me alone, I'm starving and weak, on the verge of being unable to fend for myself, you are healthier and stronger for whatever reason. There is no food, no chance of rescue before I die.. it's either you or me. Should I, in my weakened state, bash you over the head while you sleep to and eat you to sustain myself for a while longer or should I allow myself to die and allow you to live? Pretty simple...
Quote: You're confounding this idea of absolute truth with morals, ethics and acceptable human behavior.
No I'm not. I'm stating that our concepts of morality, ethics, and acceptable human behavior have been developed over thousands of years of belief in absolute truths.
Yes, you are. You've made up this convenient idea that our civilization has based it's morals and ethics around these absolute or universal truths when in all reality it's probably the result of our evolution as a social species. You made the claim that if God doesn't exist, neither do these absolute truths, and with your most recent statement, therefore neither do morals and ethics from which we derive altruistic behavior. This is a topic of study that is being heavily debated in neuroscience at the moment. Do things like morals and ethics have a neurological basis? I think we're at the point where we can begin to say that, yes, our morals and ethics derive in large part from the way our brains are set up (we're still parsing out the exact mechanisms by which different modules within the brain interact, which is why this new Connectome initiative that was started by Obama is so cool). Sure, we're taught acceptable behavior at a young age and this plays a role too, but morals and ethics can subsist without the influence of God.
Quote:
Quote: I am just as evolved as one of mice, but I am more evolved than something that dies millenia ago. For instance, homo sapiens have been evolving longer than a Tyrannosaurus rex. We are more evolved, meaning we have been under evolutionary pressure and undergoing evolution as a process, longer. Sure, we can out-think one or open a beer can easier, but there are many things it would best us at. Being more evolved doesn't mean that we are inherently better. Another example, a lion. I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe with one on the open savanna, but put a tool in my hand, a spear maybe, and we're making the odds a bit more even. That lion is just as evolved (meaning it's been under evolutionary pressure the same amount of time) as I am. We're not any higher or lower evolutionarily than a lion, or a sheep, or a cat, dog, etc. we are just different is all.
Maybe that is what science teaches.. and I know how contemptuous you get when somebody dares to disagree with science.. but I disagree.
The human brain is at a point where it can defend itself, by creating tools and strategies, against far superior physical enemies, we could wipe out the forest and all of the animals in it with the push of one button if we choose.. The mouse and the sheep haven't figured that out yet, they still evade their predators the same way they did 10,000 years ago...
Yes, I do have an issue with people who willing delude themselves, yet insist they are "enlightened." My apologies if that comes off as contemptuous. I hold the bar pretty high for people, I believe everyone is capable of learning new things, but it bugs the heck out of me when people don't accept fact as fact and alter their perceptions when introduced to new information. We're not talking about the best player for the Browns to draft here, we're talking about physics, biology, and chemistry here. All of these have definite answers that are incontrovertible. To disregard these incontrovertible facts is ludicrous. It's the same thing as me pointing to a light saying, "that light is on," while someone else in the same room room says, "no it's not" with their eyes blindfolded.
Anyways, your disagreement is moot. You originally built up a scarecrow of an argument about what biology says about human nature, and how that applies to where (or what) we get our morals and ethics from. My point was that the basis for your argument was wrong, dead wrong. Biology and evolution doesn't set humans above other animals. We are no more, or less advanced evolutionarily than anything else on this planet. Therefore to say someone, or something, has the right to rule over the rest because they can dominate and subjugate others based off of "being more evolved" is just wrong. Maybe you think biology and evolution say that, but that's your problem, not biology's.
Quote:
Quote: This is how behaviors get reinforced and actions learned. When one part of the brain that says you're being altruistic fires together with an area that releases dopamine, you end up feeling better. These connections strengthen over time, reinforcing that behavior. The same thing could be said about being selfish. If you're rewarded enough for being selfish, your brain will associate being selfish with that reward, making you want to be selfish more often.
So, to answer your question, why don't we just do whats good for us and leave it at that? The answer is that we learn from an early age that helping people, in a round-a-bout way makes us feel better. Our society also tells us that this is proper human behavior for living within the group, which is another reason that we have this reaction. All of this leads to the type of behavior you're talking about.
Which is what I said.. our notion of altruism and morality is a social construct. We are trained from an early age that being nice to people and sharing elicits a positive reaction from our parents, teachers, etc.. while being mean elicits a negative reaction... so we are nice and altruistic for basically the same reason a puppy learns to pee in the yard and not in the house.... and after millions of years, every person born has to be taught this lesson again. It doesn't seem to me like it has a whole lot to do with evolution.
It's partly a social construct, yes, but not totally. Where evolution comes in to play is that it's responsible for laying the ground work for these interactions within the brain. It's not as if we're born with a blank slate for our mind, we have default settings, instincts. A tendency towards sociability and living within the confines of a group is one of them. We feel good when we play well with others within our group. That feeling is reinforced through biological means that are a result of evolutionary pressures in the past where our ancestors that had this same response survived and others didn't.
Quote:
Quote: Again, this is ethics, and generally there's no right answer. Ethics likes to dance in the gray areas of moral quandries. The answer is always, "It depends." Are you going to die? Could you steal food instead? Which way is easier? Which way has less consequences? It depends.
You are trying to confuse the example by adding a bunch of variables thus making it some kind of a sliding scale... It's you and me alone, I'm starving and weak, on the verge of being unable to fend for myself, you are healthier and stronger for whatever reason. There is no food, no chance of rescue before I die.. it's either you or me. Should I, in my weakened state, bash you over the head while you sleep to and eat you to sustain myself for a while longer or should I allow myself to die and allow you to live? Pretty simple...
And you placed arbitrary constrictions on the example to make the answer more black and white. It's relative. That's the failing of the idea that ethics can always provide us with absolute truth. More often than not the world is grey, not black and white.
Well... this thread seems to have suffered a premature death. Let's try to resurrect it by getting back to the original topic, the relationship between faith and reason. I am interested in the division between Christians who think faith and reason are compatible and Christians who take the opposite view. I wonder what makes you one way or the other. I'm posting a video of Hubert Dreyfus discussing approaches to the question of God's existence. He makes a very suggestive remark about the difference between Catholic and Protestant religion on this point. Of course, this doesn't mean that if you are non-Catholic that you take a non-compatiblist view, but it does get at something deeper in the structure of the religious systems. Anyway, enjoy the video. I think Dreyfus is taking a non-compatiblist view on faith and reason here.
OK, to get back to the original. There is no reason in faith and religion. You either feel the need or your don't. It's all down to the idea if you feel better as a believer, or if you feel better that you control your own path. I personally think the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
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