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Faith in truth and science. I am with you all the way on that stuff.
That is just the way I think about things myself.
Morality. This is certainly the weak point of the atheist
view of the world. Morality does not naturally follow from a rational
and atheist worldview. Many religious people see that as a big weakness.
This idea I find slightly disconcerting. I get the impression that
many Christians are in effect saying that they have to believe in
the far-fetched stories about God because it is the only firm anchor
point for their belief system, the only reason that anybody would
act morally. So maybe they don't really believe it but they cannot
let that show because it is vitally important that those less intelligent
and less privileged believe it so they will act in a moral way.
This is rather like the anti-filth protestors who have seen hundreds
of degrading and perverted films but are not affected by it, but
they have to object to them for the good of those who might be.
A bit fishy.
The way I look at it there is no God. However unfortunate that
is it does seem to be true. If there was a God there would be a
nice and easy system of morality we could just take down off the
peg. If everybody believed in God then they would act morally, wouldn't
they? Well, no. Most Italian gangsters and IRA terrorists think
they are still good Catholics. So the morality claims of belief
are rather poor. Some people are moral, some less so, some believe
in sky pixies, some don't, that is the end of the story. There is
no obvious pattern to it. Tony Blair seems like a decent man and
he goes to Church, but so did Jimmy Swaggart, Richard Nixon and
Bill Clinton, all men whose morality seemed less than perfect.
Jared Diamond is a genius, but he looks like the sort of bloke
who would carry around a placard announcing the end of the world.
His analysis seems very good except for his conspicuous cowardice
over the matter of religion and political correctness. I greatly
enjoyed both Guns, Germs and Steel and The Third Chimpanzee.
Jared Diamond is one of my favourite authors along with Richard
Dawkins and Steven Pinker.
Thank you for the thought about the slave robot, it helped me crystallize
some important ideas. We are, as Dawkins says, the lumbering robots
built by genes who pull on our strings through tortuously slow processes.
They have built us. We have no aims that the genes have not given
us. Everything we do, everything we want to do, is determined by
our genes, either directly or indirectly. We want to know things
because our genes have built curiosity and thirst for knowledge
in us, and not suppressed it at puberty (well, not in most males
anyway) as happens in most species.
A touch controversial perhaps? I hope so ;-)
A robot has to have built in desires and aims or else it is a rusting
machine. We are sentient beings deserving of consideration of concepts
such as rights because we can suffer, we suffer because we can perceive
a real difference between the way things are and the way we would
like them to be. We have desires and needs. Without them we would
simply perceive the world until we died. Nirvana, the absence of
desires. As free as a rock. It doesn't strike me as a desirable
state. Either as a state for oneself or for another of your kind.
Nationalist memes.
Think about it. What is a nation really for? What does it do? Who
defines what it is? Britain is an artificial construct created by
the ruling classes for their own purposes. I think the idea has
outlived its usefulness. Englishness is not worth getting bothered
about either. I have been attracted to English Nationalism a bit
but now I see it as silly. The only sensible political structure
that I can see is mankind.
Who do I love? My family, but not to an unlimited degree. Some
of the people in my community, some people who share similar ideas
further afield. I cannot draw any sensible boundaries around my
love or concern. I cannot put sensible boundaries over the things
or places I value. Trying to believe that I find the lake district
beautiful but Switzerland gaudy is nonsense. My grandmother tried
to make out that she found British Columbia too extreme compared
to the gentle beauty of her little England. Madness, its alpine
scenery is spectacularly beautiful, although it is not an ideal
landscape for man, too many trees, not enough herds of large grass
eating quadrupeds.
I am not too affected by fears of globalization. Cultural convergence
is not necessarily a bad thing.
I have sent you a chunk from a piece that Michal,
my Polish student friend, has sent me recently. I think it is brilliant,
I want him to expand on it and make it into a Guest Zone article.
Globalization and culture loss
Everybody is lamenting that globalization
is so bad because it entails dumping region specific customs,
folklore, languages (and religious rituals, fairy tales and superstitions).
They say that one has to be affiliated to some culture or else
one is lost, cannot find himself. I think it's nonsense.
I don't want to belong to so and so community only because I was
born in this and not the other place. I think that saying It's
better because it's ours is complete bullshit. I want to be
able to choose where I want to belong, I don't want to have any
way of living forced upon me, I don't need no roots. The only
past that I want to have is that of my own, that I created with
my friends, the people I choose. I don't feel that the past of
Poland is my past. I do not feel any pride because of any
won wars or a shame for any lost ones, no matter how long ago
it was. I do not want to be judged by my origin or the reputation
that my rationed [ I don't know if it is a proper word, it's a
translation from Polish meaning "compulsory, assigned by someone
higher in rank, not chosen" ] society has earned (no matter how
good or bad it is). An average anti-globalizationist could now
say that the world will always be divided into some regions and
cultures. Yes, but you will be able to choose freely what society
you want to live in, what views you want to have (you might be
surprised that I wrote it but still in the country what priest
and the majority says is truth and poorly educated people
do not even have a chance to oppose it because they are overwhelmed
by too powerful memes - I'm sure that there could be much more
atheists in the country if the social pressure wasn't so strong,
most people are too weak even to begin questioning some views).
What I like most about the internet is what others are most afraid
of - it creates some virtual international societies contributing
to neglecting local ones. But hey, is it really that bad? One
could say: Don't sit so much in front of the computer, why
don't you go to your aunt? But maybe I have nothing to say
to my aunt. And on the Net I can keep in touch with people who
have interests like me. I can see a good example based on educational
system. In the primary school the class consisted of kids living
in a given district. Zero compatibility. Some longer friendships
were occasional, people did not understand each other very well,
everyone had much different interests and views (some agreements
occurred accidentally but generally it was a random assemblage).
In secondary school things looked better - the people fitted at
least roughly. And at the university it's actually ideal (maybe
apart from religious beliefs but you cannot have everything..).
There's a big probability in reaching an agreement between students
even though they are from two different ends of the country. The
same with 'normal' societies. They should be comprised of people
that want to be together, fit each other and not just were born
in one place. (BTW, can you remember what I told about war and
the patriots killing each other thing?)
Languages.
I would not cry if someday all languages
simply disappeared and only one left. That would make things so
much easier. And I do not think that some cultural richness would
be lost in that process. I see languages only from the pragmatic
point of view and so called richness is nothing but a nuisance
for me. I just want to communicate as easily and efficiently as
possible, I don't require anything more from languages. Cultural
richness is not endangered, I think. It's just not possible for
several milliard people to like one style of artwork, music, type
of furniture etc. There will always be groups creating something
unique. Countries and any artificial divisions are not necessary
here.
Converting Christians
Converting is hard and can be futile. But I am basically a political
philosopher with a biological perspective. I don't think in months.
I think of the medium term as being 100 generations. In this kind
of timescale I think there might be some prospect of re-education.
But I fear that religion is immortal. (See Willett's Wager) I don't
know if anybody has been converted from Christian to atheist in
one go by reading my site but I have had at least one convert from
the middle ground and I have done my best to confuse a few believers
into a little reasonable doubt. One thing I think I might be able
to achieve is to simply raise the profile of atheism and to do it
in a reasonably cogent way that may show that atheism is rational
and consistent with morality and concern for the future of our kind.
And you don't need a sense of humour bypass either.
Martin
Do you have any problems with me publishing your stuff? Would you
want to be anonymous or semi anonymous? Let me know. This is good
stuff, I want to publish it.
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Dear Martin,
Thanks again for your fantastic reply. Again,
I'll try to follow the order of your email in mine. You'll be pleased
to hear that I do have a couple of issues to disagree with you over
this time.
Morality. This is certainly the weak point
of the atheist view of the world. Morality does not naturally
follow from a rational and atheist worldview. Many religious people
see that as a big weakness.
I disagree that this
is a genuine weak point in atheist philosophy. I think this is an
area that religion has co-opted, and tried to make its own. Morality
is perhaps the key thing that the Church claims it can offer over
atheism, but I think this is a classic bit of mystification and
obfuscation. Morality is a social
norm that most people learn at their mother's (or gay adopted father's)
knee, regardless of said parent's religious bent. It does not require
a god for an intelligent species like man to have figured out the
basic rules of living together in large numbers. The Church says
that we should be moral because it pleases God. The atheist says
be moral because it works. Neither view is more or less weak than
the other, the only difference is that one refers to skyhooks for
its validity. (Hope I won't offend you if I briefly explain skyhooks.
They were an idea introduced to me by Dennett in Darwin's Dangerous
Idea. As an example, 'creation' is explained in science by evolution.
This is a bottom up idea, in which each new level of development
is made possible by the previous accretions of complexity. Standing
on the shoulders' of giants... The Creation Myth, on the other hand,
looks upwards for a yet more implausible being to create the world
we see around us. A skyhook. Dennett explains it much better.) So,
in short, I believe that saying morality is a weak point of atheism
is to buy into the Church's propaganda on the subject.
I get the impression that many Christians
are in effect saying that they have to believe in the far-fetched
stories about God because it is the only firm anchor point for
their belief system, the only reason that anybody would act morally.
So maybe they don't really believe it but they cannot let that
show because it is vitally important that those less intelligent
and less privileged believe it so they will act in a moral way.
I think you are right. Some Christians I
have talked to seem to see the world in a slightly Victorian, paternalistic
way. They think they see an erosion of morality in society, and
see God as the only way to turn this trend around. I would contest
them on both counts. Firstly, I don't believe that it is possible
to objectively claim that morality is on the decline. What is considered
moral has maybe changed, (i.e., no sex before marriage), but pointing
at the 10 O'clock news and saying - 'Look at all that immorality'
proves nothing. The way society works has altered radically, and
in this new information age we are all much more aware of the horrors
that mankind is capable of inflicting upon his fellows. This does
not mean it didn't happen before. Secondly, whether or not God is
the route to morality is highly debatable. As you pointed out, there
have been many atrocities perpetrated by god-fearing people. Many
even in the name of their god. So for religious people to claim
that their god provides any sort of objective benchmark of morality,
is simply not true. Christianity hinges on the fact that people
do not need to be perfect in order to get into heaven.
The way I look at it there is no God. However
unfortunate that is it does seem to be true.
I think this is the key to the whole argument.
However nice it would be for there to be a God that did provide
us with the answer to everything (er, not great in my book, but
anyway...), something being nice does not make it so. If, without
God, humans are left without an absolute morality, without any way
of knowing whether they are going about crime and punishment, or
family life, or foreign policy the right way, then, shucks, that's
just the way it is. Imbuing God with all sorts of fantastic, desirable
qualities, does not make him more likely to exist.
The Slave Robot
We are, as Dawkins says, the lumbering
robots built by genes who pull on our strings through tortuously
slow processes. They have built us. We have no aims that the genes
have not given us. Everything we do, everything we want to do,
is determined by our genes, either directly or indirectly. We
want to know things because our genes have built curiosity and
thirst for knowledge in us, and not suppressed it at puberty (well,
not in most males anyway) as happens in most species.
A touch controversial perhaps? I hope
so ;-)
A robot has to have built in desires and
aims or else it is a rusting machine. We are sentient beings deserving
of consideration of concepts such as rights because we can suffer,
we suffer because we can perceive a real difference between the
way things are and the way we would like them to be. We have desires
and needs. Without them we would simply perceive the world until
we died. Nirvana, the absence of desires. As free as a rock. It
doesn't strike me as a desirable state. Either as a state for
oneself or for another of your kind.
Right, a couple of issues with this bit.
In a previous email you said that humans were slaves effectively,
held hostage by their genes (I'm paraphrasing, correct me if I got
the wrong end of the stick). I'd disagree with that. I certainly
agree that our genes are one of the things which give us desires.
Desires like having sex, eating, maybe even the desire to earn money/support
oneself. However, these are still genuine desires of the individual,
and achieving them gives satisfaction. The genes operate through
us, but are also part of us. What's good for them, is to a large
extent good for the individual. Slavery, on the other hand, is when
an individual's needs and desires are subverted for another's benefit.
The enslaved individual is unable to express their natural range
of (gene induced) behaviours, and this is likely to produce suffering.
Whilst the parameters of freedom are ultimately circumscribed by
our genes, slavery is about reducing the range of freedoms to an
intolerable level.
So to go back to the enslaved artificial
intelligence, whether it 'suffered' as a result of its captivity
would have to be down to whether or not it could express its natural
range of behaviours. As you pointed out, its natural range of behaviours
would be dictated by its programming, which would most likely specify
serving humans in some way as a prime desire. In this case 'freedom'
for the robot would mean freedom to serve man, or programmer. So
my original thought that the hypothetical AI should be set free
was ill formed. And in a way this whole line of questioning comes
back to the point that there are no absolutes in morality.
Being controversial
We want to know things because our genes
have built curiosity and thirst for knowledge in us, and not suppressed
it at puberty (well, not in most males anyway) as happens in most
species.
I'm not sure whether by this you mean that
some males become mindless drones at puberty (I'd go along with
that!!), or that all females become mindless drones at puberty.
Please elucidate. And yes, that is a loaded question...!
Nationalism/Globalisation
I'm certainly not a nationalist, and I agree
with a lot of what you say in your One
World essay. There are certainly
some issues that can only be sensibly tackled on a world wide basis.
Chief among them has got to be the environment. The fact that climate
change and pollution clouds do not respect borders has already lead
to some countries trying to do this in a more co-ordinated way,
with mixed results. Other obvious ones that spring to my mind are
things like nuclear disarmament, regulations on animal welfare,
sending aid to areas hit by natural disaster. I have two chief problems
with the idea.
Things globalisation can't do
Some of the things that Michal says don't
ring true with me.
They [anti-globalisationists] say that
one has to be affiliated to some culture or else one is lost,
cannot find himself. I think it's nonsense. I don't want to belong
to so and so community only because I was born in this and not
the other place. I think that saying It's better because it's
ours is complete bullshit. I want to be able to choose where I
want to belong, I don't want to have any way of living forced
upon me, I don't need no roots. The only past that I want to have
is that of my own, that I created with my friends, the people
I choose
For us reasonably privileged westerners,
this is already to some extent a reality. We can communicate with
anyone we like, escaping from our geographical context and finding
new, better (?) ones as we see fit. Should we wish to, changing
our geographical location isn't that hard either. However, I don't
believe that one can escape from ones roots, even if you genuinely
don't need them. The culture in which you were brought up inevitably
forms the backdrop to your experience, informs and biases your views
on the world.
Further to this, for less privileged people,
the choices that Michal speaks of making about his culture are quite
out of the question. People living subsistence lives do not have
access to either the education to make such choices, or the means
to carry them out. These people are inextricably tied to their culture,
and, for that if for no other reason, are bound to feel justifiably
defensive of it. Can globalisation provide the equality of opportunity
that would be required for everyone to be able to make these choices?
I'm inclined to think not - but please, tell me why I'm wrong.
Things globalisation might do
Okay, this is just a few alarmist ideas that
keep assailing me.
Progress.
Surely one of the main advantages to competition
between nations is that it encourages progress. That progress is,
I'll grant you, normally in the form of developing newer, nastier
weapons, but an awful lot of the technology and know-how originally
developed by military organisations is now the backbone of civilian
IT. As an intelligent species, it shouldn't take the threat
of warfare for governments to invest in technology, but that is
just the way it is. If a federal world will work only when politicians
start behaving like decent, farsighted and incorruptible people,
then I don't believe it will ever work.
Too many eggs in one basket.
In a way, this is a broader statement of
the above concern. A federal world would require that the control
of many aspects of that world be concentrated inside one government.
What would happen if that government went wrong? Became completely
corrupted by big business? Or controlled by a few lunatics who wanted
to 'rule the world, ha ha ha...'. I don't believe that the fact
that this government would be democratically elected would be a
sufficient safeguard against this sort of thing. And whilst currently
when things go wrong in one country, this does not mean a serious
set back for the human race as a whole, in a federal world I don't
see a self righting mechanism. On a less dramatic note, and kind
of returning to the progress theme, the human race would no longer
have the opportunity to try out several different ways of doing
things, see which one did best, then settle on that as the right
way in future. In a society run by only one government, when that
government decides which new technology to sponsor, there are no
other governments to try out the alternatives. This is a bit vague,
sorry, I'll try to dig out any examples of exactly what I'm going
on about. Maybe the general point is that the human race needs the
competition and one-up-manship of international relations to keep
him trying to better himself. I think the Red Queen argument that
you cite is misplaced. We do all keep working, trying to keep one
step ahead of each other, but the end result is not to be back where
we started. Maybe Britain relative to America, we are just running
to keep up, but Britain 2001 relative to Britain 1001 - or even
Britain 1951? Why would a federal world not lead to stasis, in terms
of progress, technological development, maybe even intellectually?
Good grief, I'm sorry, this has turned into
a bit of an essay, hasn't it? You'll be pleased to hear that I'm
going to stop now!!
Do you have any problems with me publishing
your stuff? Would you want to be anonymous or semi anonymous?
Let me know. This is good stuff, I want to publish it. Check out
the Feedback Zone to see how I handle this kind of stuff.
Please do go ahead. I'm going to be naff
though, and ask to be semi-anonymous.
Oh, and I agree, Michal's stuff is very good.
He should turn it into an article.
Right, hope you're well,
Kate.
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Skyhooks and morality
I am with you all the way. I haven't read Dennett on skyhooks but
I am familiar with the concept, quite a useful bit of mentalese
vocabulary. I have a fine collection of mentalese concepts, I show
you mine if you show me yours.
I know exactly what you mean about defending the basis of atheist
morality. I have no problem with a bottom up set of morals and they
seem to work quite well. I often consider doing criminal or immoral
things for a brief moment but my sense of morality stops me almost
without fail. I think people who deny that they ever even contemplate
doing bad things are the worst kind of hypocritical liars. In a
way thinking about "sinning" is good practice for your morality
muscles, you have to give them a bit of a workout or they go flabby.
Christians do it with asking themselves "what
would Jesus do?" a
general appeal to the skyhook again but as the skyhook in question
is by nature as communicative as Sooty, the effect is that they
have to do some sort of moral reasoning for themselves. At least
it is better than flinching in anticipation of the nuns beating
you without ever internalizing the rules at all.
Sex outside marriage
A bit of a tangent, this one. I am becoming very reactionary about
this subject. I don't see how sex can ever be truly casual, it is
always going to be a behaviour with consequences. Is this simply
a matter of ageing? Going from the camp that believes a free-for-all
is the best chance of getting laid to the one in which a free-for-all
is the best chance of getting landed with bastard children and grandchildren?
That has got to be a big factor, but I am certainly moving rapidly
in that direction. Monogamy seems very attractive. Keep away
from my woman you horrible little wankers.
Changing morality
Can anybody ever measure changes in morality across a society?
It seems very difficult to do. One way is to use statistics. I think
on paper the most moral society on Earth was Iceland in about 1965,
murders almost non-existent, few thefts, vanishingly small illegitimacy
rates and everybody focused on improving living standards for all,
public and private sector affluence growing evenly. It is hard to
measure accurately but it is equally wrong-headed to assume that
because it is hard to measure changing morality that therefore morality
always finds its own level, like water in a hosepipe, no matter
what happens in the outside world. Times change, people change,
societies change. I don't think we are as moral a society as we
were a generation ago. We have lost some values and gained some
others. We are more likely to have our home broken into but less
likely to be discriminated against because of sex or sexuality.
How can anybody balance those two changes, let alone the whole picture?
If, without God, humans are left without
an absolute morality, without any way of knowing whether they
are going about crime and punishment, or family life, or foreign
policy the right way, then, shucks, that's just the way it is.
Imbuing God with all sorts of fantastic, desirable qualities,
does not make him more likely to exist.
I agree completely. That is just the way I see it. I don't want
not to believe in God, I am not doing this to impress anybody or
to put anybody's nose out of joint. I simply cannot find any good
reasons to believe in God or any kind of god that has any meaning.
I cannot say that I totally reject all possible god-like theories
because some modern physics does seem to come up with some weird
results, but nothing that would suggest that the fundamental cause
of the Universe was a bearded old man who liked the smell of burning
goats and cares one jot about us. Religions are much easier to explain
as being the results of memetic, biological, geographic, political
and social forces than supernatural ones.
Robots
However, these are still genuine desires
of the individual I disagree. There is no real genuine individual
that you can separate out from the in built desires. It is like
taking an ant to pieces, take off each leg, the head, the thorax
and the abdomen and you have no ant left.
My desires are built in from my genes. I like to eat. I like to
have sex. I like to succeed. But that is just the tip of the iceberg,
you can go deep inside every aspect of me and understand everything
and explain it all. But you don't explain it away, you just explain
it. My desire for sex is not just a desire for poking certain parts
of my anatomy into places that cause pleasant friction. I am attracted
to certain features because of my genes. Signs of health, youth
and fertility on the one hand and just as important signs of a good
match and the prospect of fidelity on the other.
My roving eye has changed as I have aged. I no longer look for
idealized virgin-wife images. 16 years old, perfect facial symmetry
and long hair that shows signs of long-tern health and absence
of disease. I find myself attracted to suitable candidates for
extra-pair bonding opportunities, they don't have to have twenty
five years of child-bearing ahead of them anymore, the woman who
looks like she can take care of herself and a child is looking
a good candidate. The mothers at the playground are noticeably
attractive. This shift in my taste is so easy to explain. The best
chance of a mature hominid fathering more children is to stay married
and at the same time seize any golden opportunity that comes his
way. So my body prepares me for it. There is little point in porking
teenagers my body is telling me, they will not be likely to actually
bear you children and if they did you don't have enough resources
to feed them, but Ugg's woman over there, the one with three children
and still most of her teeth, she could bear you a child if you
had a good opportunity, watch out for one. See, her breasts are still firm, and look at that arse...heh heh! Now where is Ugg?
Still hunting eh? Just look at that arse...
I see your point about slavery. We are robots not slaves. Our desires
are built in but they are not external, not in the interests of
any external force. I suppose there is a distinction between a robot
and a slave. The robot is obeying the intrinsic demands of its own
program not the external whims of a master.
The robots in Robot Wars are not real robots, they are
armoured radio controlled machines with no internal decision making.
A real robot must be free of external moment-to-moment control,
it must have its own idea of its own desires. It does not matter
whether or not it chose its desires, if such a thing were even possible.
A slave, to be something undesirable in an objective sense, must
have its own desires and then have external demands superimposed
over the top. A slave whose desires were identical with his master's
would be unworthy of emancipation, or at the least unworthy of an
effort to emancipate it.
So we are either robots, or slaves unworthy of emancipation effort.
I don't care that much either way. I know what I want, and I can
explain why I want it, but that explanation never explains it away.
Controversy
My point really was that puberty takes over females totally. It
is very hard to see any female actions that are not directly related
to maximizing fitness in the simple genetic sense. Money, success,
stability, fertile mate that is desired by other women. Very simple
to understand. Curiosity does not fit that pattern, and it is less
common in women. On Radio 4 today people were discussing women's
inventions, or rather, trying to explain away the fact that women
have invented vanishingly small proportions of our modern technology.
Men are more curious, more lazy (so want to find a better way to
do everything) and more capable of focusing on seemingly inconsequential
things. No doubt the wife of the man who first smelted copper in
a hearth was fussing around him and urging him to bugger off out
of the camp and do something useful instead like pick some mushrooms
instead of piling rocks onto the fire.
Girls do very well at all subjects including mathematics and sciences
until puberty, then, especially if boys are around, they switch
off in droves and concentrate on hair and nails and important stuff
like that.
That pattern is the norm. Curiosity killed the kitten, the tom
cat couldn't be bothered, he has his mind focused on securing a
territory and driving off or impregnating any of his species who
pass through it. The inventiveness of the adult man is unusual,
and needs explaining.
I will have to leave it at that for now. I will reply to the globalization
stuff another time. Thank you for replying, this is just the sort
of inspiration I need to keep the ideas sharp and focussed. Arguing
with people who violently disagree is tiring at times, talking to
sycophants is dull, the best conversations come from those who have
a slight divergence.
Martin
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