Living in style

There are few finer things in life than eating chocolate and drinking coffee whilst watching 'The West Wing'.

The source of morality

Steven Pinker in The NYT:

Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it’s an easy question. Mother Teresa, famous for ministering to the poor in Calcutta, has been beatified by the Vatican, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and ranked in an American poll as the most admired person of the 20th century. Bill Gates, infamous for giving us the Microsoft dancing paper clip and the blue screen of death, has been decapitated in effigy in “I Hate Gates” Web sites and hit with a pie in the face. As for Norman Borlaug . . . who the heck is Norman Borlaug?

Yet a deeper look might lead you to rethink your answers. Borlaug, father of the “Green Revolution” that used agricultural science to reduce world hunger, has been credited with saving a billion lives, more than anyone else in history. Gates, in deciding what to do with his fortune, crunched the numbers and determined that he could alleviate the most misery by fighting everyday scourges in the developing world like malaria, diarrhea and parasites. Mother Teresa, for her part, extolled the virtue of suffering and ran her well-financed missions accordingly: their sick patrons were offered plenty of prayer but harsh conditions, few analgesics and dangerously primitive medical care.

He goes on to say:

I doubt these examples will persuade anyone to favor Bill Gates over Mother Teresa for sainthood. But they show that our heads can be turned by an aura of sanctity, distracting us from a more objective reckoning of the actions that make people suffer or flourish. It seems we may all be vulnerable to moral illusions the ethical equivalent of the bending lines that trick the eye on cereal boxes and in psychology textbooks. Illusions are a favorite tool of perception scientists for exposing the workings of the five senses, and of philosophers for shaking people out of the naïve belief that our minds give us a transparent window onto the world (since if our eyes can be fooled by an illusion, why should we trust them at other times?). Today, a new field is using illusions to unmask a sixth sense, the moral sense. Moral intuitions are being drawn out of people in the lab, on Web sites and in brain scanners, and are being explained with tools from game theory, neuroscience and evolutionary biology.

Read the rest.

(Via Onwards and Forwards)

Why are atheists moral?

It’s a question which gets asked with a depressing frequency on theist blogs. The following is a comment by Alex, but it expresses a worry which seems to be felt by a number of religious believers:

My natural impulses strongly urge me to do things that most any reasonable person would admit is immoral. My immoral urges are often much stronger than what I know to be the moral action. I have the ability to choose which option I go with. I use reason to play out the scenarios of both choices before I act. If I am able to reason that I could go with the "immoral" impulse (that is much stronger) and get away with it, is there anything that should stop me from pursuing this end?

I to – being human – have a number of “immoral” urges. So why don’t I act on them? Hmmm… perhaps because doing so would more than likely leave me friendless, jobless, hunted by the police and wracked by guilt at the misery I’d caused.

At what point does that become attractive?

Immoral acts – i.e. acts which cause pain and/or suffering to others – are attractive only to psychopaths. The rest of us, regardless of our metaphysical beliefs, have plenty of good reasons – internal and external – for avoiding them.

The cards you're dealt

Went to my first real poker night yesterday.

(I’ve played before, but didn’t really know the rules and therefore didn’t get too much out of it and quickly lost all my chips.)

On the plus side, I managed to not only avoid being the first person out but also won a couple of hands and managed to keep a reasonable poker-face.

On the down side, by the time I left (which was fairly early, as I was on dog-watching duties) the game was being won by the two people paying the least attention to the game – which was a little annoying, to say the least.

Hopefully, this will become a semi-regular thing and I can develop my poker skills to the point where I stand a reasonable chance of winning a game.

I think the night demonstrated how poker can be seen, in some ways, as a metaphor for life: you can increase your chances through concentration and effort, but if the cards fall your way you’re laughing.

Fact and fiction

Actor Chris Langham has appeared in court on charges of indecently assaulting a young girl and making an indecent photograph of a child, charges which he denies.

This raises a bit of a moral quandary for me. I’m a fan of Langham’s work, particularly ‘People Like Us’ and ‘The Thick of It’. If it turns out that these allegations against him are true, is it right to still enjoy his performances in these shows? Should I try to put the man himself out of my mind and focus on the character?

I suppose you could call this the Gary Glitter Problem – is it okay to still enjoy the work of someone you later learn has committed abhorrent acts?

(I just want to point out that I don’t actually like the music of Gary Glitter, honest, he just seemed to be the prime example)

Precision cosmology

From the New Scientist website:

A satellite to be launched next year could see signs of extra dimensions in the afterglow of the big bang, a new study says.

I have no idea what any of this actually means, but it sounds interesting.

Gary Shiu and Bret Underwood, both physicists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US, say the shape of the extra dimensions could leave an imprint in the afterglow of the big bang. This glow, called the cosmic microwave background, reveals the structure of the universe about 370,000 years after the big bang.

Apparently, it should look something like this. Very funky. More details about the European Planck satellite, which aims to "up the ante when it comes to precision cosmology", can be found here.

Baby universes

From the New Scientist website:

The fate of the universe depends on how dark energy - the force thought to be driving the accelerated expansion of our universe - changes with time. If it increases without limit, it will eventually tear everything apart, destroying the universe in an event called the big rip. Now physicists Lauris Baum and Paul Frampton at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill are invoking this effect to explain how the entropy of our early universe might have been kept in check.

In their model, dark energy becomes very dense and sets the universe expanding at such a rate that it approaches the big rip. The universe tears into small patches that rush away from each other faster than the speed of light. But the destruction is then halted, as the density of dark energy becomes equal to the density of the universe. At this point, each patch crunches in on itself. "All the patches, of which there are a huge number, will separately contract into disparate universes," says Frampton. Each patch will then bounce outwards again, creating a new universe.

Cool.

The story so far

Since this post on the Dilbert blog, a debate has been raging across the blogosphere concerning issues such as morality, meaning, the nature of life and the existence of God. Millions* of words have been written in the ongoing argument for and defence of both atheistic and theistic views on the matter.

(*This may be an exaggeration)

This debate has mainly been focused around Alex's blog, and anyone wishing to comment on this post should head over there.

Below is a summary of the two main positions reached on morality and meaning, which I’ve lumped together for what will hopefully become obvious reasons.

Atheist/Human-centred:

Morality = instinct; later codified to become social norms, to aid the smooth function of society

Meaning = means something / is significant to me.

Theist/God-centred:

Morality = accordance with God’s will; either ignored or imperfectly realised by human beings

Meaning = means something / is significant to God.

The crux of the whole thing is the existence of a certain kind of God. If God doesn’t exist, or is simply unconcerned with the business of humanity, then the human-centred approach is the obvious answer. If God does exist, and is concerned with us, then the God-centred approach becomes the answer.

So: ultimately questions of morality and meaning come down to the issue of

a) God’s existence

And (assuming that the answer to this is positive)

b) God’s nature.

It’s sometimes suggested that only one side of this debate has any work to do. However, neither of these positions can claim special status. To many atheists the primarily non-supernatural nature of life is fairly self-evident. Anyone wishing to challenge this position must argue for the existence of God. Equally, to many theists the existence of the divine is also fairly self-evident. Anyone wishing to challenge this view must argue for the non-existence* of God. The onus is on both sides to put forward arguments supporting their position.

(*In order to argue that something doesn’t exist it’s only necessary to demonstrate the weakness of the arguments for it – as positive proof of non-existence is almost impossible.)

Further Reading:

- An Insomniac
- In Search of High Places
- Freemania
- Imagined Community

'Tis the season for intense metaphysical speculation

There should be some more posts (probably Dr Who related - I got the series 2 box set for Christmas) here in the new year. Those of you looking for some nice meaty blog posts to get your teeth into should check out both Alex's blog and Ian's as well, especially if religion and atheism is your thing.

Thought for the Day (or, Everything I need to know about life I learnt from Dr Who pt 237,546)

Normally in discussions between atheists and religious believers, and this is also the case with my discussion with Alex over at his blog, the question “Where does a life without God get meaning?” crops up. I was reminded of this while watching formation of the Earth scene in the ‘Dr Who’ Christmas episode. There’s a bit of dialogue between the Doctor and Donna, as they watch the gas, dust and rock which will eventually become our home floating through space, that goes:

Donna: (In awe) Lance was right, we’re just tiny.
The Doctor: (With gusto) Oh, but that’s what you do, the human race, make sense out of chaos, marking it with weddings, Christmases and calendars. This process is beautiful, but only if it’s being observed.
Donna: So I came out of this?
The Doctor: Isn’t that brilliant?

This pays off later, as Donna decides to move beyond the confines of her old life and start living it more fully, to “walk in the dust.”


This sense of wonder, of awe at the sheer beauty of life, without the need for any higher purpose, is a theme which runs throughout the series – though it seems to have been brought forward a bit more in the current run.

It’s the story of Rose in a nut-shell: an everyday person plucked from her day-to-day existence and shown the overwhelming magnificence of life, pushing her into discovering depths in her that she never knew existed and embrace life to the full simply because she can. It blends the adult sense of individuality, of knowing who you are and what you can do, with a child-like love of the new and out of the ordinary.

You can see this in the Doctor’s message to Rose (at the end of series 1): “if you wanna remember me, you can do one thing. That's all, one thing. Have a good life. Do that for me, Rose. Have a fantastic life.” And Elton’s comment (at the end of ‘Love and Monsters’): “When you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid and that’s it. No, the truth is the world is so much stranger than that, and so much darker, and so much madder, and so much better.”

For me, this sums up the humanistic view of life. Our lives have an inherent value, whatever the cause, whatever happens, purely because they are our lives. It’s about looking around you and finding value in even the most common place of things.

The humanist loves life simply for being life; they face up to the randomness, the brutality, and the ugliness, because they know that with it comes love, and beauty and wonderment. They look at the sunset and find that knowing that it’s the result of light and atmospheric gas interacting makes it even more wonderful. Or, in keeping with the theme of this post, they look up at the stars, at that vast body of vacuum, rock and gas, realise how tiny they are in comparison with it all, and feel grateful just to be part of it all.

New blog

Those of you interested by the whole meaning of life debate should definitely bookmark Alex's new blog, In Search of High Places.

As he explains:

I’ve decided to pick up the themes we are kicking around over on Tom’s blog and beating them to death over here. I have a feeling this is more my issue than his, so I may as well give it a proper home. My next post will be a continuation of poking at this issue of objective morality and where it comes from. Some say it’s strictly biology and social climate. I’d say it’s bigger than that. Stay tuned...

I also want to assure everyone who commented on my posts that I still have your comments - it's just that I've switched off the Haloscan system I used as I can't get it to work quite right with the new version of blogger yet.

Humanism entails humility

AC Grayling has another piece up over at Comment is Free, this one about humanistic ethics. As with all Grayling pieces, it’s worth a look, especially so as the writer himself takes part (briefly) in the comments section – which always knocks people up a few notches in my estimation of them.

However, as one person points out, he does have a particularly “smug, superior attitude” towards religion, which grates quite a bit with the rest of the piece, which is basically about respecting your fellow human beings.

I’ve never been a fan of the particularly hostile tone people like Grayling and Dawkins take towards religious belief, even though I highly respect a lot of their writing. I find it out of place in their general philosophies, which advocate a measured caution and scepticism about life. When both move onto the subject of religion they become increasingly sure of themselves, and disdainful of those who appear to disagree with them.

As of yet, I’ve never come across an argument for the existence of God which I considered credible; in fact most have been notably weak. This, coupled with the general lack of divine activity in my day-to-day life, has led me to the atheistic stance I have now. However, the fact that I haven’t yet encountered a convincing argument on a subject is far from saying that none exists – my knowledge of life is extremely limited, and it seems more than likely that even our greatest thinkers are able to comprehend only a fraction this thing we call life. All of which demands a certain humility and respect for the views of others – though this respect does not preclude challenging them when we believe they are in error.

Round-up

Tom has also had a decent stab at explaining the meaning of life over at his blog - how's that for a "a more mature discourse", Mr Taylor?

I think the way forward in religious debate is to emphasise the inherent uncertainty and mystery of atheistic outlooks: We simply don't know why the universe came into being, and the best we can provide is informed speculation about how things came to be the way they are now. Nor can we really say where things are heading.

Worth checking out is this post over at Obscene Desserts, which follows a similar line of thinking:

If anything, it is a skeptical, secular and scientific outlook which tends against most kinds of fundamentalist optimism. This is not to say that improvement is impossible - it most certainly is - but so, of course, is historical change in the opposite direction.

Not only is a more clear-eyed look at reality - e.g., one involving neither supernatural beings nor progressive teleologies - rarely something which leads to heartwarming sense of optimism, but such a viewpoint is essential if some kinds of desirable - if incremental and always contingent - change can be won or even contemplated. If you look around, I'd say that most of those with a secular perspective are indeed concerned about religion; but they also tend to be concerned about a lot of other things as well, and I think that most of them have no illusions about the meaning of history.

Finally, I've only just discovered that Richard Dawkins has his own website, with articles and various resources for those interested in atheism. Dawkins is someone I've always been a bit wary of. Not because I disagree with him ('The Selfish Gene' really helped me sort out my views on life), but simply because he seems so confident in his own views. I'm still struggling to get mine into some kind of decent shape, and it's all too easy to get swept up in someone else's.

Some further thoughts on the meaning of life

Apropos this post.

I think there’s often a confusion between meaning and purpose, and for some reason that purpose has to be external. For example, it’s not enough to simply do something, you have to have a good objective reason. To certain religionistas it’s simply not enough to have a relationship with someone (because, say, you enjoy each others company a lot) - you have to have that relationship in order to get married and have kids, and you have to get married and have kids because God told you so. For them it’s all part of some grand master-plan devised by a perfect being – so it’s easy to see why the idea of acting purely on biological and psychological impulses seems a little inadequate in comparison.

The atheistic view of life requires quite a bit of humility: I’m simply the product of evolution, in a universe which came about by accident, and in the grand scheme of things my life means very little. What I do has immense importance to me, and, if I’m doing things right, the people around me. But there’s no guaranteed great pay-off at the end. No matter how hard I try, and no matter how good a person I am, my life will eventually end and in all probability my consciousness will be extinguished.

I will be no more. Kaput. Absolutely.

Now, that’s not ideal, but then what is? An important part of life is resigning yourself to fact that you’re mortal: that you won’t live forever, you’ll never be able to fly or have super strength, and it’s unlikely that you’ll become a rock God, or astronaut, or whatever delusion of grandeur plagues you. Part of growing up is learning who you are and what you can do, all in order to get the best out of life.

There is no ultimate reason for living, no great meaning of life: you either appreciate it or you don’t. Most people do.

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

- Albert Camus

Living in the moment

One of the many, many blogs I read during the day (with the help of Google Reader – otherwise I’d never leave the computer) is The Dilbert Blog by the often extremely funny Scott Adams. His post today about the small pleasures in life certainly managed to put a small on my face. (For me: the arrival of a new book from Amazon through the post, the puppyish enthusiasm of my family’s dog when being taken for a walk, that first sip of tea in the morning, etc). However, it was one of the comments left that really got my attention:

Odd that a moist robot can think it's having such a good day. What do you do with your godless, purposless, total lack of freewill having philosophy when you talk like this?

Don't get me wrong I totally believe you are having these feelings and that they are beautiful, but if you believe you are nothing more than a complicated meat puppet what do you do with those sensations?

As this person, “Alex” goes on to explain in a latter comment:

This…leaves me with this question for the Atheists: How do you work around talking about meaning and beauty and purpose? How do you with honesty to your world view strive to do good things, treat people as you’d like to be treated, or try to make a difference in this joint? Please keep in mind that most every Atheist I have met has been generally very thoughtful, kind and concerned about living life “right”. Basically they are better than the world view they claim to hold. But I can’t understand why. The Athistic/Nihilistic world view does not support it.

If we are from nothing, for nothing, to nothing, then nothing matters. The job you have, the hobbies you enjoy, the family you have, the way you treat people. It doesn’t matter at all. Sure, you can say that it does matter because you want to leave a good mark on the world etc... But what does THAT mean? Good? What’s that? It’s nothing! It’s an illusion. Your children will die. Your children’s children will die and they will all forget you. You don’t matter. You mean nothing. You count for nothing. You are an accident. An amazing accident beyond all odds. You think you are self actualized, but you are not. You are complicated chemistry. You are a moist robot responding to complicated stimuli and you will only be here for a little while then you will return to the nothingness that you came from.

Now, while I think the terms “complicated meat puppet” and “moist robot” are absolutely inspired, the idea that unless we have some God-given purpose we might as well not bother with anything is ridiculous.

Personally, whether you think you admire a beautiful sunset because you have a divinely or evolutionarily provided sense of beauty makes very little difference to your appreciation. On one level, perhaps the most important, it’s simply a beautiful sunset and we react to that. I imagine that for most people it’s not the why that counts, it’s what's happening at the time. Most of the relationships we’re in aren’t going to last, but we still try to make the most of them. In 100 years time everyone who reads this post will be dust and this blog long forgotten – but I think it’s worth writing because of the value it has now.

In fact, I could easily flip the question around. “If we are from nothing, for nothing, to nothing” then it means that what happens now is the important thing. However, if you seriously believe that this life is simply the waiting room for paradise, then why should you care what’s going on?

Atheism vs Agnosticism

Theo Hobson’s “Articles of faith” has been quite thoroughly fisked here. However, I just want to take issue with the idea that atheism is a “faith position” and Hobson’s comment that:

What distinguishes the atheist from the agnostic is his belief that religion ought to be eliminated, that the world would be radically better off without it. Atheism entails a certain narrative about historical progress: we can move to a new and better age once we have dispensed with superstition. The prospect of a future without religion is good news. The atheist is an evangelist, a communicator of the true cause that will set humanity free.

Even by normal standards, the definition of atheism here is extreme. The word is usually a source of argument though, with people often falling into one of two camps about what it means:

1) “I believe there is no God”
2) “I believe the evidence for God is unconvincing”

Those looking to attack it normally use the first definition, which is, on its own, a faith-based one in that it claims absolute certainty on the subject. The definition I use, and which I think is shared by most other atheists, is the second.

I don’t believe that complete certainty is ever really attainable, and I think it wise to adopt a level of scepticism about all our beliefs if we want to remain intellectually honest. This is why I’m generally supportive of science, which consists of a particular method of examination (open to refinement or abandonment in light of new evidence) and the body of theories (again, open to refinement or abandonment) acquired by it. Science doesn’t necessarily tell us what is true, only what is most likely to be true.

At the heart of this uncertainty is my atheism. Without access to any form of divine knowledge all I have to rely on are my - highly fallible - human senses and reasoning. Whenever I wish to gain information about some aspect of life I use my senses (which can easily be mistaken) to gather data, and then my critical faculties (which can also be mistaken) to process it. The conclusions I arrive at are determined to the best of my ability – which is far from perfect. None of my beliefs are necessarily true: I could be mistaken, dreaming or deluded.

This shouldn’t lead to intellectual relativism though. As Bertrand Russell wrote in ‘Am I an Atheist Or Agnostic’:

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasise that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter scepticism, and complete scepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

I’ve always been slightly wary of the term agnostic. If God is considered to be a truly transcendent being then questions about his existence are meaningless – as no evidence can be produced in support of any positions. So I suppose I’m agnostic about such a being. But, in most cases believers seem to put forward the idea of a being which interacts with the physical world, and in this case it is possible to find evidence either for or against such an existence. However, again, I think it’s only possible to argue about the likelihood of such a being, not to answer the question either way.

Religion vs Atheism

As “religion vs atheism” is all the rage over at Cif right now, I want to explain my own views on the matter. However, given the huge mess of confusion surrounding the issue, I want to put forward the definitions I’m using (backed, I’m pretty sure, by most major dictionaries):

Religion – worldview based around the concept of a divine being

Atheism – lack of belief in the existence of divine beings

Agnosticism – belief that the question of the existence of divine beings is unanswerable, and therefore meaningless

Materialism – belief that the world is governed by natural (as opposed to supernatural or divine) forces

Faith – belief in something regardless of the evidence

Reason – proportioning the strength of a belief to the available evidence

Now, with these definitions we’re in a position to tackle some of the arguments floating about.

However, first off, I want to comment on the word “belief”: it isn’t exclusively religious, and can refer to any idea or concept which we hold to be true. A belief can either a matter of faith or reason, depending on how it relates to the evidence.

Atheism:

Lacking a concept of a divine being, the core of the definition, it therefore cannot be a religious belief.

Nor is it strictly a proper worldview. When people refer to atheists, they normally have in mind either humanists, nihilists, materialists, etc. each of which is a view about the nature of the universe (and often the values which stem from it) – something atheism on its own (consisting only of a disbelief) clearly isn’t. Each of these is also a belief – the validity of which depends on the amount and consistency of the evidence brought forward to support it.

Religion:

The belief that the universe was created and guided by a divine being (or beings) can be either a matter of faith (if held regardless of evidence) or reason (if the believer claims evidence in support of it).

Conclusion:

If religious or non-religious views are held as a matter of faith, then no real debate is possible – as the faithful simply restrict themselves to picking at flaws in opposing arguments, while never admitting the possibility of any in their own.

If these views are based on reason, then debates can proceed simply through evaluation of the evidence put forward. The best way – so discovered – is the use of scientific method*.

[*Science, properly understood, isn’t a worldview either: consisting as it does of simply a method of evaluation and the bulk of knowledge acquired through it.]

Being a Good Person

One of the comments on the previous post got me thinking about being “a good person”. Is it necessary to be religious to be a “good” or “moral” person?
For me the answer is an easy no. My morality is based on simple utilitarian principles, and can be rendered down (as can most moralities) to the basic premise: Treat others how you wish to be treated by them – i.e. with respect and consideration.

I don’t believe that there’s a pre-established set of rules on what should and shouldn’t be done. We should approach each situation with the above principle in mind, thinking things through and remembering that each individual is an autonomous being, but one that may still require our help.
For example, causing someone needless suffering is immoral. As is allowing them to suffer when it's in your power to prevent it. Giving your time to help out those in need is a moral act.

While this is an essentially Humanist view, it isn’t necessarily an anti-religious one. JS Mill, a devout Christian, proposed a similar approach in his book On Liberty.

But why, without the consequences of an afterlife, should I hold to this principle? Simple: If this short life is all I have then I have to make the most of it, and I will get a lot further if people treat me with respect and consideration, which they are more likely to do if I treat them the same way.

Co-operation is more effective than conflict. Empathy is a biological trait without which human civilisation and society would be impossible. This empathy could be seen as the root of all ethics and morality. The fact that I feel pain and want guides how I act in my own life, the fact that I can recognise those feelings in others guides how I act towards them.

Anyone who seeks to minimise suffering and help others is a “moral” or “good” person in my book, regardless whether their reasons are religious or not.

I’m not sure if any of that makes sense. But, it’s the closest I can get to describe how I feel about it while I’m still struggling to figure out this world.

Sunday Zen

"If you understand, things are just as they are. If you do not understand, things are just as they are."

My dog...