Creative academic type still looking for work

I Need You on the Job Every Day - NARA - 534704 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Wish I had the time for the things I want to share here, but I'm still looking for opportunities for gainful employment utilizing my skills and background. This has become a more and more challenging task for many people of all education levels, training, and skill sets. It's also true for those whose talents include the cultivation of the mind, exploration of ideas, teaching, and writing in an accessible way about complex topics that cross multiple disciplines.

It may be the case that those who are more educated as a group have better odds for employment than less educated people as a group, but when you break it down by type of degree, subject, where you went to school, the field in which you are seeking to work, your social networks and connections, and similar factors, the picture changes. The same is true for those in trades who do not have undergraduate or advanced degrees.

Nor does it reduce to what is beneficial to society, for surely people who have the drive and capacity to earn such degrees and who have talents of synthesis and insight beyond strict specialization have much to offer in a rapidly changing world that can seem confusing and threatening. Much of the current employment landscape has been shaped by powerful industries in an increasing unregulated set of markets chasing a goal of maximizing short term profits.

Many of the old patterns and rules of business are no longer reliable, nor is the public commitment to supporting higher education and other instruments for cultivating the values and ideas necessary for the welfare of society. This is happening at the same time as the losses of manufacturing jobs over the past few decades are being followed by budget cuts for public sector jobs related to education, public health and safety, and the growth and maintenance of infrastructure. In other words, the unemployment and underemployment epidemic isn't just affecting limited groups of types or work.

You can find out more about my own background and interests on this little page to see if there is a position or opportunity you know about that might be a good match for me. If you aren't sure if it would be a good fit, don't hesitate to ask. The same link is also available at the top of the blog. My sympathies go out to others who are under or unemployed and struggling to find their way. I wish you well. And for all who wish to help, thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Sam Harris: appointment to head NIH too religious

Science Is in the Details
By SAM HARRIS
Published: July 26, 2009

PRESIDENT OBAMA has nominated Francis Collins to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health. It would seem a brilliant choice. Dr. Collins’s credentials are impeccable: he is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist and the former head of the Human Genome Project. He is also, by his own account, living proof that there is no conflict between science and religion. In 2006, he published “The Language of God,” in which he claimed to demonstrate “a consistent and profoundly satisfying harmony” between 21st-century science and evangelical Christianity...

But as director of the institutes, Dr. Collins will have more responsibility for biomedical and health-related research than any person on earth, controlling an annual budget of more than $30 billion. He will also be one of the foremost representatives of science in the United States. For this reason, it is important that we understand Dr. Collins and his faith as they relate to scientific inquiry...

There is an epidemic of scientific ignorance in the United States. This isn’t surprising, as very few scientific truths are self-evident, and many are counterintuitive. It is by no means obvious that empty space has structure or that we share a common ancestor with both the housefly and the banana. It can be difficult to think like a scientist. But few things make thinking like a scientist more difficult than religion...

Francis Collins is an accomplished scientist and a man who is sincere in his beliefs. And that is precisely what makes me so uncomfortable about his nomination. Must we really entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who sincerely believes that a scientific understanding of human nature is impossible?

NY Times Op-Ed Page

I can see where Harris would be concerned given what he has made public about his views on religion. I don't see that he makes a solid case for worrying about Collins at NIH, though.

He implies that Collins' believes in a form of intelligent design in his characterization of Collins' take on theistic evolution. His primary example is that Collins suggested that God gifted morality, free will, and immortal soul after evolution provided a sufficiently advanced "house" in the form of a human brain, and that morality as a byproduct of evolution only makes good and evil meaningless. 

On the surface, I disagree. But then, I never took the time to talk to Francis Collins for clarification. Did Harris? I will concede that Harris may have additional information at his disposal.

Based on the information given in the op-ed, I would disagree with the phrasing that God "gifted" humanity with free will and morality. I have a complicated relationship with the term God and how it is conceived. My spiritual sensibilities are informed by Christianity, atheism, Buddhism, and panentheism. A conservative evangelical or fundamentalist of any stripe I am not. 

There are those who see God reflected in the unfolding of the natural world not as a tinkerer or overseer but as the heart of basic properties of existence, in which case the "gifted" phrasing can be understood as saying that evolution itself is a manifestation of God. Is that what Collins means or does he mean God literally instilled these things with zap of the Almighty Finger? Kapow!

The op-ed implies something closer to the latter, and the language Collins employed can be used to support that assumption. If that is so, I would agree with Harris in finding this way of viewing the process of evolution unlikely and unappealing, and I would object vociferously if (note the preposition) Collins used this belief to discourage, underfund or reject scientific studies of the evolution of the mind. But what evidence do we have he would behave this way anywhere in his professional track record?

More importantly, if Collins is not implying some kind of tinkering by a deity, then the process by which these "gifts" emerged can be studied just like any other feature in the biological realm. The question of whether the most fundamental aspects of the qualities of existence should include a discussion of God would be a completely separate issue.  

The belief that the full substance and nature of something is limited to what science can demonstrate is not a scientific fact, it is a metaphysical belief. I didn't see any evidence that Collins would be ready to abuse his authority to keep fellow scientists from studying free will (or agency as it is redefined in the social sciences) and morality from a scientific perspective. 

What I do see is that he is stating his own metaphysical belief that such studies will always be incomplete and that it would be a mistake to take the outcome of such methodological naturalism and assume it is all there is (referring to "materialistic atheism"), that is, embracing ontological naturalism. Why should Collins' distaste for strong atheism be any more of a concern about his objectivity than Harris' similar distaste for religion?



Is there anything at all to Collins' concern that if morality was shaped by evolution that good and evil are illusions? Well, more on what I think evolution means for morality in a moment. But first, let me say that if Collins feels that his views on morality are endangered by studying this phenomenon from an evolutionary point of view and this leads him to cut funding for such research, again, I will be out there protesting.

When it comes to morality, there is a problem with making it solely an evolutionary byproduct without reference to some greater context, whatever that might be (it doesn't have to be some classical view of "God"), given the metaphysical assumptions that come part and parcel with some forms of Darwinism. That is, that everything must somehow enhance inclusive fitness or it would be filtered out by selection. In a nutshell, within such a high pressure selective regime emphasizing trait-as-adaption a capacity and drive to engage in moral behavior is only useful if it pays off in a cost-benefit analysis.

The benefits to morality might include increased trust and less stress worrying over being caught and punished for offensive behavior. On a larger group level, morality can facilitate more complex social interactions among intelligent animals by reducing aggression and competition. Examples of potential costs include giving up individual opportunities for gain in the short term in hopes for returns on moral behavior in a group level in the long term. 

Yet in the most hardcore of Darwinian regimes, if you take a calculated risk that you won't face reprisals for your immoral behavior, then being as selfish as possible is the greater evolutionary advantage. In such a regime where we might assume that each trait is shaped independently to maximize fitness, the components permitting and compelling morality would best serve their host by finding the optimal balance between being good and being bad.


Nor is this supposition, as the furor over an article suggesting that many men would rape women if they thought they could get away it reveals. The uproar included the question of whether something like rape, or any behavioral feature, can be assumed to be adaptive. Many rapes occur in contexts where impregnation would be unlikely or impossible, suggesting that rape is more likely to be explained as a pathological aspect of behavior rather than an adaptive one.

At a deeper level, adaptive scenarios for morality based solely on selection pressure can readily suggest that such behavior subverts agency, or the ability to choose despite our biology or conditioning. If we have sufficient agency to override our moral impulses, then morality as a biological adaptation is undermined.

What if we take a biocultural approach, in which our capacity and impulse for morality is shaped and strengthened by our culture? A cynic could complain that morality then is just a trick of the mind, from your biological and cultural heritage, that may or may not be an evolutionary advantage in a given context.

OK, well, let's go with that. Morality as a biocultural adaptation. Following that logic, as social animals let us assume that our propensity for and benefit from moral behavior outweighs that of our immoral behavior more often than not. Sounds like a good adaptation, yes? 

From an atheistic perspective, conveniently all of the thousands of years of cultural customs, social norms and the like concerning morality and ethics, those based on belief in a greater meaning and purpose to existence and/or a higher power, can be explained in a Darwinian scenario. Hence these basic ethical systems and principles can be "borrowed" or "adopted" without any thought to the actual history or cultural context from which they are taken, or without even asking why one might be historically or culturally predisposed to prefer that particular system of ethics.

Yet as any good evolutionary biologist worth their salt can tell you, if circumstances change, so does what is best for inclusive fitness. For example, some scholars working in evolutionary psychology claim our behavioral capacities and tendencies are lagging behind and are still stuck in the stone age. Could that be true of our biological propensity for morality as well? Is it lagging behind, still stuck in a world where we lived with 40 to 100 people in an egalitarian group where economic and ethical reciprocity was essential for survival?

What would such outdated morality mean in our current corporate civilizations? I mean, as the context changes, so too does the relative value of any trait in this kind of system. Maybe morality as we have it is outmoded and we don't even know it? Perhaps the ideal behavioral instincts for maximizing fitness in the modern age would include things that would go against our present "sensibilities"? (For the record, I tend to think in broader terms of our capacity to respond mentally to challenges via several interacting types of problem-solving capacities, but let us follow a form of the argument where that is irrelevant and treat morality as a single trait-complex.)





If morality is tied to selection and selection is tied to environmental context, then doesn't that mean that morality is ultimately a fluid thing? Isn't it possible that there are many different possible constructions of such a biocultural adaptation, the suitability of each determined by the prevailing adaptive landscape? Does that not imply that our sense and practice of morality could be as malleable as any other biological trait in the face of mutations or any other cultural construction in the face of innovation? 


I am not saying this isn't true, or that if we don't like it that this disfavor would make it less true. But it does at least give some insight into why Collins' might have expressed such dismay over explaining morality strictly in terms of evolution. I am not sure who wouldn't be at least a little off-put by the idea that our moral capacity and preferences could be so ephemeral.

And what of the metaphysical foundations which some may wish to ignore even as they "borrow" conventional morality? Even a proudly atheist friend of mine used to chide me about this back when I thought astrophysics and evolutionary biology could explain everything, pointing out that even folks like Aristotle realized there must be something deeper in the universe that is resonating with the human mind in perceiving and pondering questions of morality or in having a capacity to choose. Was he right? I still don't claim to know.

This friend actually held to a view in which there were "higher powers", but they were not super-beings or sentient beings as we would classify such, they were the primary fundamental forces which formed and held together reality, forces which are reflected in our qualia like "personal" and "aware" on one level but which were more directly the substance/essence of "love" and "freedom". Hence, in a universe without the stereotypical "Big Guy in the Sky" watching and directing everything, this atheist believed in a world founded on a principle expressed in the duality of love and freedom and in which life, including sentient life, was not a fluke but the outcome of the nature of reality. This has been echoed on some level by academics such as Stuart Kauffman. 

Might morality be such an embedded or implicit aspect our biology?

If my memory is correct at some point Harris professed an interest in the mystical nature of Eastern religions and their take on forms of awareness and consciousness, yet even these systems share metaphysical platforms for universal meaning and connectedness that are comparable to the ancient Greeks and my atheist friend. And, might I say, with various strands of western theology, such as pantheistic and especially panentheistic perspectives. Yes, terms like Tao and shunyata and Dharmakaya are also steeped in these kinds of metaphysical assumptions and considerations.

Of course, as the picture of our world continues to change, for example, as the fundamental interdependence of all phenomena is increasingly demonstrated, as the nature of this interdependence continues to conjure terms like (a fundamental form of bare) "awareness", and as cooperation and community are increasingly recognized as being undervalued aspects of evolutionary biology, the question of what it means to use an evolutionary window or lens to study morality is itself going to change. (I say "window" or "lens" because it is less presumptuous than "basis for" and doesn't automatically assume the correctness or incorrectness of such a form of reductionism.) Topics like suffering are similarly complex. And just as important.

If Collins allows his personal belief to hamper such progress, I will be out there calling for his immediate removal. But I don't think his expressed religious beliefs or concerns over atheism make him unfit to be a Washington bureaucrat, and assuming I had any say in the matter, I wouldn't oppose his appointment because of those views.

Did you see that?! Stress linked to illusions and superstition

The premise isn't original but the experiment testing it is elegant:

US researchers say feeling "out of control" makes us more likely to misinterpret information as we search for signs of order.

The study in the journal Science found investment decisions of volunteers were adversely affected by these feelings.

Simple psychological techniques might improve their performance, they said.

The researchers, from the University of Texas and Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, believe that humans cope with feeling out of control by trying to impose order subconsciously - even in situations where there is none.

At a simple level, they demonstrated the principle by asking volunteers to look for images embedded in "snowy pictures".

Those whose feelings of control had earlier been undermined were more likely to claim to have seen an image, even where none existed.

However, the researchers believe that other kinds of illusion, from conspiracy theories to superstitions, stem from the same basic subconscious problem...

source

Just another reason to respect fear rather than be ruled by it. And yes, thinking you can reject it is just another indication it still rules you. Living with a healthy attitude towards and an appropriate understanding of fear is not the same as living in fear. This is the true meaning of fearlessness - fear still exists but loses it grip on you. May your life truly be fearless (and selfless, and painless...).

Into the great wide open - going beyond materialism

So do you believe in the possibility of a greater purpose to existence? The possibility of a Higher Power? What about psychic abilities? Transmigration of a mind? Of a soul? Of a karmic imprint? What about shadow beings from another dimension? Or are you committed to a view of reality which is strictly materialistic? Would you be interested in exploring the margins of materialism and peering over the edge at what might be "out there?

(Are you coming along or what?)

Scouting the boundaries - a quick look at how we frame reality

Our organs of perception are limited, even with the aid of technology, not to mention the bias of our perceptual filters, our base worldview rooted in cultural stories and values (science is not immune to this either) and our personal experiences, etc. Let's unpack this a little by reflecting on the tiny portion of the electromagnetic spectrum is "visible" to us, or the limits in our range of hearing or smell or touch.

Of that, a lot of what is received in the sense organs is ignored - only a select fraction is promoted through pattern-searching filters to higher level filters, which then sort according to our expectations about what is meaningful (for example, this mechanism is being tricked when we "hear" English words in white noise or "see" a face in a mildew stain). Of that, an even smaller portion is even given attention by the conscious mind.

And let us not overlook the impact of these biological and cultural constraints in shaping our notion of reality. Our experience can actually rewire our brains to help us see and think in ways that are compatible with our environment, which for social creatures such as us includes the basic worldview or meta-narrative of our own society. These are things we consider so basic we all but ignore them until we have a case of culture shock when we are exposed to people who see a different world than ours and have a distinct set of bedrock assumptions about the nature of existence.

If we then add in the boundaries of science - that which is grossly and broadly empirical and regularly occurring in brief intervals and simple enough to be generalized into our "complex" models - then we are by our own admission limiting ourselves to a very narrowly defined segment of reality. I am not suggesting invoking the broader possibilities of reality at every turn as a substitute with equal credibility to extant explanations, but I would also keep that space open. It's the same space that scientists invoke when they admit that the knowledge they produce is always provisional - the humility of our recognized limitations in the face of what is beyond our grasp. It is the source of the holy curiosity of many folks who were major empiricists such as Einstein.

Setting the stage - considering a broader frame

So how might we envision this larger world? Imagine that there is a set of phenomena that we collective call reality. Imagine that some of them produce patterns that are beyond our comprehension. Imagine that some cannot be detected by our senses and we have no conceptual basis for visualizing them, let alone building a machine to "look for" them. Imagine that some can be detected, but only very irregularly and/or weakly, or only through direct conscious awareness.

Now imagine a subset of these which are grossly empirical, which do fit the expectations we use in producing the explanations of our senses in our minds, and which do occur regularly. So people call this subset, which is most compatible with their regular experiences of reality and the expectations that come from them, physical or material reality. Some people presume this is all there is to reality, even though they have evidence of phenomena that are beyond detection or rational comprehension. Some people on the other hand allow that there is probably a lot more to reality than we imagine.

In this view, since the subset referred to as material reality belongs to the lager set, they may have some aspect or quality (just as mass is a quality for the bulk of the material subset) which they share with the larger set. Linked through such a quality, these other phenomena, which otherwise would seem illogical or at least invisible, can affect the smaller subset. I suppose two hundred years ago this might have been what it would sound like to try to describe quantum physics or nonlocality.

What if we had been unable to predict or test things like quantum physics or nonlocality? The effects would still be there, but we would not be able to account for them. It is logical to assume there are things in the larger set that will defy our notion of reason and our science. They will not be accessible or detectable by any human-made instrument, and we will not have the right configuration or capacity of intellect to anticipate them, let alone confront them. Yet it is still possible that we can experience them in some way. The experiences may not be amenable to any kind of satisfactory scientific inquiry, but that does not in turn mean that the experiences are not real.

This isn't a knock on science. I am merely suggesting that it isn't the only reliable way to appreciate our universe. and it is fraught with ego, cultural assumptions and values, etc. Science is great, it's useful, but it has its biases and limits (it is fraught with ego, cultural assumptions and values, etc). As Spock said in Star Trek VI, "Logic is the beginning of wisdom...not the end." We can apply this sentiment to science as well when it comes to knowledge - it is a handy tool, but hardly the only useful tool in our toolbox, unless one embraces scientism.

But isn't "X..." just in our heads?

Must phenomenon such as a conscious experience that can be associated with a biological reaction must be presumed to reduce (strictly and solely) to that reaction? Just because a certain part of the brain shows increased activity when we report the experience of "sight" doesn't mean it is just a "feeling" produced in our brain. It is indeed a perception that occurs solely in the brain, and which cannot occur if certain parts of the brain are damage or impaired, but that doesn't mean sight is "all in our heads" in the sense that it isn't connected to something beyond ourselves (in this case light).

Biological activity associated with an experience may be necessary but not sufficient for that experience to occur and therefore may be necessary but not sufficient in explaining that experience (such as not being able to "see" in the dark - the biological components are working fine but...no sight). An object emitting energy may give of light and heat. Light is then detected focused and directed by the lens of an eye, stimulating the rods and cones in the photosensitive cells of the retina which becomes a signal transmitted to the brain.

Detecting brain activity when someone reports experiencing "sight" doesn't make the brain the ultimate cause of "light", which is not identical to "sight". Nor is the optic nerve nor is the retina the ultimate cause. We did not always have instruments that could detect light other than our eyes, and even if we had never developed them that would not make light something that exists only as a function of our optic nerve or as the "imaginary" source of input feeding our sense of sight.

These observations do not contradict conventional biology or the proximate links between brain activity and conscious experiences. It does not deny an important biological component to conscious experiences, either feelings or perceptions. As noted earlier there are dozens if not hundreds of little assumptions and biases between "our senses" and "the data" we are examining (this is true for all of us). While reductionism leading to materialism is a logical expedient for science, that doesn't mean it is entirely accurate or can account for any and all important phenomena.

Ready to launch

So far, you may have noticed, nothing I have said posits a view that would require or even promote a belief in anything associated with ideas such God or angels or psychic powers. This is important, because even if we depart ways further down the road, we can at least hopefully agree with the premises laid down so far and thus more accurately see the distinctions in our points of view. A foundation, however modest, has been laid for considering a world beyond strict materialism. It is from this foundation that we can then explore, without firm commitment, ideas which otherwise would at first blush cause a semantic allergy attack and a reflexively contrary posture. Stay tuned!

Is a Buddhism-informed science the same as a science-informed Buddhism?

You may have heard about the current Daila Lama giving the keynote address at a professional meeting of neuroscientists. He even wrote a book, The Universe in an Atom, about the potentially fruitful collaboration between Buddhism and science. Scientists are studying meditation, Buddhist and otherwise. And some are writing that certain scientific developments, such as the odd developments coming out of theoretical physics, are in accordance with the teachings and principles the Buddha gave us thousands of years ago. It can be a very exciting time for those who enjoy learning about or working with both topics. But what is the nature of the relationship between these topics?

Science is rooted in the conviction that the universe is intelligible and that is is ordered according to certain patterns and underlying regular processes. This conviction originally came from belief in a Creator who thus organized existence. This conviction is also at the core of what science is and is not, what it can and cannot do and where it can and cannot be applied. In particular, science deals with describing and explaining regularly occurring, empirically observable phenomena and the predictions and retrodictions based on such evidence. Things which are occur irregularly (there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason and there aren't enough observances to even guess at a pattern or process), or which are not reliably (or ever) empirically observable are beyond the scope of science. This does not mean other things do not exist or are of no consequence (contra the fundamental premise of scientism), but that they don't fit in sciences wheelhouse. Ontological naturalism and scientism are metaphysical assumption that are made at level that cannot be verified or falsified by science.

Nor can we assume that science can always give us complete and satisfactory answers even to those areas it is qualified to address. Science is a highly effective tool for investigation that includes a number of intentional assumptions and perspectives which divide reality into an artifical model so that we can better understand the aspect of the universe on which were focusing our attention. This is what makes science so powerful - yes, it does introduce some degree of distortion (bias) as it magnifies what we want to understand, but so long as we acknowledge and accept a degree of artificiality with a correct understanding, this need not be a major concern. But it does mean that the scientific lens does not a perfectly complete and faithful perspective. The scientific lens is one of many possible lenses, and while neglecting a scientific perspective when one is available is inadvisible, simply trusting it is always being superior to every other lens is the same kind of myopic danger that leads some to rely soley on the lens of faith.

Buddhism comes rooted in a different set of cultural assumptions and a different concern - identifying the nature of suffering, the cause of suffering and how to be liberated from suffering (through transformation or transcendence). Because it investigates these things through observation and testing, some of even referred to Buddhism as the science of happiness. The similarity between science and Buddhism for those who tend to generically associate observation and testing with science is obvious. And since some fields of science investigate topics like emotion, mood, consciousness, etc, it is also unsurprising to find that these two lenses have come up to similar conclusions. Nor is the suggestion of a fruitful collaboration far fetched. But that doesn't mean that Buddhism is science or that science is Buddhism, nor that either should be considered a subcategory or simply a spcialized extension of the other.

When it comes to string theory and quantum physics a word of caution is in order as well. Reffering to His Holiness again, the Dalai Lama noted in The Good Heart that really smart people can find or generate similarities and dissimilarities between nearly anything, and can hence make them seem much more different or alike than they may actually be. His caution was about trying to read too much too quickly into superficial similarities between religions like Christianity and Buddhism, but we can adopt the same tone for physics and Buddhism as well. There are some really profound and important aspects that many of not all major sacred traditions share, and there are some important insights that Buddhism may have which sound remarkably similar to what people think may be happening at really large and really small scales of matter and time and energy.

Even if we presume the Buddha could "see" into the various levels of reality, his cultural background would have shaped and informed the impressions he received in his perceptions, including how many levels, how they there organized, how they interacted. Science builds on previous models and schema, but it is possible to have named and organized things a little differently than we have. There are alternative roots science could have taken in describing and explaining things, and it may yet do so in the future. Another way to say it is that the shape of our scientific understanding has a component of cultural and historical context that would not have been available to someone living thousands of years ago. The Buddha would no have known what a cosmic string or a quark was. Instead, even without the lens and context of modern science he was still able to recognize and describe what he felt were universal qualities or properties.

There is a temptation then to focus on what we think the Buddha got right according to the similarties of contemporary ideas from science and de-emphsize what we suspect he may have gotten wrong, and only attribute the importance of historical and cultural context to the latter. But the Buddha was not operating as a scientist. The lens offered by science is not equivalent to the lens of the Buddhist path. A Buddhism-informed science is not the same as a science-informed Buddhism. Which brings us to a question - should we strive either for a Buddhism-informed science or for a science-informed Buddhism? Or should we seek neither? Should we strive to allow them to operate independently and supply inspiration to areas of common concern and interest as well as each other?

The Dalai Lama has said that if Buddhism and science conflict, Buddhism should defer to science. This makes sense for the areas where Buddhism might be used to make predictons about the physical nature of reality, but what about the mental or spiritual nature of reality, which scientists must reduce to the material in order to make it amenable for scientific investigation? Does the fact that there can be a scientific model proposed which performs such a reduction mean that Buddhism should defer to science and go along with a reductionist perspective just because it is available? Or does Buddhism (or do other traditions) offer something more that cannot be fully captured by a strictly reductionist lens? By focusing on one dimension of our existence does such a perpective overlook another? Is there something about the value of Buddhist teachings and practices which remains independent of the worldview or cosmology that happens to be in vogue?

If science were to say tomorrow that physics no longer superficially resembled the ideas of dependent origination and emptiness, they are still useful teachings. Even though ancient cosmologies from the time of the Buddha, which his students would have accepted as a given, may not be accepted today, his teachings are relevant because humans are still humans, still sentient beings. Because phenomena are themselves limited and biased mental constructions intended to break the continuity and flow of existence into manageable chunks. This is an issue of perception and cognition and semantics - and it will always be a challenge for humans inhabiting our limited bodies. Hence the observation of Huineng, the sixth patriarch or ancestor of the early Ch'an ("Zen") lineage, in the following kung-an ("koan") from Robert Aiken's translation of the Wu-Men Kuan (or Mumonkan)...

Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree.

The Sixth Ancestor said, "Gentlemen! It is not the wind that moves; it is not the flag that moves; it is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.

Science is a simply dogmatic form of superstition

Darwin never warned against crossing black cats, walking under ladders or stepping on cracks in the pavement, but his theory of natural selection explains why people believe in such nonsense.

The tendency to falsely link cause to effect – a superstition – is occasionally beneficial, says Kevin Foster, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University...

"My guess would be that in modern life, the general tendency to believe in things where we don't have scientific evidence is less beneficial than it used to be," he [Foster] adds.

Wolfgang Forstmeier, an evolutionary biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Ornithology in Starnberg, Germany, argues that by linking cause and effect – often falsely – science is a simply dogmatic form of superstition.

"You have to find the trade off between being superstitious and being ignorant," he says. By ignoring building evidence that contradicts their long-held ideas, "quite a lot of scientists tend to be ignorant quite often," he says.

-source

Right on, Wolfgang.

Hooray for nonsense and apathy

Have you ever noticed the portion of something you don't need, but it comes with the part you wanted? Perhaps you came to realize it was necessary after all? For example, in a basic biology course when you come to the section on population genetics everyone learns about Hardy-Weinberg. It's based on the binomial equation you may have learned if you took a course in algebra. The gist of it is this - it tells you what the allele and genotype frequencies (the genetic composition) of a population should look like if the population is "standing still" in terms of mutation, selection, genetic drift, etc. A question that students often ask is: If we are studying population change why focus on an equation that assumes a lack of change? It is because it gives us something to compare a population to - a yardstick to see just how far from stasis a population really is. It turns out that understanding lack of change is important even for those who presume that constant change is the rule (and more importantly the reality). This kind of illumination by contrast is an ancient topic, often spawning debates asking whether good can exist without evil, light without darkness? Are opposites better defined as degree of presence or absence? Can their be pleasure without pain? And on it goes.

So what do nonsense and apathy get us?

In the analysis of information and communication, we see that to allow for a adaptive "language", we need to have some kind of consistency in structure as well as flexibility. Human language, for example, is not confined by a permanent one to one relationship between a specific sound and a specific meaning. Moreover, the identity and order of sounds can convey additional layers of meaning to a specific sound or word. Yet within a given language the correlation of sounds to meanings in the singular form are consistent for long enough periods of time to permit shared understanding, while the flexible context of combining multiple sounds/words together allows for originality. We can discuss things past, present, and future, distant and local, even real and non-real. That which makes sense and that which is complete gibberish. Hence nonsense in our conceptions as well as in our communications is the cost of being in the sweet spot between a totally closed system with a limited or fixed capacity for conveying meaning and a totally open system where nothing at all is stable enough to allow meaning to cool and take shape. Like a malleable piece of wax - you don't want to become too stiff but you don't want to melt. That is, nonsense is a reflection of the degree of randomness needed for creativity intelligence.

In a similar way, so too is apathy the byproduct or co-requisite of the will, of agency, of conscious choice. This is distinct from simply resting or other similar (lack of) activities found in many mammals in addition to humans. Boredom, likewise, is an acute lack of interest in our surroundings - a lack of sufficient stimulation for the sense of quality or value. Nonsense, apathy, and boredom are not objective states but are part of a perceptual array for detecting and measuring differences. In fact, without these things as a null reference we might lack the ability to perceive meaning, choice, or value. Biologists do not need believe that a genuine population level genetic stasis is literally possible for a particular locus in a specific biological population in order to use Hardy-Weinberg. Similarly, just because we experience nonsense, apathy, and boredom it does not follow that the universe must be similarly pointless, listless and bland. In fact, if we are good at detecting/experiencing meaning, choice, and value, then they are likely important aspects of our universe.

Cheers!

Buffers against fear

So I was reading a reply to a reply the other day in a thread about the atheist/theist debate, and it seemed to me that what the author of the reply was suggesting is that religion and belief in God (I am making that distinction) acts like a buffer against fear of uncertainty and the unknown. I would imagine that for certain believers this is at least partially true. But then to me that begged the question, what is the adamant, anti-religious atheist afraid of? I would no more wish to make an unfounded generalization about the non-religious than the religious, even small segments or subgroups. Still, it is an interesting question. Why it is that some folks seem to, by their rhetoric, prefer to think that reason alone can and will uncover all there is to know about reality? That once we have sophisticated enough technology and sufficiently informed theory, that there is no significant value in any other way of knowing, let alone wisdom and insight from traditional sources, which are seen like an unfortunate side effect of our brilliant minds or outdated relics to be replaced by that which is "newer" and "better".

There is, after all, the tacit assumption in science itself that it is limited in both the scope of what it can properly investigate and how such things can be investigated. Perhaps it is related to a couple of common errors in understanding what science is. The first is the idea that science is presumed to be free of any personal, cultural, or other forms of bias or subjective influence. It isn’t. And this refers to all parts of scientific knowledge, from observations and facts (which are created from observations) to methods and theories. The second miconception is that science has the “best” possible explanation for everything. Science can be used for fashioning a particular way of understanding the world based on logical inferences of empirical observations, but that does not automatically grant it any particular worth. Such a standard of value is assigned by different people based on their needs and desires.

So, that said, why is it that some are content to let science inform one aspect of reality and other ways of knowing inform other aspects, and whichever works best to serve a particular need for truth, accuracy, comfort, meaning, etc is OK, while for others there is a need to disparage other views (either scientific or nonscientific) while maintaining the absolute "correctness" of the values that their own philosophy prizes (materialism, objectivity, love, trust, fulfilment of material needs and desires)? Perhaps *all* such polemic partisans of a particular philosophy are suffering from the same dread of uncertainty (how's that for a speculative generalization?). While one may object that a scientist and a skeptic is not afraid of uncertainty, that indeed they embrace it, I am not so sure all of them do. For a PPPP, or Quad-P, of science and skepticism, I sense based on my readings and discussions (and hence this is purely anecdotal conjecture) that there is usually a degree of confidence in certain areas of what they "provisionally know" with regard to the subject of debate. That is, while one may claim she or he would be open to new evidence (and I wouldn't doubt said person believes that), I get the impression this person also feels the likelihood of being confronted with what she or he would anticipate as being "sufficient evidence" to challenge her or his views on such beliefs is virtually nil.

Hence, there is this core of certainty which one can formerly believe in because it has the "I'm open-minded" seal of approval, much like the dogmatic religious literalist has their certainty based on the "it's in the word of God" seal of approval. This is not an attempt to draw an equivalence or suggest both are equally flawed, it is just an idle speculation about possible sources for the the similarities between the hard-core fundamentalists of religion and the hard-core ultra-Positivists of atheism, the latter of whom may indeed believe that it is likely (though it isn't guaranteed) that science will continue explaining just about everything and the rest is triviality that is best suited to each person's preference or taste. Which was anticipated earlier in the blog post thread that started my speculation by original post author:

I suppose that a lot of them haven't thought about religion at all for years - have assumed that it was a thing of the past - and are then taken aback by finding that it is alive and kicking. But I still find it bizarre that they don't even want to look into the political background of this - colonialism etc - but instead go on like crude nineteenth-century American `scientific atheists'. Is it just the well-known Quest for Certainty? are they simply seduced by the idea of being sure about Something (namely, that there's no God.) (This might account for the denunciations of mnystery [sic] and the insistence that, if there's anything we don,t know, science will discover it next week. And do the people who buy it similarly think that, since it's Science, it must be the final answer to everything?
-Mary Midgley

Well, I don't claim to know if such speculations are valid. And again, each individual has their own background and impetus for their beliefs and behaviors. I have no wish to construct a straw man and then burn it. Instead, here is something to ponder. For me, my early introduction to religion, while it was not just a "buffer against fear" (or uncertainty), did have that "what we know we can count on and the rest is no big deal" mentality. While my introduction to science and multiculturalism were greatly beneficial in expanding my view of reality, there was also a culture of certainty there too, masked behind the righteousness of tolerance and open-mindedness. So, in a way, going on to reopening myself to studying and participating in spirituality and religion has also gone a long way toward further expanding my view of the possibilities of existence and revealed many of my latent biases and assumptions. This did not require a rejection of science, but a critical review of the more extreme views of contemporary modernism and positivism. While this technically can be referred to as post-modernism, which often gets an eye-roll from "serious-minded" academics of the "harder" sciences, I like to think of it as an adjusted and balanced view that attempts to draw on the best aspects of modern and traditional thinking but that is oriented toward being restricted by neither. In opening myself to uncertainty, I find I am often wandering into territory not favored or sanctioned by either camp. I hope to see you "out there" (Mulder was right, that is where the truth is). Which inspires me to end this bit of reflection with -

Happy trails!

(PS: Didn't I just say I sometimes get bored reading the kind of thing I just wrote? Sheesh.)

Putting us in our place

Based on some thoughts I had while considering some of my recent posts, I decided it would be useful to consider or reconsider things I have said or heard in the past regarding humanity's place in the cosmos. I am not trying to build straw-men cases either. These are genuine thoughts and statements I have had at some point or that I have encountered...

Humans tend to be egocentric, ethnocentric, and taxocentric (I made that last one up from the root taxonomy, or system of naming and classification - it refers to the self-importance of a species over the value of other species).

I agree.

There is no meaning in the universe except what we make up for ourselves. We are just designed by natural selection to survive and reproduce and there is nothing else to life.

I have written before that I believe meaning is inherent to existence itself (see here and here for some examples), which should not be misconstrued with purpose. Purpose is addressed by the second half of the above statement, which is a subtle variety of the "ought-is" fallacy connected to the naturalistic fallacy by way of presuming that all features are adaptive. Yeah... OK, let's say it another way: 1) just because an organism possesses a particular feature or a particular type or variety of that features does not necessarily mean it is an adaptation, and 2) adaptations are a consequence of the fortuitous meeting of novelty and selection in a suitable environmental context. Neither natural or sexual selection nor the organism itself "wills" the biological novelties upon which adaptations are based into existence, so to refer to the outcome of such processes (which are in turn the consequences of the properties of living organisms) as the "purpose(s)" of life is invokes a principles considered a no-no in evolutionary theory called teology. In evolution teleological arguments were labeled the Panglossian paradigm after a fictional character who remarked that people have noses so that they have something on which to wear their spectacles.

It is clearer and more accurate to talk in terms of qualities, properties, and their resulting interactions and processes as either generating or allowing certain results, depending on which is more appropriate in a given context. For example, certain genetic and extra-genetic information can be said to generate particular features, such as eyes, by guiding the developmental processes of an organism. Having eyes allows one to perceive a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum which is appropriately enough called visible light. However, it would be presumptuous and unsupportable (and again teleological) to claim that an organism has eyes because of the (adaptive) "need" for sight. In the same way, the properties of organisms generate biological novelty and react to forces distributing this novelty (including selection), which in turn permits the continued existence of populations of organisms through successful reproduction. Adaptations, while very cool and exciting, are the (useful) byproducts of these processes, not the "goal" or "purpose" of the existence of living things. To borrow and modify a phrase from those healthy eating types, "We adapt to live, we don't live to adapt".

Humans are just another unique species.

I agree.

Religion and spirituality always reinforces and feeds off of the idea that humans are extra-special in the grand scheme of the universe.

I mostly disagree - that sentiment is a feature of some, even many, forms of different sacred traditions and spiritual paths but it is a little misleading and not a fair characterization of all religions. I don't deny the prevalence of such thinking, but I also reject such thinking, both outright and as a necessary element of spirituality/religion.

Humans are just a fluke of nature like every other species and like life itself. The idea of connecting to some kind of transcendence is just another unwarranted conceit - why would only humans be deserving of the attention of some Greater Power.

I disagree that life should be considered a fluke of nature. There is no real reason to assume it isn't a regular feature of the universe or that the circumstances under which it can develop are so rare as to be miraculous. While I agree that humans we cannot demonstrate that humans (or something close) were a guaranteed or even likely outcome of the development of life on this planet, that in and of itself does not trivialize the uniqueness or value of humanity.

On the issue of connection, I think that something that tends to distinguish humans, our ability for creative abstraction, is an important element in spirituality. Because we can separate a clear sense of an internal "subjective" reality and an external "objective" reality, and because we can rearrange elements of perceptions and memories in original combinations, humans can lose themselves replaying the past, pondering the future, or considering altered versions of the past, present, or future in vivid detail. This in turn can lead to a strong disconnect from the reality unfolding constantly around us as our sophisticated, personalized assumptions about how the world works influences our perception through the lens of our conscious and subconscious expectations.

I don't believe in the traditional views of some Greater Power who consciously takes a special interest in the affairs of sentient beings such as the members of Homo sapiens, but I do think that spirituality can be a way for such beings to make their way back through all those layers of habituated thinking to a clearer appreciation of reality and our fundamental union with all things. If another species, say, Orangutans, were to develop similar cognitive abilities and get lost in our type of distracted living, they might find such spirituality necessary and beneficial as well. In my view religion and spirituality isn't necessarily a sign of superiority but a response to a consequence, perhaps a deficiency, caused by the extreme elaboration of our neocortex.

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Just to flesh out a tangential note, people often talk about certain concepts in religion. In Christianity this concept is known as Original Sin. In the mythical narrative, this occurs when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil after being commanded not to do so by God. My take on that story is hardly original, but I find the story to be very revealing. In my opinion the ability to develop a basis for ethics and a sense of morality relies, as I have stated repeatedly for many years, on the ability to recognize others as ourselves in an empathetic response. This is why so many ethical rules boil down to the Golden Rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Jesus phrased it as his primary challenge to those who who would follow him - love your neighbor as you love yourself.

If one adds imagination and reflection to such self-awareness, let alone the enhanced capacity this brings for other-awareness, one goes beyond the forms of empathy and concern shown by mammals generally to forms seen only in apes and uniquely in humans. I suspect that the capacity for such love and compassion arose with the capacity for neglect and indifference. This corresponds, then, to eating of the fruit of the Tree. I also think it offers a potential answer to many learning about Buddhism and concepts such as delusion and ignorance who ask "When did this begin?" On the one hand, it doesn't matter when it began - five minutes ago or many kalpas (i.e. eons and eons) ago. However, just for the sake of pondering, I suspect it began for our particular species thirty thousand to one hundred twenty thousand years ago (depending on which paleoanthropologist you ask to try to estimate the date for the emergence of our current form of sentience).

Mice capable of basis for empathy

Just in case you might have ever wondered, there is verification that even rodents have the some of the basic components necessary for empathy...

New Pain Research Shows Mice Capable Of Empathy

A new study by McGill University professor of psychology Dr. Jeffrey Mogil shows that the capacity for empathy, previously suspected but unproven even among higher primates, is also evident in lower mammals.

In research published online June 29 in the journal Science, Professor Mogil, graduate student Dale Langford and their colleagues in the Pain Genetics Lab at McGill University discovered that mice that were co-housed (that is, familiar to each other) and able to see one another in pain were more sensitive to pain than those tested alone...

Source

Of course, it would be nice to verify that certain humans have this capacity, but some things are dependent on faith ;o)

Up in the Sky III

An update on the recently discovered 10th planet. The "new" planet has a moon--

'10th planet' has moon companion The astronomers who in July announced the discovery of a "10th planet" in our Solar System say the object has a moon. The new development comes as a result of observations made with the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Michael Brown, from the California Institute of Technology, US, says the find will help his team make a better determination of the new planet's mass. Currently, the planet has been dubbed Xena; the moon will be called Gabrielle until official names are agreed... Full article at BBC WorldNews

Interesting names... ;o)

Who speaks for mind?

So what is the mind? For the sake of argument I propose the rather bland and suggestion that we call a collection of certain coherent observed behaviors 'mind'. Opinions as to what 'this' is include:

1. an epiphenomena of related brain functions which give the appearance a coherent conscious whole;
   
2. an integrated functional complex of the brain which is so complex that it represents a level of organization requiring novel terms to adequately describe it's operation;
   
3. some extra-physical presence or poorly understood form of energy that is mediated by/tapped into by the brain.
   

I have found that in both the professional literature and in informal dialogue with educated and lay people, a common thread for arguing for options #1 and #2 include:


A. the idea that other primates have somewhat similar brains,

B. there is no evidence for the collection of interactive behaviors referred to as a mind without some neural network (biological or simulated)

C. the observation that brain damage seems to affect the functioning of the mind.

I don't believe "A" gets us very far, as we do not fully understand just what the great apes think and feel, and we are constantly learning more about how their mental processes work. Moreover, there are unique features of the biology of the human brain which distinguish our species, and this ties in fairly well with "B". If humans do indeed have a special cognitive capacity called mind, if this is tied to a physical difference in brain structure, and if brain damage impairs the functioning of the mind, that sounds pretty good for arguing for either explanation #1 or #2 for what the mind is. At least superficially.

That line of reasoning can be countered, however, with the example of the eye. The eye can detect certain forms of enery and the optic nerve and corresponding parts of the frontal lobe can interpret that incoming information. Some animals can 'see' better than others as far as color, range, or depth, and we can line up evolutionary comparisons, but that doesn't negate the concept of vision. In the same sense, an advocate of the idea that the mind represents a form consciousness that (in a process sense) rests on the brain or is interpreted by the brain rather than being generated by the brain can make the argument that different animals with different levels of neural development have different levels of conscious awareness. On a related note, obviously if eyes do not develop or eyes or the optic nerve are damaged, what we call "vision" is impaired. However, vision is not solely generated by the brain. It requires input from the eyes, which in turn require input from what we refer to as the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. I think the evolutionary/biological distinctiveness argument works better against the idea that humans have a divine spark or soul that is lacking in other animals such as organs or gorillas. It is less useful refuting for refuting explanation #3 for the mind, which need not invoke supernaturalism.

I think the appeal of using the aforementioned explanation supporting notions #1 and #2 (biological necessity of the brain to what we call the mind) to try to refute explanation #3 comes from a subtle but persistent tendency to equate necessary with sufficient. It is a common problem with models that invoke strict causal reductionism, in which causality always flows from lower levels of organization upward, as opposed to hierarchical explanations which also invoke downward causality.

Option #1 is favored by physicalists who embrace causal reductionism and who think that the mind is not a coherent whole, but rather a collection of processes giving the illusion of a unified identity. Option #2 appeals to many people who accept a view of organizational complexity commonly referred to as emergentism, in which certain recognizeable levels of organization arise from their components to form organizational units most accurately described by their own identity and sets of properties, as opposed to being described solely in terms of constituent parts. It is important to realize this is not invoking some "extra" components out of the ether, it's just another way of looking at the interactive properties of the objects under study.

Option #3 actually holds many possible interpretations. On the one hand, ideas of "souls" in the religious sense of secondary invisible bodies that persists after death can be included in this view. But then again, the idea of consciousness as a fundamental component of the fabric of reality can be addressed by this view as well.

I think that it is unfortunate that the term consciousness or awareness is adopted by advocates of the latter interpretation as it is readily misunderstood. Then again, there aren't any seprate well-known term expressing such an idea, and hence the same word gets used over and over even and subtle differences in meaning become lost. The immediate objection is to associate consciousness with the mind, and then to assume that what we call consciousness is solely generated within the brain with no other imput or interaction. How could there, then, be any kind of "non-bodily consciousness"? What was around before humans acquired sentience?

The basic premise, so far as I understand it, is that there is a type of awareness which comes with a brain capable of what we call consciousness, and that in fact it is an interactive component of consciousness, just as visible light is a component of what we refer to as vision. This component, which as I said is unfortunately usually given the confusing label consciousness, would, like light, exist before there was ever a creature with eyes to perceive it. Some enthusiasts for this notion have suggested it explains the observer-bias inherent in phenomena such as wave-particle duality and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, although so far such explanations have received little attention from the mainstream scientific community. However, whether or not such connections to physics are valid, option #3 remains a fascinating perspective that may be worth exploring (although I am certain that misgivings about the similiarity between such ideas and supernaturalism/paranormalism will be a hindrance to such investigation).

Up in the sky II

More really interesting revelations about our solar system--

Saturn moon delights and baffles By Jonathan Amos BBC News science reporter Space scientists say their discoveries about Saturn's moon Enceladus are stunning, if just a little baffling. Using the instrument-packed Cassini probe, they have confirmed that the 500km-wide world has an atmosphere. They have also seen a "hotspot" at the icy moon's south pole, which is riven with cracks dubbed "tiger stripes". But the US and European scientists told a London meeting they could not yet explain fully the energetic processes driving all the activity on Enceladus... The spacecraft made a special low pass of the moon on 14 July, crossing a mere 173km above the surface at its closest approach. This allowed Cassini to make observations of unprecedented detail; and they backed up data obtained by the probe's magnetometer instrument on previous flybys that hinted at the presence of a water vapour atmosphere. But that was just the start of what is now proving to be a fascinating and evolving story. "We confirmed the signature that there was an atmosphere but it is strange atmosphere," Professor Michele Dougherty, from the UK's Imperial College and the lead scientist for the magnetometer instrument, told BBC News. "It seems to be concentrated at the south pole and the best way to match our observations is that you have almost a cometary jet coming off the south pole." Full Article at BBC WorldNews

How cool! :o)

Up in the sky

I've always loved astronomy, and for a time thought I would become an astronomer. It's been an exciting last few days for those who are intrigued by what might be out there...

Astronomers detect '10th planet' By Dr David Whitehouse Science Editor BBC news website Astronomers in the United States have announced the discovery of the 10th planet to orbit our Sun. The largest object found in our Solar System since the discovery of Neptune in 1846, it was first seen in 2003, but only recently confirmed as a planet. Designated 2003 UB313, it is about 3,000km across, a world of rock and ice and somewhat larger than Pluto. It is more than twice as far away as Pluto, in a puzzling orbit, at an angle to the orbits of the other planets. Astronomers think that at some point in its history Neptune likely flung it into its highly-inclined 44 degree orbit. It is currently 97 Earth-Sun distances away - more than twice Pluto's average distance from the Sun... Full Article Pictures of the ice lake and crater

And...

Ice lake found on the Red Planet A giant patch of frozen water has been pictured nestled within an unnamed impact crater on Mars. The photographs were taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board Mars Express, the European Space Agency probe which is exploring the planet. The ice disc is located on Vastitas Borealis, a broad plain that covers much of Mars' far northern latitudes. The existence of the water-ice patch on Mars raises the prospect that past or present life will one day be detected. It also boosts the chances that manned missions could eventually be sent to the Red Planet - because they would probably need accessible water to survive... Full Article

Just amazing!