The Human Question

I'm thinking about a post I made earlier, where I said, "There is something important about the primacy of desire.  Important even for human ethics.  Desire is forward-looking.  Explaining motivation by pointing to past utility can leave out desire." A lot of evolutionary talk about the origin of ethics focuses on the useful: but it all starts with desire.  And ends there too.  Somewhere Nietzsche talked about the desire of things in nature to discharge themselves... Now Nietzsche's no metaphysician, but remembering what he said further reminds me of the neo-Platonic expression, "The good is self-diffusive." Another thought about another quote from that earlier post:   "It may be that evolutionary utilitarianism inasmuch as it treats the useful as prior to the intrinsically desirable, is likewise an unwitting anthropomorphism inasmuch as it treats nature as a whole   as if   it were a either person engaged in instrumental reasoning..." ...

Any account that treats higher level bio operations as accountable simply as more complex versions of the lower levels is reductionist.

Morality cannot be reasoned about mechanistically, as mechanistic explanations are backward-looking (inasmuch as they explain the present as something churned out of the past).  Given the fact that I presently desire to attain X and want to know whether and how to attain it, it will do no good to explain how that desire originated in me from past events (be they of my own past or of my ancestry).  Telling  me how my desire is a result of the past:  does not tell me whether I want to act on it here and now or how I am to bring about its satisfaction.  

I sometimes wonder (perhaps b/c I don't understand Freud), whether -- just as a lot of purportedly non-sexual things can be interpreted as sublimated expressions of sexual desire -- so too sex can be interpreted as a reworking of (but not necessarily a sublimation of) the desire to eat.  Just as he might say, "that's an unwitting sublimation of sexual desire" of desires we might otherwise think unique to humans, we might reply, "and who is to say that the sexual desire is a kind of reworking of the instinct for food"? Just a thought...

This otherwise brilliant rhetorician says something pretty stupid in his debate with D'Souza. When trying to argue against D'Souza's claim that even human evil shows something exceptional about human nature, Ehrman says that human torture is just a bigger version of what his pet cat does. A human engaging in torture is blameworthy: a cat playing with a mouse is not.  You can't get from one to the other merely by making the other bigger, more complex, etc.  Otherwise we shouldn't blame Hitlerlike behavior: it's just a result of how would-be Hitlers are wired (just as the same is true for cats).

D'Souza and Ehrman both make excellent points and give good rebuttals.  And I certainly found fault with Ehrman's brilliant but post-evangelical approach to philosophical questions.  But for the moment I'll point out how D'Souza could have done better. When Ehrman asked "where is God when there is suffering without relief?" one of the answers that should have been given is that God is present in creation even in those situations.  Otherwise, the impression is given that God is present only when performing miracles.  Given such an assumption, the choice for a theists would be between something like deism (inasmuch as God would often seem to be non-provident) and hyper-supernaturalism (God's always doing miracles... which does not seem to be obviously true). Another point that D'Souza makes (and is a good one) is skillfully turned in a different direction by Ehrman.  D'Souza argues that human evil outstrips Darwinian necessity.  Good point, provi...

These are dialectical inasmuch as they do not so much demonstrate their point as argue hypothetically, piggy-backing in a sense on claims made by atheists. If the atheist proposes that the problem of evil defeats theism AND argues that the multiplicity of universes diminishes the strength of arguments for theism based upon the anthropic principle, then...the theist may propose ad hoc that these alternate universes may have conscious life forms without evil & suffering, the preponderance of which weakens the argument for atheism.  Yes, this is ad hoc, but no more so than positing imperceptible universes.  The point is that a principled opposition to ad hoc arguments at least opens the door to some that the atheist may not desire to admit. But if the atheist objects that these alternate universes are more likely to have suffering too, then the theist may ask if there is (apart from any miracles) a natural connection between life and suffering.  If that is such that ...

If evil is a problem for theism (specifically for providence), the beauty and goodness are a problem for atheism.  Of course, one can always subjectivize the latter two in order to diminish their support of theism.  But what is to keep such a person from subjectivizing evil as well, thus deflating the argument against theism.

This is a rough sketch of a still foggy idea: One might think that emergence is a materialist position (a kind of trickle up theory).  But the only way in which the highest organisms can arise is through an openness to being.  And once one grants such openness, one also opens the door to analogy of being.... and the fullness of being. Furthermore, emergence of higher level operations is definitely not the mere increase in complexity.  Nor is it the kind of simplexity/whatever discussed in chaos theory (although these may be integral to it): at the highest level, it's intentionality, a kind of unity in multiplicity that is other directed.  And intentionality implies the being of what is intended.  Once one thinks in terms of being, it's very hard to avoid thinking about Being as in Supreme Being. Emergence is incomplete, because it's about operations, whereas what I'm looking for is something more basic... something called being.... as in operation follows ...

Warning: This may be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off base. I see an analogy between the behavior of Lorenz's water-wheel and mixed bodies as understood by Aristotelians. The latter are able to act in new ways when the elements are balanced. This balance gives new forms of responsiveness to the environment, and this newness is not predetermined by the properties of the elements alone, nor by a mechanical combination thereof (think of sense organs as examples). Compare with Lorenz's water-wheel, which under some circumstances seems to act chaotically. BUT What seems like CHAOS when interpreted in terms of the lower level laws is itself an orderly response to some part of the environment. The water-wheel may be analogous to a transistor. But that is not to argue reductively, but only to point out the material substrate of higher level activities. Higher level acts are such because they unite, in ONE act, the many diverse lower level acts. *** later criticism: the above confuses...

can you imagine a pure circle? yes.  can you imagine it moving up? yes.  Then it never was perspectiveless

sez me buddy Tim: Magic, Science and Civilization by Romanovsky or Bromanovsky or somethin' like that.

I only managed to give part A... the rest of the talk consisted of Q&A Science and Religion: The Harmony of Faith and Reason Leo White A.      More general picture as frame: Harmony of faith and reason a.       Define                                                     i.      Faith: shorthand for what we know via revelation, through God’s supernatural intervention (e.g., prophets)                                                ...

The objection is that there's so much dead stuff out there and so little life... it just seems that we (unlike the rest of the universe) got lucky.  Maybe a large support system is need.  Think uterus.

Earlier I tried to sketch a proposal for treating nature as conceived via natural science is related to nature as given in experience as an aperture is related to the light that shines through it.  I'd like to try a different move here, but eventually relate the two to each other. I'm thinking now of the point that Kantians and post-Kantians make, i.e., that knowing facts about the natural world -- including facts about individual inclinations -- does not suffice to give one knowledge of obligation (in the sense of being absolute). I would like to point out that the sense of being obliged is had first of all by one looking at a concrete situation: i.e., "do this here and now!" rather than "one ought always do such and such!"  In this sense, it's like being called or vocation. Secondly, obligation (in the concrete situation) in the sense that I have in mind is identical with the command of conscience Thirdly, even though this voice is internalized...

Folks like RD like to invoke "Copernican revolution" in support of materialistic notions of human nature.  But they use this term uncritically.  Even the Copernican revolution's overturning of one feature of our common sense (the notion that the sun goes around the earth) relied upon other common sense notions.  The same is true for any scientific revolution: to appreciate its continuity with the past one must.... (to be continued: going to ice cream with daughter)

In the Descent of Man, Darwin points out a problem in his theory of how the virtues arise: those most likely to practice the virtue of heroic self-sacrifice are also most likely to die exercising it, hence less likely to have reproductive success than non-heroes. I forget Darwin's solution, but one solution is to point out that if humans are able to recognize the inherent desirability of acting courageously, then some will practice this virtue because it is good to do so while others will praise it in a convincing manner. This account is more plausible than saying that the praise of courage is a useful lie to dupe soldiers and the like (okay, I don't think Darwin says this, but I am looking for a contrasting position, perhaps something like what is proposed by one of Socrates' interlocutors at the beginning of the Republic). The problem with the latter is that those called to act courageously. If people just praised it because it is useful for getting others to practic...

It has occurred to me one who wishes to propose an answer to the question of God would be wise to proceed in the following sequence: 1. That I am more than the sum of my parts 2. That there is something greater than me 3. That there is someone who is the greatest of all. 4. Question of immortality. Re: 2: it's about discovering the common good in the context of friendship, family, justice, etc.

If the very notion of mechanism is of device/machine whose parts are seen as being pushed in virtue of what the whole does for someone , then to characterize the whole that is the universe as a machine (or synonymously, to see it in necessitarian/laws of nature terms) is to be naive.

It's a book that would be written for my children as college students. It would principally address issues that I'm good at talking about: science/God; but it would make some reference to Catholic/Evangelical differences, but not in a way that would shift focus away from my initial goal, which is to address theism/atheism controversy. It would also address in a very general way, the principles that should guide discussions of ethics.  In fact, it would take concerns and presumptions that go into discussions about ethics as fuel for the discussion of the metaphysical themes.  That is, it would relate ethical questions to materialism/theism/dualism It would point to liturgy as the profoundest human achievement It would look to Sokoloski as a model of clarity; to RD as a model of exuberance, sense of beauty and humor (but w/o schoolyard bullying); to St. Terese as a model of personal testimony of confidence in God; and Giussani as a model of Christ-centered holism and faith a...

Question: could we have evolved so as to look on genocide with approbation?  If so then our disapproval thereof is more of a kind of distaste. If we couldn't have evolved thus, then the disapproval has an objective basis.  Which basis is.....?

Hence treating science qua repository of the knowledge of such laws is a religious activity. What color is necessity?  What shape?

Perhaps instinct is a necessary condition for morality.  But our capacity for abstraction results in our desiring these same goods in a kind of infinite manner.  Let's call our capacity for abstraction our "instinct" for the infinite: it forces us to make comparisons, to relate each good to all of being and to the goodness of the world.  Abstraction transforms our instincts into something much more.

Why does one call oneself an atheist? One reason might be because one is opposed to the narrative of theism (OT stories, Inquisition)?  In as much as one could reject theism on this basis alone then one is a reactionary, inasmuch as one is opposing the theism of the Abrahamic faiths. Or is one an atheist for principled, philosophical reasons (problem of evil; the alleged incoherence of the very notion of a transcedent personal being)  In such a case, one would also have to be a materialist .  But such an anti-metaphysics makes no room for a notion of the common good that would be adhered to by any virtuous person.  But atheists need not see this logical implication.  And inasmuch as they do not see it, they are inasmuch as they have virtuous convictions, inconsistent with their materialist convictions.  But inasmuch as they are consistently materialist (and I means consistent), they are either manifestly wicked OR the basis of their morality looks...

To those who would ridicule the notion that the body has a natural "meaning" an appropriate question might be posed:  "what about bestiality?" That is, is there anything about human nature that is obviously opposed to bestial sex?  If not then reductio ad absurdam (one would hope).  If yes then in at least one area the body has a natural "meaning."

He says, to believe in no God is really no big deal: all you have to do is subtract 1 from the number of gods. I say, to believe in angels is really not a big deal,  all you have to do is subtract 3 from the number of dimensions. Okay, this reply ain't brilliant.  The real retort should be that going from polytheism to monotheism isn't a matter of subtraction, but a kind of addition.  In other words, the One God isn't what you get when you subtract 2 gods from 3: it's what you get when you subtract all limitations of perfection: infinite, eternal, omnipresent, etc. Dawkins' problem is that he can't tell the difference.

I'm listening to J Budziszewski's What we Can't not Know  and I was amazed by his quote from Thomas Nagel's The Last Word , where the latter admits that atheism has motivations that are not entirely free of wishful thinking: "I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” says Nagel.  This is really an amazing quote.  See also Nagel's mention of the "ridiculous overuse of (r)evolutionary biology"... more on this later.