Timely Thoughts

Early this morning I woke with some images and thoughts running through my mind. 

The future does not exist except as potentiality.

The arrow of time is connected with the expansion of space-time — we do not move "into" an existing future any more than the universe expands "into" a presently empty space — it is space-time itself that is expanding, and this drives the arrow of time.

Experience (the present and past) is the collapse of potentiality into actuality.

That's enough for now. My brain hurts.

TSH

Not Just Stuff

Jim Naughton reports on an interview between Patricia Churchland and Graham Lawton, concerning her book Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain. Perhaps in a Freudian slip, she refers to her conclusions as, "unnerving..." But if you take away the nerves, by her standards, there can be no ideas!

The "mind-body" debate is a very old one, with a great deal of nuance. Even materialism has to first decide what "matter" is, and I don't think physics has yet plumbed the depths of material and energetic nature to the extent of absolute assurance. I don't think it is likely ever to be settled, as Churchland seems to think it is, through her process of elimination — which I fear looks a bit like a mere reluctance to accept others' perceptions as "real" — a hands over the ears and "la la la la" refusal even to accept the possibility that there is more to the mind than the brain, more to reality than just matter and energy.

Ultimately, neuroexistentialism is just another minimalizing answer to the question of Mind. I find such reductionist models less than helpful — and after all, why should I believe what Churchland or any other collection of tissues suggests is the ultimate reality?

Further questions remain: What if there is an ultimate reality to which, as Neal Stephenson suggests in Anathem, nerve tissue is uniquely sensitive and responsive? What if the brain, even if "just" tissue, is a sense organ designed to pick up on realities not otherwise sensible? What if Spirit is just as real as atoms?

If human beings are just sacks of meat, then soylent green is in our future. No thank you, P.C., I'll stick with the mind as more than the sum of its parts. As Teilhard so wisely said, "My matter is not a 'part' of the universe that I possess totaliter. It is the totality of the universe possessed by me partialiter." My mind exists outside my body, including in other minds — even as you read these words.

So here's to an expansionist, rather than a reductionist, understanding of the mind.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Some further thoughts on theology

Based on some comments in the thread below...

Dawkins, and others like him, appear to me to be attacking religion and thinking that in the process they are debunking God. Their proper interlocutor should be theology, not religion. And the proper analogue from the atheist side is not science, but mathematics, it seems to me.

What sort of interesting conversations took place between the atheist Russell and his colleague the philosopher Whitehead. Did they have discussions along the lines of, "What is 'Number' and does 'Number' exist? Is mathematics 'science' in the same sense as biology? Does it have 'hypotheses' and verifiable outcomes? Is it falsifiable in the same way as relativity?" And just wait until Gödel got hold of their work!

As far as I am concerned, from a philosophical perspective, 'Three" can be just as much a mystery as "Trinity." And thanks be to Gödel for showing that for any sufficiently non-trivial system there must be truths that can't be proven by the system!

Tobias Stanislas Haller

Thought for 07.06.09

Being and doing in metaphysics share the same equivalency as matter and energy in physics.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Re-evalutation

Ideas are not true because they are old, though they may be old because they are true. The paradox is that how long a given idea has been around is of no use in proving its truth, and past staying-power is not cause for something to continue to stay.

Tradition is not self-certifying evidence of truth, but a testament to those who passed along what they believe to be true. All things being equal, we ought certainly defer to timeworn truths — but the moment a persuasive argument can be made for change, the fact that something remained unchanged prior to the new argument cannot be used in its defense. New evidence always takes us back to the question itself.

That new evidence may arise not from a new fact arising, but from a new way of seeing the question — whether a social construct or a novel philosophical paradigm. And in the long run, the truth itself — the dogma or theory — may remain relatively untouched, but be understood and expressed in new ways. The best and most vital doctrines — the deepest truths — are capable of such costume changes.

But just as antiquity is no proof of truth, neither is novelty. There are bad old ideas and new ones. Each and all must be tested with the best tools we have at hand.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

 

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Some thoughts on Benedict’s Natural Lawsuit

The Pope is closing out Advent and bringing us into Christmastide with yet one more rendition of his favorite theme: natural law and its place in scholastic theology, in particular as it speaks to the divinely ordered status of men and women qua men and women. (I like to use qua in contexts such as this, as it gives the appearance of seriousness to an otherwise trivial concept: that men and women are men and women.) It's what the Scholastic Theologians got from this that is the problem; and the pope is hammering away on his one-note marimba once again. As the officers will say at a roadside accident, "Nothing to see here; move along."

I can't help but take note, however, about the insistent persistence of this outmoded metaphysic, and the natural law to which it gives rise. Of course, as reported in the Australian, the pope told his audience, "It is not 'outmoded metaphysics'" to urge respect for the "nature of the human being as man and woman."

Oh, but it is, when you get beyond the respect due to individual men and women, and try to draw conclusions for the whole, in an essentialist mode. "Scholastic theology" is at the root of the problem. For all of his Scriptural references, when it comes to anthropology Aquinas relies as much on "the Philosopher" (i.e, Aristotle) as on Scripture. This is precisely where the outmoded metaphysics comes in. Not only outmoded (lots of old fashioned things are just fine!) but wrong. Just factually wrong, erroneous, mistaken. I mean, read Aquinas on where babies come from and how sperm is made, and what the fundamental difference between man and woman is. Any theology based on falsehoods cannot claim to be in keeping with the one who is the Perfect Truth.

Of course, back in the days when he went by Ratzinger, the present pontiff had defended the church's actions in re Galileo; continuing to affirm the authority of the magisterium over against the insufficiencies of mere secular science.

Infallible? Sed contra.

And while I'm at it, let me make an observation about the pope's "ecological" concern about human nature and the damage any legitimizing of same-sex relationships or other gender-bending might cause to society as we know it, perhaps leading, as he suggests, to its "destruction." As quoted by John Allen in NCR:

[The Church] must also defend the human person against its own destruction. What's needed is something like a 'human ecology,' understood in the right sense. It's not simply an outdated metaphysics if the church speaks of the nature of the human person as man and woman, and asks that this order of creation be respected... Here it's a question of faith in creation, in listening to the language of creation, disregard of which would mean self-destruction of the human person and hence destruction of the very work of God...

Yes, let's listen to creation, and take heed that if celibacy were given approval, then too many people might become celibate, and the human race would die out.

Oh, wait.

Blessed Feast of the Incarnation -- when perfect Truth dared enter this world in a completely unnatural way, and without making use of what Benedict sees as the God-ordained pairing of male and female. Odd that God chose not to use what Benedict thinks all folk should choose.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG
with a tip of the hat to Episcopal Café

Knowledge and Love

One of the things that Mary Clara and I spoke about over lunch this weekend was the use of mystical systems of various sorts to give structure to a world. The coming of the Scientific Age offered a false promise, or at least a misunderstanding: that if we could only detail our knowledge of how the world works we would then come to know why the world works. But Science can never really tell us the why — and is even limited in the extent to which it can uncover the how.

This is where, in part, the difference between knowledge and wisdom comes in, or, as Roddenberry would have it, Data and Lore. One of the reasons Data was unable to become “human” was the same flaw that undercuts many efforts at AI: there is more to ones life than the abundance of information, and one can have catalogued all of the facts of the world without developing anything resembling a true “self.”

The Scientific Age, and its disciples, have added to our catalogue of facts, but the facts themselves have done little to nourish our souls, which require food that facts alone can not provide. This is not to say that facts do not have their place, and an important place it is. But they will not answer the plaintive question, Why? The atheist may say there is no answer; the agnostic acknowledge an answer may exist, but we do not know it.

I take the Christian answer to be true, as Julian of Norwich put it: “‘Love’ was his answer.” Or as Pascal, a scientist who was also a Christian, said, “L’amour a des raisons que la raison ignore” — Love has reasons of which reason is ignorant. Even a major contributor to the Scientific Age could see that much, I wager.

Tobias Haller BSG

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Thought for 06.27.08.2

Few things are as revealing of the depth of one’s failure to grasp a concept as the inappropriate analogies one brings to bear in the discussion.

Tobias Haller BSG

Thought for 06.23.08

Sometimes a turning point is just a rotisserie: Dead meat on a spit, spinning and going nowhere.

Tobias Haller BSG

On Natural Law, Briefly

I have in other posts pointed out some of my difficulties with the Natural Law tradition. I find these to be well summarized in the Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics article on the subject. I will detail my concerns here, briefly, based in part on an earlier comment to another post.

The problem begins as a matter of definition. There are at least three elements to “natural law” which are often rather carelessly confused or confounded in argument. For example, people sometimes use “natural” or “law of nature” to describe “what is” — reality. But it should surprise no one to find that I agree with those who say that “reality” as described by scientific knowledge can tell us what is, but not what should be. Science does not teach us morals. It is not, except in the most skeptical or cynical of moral systems, an instructor in morals at all. In fact, I believe science teaches us that nature is built on a principle that is in some respects the inverse of the guiding moral principle by which I abide: “Love your neighbor as yourself” — for the “natural world” is based on survival through the exploitation and use of other entities to one’s own benefit. As Whitehead observed, “Life is perpetual theft.”

So I do not look to nature for my ethics. Science can not tell us right from wrong: but it can tell us when we have advanced a premise that is discordant or incoherent with reality. For example, “Same-sexuality is wrong because it is ‘unnatural’” is false, if by “unnatural” one means, “contrary to the natural world” — for in the natural world it is quite common. That doesn’t, I hasten to add, make same-sexuality good. I’ve never made that claim; rather I hold it to be morally neutral, just like mixed-sexuality. But it does falsify the premise that it is “unnatural” in terms of not being part of the natural world.

Now, of course, my interlocutor will then advance to the second form of natural law and say, “By ‘unnatural’ I mean ‘not in concert with the ends for which sex is intended.’” This natural law position falls prey to the fallacy of begging the question, in that it rests on two prior premises, neither of which is self-evidently true: “Moral value is to be found in the use of things in advancement of the end for which they are intended” and further, “Sex is intended for procreation.” I have already demonstrated the falsehood of the latter premise, in that while sex may often result in procreation, there is ample evidence that it serves other purposes or ends having nothing to do with procreation. This is, in fact, the position of The Episcopal Church, as enunciated in the preface to the matrimonial rite, where procreation ranks third among the ends of marriage, “when it is God’s will.” It is also the reason marriage, and sexual activity within marriage, are not forbidden to infertile couples, and birth control is permitted.

The first premise, which gives moral value to the employment of organs towards specific ends, rests upon the presumed capability clearly to decide the “end” towards which any given human organ or activity is ordered, a task rendered difficult in face of the biological multitasking most organs serve; and the even greater leap which assigns moral value to such employment of the body. Is it, for example, immoral to eat low-calorie food? If so, how serious is this moral failing?

Finally, my opponent might deploy another form of natural law — “But all people inherently know it to be wrong.” This is, of course, the fallacy of argumentum ad populum, which supposes that ideas commonly held must be true. This is obviously a weak argument since it wouldn’t need to be made if it were true. This obvious weakness has not prevented this premise serving as a basis in a number of different forms of natural law arguments.

The fallback response, of course, is that those who don’t inherently know something to be wrong are morally defective — also a logical fallacy since it again assumes the premise and moreover besmirches those who disagree with it. While there are many social constructs and prejudices common in many people and many cultures, even perhaps in some cases universally (though same-sexuality fails to be indicted in this particular court) this does not make them self-evidently true.

Let me take an example. I think murder is morally wrong. I do not do so on the basis that the Bible says it is wrong, or the Church says it is wrong, or that it is “unnatural” (obviously it occurs in nature), or that all peoples and cultures know it to be wrong (many cultures exclude the willful killing of persons from the category of murder by definitional means). Rather, I think murder is wrong because it violates the premises upon which I base my ethics: Love your neighbor as yourself, and Do to others as you would be done by. In short, I do not need to appeal to any of the apparatus of natural law to tell me I should not murder anyone, as it violates the law of loving reciprocity, a law which I accept not merely on the authority of the One who gave it, but because it appears to be rationally coherent. I know of no serious arguments against it as a governing principle for an ethical system. (If there are any, I’d be happy to engage them; but again, I would want to see the premises upon which they are based laid out first.)

Compare this example of murder with the arguments adduced in the debates over sexuality, and I hope one can see the difference. The natural law approach assumes certain premises to be true, but the premises are the very things that are in question. It may not be naked circular argument, but it is certainly very scantily clad. We are spinning our wheels, and getting nowhere if the same un-agreed-upon assumptions are merely reasserted as conclusions. Perhaps we will not get anywhere except by the slow process of the death of such ideas, whose hegemony is coming slowly to an end. It took over a century for the church finally to abandon the distinction between Jew and Greek; and another millennium and a half to free itself from its unhappy acceptance of society’s division into slave and free; we now find ourselves beginning to grasp, two millennia on, that the difference between male and female is also irrelevant in Christ.

Tobias Haller BSG

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In Response to Rick

Dear Rick,

You misunderstand my point about "Hate the sin; love the sinner." I am not suggesting a simple converse, i.e., that if you love the sinner you must love his or her sin. That is a straw man. What I am saying, based on careful observation of the history of the practice, is that those who say they are merely critiquing the sin quite often end up attempting to take the role of God in judging the sinner, and punishing her. Certainly we are called to work against sin, but Jesus' sole advice on the subject is to work against it in ourselves, not in others.

As to desires, it is perfectly appropriate, as you suggest, for the Buddhist to see all of her desires as something to be suppressed and denied, or even better ignored, as the Zen school might say -- desires need not be wrestled with because they do not exist. ("no mirror, no dust.")

The Christian tradition, beginning with Augustine, appears to make a similar claim -- perpetuated in Anglican formularies -- that concupiscence is itself a partaker in sin. (The Jewish tradition, on the contrary, asserts that desire, while it may be "evil," is actually crucial in building up the world; a notion not unlike that found in Greek mythology and philosophy, in which Eros is the beginning of creation.)

Jesus' counsel is that we work on our own desires rather than trying to fix others; in fact he singled out that one desire -- the urge to "fix" others -- for condemnation. His harshest critique was directed against those who, while not entering the kingdom themselves, obstructed others by establishing a system in which people who were unable to abide by the rules so imposed gave in to despair. To cause despair in others, leading them to come to think they cannot live a Christian life, is a very serious matter. From Christ's standpoint, the most serious. By establishing and perpetuating (on very slim evidence) a tradition that proscribes the fulfillment of human desire in morally analogous ways (faithful, monogamous, permanent), to a large portion of the population (larger than many believe), on the basis of unproven concepts of natural law or the cultural traditions of a pre-scientific world, thereby leading to despair or separation from the Church for many who would seek to live a moral life on the basis of what Christ actually taught, is, as I say, a perilous and un-Christ-like course.

I do not deny that natural law has its uses. But if one is to employ it, one must be very careful that the "nature" informing the conclusions be accurate. Sound principles of logic must come into play. This is where science and human reason come in.

The problem with the Vatican's pronouncements that same-sexuality be singled out as "objectively disordered" is that it assumes to know the "order" or "purpose" for which sexuality exists, and state that same-sexuality of its nature does not fulfill that order.

Science (and human reason) challenge that claim. Leaving aside language of "purpose" (end, or goal) it is at least clear that sex does not in fact have a sole function; and that these various functions are separable in nature and, if you will, by "design." The Roman position, deriving from an inherited faulty understanding of human anthropology and biology (that the male is the "active" principle in human reproduction and the female a passive vessel, to cite only one aspect of the erroneous basis for the so-called natural law tradition), is logically incoherent, and morally flawed. Science will not tell us the "purpose" of a given phenomenon, but it can tell us when there is clearly more than one "function" possible, and logic can then open other possibilities for discussion as to purpose, end, or goal. (Of course, the tradition actually acknowledges multiple "ends" or "goods" for sexuality; but then arbitrarily says they cannot be separated from one another. As I have already shown in my previous articles, not only can they be separated, but they are -- by nature! The mouth is used for eating and speaking, and it is well not to do both at the same time. The male sexual organ also has multiple uses, and I dare say is also best used for one or the other. You see -- there is no logical basis for an "inseparability" of functions.)

I have, as I say, spelled this all out in great detail in the other articles I have posted. I have pointed out precisely why it is logically incoherent to hold that the "purpose of sexual acts is procreation." (When sex was wrongly understood as the planting of a seed in fertile soil, male homosexuality was seen as a grave fault, and female homosexuality went unmentioned -- this in itself reveals a major flaw in the "moral" understanding of sex.) You have responded to these with the same reassertions again and again, never once offering any clear evidence for the truth of the traditional and flawed "natural law" argument other than its mere restatement. I'd be glad just for a simple answer to the question, "Why can the various functions of sexuality not be separated?" or "Why is a same-sex relationship more culpable than an infertile mixed-sex relationship?" I have yet to receive an answer.

By the way, have you noticed how the very notion of "purpose" is itself an instance of concupiscence? A Buddhist, at least of the Zen school, would say that purposefulness is itself a result of desire, and hence flawed. Given we are not Buddhists, I have articulated the "purposes" of same-sexuality as the establishment of stable relationships, the care of children (though the Vatican thinks this impossible, too), the gift of one person to another (also denied by the Vatican, which sees same-sexuality as inherently "selfish" -- though without explanation) and so on. These are all functions and/or purposes. Who is to say these functions or purposes are less "moral" than mere breeding -- which, when separated from these other purposes is hardly commendable in and of itself. (It has long been noted that in elevating procreation to a position of prominence, the tradition inadvertently assigned moral weight to a biological function we share with animals. It is the human capacity for love, fidelity, and self-giving that has moral value, not the capacity to breed. More questions for you: Does breeding gain a moral value when carried out by persons? If so, what is the moral value? What is moral about it?)

Speaking of the Vatican, I reviewed the document "The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" yesterday. It is full of logical fallacies and begged questions; assertions dressed as truths. It also indulges in some very questionable theology. (The relation of the society of persons in marriage to the inner life of the Trinity is, for example, a wild notion when applied to sexuality. One would think the suggestion of linking sex with the relationship of the Father and the Son would send up red flags all over the place! Yet this is blandly suggested in the document. The notion that the image of God resides in the society of male and female, also advanced by John Paul II, is a direct contradiction of orthodox doctrine, as spelled out in Aquinas. This is the phenomenon I have noted before: the tendency to do bad theology when seeking to bolster an argument against same-sexuality -- and a sure sign the argument is faulty.)

So, Rick, that is the lay of the land. I reject the Roman teaching on this subject as logically incoherent. That does not mean you and others are barred from accepting it; but you must do so on the basis of faith in the Magisterium rather than on the basis of reason -- unless you can provide a reasonable argument that stands up to examination and doesn't beg the question. If you would like to assay a response to any of the questions I raised above (in boldface), I'd be glad to see what you have to say.

Tobias Haller BSG

Philosophical Action Figures

Courtesy of The Postulant an assortment of Philosophical Action Figures with many and amazing powers. Be sure to check them all out in their plastic containers (In Mint Condition) to see the details of their special skills. "Bashin'" Bishop Berkeley's trademarked Eye Closing Power ("Close his eyes and his enemies disappear!") seems to be much employed in the Church of England these days.

But perhaps it only seems that way... In any case, for anyone interested in faith seeking an understanding of a way to bash your enemies, these are the action figures to go to.