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Letters
Letters
Religion vs Science Preempted • The Spray Can of God • Be Not Nice to the Nasties • Two Perfect Letters • Probably Philosophy • Don’t Believe In Me • Be Happy Together • Right to Coerce • How To Do Philosophy?
Religion vs Science Preempted
DEAR EDITOR: Sociology has useful insights to bear on the nature of the science versus religion debate. Of all the sciences it will probably have the final word on the human condition. (“They were very busy” springs to mind.)
However controlled modern life may appear in matureWestern democracies, it is but a construct of our technological age. Like a Frisbee, it seems to an observer to have direction and stability, but we can only take it on trust that any perturbations are manageable because we are aware that as individuals we can author little or no change. Yet life is a series of choices the outcome of which none of us can predict with absolute certainty. It is in our nature to want to control our lives. It is my contention that the religious fundamentalist and the atheist are equally seeking to exercise this control by claiming authority.
Technological empowerment has given us vast freedom of choice, and yet we still behave in predictable ways, say sociologists such as Steve Bruce of Aberdeen University.We cope by limiting choice, and we usually conform – even scientists. The dominant culture in science is said to de-couple God from creation, and this leads to challenges from groups whose objective reality is God-centred. The difficulty is that both cultures claim to have truths on their side, and extreme views polarise the debate.
Politicising science education is a tactic by a branch of religionists whose literal view of the Bible fits in with their dogmatism. The resultant culture bears as much relation to the universal and redemptive nature of Christianity as a theme park does to real life. And to blame the theory of evolution for the problems of moral delinquency and fragmentation is once again to misunderstand the development of the social climate, instead only addressing the anxiety felt by the faithful.
Unfortunately the ultra-rationalist nay-sayer headlines the counter debate. But denial of the authority of all eternal truth calls into question the basis of all authority: if nothing is a referent to eternal truth, then we are apropos of what?
To claim Science as imprimatur of their argument is to render it a commodity. But science and religion are two sides of the same coin; the currency is cognition. It is the nature of both to expand human horizons – the more you seek knowledge, the wider the vistas become. Philosophical enquiry predates our technological era and may well survive it. Yet we choose to be blind in so many ways – blind to plain facts about our physical existence; and blind to the power and affirmation of a life of faith. My faith means I daily seek God’s will for me: but I’m no less subject to generic physical laws! It was this spirit of expectant seeking that informed and inspired the early scientists. They acknowledged the transcendental over the incidental.
In his book The Coming Convergence, physicist Stanley Schmidt warns of the sting in the tail of technology. Research projects are now so narrow and funding so tightly controlled by cost-benefit parameters that objectives have become divergent to an extreme degree. Are we fated to lose control? Does our dependency reduce our ability to respond? Recall the subversion of the old Fiat car advert: “Designed by computer; built by robots; driven by morons!” Perhaps the line from Independence Day makes the better epitaph: “Oops?What do you mean, oops?!”
DAVID MILLER,
INTERACTIVE DISCOVERY CENTRE,
ODYSSEY, BELFAST
The Spray Can of God
DEAR EDITOR: In Issue 70 Sue Roberts reports Christian Voice as saying that the “There’s probably no God” posters on London buses might attract graffiti. Perhaps “Mene Mene Tekel Parsin” could appear across them (there is a precedent). If so, what conclusion should we draw?
GEOFF FROST, NOTTINGHAM
Be Not Nice to the Nasties
DEAR EDITOR: The News section is an inspired part of your wonderful magazine (in other words, please print my letter). Two items caught my eye in the September/October issue: canine ethics and nasty atheists. Well, on the first item, my contribution is just a question: Were the dogs outraged by unfair treatment regarding treat allocation if they were not personally (or rather caninely) involved? If the answer is no, the finding is not that interesting; we all know about rule-based animal behaviour in the form of pecking orders.
My second item is Robert Buckman’s address to fellow atheists, urging them to be nice to religious believers. Yes, as long as they’re nice to us. Usually they threaten eternal damnation, and I must remind readers about the loathsome US President George Bush Senior, who opined that atheists were not true US citizens. Surely he should have been impeached and consigned to the atheist hell for this outre piece of prejudice.
PETER ELLWAY, BY EMAIL
Two Perfect Letters
DEAR EDITOR: In regards to Toni Vogel Carey’s argument last issue that ‘perfection is over-rated’ I would ask this:Why does anyone assume this world is not perfect to begin with? If perfection is unobtainable, it is impossible to compare our a priori assumption that this is an imperfect world with a perfect world. Philosophy would better serve humanity if instead of focusing on how and why this world is imperfect, it focused on how and why this world is perfect.
I was surprised that in an issue devoted to utopias and perfection, the ancient polis was examined but no current theories of governance, such as the ‘Marxist utopia’. The particularly glaring omission was the polis that was established to form a ‘more perfect union’.
The term ‘more perfect’ could not be a better application of the theories discussed in the ‘perfection’ article.Who were these great modern philosophers who established their own polis, their own modern-day Republic, in an attempt to form a more perfect union? “We The People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the generalWelfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
STEVE BRANDON, ATTORNEY,
TUCSON, AZ
DEAR EDITOR: As I was thinking about Toni Vogel Carey’s article in Issue 70 about ‘process’ theories versus ‘end state’ theories, I thought of Kant’s truism that “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” Of the two, end-state theorists are more likely to ignore this truism. They are also more apt to be the ones disappointed by the results, because of our crookedness’ persistence in constantly ruining one’s best-laid plans.
More often than not, the ‘end-state’ trend in human governance has led to authoritarian governments – the Soviet Union, the Third Reich – because end state practitioners discover they have to resort to dictatorship to reach their lofty goals, especially due to their impatience in the process of achieving their end states. And in their loftiness, those systems tend to go against the grain, against human reality, and thus inevitably end in failure.
Process-based thinking can also hold a view to a goal. But end-state-oriented organizations, in their determination to achieve their goal, can be blind to the process. End-states are often fixed and absolute in their vision. Process thinking is more flexible since it isn’t fixated on the final nature of a goal. This reminds me of something Hegel said, that the absolute is constantly consummating itself. Process thinking understands this concept, and that’s why it’s more apt to endure, because even once an absolute is reached the process continues. However, the end-point sees itself as the absolute and thus leaves no room for growth, innovation or self-improvement.
Generally, when it comes to human governance the process system is the one that ends up being more efficient and stable, since within the process it evolves the tools and methods which truly reflect the underlining nature of humans – not artificial and illegitimate methods, which end-point systems invariable end up developing. For instance, if process thinking had prevailed in the financial world we wouldn’t have had the end state-oriented, poorly examined and executed financial instruments which have wreaked so much havoc around the world.
DAVID AIRTH,
TORONTO
Probably Philosophy
DEAR EDITOR: This is in reply to a letter byMark Frankel in last issue’s Letters, in which he states “Taleb comes unstuck as a philosopher” and he questions my “main contention… that the more improbable an outcome, the higher its impact.”
Now I will not debateMr Frankel on what does or does not constitute philosophy, or what is or is not linked to the problem of induction, but I will clarify the following: it is not an assumption, but a simple property of probability distributions, that for open-ended outcomes, beyond some value (what we call the ‘asymptotic property’), larger (impact) events need to have a declining probability. Otherwise the mean becomes explosive and infinite! The fact that probabilities need to add up to 100% is something that I believe applies to philosophers too, even continental ones.
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB,
BY EMAIL
Don’t Believe In Me
DEAR EDITOR: I read with interest Professor Tallis on G.E.Moore in Issue 69, on the problem of the refutation of solipsism, and possible proofs for the ‘existence of external things’. I think that I do have a solution, but I should first put my cards on the table: I am not a professor of philosophy, but a professor of psychology. I almost took up philosophy as a career, but I was incredibly bored by courses in formal logic, which seemed to have nothing to do with the philosophical issues that interested me. My real interests lay in Heidegger, Jaspers, and especially Sartre. So I admit that my ‘logical’ solution to the refutation of solipsism may be entirely full of holes which I am incompetent to see. But anyway, here goes. I do not know whether Professor Tallis is a solipsist or not, and I am not, but to give the argument some concrete connection, let us imagine that both I, Lethbridge, and Tallis are solipsists. As a solipsist, Lethbridge must imagine that Tallis is not real – not an ‘external thing’ – but some sort of possible figment of Lethbridge’s imagination; while Tallis must imagine that only he is real and Lethbridge is not. So if we let Lethbridge be ‘A’ and Tallis be ‘B’, then the solipsist position says that either
1) A exists and B does not.
Or
2) B exists and A does not.
3) It is logically impossible for Propositions (1) and (2) to both be true. Further,
4) It is logically impossible to determine which of Propositions (1) or (2) is, or might be, true.
5) Therefore, the only possible logical response is that persons A and B do in fact simultaneously exist.
6) By implication, if A and B both exist, then the external world must exist.
I think it quite likely that I am illogical somehow, and I will not at all be offended if Professor Tallis or anyone else points out my stupidity (by email if you wish).
PROF. DAVID LETHBRIDGE,
PSYCHOLOGY, OKANAGAN COLLEGE,
SALMON ARM, BC SACAR62@SUNLITE.CA
Be Happy Together
DEAR EDITOR: Matthew Pianalto’s examination of happiness and virtue as independent attributes (Issue 68) misses the entire point of how and why we seek both happiness and eudaimonia, and how they are related. Do you know of anyone who found happiness at the expense of someone else’s misery, or anyone who found happiness without the participation of others? Yes, there are lone pursuits which provide endorphin rushes as well as satisfaction – like writing philosophical treatises, for example – but do you really know of anyone who found happiness in the absence of human relationship?
Living requires, by necessity, an interaction with others, and the quality of that interaction by and large determines the quality of our lives.Whilst this is as much psychology as philosophy, it is the essence of both living a ‘good life’ and of being a ‘good person’. This is the lesson I took from reading Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, and it rang true because I observe it in everyday life. The people who are both happy and successful are those who have good relationships with their fellows – as far as I’m concerned these two aspects of life are inseparable. Anyone who doesn’t understand this will either be very frustrated in seeking happiness, or wonder why all their friends are temporary, or both.
PAULMEALING,
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
DEAR EDITOR: In ‘Philosophy and the Art of Living’, Philosophy Now 69, Mark Vernon suggested that “self-help has grown to fill the vacuum created by the move of philosophy to the cultural sidelines.” Much of self-help, he felt, “is not about living, but controlling – trying to control the world, or, rather, trying to control your world.” Furthermore, Vernon added, “self-help seems so selfcentred,” but “what if the secret of the good life is to become other-centred, as religion and indeed philosophy has persistently suggested?” I would add that another problem with most popular selfhelp books is that they assume a very narrow, conventional, conservative vision of happiness or the good life. They are guides for achieving goals like business or career success, financial security, social popularity, sexual attractiveness, weight loss, physical fitness, and/or a confident, optimistic frame of mind in pursuing these goals, eg, Dale Carnegie’s How toWin Friends and Influence People, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, John Molloy’s Dress for Success, Robert Ringer’s Looking Out for #1. They take it for granted that these goals are the natural, proper chief aims of life, never questioning whether goals like wealth or popularity are the highest values – never suggesting the possibility of alternative images of the good life. They also never ask whether the lonely, competitive individual pursuit of wealth, success, or plain economic security is really the most appropriate way for people to achieve the good life: that is, they never question a rugged-individualist, ‘Social Darwinist’ model of society. This, I would add, is why most academics, highbrows, and ‘cultural elite’ types tend to be so unenthusiastic about popular self-help.
T. PETER PARK
GARDEN CITY SOUTH, NEW YORK
Right to Coerce
DEAR EDITOR: Read Spear’s letter in Issue 69 indicates that he’s an exception to the rule that one cannot desire to be coerced. The obvious principle underlying the universal basis for fundamental rights – if one cannot desire to be coerced, then one must not coerce – eludesMr Spear, and he ridicules it as being childish. PerhapsMr Spear’s ‘right’ to force people to do his (and the majority’s) bidding will not be so eagerly embraced by him if a majority decides that his desire to express himself along these lines requires a significant prison term. Or perhaps he may then begin to understand that he is seated at the child’s table of moral obligation; and that ethics can exist only in a state where negative rights are protected, not in his preferred state of coerced performance.
ROBERT KRAFT, CHICAGO, IL
How To Do Philosophy?
DEAR EDITOR: The definition of a philosopher is one who diligently seeks truth by employing various tools of reasoning. On that basis alone, many of us might qualify as amateur philosophers by the fact that we are always trying to figure things out. If we are rational problem solvers in our daily lives, then we are front-line philosophers. In Issue 70, Philosophy Now printed their readers’ answers to the question ‘Who is the best philosopher?’. Based on the limited criteria I am about to share with you, I feel that anyone who ever sees themselves as searching for truth – the essence of our existence in the universe – would not care to be elevated to such a lofty pedestal. After all, truth is not embodied in the achievements of a mortal, nor is it found in propounding unproven contentions, but remains to be discovered. Until this is achieved, the term ‘the best’ is incomplete at best.With this in mind, those who want to be known as philosophers par excellence, or thinkers for truth, might consider the following requirements:
1. They must honestly seek truth in the most objective manner possible. Only by doing this will they recognize that such a search is equivalent to looking for a needle in a haystack;
2. They must be willing to question their findings through principles of logic and sound judgment;
3. They must be willing to participate in open and free discussion with others who may not agree with them;
4. They must concede that they don’t have the answers to all of life’s perplexing problems. At this point, it is okay to defer to a higher authority for clarification;
5.They must strive for constancy and consistency in all their thinking;
6. They must resist falling into the trap of defending the indefensible: namely our prejudices;
7. They must be willing to redirect their thinking when proven wrong. Opting for self-destruction in lieu of dealing with an irrational world is not practical.
8. There is always the last resort if none of the above works out. Step out in faith and accept the one supernatural idea that answers all your inquiries. But first of all you have to find it – at which point, you stop being a philosopher and begin living life to the fullest.
IAN MALCOMSON,
SMITHERS, BC