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Here’s a good example of writing (by Robert Lanza, M.D.) that combines pseudo-science with pseudo-philosophy (metaphysical speculations that, when put together in several paragraphs, form a long chain of near non sequiturs)-

One well-known aspect of quantum physics is that certain observations cannot be predicted absolutely. Instead, there is a range of possible observations each with a different probability. One mainstream explanation, the “many-worlds” interpretation, states that each of these possible observations corresponds to a different universe (the ‘multiverse’). A new scientific theory – called biocentrism – refines these ideas.

[Editorial comment: we learn at the end of this article that "biocentrism" was invented by Lanza, who, according to his (auto?)biographical note, "is considered one of the leading scientists in the world".]

There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death does not exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them. Although individual bodies are destined to self-destruct, the alive feeling – the ‘Who am I?’- is just a 20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain. But this energy doesn’t go away at death. One of the surest axioms of science is that energy never dies; it can neither be created nor destroyed. But does this energy transcend from one world to the other?

It goes on like this for a while (actually, it gets far worse). You can read it all here.

Kripke would be turning in his grave, if he were in his grave. Saul Kripke is, among other things, an inventor of “modal logic”, the logic of possibility and necessity. Such logic deals with counterfactual sentences like the first one of this paragraph. Translated into Kripke-speak (and putting aside the thorny issue of how to interpret metaphors), that sentence would be stating: “There is a possible world in which Kripke is turning in his grave”. And, on Kripke’s view, there is such a possible world just in case it is conceivable. Of course, there’s a lot of philosophical debate about which worlds are really conceivable or not, and on the question of whether conceivability is really the right test of a modal statement’s truth. But, unfortunately, some otherwise level-headed philosophers – such as David Lewis – have run with this semantic ball all the way to speculative-metaphysics-land, arguing that if modal statements make sense at all (and they do), then all possible worlds must exist just like the actual world exists (including physically)… consistent with the sort of multiverse theory Lanza is apparently imagining.

Now, not every multiverse physical theory needs to presuppose Lewis-style possible world semantics. Indeed, one which merely presupposes, as Lanza puts it, that “each of these possible observations correspond to a different universe” need not do so, as long as “different universe” can be interpreted merely as a possible world in Kripke’s sense of the expression. But notice that Lanza slides from this metaphysically ambiguous assertion to the further view that “There are an infinite number of universes, and everything that could possibly happen occurs in some universe.” This, along with other remarks in Lanza’s article, reeks of modal realism (that is, Lewis-style modal semantics, as opposed to Kripke-style). Now, I have no a priori proof that a multiverse theory that presupposes modal realism is false. But, if such a theory is supposed to be scientific, it has to be confirmable or disconfirmable. And while a purely physical multiverse theory – one which doesn’t presuppose modal realism – might be confirmed empirically, by the observations it helps to predict and explain, no metaphysical view can be confirmed or disconfirmed in this way. The Kripke/Lewis debate ultimately boils down to differing linguistic or conceptual “intuitions”. So when writers like Lanza combine multiverse theory, modal realism, and the downright silly reduction of personal identity (or self-consciousness) to the “20-watt fountain of energy operating in the brain” that is conserved after death, and implies that it is a scientific theory, I have to protest. In the last forty or so years, more silly pop-metaphysics has been produced by speculations based on quantum physics (and the uncertainty principle) than by anything else. And this is a prime example.

Note: this post was re-written in response to a comment made by Marshall Missner (see the comments section).

This is an extraordinary example of what might be called “functional seeing”. Compare checker square A and square B-

Although you should not believe this just on the basis of what you see, squares A and B are exactly the same shade of gray. You can confirm this in a graphics program (like photoshop). The fact that you see the squares as different shades of gray strongly suggests that your brain has evolved to tell you more about shadows than about the particular shades of colors. Why? Because representing shades of color as such is something that only an artist needs to do; it has very little survival value (unless you happen to be one of those lucky artists who gets paid for discriminating colors). On the other hand, distinguishing shadows is an important aspect of seeing objects in a natural world, and seeing objects is crucial to survival. One other thing: the fact that you can’t see the two squares as having the same color even after you know that they do is proof of the visual system’s “modularity” or “informational encapsulation”: vision is highly resistant to modification by belief or knowledge. Believing is not seeing.

Thanks to Edward H. Adelson at MIT for making this image available.

It’s not often that you get two justices of the Supreme Court with such different points of view informally debating on national television, but that’s just what you got with C-SPAN’s recent America & The Courts hour. Justices Scalia and Breyer squared off on pros and cons of Originalism – roughly, the view that Supreme Court justices should always interpret and apply the clauses of the constitution exactly as the founders would have, at least to the extent that this can be determined. I disagree with Scalia on Originalism, because I fail to see why the interpretations of the founders – who, after all, were just humans, not gods – should be favored over the interpretations of present supreme court justices, who have the benefit of history and hindsight, and so probably have a wider and wiser perspective on how to apply to present circumstances the values enshrined in the constitution. However, in the past I have been impressed by Scalia’s ability to argue for his judicial philosophy. So I was happy to see that Breyer could keep up with him quite well, arguing at least as effectively for his approach. A rarity on TV these days: intelligent and relevant programming.

You can watch the hour online here.

Here’s an entertaining excerpt from an Alan Watts lecture (which can be found at the start of the podcast entitled “Images of God”) in which he talks about what he thinks should be the foundation of philosophy, and takes a little dig at professional analytical philosophers like myself-

It has become extremely plausible [in our culture] that this trip between the maternity ward and the crematorium is what there is to life. And we still have going into our common sense the 19th century myth, which succeeded the ceramic myth in Western history – I call it “The Fully Automatic Model”: Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball, that revolves about an insignificant star on the outer edges of one of the smaller galaxies. But on the other hand, if you think about that for a few minutes… I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball, rotating around this spherical fire… it’s a very odd situation! And the more I look at things, I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird.

You see, a philosopher is sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted. And sensible people say, existence, it’s nothing at all, just go on and do something. See, this is the current movement in philosophy, “logical analysis”, which says: you mustn’t think about existence, it’s a meaningless concept. Therefore, philosophy has become the discussion of trivia. No good philosopher lies awake nights, worrying about the destiny of Man, and the nature of God, and that sort of thing. Because a philosopher today is a practical fellow who comes to the university with a briefcase at 9:00 and leaves at 5:00. He “does philosophy” during the day, which is discussing whether certain sentences have meaning and if so what, and – as William Earle said in a very funny essay – he would come to work in a white coat if he thought he could get away with it.

The problem is: he’s lost his sense of wonder. Wonder is in modern philosophy something one mustn’t have… it’s like enthusiasm in 18th century England: very bad form. But you see, I don’t know what question to ask when I wonder about the universe. It isn’t a question that I’m wondering about, it’s a feeling that I have. Because I cannot formulate the question that is my wonder. The moment my mouth opens to talk about it I suddenly find I’m talking nonsense. But that should not prevent wonder from being the foundation of philosophy.

Existence is not a meaningless concept in analytic philosophy, although it is widely accepted that one studies existence by doing science, not by pontificating from the philosophical armchair. And in defense of my chosen profession, I would say that every good philosopher I’ve met would agree with Watts’ main point here: wonder is the foundation of philosophy… although it’s all too easy to forget that when one has all the responsibilities of a full-time university professor.

The feeling that existence is “weird”, as Watts puts it here, seems to me a sign that one’s emotional system is working as it should, by producing a feeling of awe in response to metaphysical conundrums that probably indicate the limitations of our own minds. There are lots of interesting philosophical questions to pursue here, but they are about those limitations, not about existence as a general category. As Wittgenstein – an analytic philosopher, albeit a unique one – put it at the end of his Tractatus: “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” It seems to me that Watts would agree wholeheartedly with that.

In his thought-provoking paper “In Defense of Legalizing Blackmail”, presented yesterday at the Wisconsin Philosophical Association’s annual meeting, Tait Szabo of the University of Wisconsin-Washington County writes:

Generally, we ought to be legally permitted to keep secrets. Generally, we ought to be legally permitted to give our money to whomever we please. Generally we ought to be legally permitted to do both of these things at our own discretion. We are not, however, legally permitted to keep secrets on the condition of receiving money. On the face of it, this seems to require justification.

Szabo argues that there is no good justification for the illegality of at least certain cases of blackmail. The sort of case he has in mind is as follows. Suppose that I take a scenic photo in the park and then later notice that it included an image of someone I know kissing someone other than his wife. I am legally allowed to give the photo to his wife, and he is legally allowed to offer me money not to do so. But blackmail laws make it illegal for me initiate such a deal. This seems odd, Szabo thinks, particularly since there are many other cases in which it is not illegal to demand something in return for not doing something legal. For instance, in labor disputes workers can demand more pay in return for their not striking; consumers can demand that a corporation change some policy in return for their not boycotting it, and so on. Furthermore, there might be good social consequences for legally allowing (at least non-repeatable) blackmail: perhaps it would result in better behavior.

I’m not convinced, but it’s surprisingly hard to say just what is wrong with Szabo’s argument. Certainly his consequentialist assumption that legalizing blackmail might well result in better behavior seems doubtful to me, but that doesn’t get to the heart of my reservation. Rather, what seems morally objectionable about blackmail is the blackmailer’s exploitation of the “blackmailee’s” vulnerability – the opportunistic exploitation of a power asymmetry. In the case of labor negotiations, this seems less of an issue because the rationale for collective bargaining is that in most respects it is the employer that has the power advantage over the employees; labor unions use the threat of a strike to help balance their normal relative weakness. Similarly, boycott threats seem to only balance the normal power advantage that large corporations have over isolated consumers.

So Szabo’s argument may make sense only against the background of a social and economic system in which exploitation of power asymmetries is normal. Perhaps rather than causing us to question the illegality of blackmail, his argument should cause us to question the normality of such exploitation, and perhaps of the power asymmetries themselves.

Imagine for a moment it was your privilege to have a brief interview with God, in the course of which you were allowed to ask one question.

And the Lord would say to you: “Why do want a question?”

Alan Watts
from the podcast, “Spiritual Authority #3″

A couple of posters on LGF (who no doubt are more familiar with Aquinas than I am) have suggested that I misrepresented Aquinas in the argument from design sketched out in the last post. For the record, that sketch is a way of paraphrasing the following quotation, which is from Summa Theologica – First Part – Question 2 – Article 3:

“The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

Again, my paraphrase:
1) Natural things (even inanimate objects) nearly always act regularly, in such a way as to produce the best results.
2) So, natural things act purposefully, to achieve some goal.
3) If something acts purposefully, it either has a mind, or is designed by something that does.
4) Natural things (such as inanimate objects) do not have minds.
Conclusion: So such natural things must be designed by something that does have a mind (God)

It seems to me that my sketch properly captures the logic of this particular passage, although I am more than willing to be educated otherwise by Aquinas scholars.

By the way, I have great respect for Aquinas. His systematic thought helped to pave the way for modern and contemporary philosophy. And I certainly do not mean to imply that this passage was his final word on reasons to believe in God.

Since Charles over at LGF was kind enough to link to my blog in this article, and identified me as an “anti-intelligent design” blogger, I figured it would be best to write something about the issue (other than commending Charles for his similar stance, as I did below). Since I discuss this issue in my Introduction to Philosophy class, I fortunately have some comments readily at hand…

While the intelligent design movement that concerns Charles focuses on the theory of evolution, arguments from (apparent) design to the conclusion that God exists date back at least to Aquinas, and the earliest ones had little (if anything) to do with biological evolution per se. Aquinas, for instance, argued from an Aristotelian conception of all things natural having a purpose. His argument, very roughly, went like this:

1) Natural things (even inanimate objects) nearly always act regularly, in such a way as to produce the best results.
2) So, natural things act purposefully, to achieve some goal.
3) If something acts purposefully, it either has a mind, or is designed by something that does.
4) Natural things (such as inanimate objects) do not have minds.
Conclusion: So such natural things must be designed by something that does have a mind (God)

The problem with this argument is that (2) doesn’t follow from (1), and there is no independent reason to think it’s true – at least short of accepting a Darwinian notion of “purpose” (biological function, where ‘function’ is defined in part by procreative usefulness), which would in any case apply only to biological organisms, rather than to all natural things.

A more recent argument for intelligent design of the universe which is not limited to the purported design of living creatures has to do with the extremely narrow range of physical constants that allow our sort of life to exist:

1) Life would never have evolved if certain physical constants had been slightly different.
2) There are only three possible explanations of the observed values of those constants: physical laws, sheer luck, or intelligent design.
3) Known physical laws do not explain the observed values.
4) Given all of the possibilities, it is highly unlikely that the observed values are the result of luck.
Conclusion: So the observed values are the result of intelligent design.

The problems with this argument are not as obvious as those with Aquinas’s, since this argument does not presuppose Aristotelian physics. However, there are several objections, one of which is, to my mind, fairly conclusive-

Objection to premise 2: this list might not be exhaustive; there might be more explanations (admittedly, this is not a particularly strong objection…). Objection to premise 3: maybe unknown physical laws can explain the observed values (this is a stronger objection, but still based on an assumption of ignorance). Objection to premise 4’s supporting the conclusion: even if the values are unlikely, this is no reason to believe in intelligent design. This is the strongest objection, but it calls for some explanation…

Suppose that, using a net, you catch 100 fish in a pond, all of which are larger than 6 inches. Does this data support the view that most fish in the pond are larger than 6 inches? Not if your net can’t catch smaller fish… This is known as a “selection effect”: limitations of a data collection process limits the reasonable conclusions that can be drawn from the data.

A similar limitation has to do with any single observation, in isolation from other observations. For instance, we observe life on Earth. Does this imply that life is probably found on Earth-like planets elsewhere in the universe? Well, not by itself. The problem is that our single datum entitles us to conclude neither that our situation is typical, nor that it is atypical. The point is that we may be be prejudiced by the fact that no matter how unlikely life on Earth-like planets might be, we happen to live on one that has life. Unlikely events do happen.

A similar sort of “observation selection effect” applies to the observed values of the physical constants, but here the problem is even more serious. For while we may someday have the data to be able to judge whether life on Earth is likely or unlikely (after we have observed a large number of such planets), there is only one universe to ever observe. So even if the values of the physical constants are highly unlikely, they give us no good reason to believe in intelligent design. After all, the constants having those values (or at least falling within a narrow range of values) are preconditions of there being any observations (by creatures like us) at all! We would have to observe them, whether they were likely or unlikely. Now, if they are likely (that is, if unknown physical laws make it the case that any physical universe must have similar values), this is obviously no reason to believe in intelligent design. But, less obviously, even if they are unlikely, this is also no reason to believe in intelligent design. Here’s a simple lottery analogy: it is always unlikely that the winner of a fair lottery is the winner. But this certainly doesn’t give us any reason to believe that an intelligent designer picked the winner.

I just posted a link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. As you probably already know, I make my living teaching and writing philosophy. If I were on a desert island with nothing but my laptop, and I could access only one web site, this would be my second choice. (What would be my first choice? Let your imagination run wild!). The SEP is by far the best philosophy reference on the internet, and probably the best in any medium. And if it’s the best today, it’s safe to say that it’s the best in all of human history. But anyway, it’s my go-to resource when I’m in the beginning stages of thinking about any philosophical issue: thousands of articles by experts on almost any philosophical topic, including the meaning of life.

Ever since I lived in the Hollywood hills in the late 1970s, televisionless, with only my FM receiver to distract me, I’ve enjoyed listening to Alan Watts’ lectures. KPFK’s “Roy of Hollywood” used to broadcast them after midnight one night a week. There’s something about Watt’s soothing British accent that invites the listener into his uniquely hybrid, East/West view of the world. Although Watts was an intellectual (in the best sense of the term), an expert in both Western and Asian religions (as his friend Joseph Campbell was an expert in world mythologies), he often characterized himself as a “spiritual entertainer”. This was to discourage anyone who would view him as a “guru”, although undoubtedly many have. Although his outlook was influenced mostly by Zen Buddhism and Taoism (he spent many years as a child in China), his later philosophy truly became his own. Anyway, although I don’t always agree with his metaphysics, and often wish that he would address ethical questions in more detail, I find his basic attitude towards life and death to be as healthy as any I’ve ever heard.

You can subscribe to his podcasts here (link requires iTunes).

Here’s an example from my own podcast library: “Journey From India #1″-