Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 5 of 5

What follows is the final reflection on the book we've been reading for six weeks now (a chapter a week) for a class. The reflection papers are required (and have all gotten high marks from the professor).

Overall When Science Meets Religion was an intense read, that, if you did more than just read it without contemplating or challenging the ideas presented, most would probably not enjoy it. Additionally, it would be easy to get completely lost without savoring the words. This is not a book made for speed reading, to be sure.

You can get the gist of the book by reading the chapter by chapter reflection papers, though they by no means cover every topic and issue in each chapter, they can serve as a sort of "Cliff's notes" to the book.

It will be two weeks before the first of the next series is posted, and the series will consist of three reflections on a book about the philosophy of truth.

As always, constructive comments and sound debate are welcome.

- Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion -
Part 1 of 5 - Four Views of Science and Religion & Astronomy and Creation
(http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html)
Part 2 of 5 - The Implications of Quantum Physics
(http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science_25.html)
Part 3 of 5 - Evolution and Continuing Creation
(http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/04/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html)
Part 4 of 5 - Genetics, Neuroscience, and Human Nature
(http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/04/critical-reflections-on-when-science_8.html)

Critical Reflection on ‘When Science Meets Religion’ by Ian G. Barbour

Chapter 6: God and Nature

Here we are, finally at the center of religion…with God, and how he does or does not “act”, with or against, “lawful natural processes” (152) while trying to define his role in humanity and nature.

The six objections to God as an omnipresent ruler, in sum, are enough to support objections to the very existence of God wherein, the universe is ever changing and not placed in a fixed order by God, as described in Genesis. This is a modern world in which Biblical tales and any evidence of supernatural intervention of the divine is absent, of which much of the “mystical” and “paranormal” occurrences from 2000 years ago can now be explained using science. There exists a reality where the concepts of predestination by God clearly negate free will, whereby the idea of “genuine alternatives in human choice” (152) become incompatible situations. In the mass of societies where wanton evil and suffering persist, even among the “innocent”, the omnipresent must take responsibility for the evil either through an admission of a clear lack of authority and ability, or through acknowledging responsibility the conscious self-limitation to exercising said authority and ability. Finally, from the perceived patriarchal throne, justification in male dominated societies act out “persecution, crusades, holy wars, and colonial imperialism in God’s name” (153), again, without intervention in these atrocities carried out in his very name.

In the conflict of religion and science, of God and nature, Barbour first turns to the naturalistic criticisms of religion in which, according to Atkins, and to a lesser degree, Freud, religious beliefs become a product of “sentimental wishful thinking” and “intellectually dishonest emotion” (154). It is hard to argue against such claims, as faith, being a non-evidence based belief, leaves nothing but wishes and hopes rooted in the absence of anything remotely tangible and verifiable in which rules have been built in to prevent the “faithful” from even the option of questioning without perceived punishment. In attempting to align itself with evidence-based fields, which is founded on asking questions and attaining verifiable answers, as if it is on the same playing field, religion fails. The more religious leaders and practitioners press upon the educated public that they are answering similar questions as science does, the more glaring the holes become and the weaker they become in the eyes of the public as a result.

Barbour recounts Wilson’s explanation of the “evolutionary account of religious beliefs”, in which the same “hierarchies of dominance and submission that have contributed to the survival of animal species” (156) are also seen in the social structures of past and present society. I argue that these social structures, demonstrated through the dominance found with civil and political authority, and religious leaders, speaks more to evolutionary naturalism, as opposed to religious naturalism.

In religious naturalism, Burhoe asserts that religion, “by set[s] of values transmitted by religious myths and rituals […] has been the major force fostering altruism [selfless regard and devotion towards others] extending beyond genetic kin” (157). However, “all mammals, including humans, share the same structures and neurochemicals in the limbic system that are important in processing and expressing what they're feeling” says Mark Beckoff, former Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology with a PhD in Animal Behavior and writer for Psychology Today. He argues that “joy, love, empathy, compassion, kindness, and grief can readily be shared by improbable friends including predators and prey”1.

As Drees says, religion and “religious traditions are adaptions to local historical environments, and as such they provide no grounds for universal claims about reality” (158). Once again, in the study of natural sciences such as in animal behavior, an image of humanity is formed out of the animal world, and when juxtaposed with the “persecution, crusades, holy wars, and colonial imperialism in God’s name” (153), the failures of religion in “fostering altruism” are illuminated. In this, not religious naturalism, evolutionary naturalism is used to answer very basic questions in natural science that religion thinks it can answer.

Evolutionary naturalism, on the other hand, when coupled with aspects of humanism ironically becomes a more perfect religious philosophy. In evolutionary naturalism, nature, as opposed to God, becomes “the object of our worship and obedience” (157), while in humanism, all humans have value, are to be treated with dignity and respect, and humanity is approached with an underlying ethical philosophy based in “reason and science, democracy and human compassion” 2 and a for quest knowledge. In the evolutionary naturalism, nature becomes the self-governing power to which all are dependent. This philosophy aligns with basic scientific understandings of the dependence of everything on well-balanced ecosystems in order to maintain survival; within those ecosystems, through principles of humanism, additional balances are maintained in order to sustain healthy societies. In the “worship and obedience” to nature, the environment is cared for with reverence, and in the valuing and respect of fellow humans beings, social welfare becomes equally paramount.

Noticeable in this chapter was the propensity of the potential for sections to overlap. For example, naturalism in the conflict “box” could almost transition into the integration, if only there was a removal of God from religion. In the independence and dialogue “boxes”, concepts of God as an agent of causality, and God as designer, along with the differing limitations, play with the same ideas of deistic intervention. In this way, the God-center of religion is clear and becomes the major barrier in how religion and science can or can’t get along.

According to Barbour, neo-orthodox writers such as Karl Barth claim, “God controls. orders, and determines” everything and “nothing can be done except the will of God” for he “predetermines and foreordains” (160). Barbour states that in this “all causality in the world is completely subordinate to God” (161) where the “intentions of an agent [and of God]” cannot be seen or supposed “in a limited span of time” (163), so God’s intentions can never be realized. In this theory of complimentary language, Barbour claims that “language of divine action” becomes “an alternative to scientific language, not as a competitor with it” (163). However, the very nature of a creating alternative gives birth to competition between the practitioners of the two alternatives to become the most accepted alternative. Watts’ supposes that complementary language, the natural versus the theological/spiritual, “describe[s] inherently related things from different points of view”. I would dispute that they are not related things, but they are unrelated things, one in which the point of view stems from the evidence-based, and the other of which the point of view is based in faith, a blind non-evidence based belief, where they are only made relatable by obligation and imagination.

It gets sticky when people reject the classical (original) teaching of the Bible. Where God is in control, dialogue presents God as “designer of self-organizing processes” (164) in which chance becomes a mechanism or an agent, even though, according to Barbour, “chance is the [logical] antithesis of design” (165). The non-acceptance of “the clock-maker God who designed every detail of a determined mechanism” (165) completely alters the traditional teachings of the bible and religion, in which “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3, ESV) where “he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17, ESV). These, and many other verses, along with the declaration by God that everything created in Genesis One was “good”, are not congruent with redefining God’s role. The rejection of the completeness of God’s “intelligent design” therefore renders all the teachings incorrect and in so renders religion obsolete. For if you can simply redesign the core of God’s role in religion at will, then deconstruction is never ending, and if it is never ending then God and religion become a hollow reed which bends to the needs of sentimental clinging, and is no longer the sustainable thing it was created to be. For instance, the continuously creative God of Gregerson (165) is not the “omnipotent sovereign [God] of the classical tradition” (166) and the danger then becomes f

Through personal analogies of God in areas such as dialogue and integration, sweeping contradictory ideas of what God and his role is in science and religion becomes problematic. For instance, in religion, when cast as a loving creator seeking an intimate active relationship with his creations, who is then vengeful if you do not love him back in the way he wants, God becomes weak in the eyes of those who understand that pure love is not jealous or vengeful…as taught by the Bible itself. In science, when trying to attach responsibility of causality to the role of the creator, and designing him as distant and inactive in attempt to integrate him into science, the purpose of his creations falls to pieces and acts of worship such as prayer are negated and pointless. It becomes hard to maintain the ideal that mankind was created to seek a close personal relationship with a creator who is actively and intimately involved in order for you to desire to carry out his will, which is how the Bible frames Him, after casting Him as a dispassionate uninvolved. Meanwhile, Ward’s asserts that God’s power and knowledge is subject to “voluntary self-limitation” […] “because God at any time could destroy or modify the world” (168) casting him as an active practitioner in nature and humanity means he is the responsible for all manner of atrocities toward the innocent that persist.

Even worse, when trying to fit God into science through the eye of religion as a loving yet passive master who respects your freedom, yet owns your soul, that according to Biblical text [“the soul who sins shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4), for one] punishes you for exercising that freedom contradicts Murphy and Ellis’ claim that God “does not coerce our obedience” (169) and therefore can fit into science. Fiddes then claims that “god has freely chosen and accepted self-limitation for the sake of human freedom. (168) A God who gives you the choice to love him, but if you don’t you face “everlasting punishment”, speaks to nothing but tyranny. These subjective natures of religion, in which lack of congruence and sustainability is revealed, once again showing the distinctions between the congruence of science and ambiguousness of religion that keeps them on separate grounds.

Crazy attempts of integration to cast God as Determiner in theology of nature fails, whereby “God providentially controls the events that appear to us by chance” through the actualization of “one of the many potentialities already present”. The claim is that preserved through this is “the traditional idea of predestination” where “nothing happens by chance”. However, loss of freedom lies with use of terms such as “control”, “foreseen” and “predetermined”, and contradicts the assumption of the authors of the theory that “God as Determiner” is being framed “in such a way that human freedom is not violated”. (170-171)

Process Theology is just a reinvention of religion, a “Reformulating the classical view of God’s relation to the world” (174). Like with evolutionary naturalism, in pantheism, where god is with world as opposed to theism where god is separate and transcendent, the mind/body connection situates God in the world, making him a part of it, and according to Jantzen, would “lead us to respect nature and would encourage ecological responsibility” (173-174).

After several chapters, my mind remains relatively unchanged about the potential for science and Western religion to be much more than conflicting theories that cause argument. On a personal level, after really thinking about the nature of things and the concept of God, I have come to the conclusion even if there was actual proof of a God, I would not “fall to my knees” for him. Additionally, the very nature of God is contradictory, petty, jealous, controlling, insecure, and narcissistic, which if anything, is enough to determine that perhaps we are not created in God’s image, but rather God is created in ours.

Source:
- Ian, Barbour G. When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2000. N. pag. Print.
- "Bible Gateway." BibleGateway.com: A Searchable Online Bible in over 100 Versions and 50 Languages. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. <http://www.biblegateway.com/>.

Citation:
[1] Bekoff, Marc. "Odd Couples: Compassion Doesn't Know Species Lines." Web log post. Animal Emotions: Do Animals Think and Feel. Psychology Today, 28 Oct. 2012. Web. 08 Apr. 2014. <http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201210/odd-couples-compassion-doesnt-know-species-lines>.
[2] "American Humanist Association." American Humanist Association. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://americanhumanist.org/>

...More From This Class:

- On Being Certain: A Critical Reflection in Four Parts (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-being-certain-critical-reflection-in.html)
- A Critical Reflection on 'Free Will' by Sam Harris (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-reflection-on-free-will-by.html)

Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 4 of 5

With a mere month left of classes things are about to start heating up. Two ten page term papers due within a month (one in Political Science, one in Interpersonal Communications), a final big multimedia convergence project, not to mention final exams and the mountains of reading assignments and studying in between.

We're heading into the final chapter today, and it's pretty exciting to be close to the finish line on this one. Only one more book left to read for this particular class (Next on the docket is True To Life: Why Truth Matters by Michael P. Lynch) and it's kind of unfortunate. This class is pretty much the highlight of the week.

Next week the final entry for this book will be posted. So far nobody has had any negative comments on any of them, so one can only assume that the handful of people who have been reading this series of reflection papers agrees with everything. Implicit agreement by silence. 

Maybe we just want an argument.

This chapter got a little hairy, since it involved multiple scientific disciplines, but it was no less fun to play around with.

Here ya go.

Critical Reflection on ‘When Science Meets Religion’ by Ian G. Barbour

Chapter 5: Genetics, Neuroscience, and Human Nature

Overall, this chapter presented more vague and varied concepts that previous chapters. This made it difficult to hold onto a common thread in the theme of scientific versus religious views on human nature and the evolution of morality. This can probably be explained by the general infancy of the fields of genetics and neuroscience when compared to the much older history of study in the fields of astronomy, quantum physics, and evolution.

In the study of consciousness, understanding becomes influenced by the observer, or as Crick says, interpretation of what is observed depends on “symbolism by each conscious organism” (122), so meaning of the observer is applied to the outcome. Past that, further theories of reductive materialism in relation to consciousness appear ridiculous. The way in which Dennett describes self and consciousness, disembodied from each other, leaves an image of a floating brain that is simply generating environments, events, images, and “multiple draft scenarios” in which we are entirely unaware. This almost makes it appear as if the brain has intention, which Dennett then goes on to reject in his theory of the intentional stance of human action. Once again, the brain becomes the master, and we are merely a blindfolded puppet - or, worse, as Dennett proposes, “robots made of robots”. (123)

Curiously, in the summary of a Times story by Wright, supporting the sociobiology and human morality stance, Wright claims that there are genetic basis for both infidelity and criminality, and that they are part of all human genetics. Barbour posits that according to Wright, the belief in free will leads to “deterrents to criminal behavior”, deterrents such as an understanding of “responsibility and punishment”, but conveniently leaves out how that same belief in free will can deter infidelity. (125) It seems completely overlooked in that brief section that much of what maintains order in society, in overcoming (or expressing) genetic base-animal instincts and behavior, is done through reward/punishment systems, not just infidelity and criminal behavior, but also violence, compassion and altruism, and love. Even further, similar systems exist in “low-level” organisms of nature, both in the wild and in domesticated animals and house pets. So then, the responsibility felt through free will does not necessarily account for the suppression of the genetic drive, but rather becomes determined by the perceivable reward systems of nature1 and/or culture.

In arguments for behavioral genetics, Barbour recognizes that studies such as reports that “the percent of Afro-Americans in prison is nine times that of the white population” (127) which conclude that it’s due to genetic differences, are erroneous. Interpretation of these reports are subject to cultural bias and views, and the ignoring of other aspects involved (such as various social factors) are perpetuated by media preference for publicizing incomplete reports, in lieu of publicizing later reports that contradict the social bias paradigm. This is a good illustration of how concepts of human behavior, perceived as genetically determined, can be historically influenced by persistent culturally constructed archetypes.

Humans are not machines, or “passive stimulus-response mechanisms”, but beings capable of creativity, deliberation, choice (even if choice is limited by laws of nature) and responsibility. The influence of environment and experience on human freedom creates symbiotic environments, which influences human behavior; but within that influence lies freedom over determinism. The sum of experiences influence behavior, it is true that “we cannot choose the cards we have been dealt, but we can to some extent choose what we do with them”. Freedom is the “result of our motives, intentions, and choices and are not externally coerced” and therefore “freedom is self-determination at the level of the person.” (127) Science says that we are animals with genetically wired behaviors, many of which work in congruence with maintaining balance; culturally constructed religion says that we are sinful and must be controlled through religious ideology. There is much conflict between the concept of freedom within the dichotomy of natural science and religion, in which one acts as a clear cohort in behavioral choices, and the other allows for natural expressions.

In the move to the independence of religion and science in human nature, Barbour looks to the various body/soul dualisms in religion. This section wasn’t as clear about the independence between the concepts, and I was left with the opinion that there is no more a disconnect between the body and soul that there is a disconnect from body and mind. They become the same thing. Consciousness, then, is your soul – your mind is your soul. Consciousness is what is gone when you die, the “light” that some may call a soul.

It was interesting to learn that many Catholics’ recognize primate and proto-human hominid evolution as legitimate, but what was more interesting was their theory of evolution of the human soul - that at some point between proto-human hominids and homo sapiens souls began to develop (131). If you consider the soul as a religious concept of human consciousness, this actually works - but in this there is integration, not independence, of science and religion.

Complimentary perspectives in body and soul dualism assert that humans are biological organisms with the obligation to treat other people with dignity and respect. In this perspective, there is no original sin, rather “we are born into a sinful social structure […] that perpetuates racism, oppression, and violence” (134). Ideally then, in this view, matters of the soul requires that there be an element of God. This supports biblical (human created) concepts of sin and redemption. Watts claims, in this dualism “we need to see science and religion as potentially complementary perspectives on the world.” (133). To which I disagree, as demonstrated thus far, perspectives of the world, particularly in the case of human nature, can easily be attained through understanding natural science.

In dialogue, Barbour turns to neuroscience, anthropology and computer science to seek the harmony between religion and science in aspects of human behavior. He speaks of emotions in cognition, which brings to mind a marriage of genetics and environment, nature and nurture, in human nature and behavior. In the embodied self, Arbib says, “actions are guided by perceptions, expectations, and goals” (136) – these expectations and goals are simply a refined understanding of punishments and rewards. If you act in this way, you can expect this outcome, which is the goal. This concept can be demonstrated in simple behavioral studies with lab animals.

The evolutionary role of emotions, such as adoration and fear, are important survival traits, such as when a mother animal protects its young, a lion protects its pride, or any animal senses danger and acts upon it to maintain survival. When created through a cultural (religious) social construction, human created emotions, such as guilt and shame, become an important role in social control (138) and control of behaviors which are perceived outside of normal bounds of cultural manufactured expectations – those emotions are not significant in survival, outside of social constructs.

To touch briefly on Barbour’s assessment of computer science and human nature, there is much development in Artificial Intelligence, in the last fourteen plus years, in which robots with “developmentally acquired capacities” programmed to learn have been created. I respect that there are vast differences between computers (robot brains) and (human) brains, but focusing on the similarities seems far more constructive. The main point I want to address, not having a vast understanding of robotic computer science, is related Barbour’s query as to whether or not it is possible to create a robot with the capacity to love, or to feel other emotions. If you look to the brain as a process computer, and acknowledge that love in humans is a chemical reaction, a response in the circuits, it is not beyond possibility to create a robot, already able to learn, that is capable of love. Even if their feelings of love were fundamentally different from ours, which Barbour supposes, I would argue that it would not make those feeling any less real. (142) For instance, emotions are subjective, you can only know how emotions feel in yourself, and cannot judge the legitimacy of that same emotion, felt differently by another person, based on your personal experience.

Finally, the way in which religion and science is presented to integrate in human nature/behavior is at odds with the general understanding of the role of God of creation. Phillip Hefner purposes that humans are evolutionary co-creators with God in forming “a new level of creation”. This is at odds with almost all biblical teachings, in which God created everything and it was “good”. The only part entirely agreeable is the claims of this section was that “we have a responsibility not only for our own future but also for the rest of the creatures on our planet” (143). There is an underlying responsibility in being a conscious human being. That responsibility comes from an understanding and awareness of the effects of our behaviors, whether genetically or culturally driven, on people and the environment, and that makes humans accountable for the health and well-being of the planet and all things on it.

Source:
Ian, Barbour G. When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2000. N. pag. Print.

Citation:
1. Barron, Andrew B., Eirik Søvik, and Jennifer L. Cornish. "The Roles of Dopamine and Related Compounds in Reward-Seeking Behavior Across Animal Phyla." National Center for Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 12 Oct. 2010. Web. 01 Apr. 2014.

...More From This Class:
- Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion
     Part 1 of 5 (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html)

     Part 2 of 5 (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science_25.html)
     Part 3 of 5 (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/04/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html)
- On Being Certain: A Critical Reflection in Four Parts (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-being-certain-critical-reflection-in.html)
- A Critical Reflection on 'Free Will' by Sam Harris (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-reflection-on-free-will-by.html)

Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 3 of 5

This is part of a series of writings for a class. (More info from the start here: http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html).

You should probably start from the first chapter review in order to have some context. It's worth it. But if you're lazy, you can just read this.

Sorry there hasn't been anything really "interesting" lately, outside of studying...Netflix has stolen our soul...again.

Critical Reflection on ‘When Science Meets Religion’ by Ian G. Barbour

Chapter 4: Evolution and Continuing Creation

The assertion by Barbour in relation to evolutionary continuance, whereby “internal drives of organisms” (92) leads them to “purposive action [which] can eventually lead to physiological changes” (93) and these “novel actions may create new evolutionary possibilities” (116) directly conflicts with Biblical creationism as well as creation theory itself. The primary issue with this is in the refusal of religious institutions to recognize evolutionary theory as legitimate, in any way, is that they take “their God” and hold him wholly responsible for creation. He, who made the world “whole” or complete with a divine and predestined plan, which then renders “chance and human freedom […] ultimately illusionary” (103) then subjects humanity and all things created with it, to pain and chance at will, for unknown perverse purpose. In addition, they don’t account for the evolving of creation over time, now or in the future.

The “blind pitiless indifference” (94) of life displayed by the lack of tangible “rhymes reason or justice” in the universe at large, as expressed by Dawkins, and Dennett’s “mindless, purposeless process” (95) of the environment, speaks directly to the conflict of “intelligent design” in evolution and continuing creation. In intelligent design, there is no element of chance. For example, in the basic construction of a building the professional architect does not leave out structural beams in the plan and leave it up to chance to see what might happen. That is not intelligent, or ethically responsible.

Ideas that God intervenes in evolutionary events, so called God-gaps does not hold logically in any form when consistency is considered. Rather, the element of chance embedded in concepts of evolution free of a God echoes the reality in which “an organism of any sort is a highly integrated and dynamic pattern of interdependent events” (116), events determined by chance, by choice and by environment.

To speak again of the independence of theological and scientific theory on creation, as I have previously, and now supported by Gould, though he has been known to muddle them, religion and science are different domains, and as Toulman states, are “illegitimate mixture of languages” (101). While Gould claims that sociobiology adaptive behavior and moral ethics based from scientific perspective are illegitimate practices in the separation of science and religion, I would argue that the base instincts and ethics of humans are based, as animals, in the primitive realm of the animal kingdom. As animal behavioral science can help realize many types of animals - from elephants to lion, turtles and penguins - display characteristics of moral behavior [1] based in evolutionary instincts, such as various forms of social bonding, both long-term and short-term, and formation of communities. In this realization, it becomes apparent that independence is an incompatible relationship, because down to the very foundation religion then becomes a basic form of social control, not a true source of forming moral aptitude.

Dialogue between the two does not seem to be any more promising that does a relationship of independence, and continues to create conflict in interpretation.

In integration, there is no purpose for a God to propagate evolution of species through a design based on “a subtle interplay of chance and law” (112) in the “potentialities of nature” (102) at all, let alone continually. The creation story, the only basis of “where we come from” in religious belief, completely derails the entire concept of an evolving species of any sort. After all God created each thing and declared it “good” (Genesis 1:20-25), so what would the purpose be of “repurposing those good things”. If His design was truly intelligent, that it should not require alterations, instead intelligent design would indicate a linear direction of “sameness”. As Barbour states, when studied even “over short periods” evolutionary processes display “many directions of change, rather than a progress in one direction” (111). These directions of change indicate that there “seems to be too many blind alleys and extinct species and too much suffering and waste to attribute every event to God’s specific action” (112). Even if you attribute only some of events to God’s action, the element of chance remains, along with an impotent God. “Design is what one would expect with an intelligent and purposeful God […] the presence of chance, evil, and human freedom should lead us to modify classical ideas of omnipotence” (114). The alternative is the recognition of the “self-limitation of God” (115) and of “a distant and inactive God” (114. However, recognition should lead the rational person to question why anyone would want to develop a close personal relationship, as is God’s desired relationship with humans vis-à-vis the claims of Biblical text, with a dispassionate and cruel ruler.

To conclude, Peacocke’s idea that “God designed a system of law and chance through which higher forms of life would slowly come into being” (115) again is highly disproved by the teachings of Genesis in which God created all things whole and in “good” form. Any further interpretations outside of what the text of the Bible provides becomes even more illegitimate than the hearsay already existing in man-made text itself.

Sources and Citation:

Ian, Barbour G. When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2000. N. pag. Print.

"Bible Gateway." Bible Gateway. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1>.

1. Ghose, Tia. "Animals Are Moral Creatures, Scientist Argues." LiveScience. TechMedia
Network, 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. <http://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html>

...More From This Class:
- Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 1 of 5 (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html)

- Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 2 of 5 (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science_25.html)
- On Being Certain: A Critical Reflection in Four Parts (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-being-certain-critical-reflection-in.html)
- A Critical Reflection on 'Free Will' by Sam Harris (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-reflection-on-free-will-by.html)

Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 2 of 5

Spring break is [finally] over. Let's just say, most of us cannot wait until graduation. (after next Spring Semester *fingers crosses*) - for so many reasons. For example...a completed second degree (in the last 10 years, at least 6 of them have been spent in higher education) and the potential for higher income, more time for (recreational) reading and writing,
Not to mention, we're planning on moving west...to the edge.
Anyway, extensive winter weather, impotent culture and staying in one place for long periods has never been conducive to this wayward existence. It makes parts of the brain itchy.

While the final "grade" will not be received until tomorrow night for this...(let's be honest +s and -s are not grades by conventional standards) [update as of 3/26 : this got a "++" - an above high standards mark]...what follows is part of a series in a University class we're taking (<- click here for 1 of 5 to get context) about truth and reality. Come on. It'll be fun!)

Critical Reflection on ‘When Science Meets Religion’ by Ian G. Barbour
Chapter 3: The Implications of Quantum Physics

In the three interpretations of quantum uncertainties, Heisenberg’s theory of indeterminacy principle was more logical and attractive, particularly because it supports the concept of free will. As theoretical physics Micho Kaku says of the indeterminacy principle, it supports the notion that “no one can determine your future events given your past history. There’s always the wild card. There’s always the possibility of uncertainty in whatever we do”.  Barbour states that if we set the world back to point A, it would not necessarily end up at the previously actualized Z, because the potentiality of different events would change the course. (69) This seems like a good support for the concept of free will.

The conflict between religion and indeterminacy seems unnecessary. In a concept that supposes that everything is up to chance, there is room for “God-given” freedom, whereas in the deterministic concept, that says everything is preordained, there is no room for making your own choices and therefor no room to exercise the freedom purported by theologians. Again, even when scientific principles can get along with religious ones, religion has to argue about it. At the end, it’s just utter ridiculousness in the first place, because what some are arguing to defend is some “divine purpose” that comes down to being nothing more than creation for the sake of worship.

In the independence of science and religion, Barbour’s stance on Bohr’s Complimentary Principle models of phenomena that the concept is acceptable as long as “they refer to the same entity and are of the same logical type” (77) makes complete sense. For instance, one cannot compare a dog and a banana, though one might say that the molecules that make up the dog and the banana can be compared. On a logical level, it is hard to understand why anybody would argue for something so restraining in the scientific world. In addition, Complimentary Principle seems limited in that it insinuates that we can only choose between two things. Something can only be this or that, when in fact, it is possible for something to be this and that. Of course, if something could be both this and that, then inferred support for dialogue and integration in science and religion occurs, despite the different purposes they serve.

            The idea that something is not real until observed and/or recorded, as asserted by Wheeler in his “observer-created universe” theory, (79) while it could support a theory for a non-existent God almost appears preposterous. However, it actually brought to mind that philosophical question-turned-idiom, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” , to which one might ask, if you’re not in the forest and you hear a tree fall, was it a tree that fell.

            Staune’s supposition that quantum physics “cannot” fully explain reality (83) completely ignores the potentiality of it, that it can’t explain it yet, he doesn’t even assume that the possibility is there, just that because it can’t it opens up the dialogue for the existence of God. Had countless scientists came to this same conclusion, that because one field of science could not explain the thing it was attempting to explain now…“then God”, science would be nowhere. In this dialectic approach there is no need to continue attempts of discovery.

Western religions are not compatible with the integration of science and religion; their concepts are too rigid and unyielding. While Eastern religions may be more compatible, Barbour seems to present enough evidence to imply it would not be wholly compatible. (84-85) There can be no discussion of Western religion without addressing God. The Judeo Christian concept of God is that of a being which created the universe, has the ability to intervene and manipulate its creation (even though s/he/it clearly doesn’t), and has grand design for life. If they can shed the man-invented fantasy that humans were formed in the image of “their God”, and remove that level of egotism from the notion of a “divine being”, they are then free to look to concepts in quantum physics for a more realistic structure.  The quantum atom of quantum theory, which is “inaccessible to direct observation and unimaginable in terms of everyday properties” (67) brings to mind a concept of a God (not to be confused with Higgs Boson) that is far more realistic that a single being. Acceptance of such a theory and stripping away the man-designated name and image of “God”, would be the only way in which to integrate science and Western religion. Removing the personhood and supposed aspects in the concept of God, given that all things are made up of atoms, we can acknowledge that God is not a thing, but everything, worthy of admiration, respect and discovery, not praise and obedience. In this, then, can science and religion be integrated.

Source
Ian, Barbour G. When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2000. N. pag. Print.

Citation

Michio Kaku: Quantum Physics Ends the Free Will Debate - Atheist Nexus. Perf. Michio Kaku. Michio

Kaku: Quantum Physics Ends the Free Will Debate - Atheist Nexus. BigThink.com, 24 June 2011. Web. 11 Mar. 2014. <http://www.atheistnexus.org/group/freewillanintelligentchoice/forum/topics/michio-kaku-quantum-physics>

...More From This Class: 
- Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 1 of 5 (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/03/critical-reflections-on-when-science.html)

- On Being Certain: A Critical Reflection in Four Parts (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-being-certain-critical-reflection-in.html)

- A Critical Reflection on 'Free Will' by Sam Harris (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-reflection-on-free-will-by.html)

Critical Reflections on When Science Meets Religion - Part 1 of 5

There are six chapters in 'When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?' by Ian G. Barbour, each week the students of the class we attend are assigned reading assignments, this is the third book of four for the semester (below this entry are links to other writings from the other two). As opposed to the last book for the class (On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not by Robert Burton) where the students were assigned several chapters at a time, this book is being dissected one chapter at a time per week.

The content of 'When Science Meets Religion' is heavy. For instance, the critical reflection paper handed in tonight (which will be posted in two weeks) was on The Implications of Quantum Physics in religion. To say we know nothing about Quantum Physics would be an understatement - however, we know more now that we did before. So that's something.

To provide some bases for understanding, each chapter is set out with the idea that there are four ways in which science and religion can get along - Conflict, Independence, Dialogue and Integration. Each of these has implications and levels of potential cohesiveness (or, non cohesiveness, in the case of 'Conflict', which is most of ours' pet views...so far...).

Within each of those views is a type of scientific study. For instance, chapter two is about astrology, Barbour sets astrology in each box [Conflict, Independence, Dialogue and Integration] and discusses how they can or can't work, using different examples from scientists in various fields.

The goal of the readings, the reflection papers, and the two hour class discussion each week, is to bounce ideas and theories off of each other, to broaden the approach and ways of thinking, to debate and philosophize new ideas and new thoughts. The class is based on Truth, Knowledge and Reality, after all. And how can one understand those without thinking about them on a basic (yet not so basic) level.

Since the topics are so heavy in nature, future entries will be one chapter at a time, but for today, we submit to you the first two chapters, to read, to contemplate, to comment on. Because open and respectful debate is a key to learning.

If you've even made it this far, congratulations...you're an intellectual as far as we're concerned.
If you keep reading, you just might find a dick joke embedded in one of the chapter reflections. (the instructor thought it was funny). The two papers got a +, and a ++, respectively. [That'll make sense to the people who have read other things here from this class].

Enjoy.

Critical Reflection on ‘When Science Meets Religion’ by Ian G. Barbour

Chapters 1 - Four Views of Science and Religion

According to Barbour, scientific materialism and biblical literalism “rival literal statements about the same domain” (11). Straight to the conflicts. There are so many, when there should not be any, and that is because people try to put science and religion in too much of the same domain. This will appear to be a hodge-podge of statements on various parts of chapter one, which will hopefully end in a cohesive analysis of my general opinion of what Barbour has set forth in chapter one.

Science and the Bible/Religion, in modern terms, are of different domains. It is true that at one time religion and the Bible were “the science of the age” used to explain the mysteries of the natural world, as well as serving as an alleged handbook to good behavior (more to come on that), but now we have…actual science…to explain the things of the world, and the Bible, as a historical literary work (some might say moral guidebook).

In the integration of religion and science, Barbour says the Theology of Nature states “God creates through the whole process of law and chance, not by intervening in the gaps of the process” (32). This sounds like…science. For what purpose would mankind need a creator with divine non-involvement. What then becomes the purpose of prayer in creation and maintenance by chance; and isn't “law and chance” the basic premise of scientific theory and The Big Bang, which was a chance happening involving scientific laws? The theology of nature sounds like science free of an active creator, which is to say, free of theology.

Don’t be mistaken, the Bible is a wonderful book of religion, a mesmerizing historical text and an often beautiful literary work, that is to say it is not a book of facts, or a book of scientific nature. The Bible can be studied for historical information, though given the nature of how often even historical “facts” of modern days often do not hold up against scrutiny and realism, one can be sure that the historical information within the pages of the Bible are prone to containing a clear bias and half-truths at best. The Bible provides a general snap-shot of a way of thinking among people of a particular a period of time. Books of the Bible serve as basic genealogy. Even further, books of the Bible offered a confused people explanations of weather (The Book of Job, Chapter 37), explanation of childbirth…

“As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.” Ecclesiastes 11:5 KJV

or maybe not…and even gave reason to why people from different geographical areas spoke different languages (The Tower of Bable).

The Bible, and therefore religion, also provided guides to being a good person, such as the parable of The Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 KJV. What the Bible is not, is a book about tried and tested scientific hypothesis with measurable results. What instrumentalists say of science, I say of religion, that religion is a “convenient human construct” (21). People of biblical times used it as a way of understanding the world around them, but since then more sophisticated ways have been created to understand the stars, weather, reproduction and language. Therefore, as a “textbook” of actual scientific discovery, it has no grounds. As Barbour says, in the section on Conflict, preventing conflict is done by “separating science and religion to interpret then as languages that are unrelated because their functions are totally different” (19).

However, to some it is still essential as a way of getting meaning out of life, with constructed parables to illustrate and understand “good” human behavior. The bible provides a concept of evil to assist in the understanding of bad things that happen. For instance, if you are to believe that humans are just higher-developed animals, there is no “evil”, there are only people who act on their baser instincts with no remorse for their fellow beings; but if you are to believe humans are not animals, and even separate from them, then an explanation for the bad things they do must have a “villain” and “evil”…a Satan or Devil.

Strong arguments can be made over broad-stroke statements indicating the Bible is an illustration of human dignity, or that religion is good, given the atrocities carried out in history beneath the banner of ‘Religion’. In fact, at times, the Bible is full of pure contradiction, not to mention a handbook on who and how to hate. It is a book about starting wars, oppressing and mistreatment of ethnic groups (a.k.a. strangers to the land), and degrading women (as property and whores) while illustrating their untrustworthiness and “evil nature” (see: Adam and Eve, Samsun and Delilah), offering little demonstration in favor. It swings from interpretations of wealth and poverty, of war and peace. Anybody who has read the Bible knows there can be no literal interpretation not only for Science, but even as a guide on how to live, is a touch unsalable – the Bible is full of contradictions, false “science” and false “humanity” and is prone to cherry-picking to justify some of the most heinous of human indignities.

What I find most interesting in the science and religion debate is when the two overlap in theory, only then do the religious fundamentalists deny Bible “truth”. This is particularly seen in the area of climate change. If one was to analyze Revelations, and the stories in books and chapters related to it, in the Bible, it directly speaks about climate change, yet more often than not it’s the Christian (Republicans) that believe the concept of climate change to be a hoax, simply because scientific evidence supports it, despite their own guiding text hailing famine as part of the fourth seal. How do they imagine famine will fore come without the drought and floods produced by climate change? This is not to say I buy into the idea that “the end of the times” was foretold by men who lived in the desert thousands of years ago, or that climate change is even part of it. It is an interesting phenomenon that when parts of the Bible can “actually be backed up with scientific explanation” Biblical literalists/fundamentalists tend to deny the “truth” in it. Scientific Materialism, which states “scientific method is the only reliable path to knowledge” (11), is reminiscent of the knowledge of foretold by biblical apocalypse, according to some interpretations of Daniel 12:4. So, at the end of the day, it makes sense that religion fears or moves to distrust science on some level, because science is knowledge, the apple from the tree, an echo from the horn of the apocalypse.

Finally, I do not agree with the support for Independence from instrumentalism that states “scientific theories are not representative of reality by useful intellectual and practical tools” (21), as if Biblical fairytales are at all representative of reality themselves. I find the fact that anybody would consider religion and science happy bedfellows astounding. They have two different purposes: one is far more useful in gaining knowledge and an understanding of the world and people, and the other makes a mighty terrifying and seat-gripping bedtime story.

Chapter 2 - Astronomy and Creation

Three minutes before The Big Bang. Billions of years and it often comes down to arguments about those three minutes as proof of a creator by theologians, though, according to UW Astronomy professor Bruce Margon, "Only the first 10-43 seconds [now] remain obscure," 1. An inability to determine what happened in the exact moment persistently punches holes in both the theory of the Big Bang, and the theory of God. However, some may conclude that to the educated person the existence of God is less certain, because the idea of “a god” creates the desire for explaining first where God even came from, and second where s/he exited prior to creation. So much has there been a need to explain creation outside of The Big Bang that people like Christian and astronomer Hugh Ross found a need for the manifestation of an extra dimension to explain even the workings of the physical form of God as Jesus on earth. An eleventh dimension whereby the holy and divine existed, in biblical times; one more than purported by highly abstract and untestable string theory (47); which explains his ability to pass through closed doors and walking on water. Guess it beats high magic or sleight of hand trickery.

While I still, as of this chapter reflection, hold strongly that Science and Religion are destined to remain in the “conflict box” for the foreseeable future, I am not without understanding that at some point reconciliation is possible, if only they (and by they, I mean religious literalists) can embrace the two as separate functions. It is through adherence to biblical literalism in relation to Science, that conflict arises. As stated by David Kelsey, “science and religion […] address different questions, and those questions should not be confused” (50). Some might even say that the Bible does a poor job at addressing any questions. As for the “why” of things that the Bible is alleged to answer, the response usually ends at “because God”, and the “how” questions end much the same way in what is essentially a non-answer. What follows then, by me, is a full admission that Science also cannot answer the “whys”. Science can only help you understand only the how. For example, there is no “why” when someone gets cancer, there is only the how – the environmental and biological causes of it. There is no “why” to answer why a baby is born with defects, or someone dies at a young age. There is no real way to answer “why them and not someone else” on a spiritual or Scientific level. Therefore, Science can answer your questions more fully than can religion, which inevitably ends with the God answer. Independent they must stay, but on a level playing field they are not.

In terms of dialogue, more often than not, as stated before, Science and Religion get thrown back into the “conflict box”. There is hardly logical ground made between the two in conversation where there is an attempt to overlap them. For instance, Thomas Torrance’s claim for the potential of differently ordered world (through God’s creativity) contingent on God (53), and the claim that the world did not have to have the order that it did/does, either opens up possibility for more worlds - because if there is potential for different orders of things, then what holds true on earth to create and maintain life, does not have to remain true elsewhere. Essentially this does nothing but work towards disproving religious basis for “one world”, and/or at the same time disproves scientific laws which states very specific things had to happen in order for the world to come into being, because in scientific laws of nature there is only one “order of things”. If the creation of world was/is ultimately dependent on God, then could God, in his infinite creativity, not tamper with the scientific laws and re-order things whenever s/he wants? More pressing, if there was a divine creator of these laws and things, as supposed, why did he not impart the knowledge with the first theoretical bite of the sinful apple – it seems all the knowledge that the apple was supposed to impart, was very basic and for naught in the grand schemes of available infinite knowledge held by an all-knowing creator.

In the integration of Science and Religion, I become more insolent. God as a creator of all things, including science, still leaves the question of purpose hanging in the air. In the significance of humanity, Teilhard de Chardin says, “we should not measure significance by size and duration” (62). (It’s just like a man to make that claim). But is there a reason to measure significance at all? Does existence have to mean anything? And if it does, it seems more realistic that the earth was created spontaneously ex nihilo, without divine creator or purpose, than to think some mysterious being in a (potential) eleventh dimension, or “heavenly location”, created an entire world for the sole purpose of requesting that the more “intellectual” of creations worship her/him/it for the very act. That the belief of the creation of the world via God is the expression of the theories of “dependence” and “gratitude” (59) to God, as set forth by biblical text, is nothing more than a master-slave relationship. If that were true, that the whole purpose for existence was for the praise and worship of the being that created it, then that being pretty much takes narcissism to a new…dimension.

____________________________________________

Sources:
Ian, Barbour G. When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners. N.p.: HarperCollins, 2000. N. pag. Print.

Citation:
1. Alles, David L. "Alles Introductory Biology Lectures: An Introduction to Science and Biology for Non-Majors." Lecture. Western Washington University, Bellingham. 4 Mar. 2014. Western Washington University. Web. 4 Mar. 2014. <http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/Cosmological_Evolution.pdf>.

...More From This Class: 

- On Being Certain: A Critical Reflection in Four Parts (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/on-being-certain-critical-reflection-in.html)

- A Critical Reflection on 'Free Will' by Sam Harris (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-reflection-on-free-will-by.html) 

On Being Certain: A Critical Reflection In Four Parts

Didn't want to post this tonight, because the previous post was more important (and funnier) - The New Discrimination: Because Freedom Is Only For Straight People. However, once a blog post is done, it's hard to let it sit in the draft folder...so...there ya go. No patience. It's only one of so many issues.

Over the span of four weeks the class on truth and knowing (and reality) that we've been taking was tasked to read sections of 'On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right, Even When You're Not' by Robert A Burton and write critical reflection papers to bring to class, which would be used as talking points for the two hour discussions each week (and which they hardly ever are, as 15+ University students are prone to [amazing] tangents).

What follows is the four papers, a critique in four parts, of various lengths, and varying coherency, on impressions and thoughts of the readings which cover a lot of material on the unconscious (subconscious) and conscious and what drives feelings, thoughts and emotions and the way people form certainties of perceived knowledge. (That was your warning to turn back now.)

Honestly, the book is a mind fuck, even for a mind already fucked up (but not especially). However, it presents some really interesting ways to view free will and human thinking and motivation.

The beauty of the class is that it makes you think, and you're never wrong for your opinion, because there are no real wrong answers when it comes to feeling and the study of neurological bases for it (yet)...just weird philosophies on why and how feelings happen (with some scientific basis), which you are free to agree with or not agree with, like anything else in the world.

Have we mentioned this is our favourite class? It is. It allows us to be very tongue-in-cheek.

It's notable that in the grading scheme of papers, in which the highest marks are as follows "+, +✓,✓,-✓"..."grading" scheme - these papers received +, ++. ++ , and + respectively. Meaning the two middle ones are better than the highest mark. Not sure why. The instructor is a little "weird".

Without further adieu...

Critical Reflection on ‘On Being Certain’ by Robert A. Burton in Four Parts...

- Chapters 1-5

These chapters were pretty complex, it’s hard to disagree with a neurologist on much of what he is claiming. However, it seems there were a few topics to poke fun at while trying to understand. While I respect that there are cognitive functions and subconscious drives and monsters in my brain driving all of my decisions, feelings, and actions, to analyze them to such a serious degree almost takes the fun out of being human. If that is what I am. I mean, I know I am human, because I feel that I am human…but I could be wrong. What came first, the knowing or the feeling. “He does not know what he knows” (9)…so s/he knows nothing, and s/he knows everything. Because if s/he does not know, then you surely don’t know, so nobody knows…so s/he might as well know everything, you know?

Without a sense of knowing simply based on a feeling, would there even be obscure belief systems, would people have unique views. That’s rhetorical, of course.

Most of religion, for example, is based on a feeling, which makes them think they know it’s real. But then by that token, isn't my own feeling that, say, religion is just a man-made construct of control, which leads me to know it’s not real and it is not something I want to take a part in, just as real, or unreal, as their knowing based on their feeling. Given that there is no “real” evidence to support their feeling, argument can be made that there is more proof that religion is man-made than there is proof that it is not…OR is that only my feeling of knowing, and in fact none of us know anything.

In my opinion, information is what shifts the not knowing to knowing, not a feeling. When reading the paragraph that turned out to be about a kite, I had no “feeling” about the paragraph, I thought it was an abstract sort of prose and read it as such, which made it both comprehensible and meaningless all at the same time, being open to reinterpretation at any turn. Was that thought a feeling?

The concept of the feeling of knowing is too highly subject to bias, personal notions, brain function, and missing data – which can be inevitable in any given situation. My mind reels at the content of these five chapters, and I find myself hating brains, they are not to be trusted. It’s a good thing I’m not a zombie.

- Chapters 6-10

Sometimes I feel like I could live forever, but I know that I can’t. At least I’m pretty sure that I can’t. What is the mechanism in the brain that makes me think I feel a certain way so that I have a feeling of knowing in the first place? I am finding with the reading of Burton that I have fewer opinions, opinions being my usual mode when I set out to write about something that I am learning, and am ending up with more questions. For instance, if the unconscious part of the brain that directs our conscious brain truly is just genetically wired synapses and neurons firing in rapid response to stimuli, essentially controlling our emotions, instinct, and being, what are the motives behind its puppetry? It “appears” that it is wired to know what it is doing, if it wasn't our species would cease to exist, would we not? The brain cannot exist without us, and we cannot exist without it. Yet the brain seems to have hidden motives, and we think we have control of it. It can almost be likened to some obligatory symbiotic parasitic relationship.

If it is true that genes play such an integral or core role in thought and behavior, doesn't that make gene isolation to control behavior possible; and wouldn't that take away freewill? Isn't that in itself, the idea that by isolating a gene you can effect whether or not someone will behave in a certain way, a valid argument for the existence of freewill (what you don’t have cannot be taken away)? Also, some could argue that there is a dangerous nature in playing with genetics and finding out how genetics, DNA, dictate behavior. It almost brings to mind some Orwellian/Minority Report/Hitler nightmare where they breed out characteristics by isolating and removing genes in order to control the population in all matters of action. Eek!

Turning then to the nature of thought, is a thought that hasn't reached awareness even a really a thought? When does a thought begin? Does a thought not dictate some awareness or action by the thinker, and if not, and our unconscious is thinking and we don’t know, does that make the unconscious conscious? Burton seems to allege that a thought begins before it begins, at least if I’m understanding him correctly, and only when your unconscious releases the information it’s been working on to create that though, does it become a thought…but it was already a thought before it became a thought. The unconscious is starting to sound like the concept of a God. Circular logic inclined to much tail chasing.

Using the information Burton presents, one way I constructed a level of understanding of thought and the unconscious is to look at the relation of the process of the operation of a computer and an application. Suppose the mind is a computer with an application (idea/information) that runs in the background (unconscious brain). The application (idea/information) is passive until activated/called on, but it’s not actually operating (thinking) until you activate and manipulate it, bring it to “life” (it becomes a thought).

A thought leading to a conscious feeling of knowing is usually in response to information stimuli calling upon stored information in your unconscious, is it not? I don’t go about the day having a general feeling of knowing, or not knowing, until I encounter something that demands the feeling. I don’t have a thought until something I hear, see, taste, touch, and/or smells, elicits my brain to call up on my information bank and evoke a memory or a feeling, or raise a question to be solved, no matter how mundane. Awareness then, “we know we know things, which is what leads to feelings of knowing” (Lehrer), is key to the feeling.

The theory of calling on memories and the role of episodic memory role in achieving a feeling of knowing was very interesting, but I thought perhaps a little flawed in how Burton presented it. The examples he gave, whether something is perceived as hot or cold, bland, or spicy, is a similar to the example where one person’s red might not be another person’s red, or that a house is colder to one person than another. Memories based on perceptions, based on sensations, is almost a part of what makes a person an individual. “I am nothing if not my past” (Burton 83), but if you conclude that everything about your past can be misinterpreted or wrong because you remembered a piece of chicken being dry while another person remembered it relatively moist…what does that say about you. Now, there are certainly very important pieces of information that when wrong can corrupt memories, like in cases of actual events where someone remembers something that did not actually happen. The idea that Burton presented “that everybody should draw the same conclusion if given the same information” (102) speaks to a sort of concentration, or reduction or individuality, an idealist robotic response system free of birth from individual experience, perceptions, and sensations; un-unique. What would anybody have to talk about if everybody thought the same thing? Individual thinking would become needless, meaningless; one person could do it for everybody. There would be total loss of the satisfaction that comes from simply thinking and contemplating, and debating with peers.

In matters of action, there is some definite underlying truth that immediate reward and a feeling of instant gratification is definitely a seductive motivation for human behavior. If anything, it is a simple way to understand why something as simple as social media is so popular - people get near instant satisfaction from instant validation for thoughts and ideas, pictures and life events, and so people keep going back like a rat to a morphine lever. Addiction to social media is an addiction like any other, only the gratification is not money, or sexual release, or an intoxicating buzz; the gratification, the award, is validation for being yourself. There’s probably nothing more twisted to be addicted to. However, without dopamine releasing satisfaction there is inaction in everything, without dopamine creating these feelings there is no motivation.

As a side, if the role of dopamine responses alone are responsible for innate risk tolerances leading to “award-based” addiction, then that should mean controlling addicts with dopamine manipulating medications would or should be fairly successful.

My final thought…on thought. Burton claims “If there is any single area of human thought over which we believe that we have control, it is in our ability to decide whether or not there is a God, a perfect hereafter, fire and brimstone, or that we are insignificant specks in a meaningless universe governed by chance.” (104) Why can’t there be something in between “God” and “insignificant specks in a meaningless universe”?! Maybe we are beings with a divine goal of understanding and enjoying the universe that surrounds us…governed by our brains.

Citations:
Lehrer, Johan. "Feelings of Knowing." Web log post. The Frontal Cortex. Science Blogs, 21 June 2010. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2010/06/21/feelings-of-knowing/>.
Burton, Robert Alan. On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not. New York: St. Martin's, 2008. Print.

- Chapters 11-12 

“To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

― Confucius

Burton starts off early in chapter eleven calling for “[…] a switch that stops infinite ruminations and calms our fears of missing an unknown superior alternative” (125), appearing to ignore that some people have a form of that switch, which leads them to rest on a final belief or conviction, what they feel is a conclusion, and be less apt to explore the “what if” narrative. The world is full of those kinds of people. Even more unsettling is that he does not see that the “fear” (I wouldn't call it that) associated with “missing an unknown superior alternative”, is necessary, is what breeds innovation and curiosity and discovery. If people could just flip the switch whenever they were “fearful” so much would be lost. It’s all very fortunate, this statement he made, since it drove me to approach chapter eleven and twelve of On Being Certain with a desire to seek a “superior alternative” to much of what he has set forth to assert in the book, keeping with the logical declaration that “recognition and sensation of thought are integral to any theory of mind” (Burton, 138).

What came first: the thought…or the thought? Perhaps more aptly, is a thought without a thought still a thought? Burton speaks of the division of the process and awareness of thinking in unconscious and conscious thought (129), so thinking becomes a two-process occurrence. Since the unconscious is unaware, it seems fair to assume that what precedes a thought is a process, not a thought; that the operation of the unconscious is a process that only becomes a thought due to awareness - so then to use the term unconscious “thought” seems disingenuous.

In the example where we are to consider the different ways we might interpret two situations - one of an abandoned computer left to run an experiment, which still coming up with the answer, and then that of a writer who, thwarted by the difficulty of writing an epic novel find himself waking one day with the book in its entirety, ready to leap from his mind onto pages, a commonality exists making them no different than one another. That commonality is a conscious initiation - the conscious thought that moved to the initial action, which led to the unconscious process, ending in a result. Alternatively, one could argue that the process between the initiation and result, called “unconscious thought”, is deserving of its own name or title, not to be entangled with the same concept of how conscious thought is understood. Without considering the source of the conscious thought leading to the initial action of course, but let’s apply a little suspension of belief.

As Burton states, “unconscious thoughts” do not have a sensation of willful effort and intention. They are unfelt. He makes the assertion that conscious thoughts have been “prescreened and assigned a high likelihood of being worth pursuing than those ideas that did not reach consciousness” by the unconscious, and that “how the unconscious decides what should be delivered into consciousness is a matter of fierce debate” (134) [italics mine]. If the unconscious is loaded with, “unrecognized agendas, motivations, and complex ill-defined innate predispositions” (155) that controls our conscious mind, as Burton claims, would it not seem more likely that our unconscious is actually conscious just as conscious as our conscious, since it’s in control.

This leads one to consider a couple of things.

First, when something is pulled up from the unconscious by order of “importance” into the consciousness due to supposed “prescreening and assignment” by the unconscious, how can we be certain there is anything else in the unconscious at the time, or ever, to select from in the first place. Consciously try to search the unconscious thoughts, and you may be left with the most beautiful silence imaginable. If there was something there, wouldn't something materialize? Of course if you sat there long enough eventually something would materialize, but it would be out of consciousness due to stimuli or lack of. It might be because there is nothing there to prescreen because the unconscious is empty without the consciousness. After all, nobody can know for certain how the unconscious works, or even if it exists, it is just a theory, an imagination of understanding how random things come to mind. Perhaps better stated by Thoreau, “when one man has reduced a fact of the imagination to be a fact to his understanding, I foresee that all men at length establish their lives on that bases”. (11)

Secondly, the act of the unconscious “deciding” involves judgment and consideration, conscious cognitive processing, a conscious unconscious. So then, instead of two separate functioning parts with one feeding the other, that create two different kinds of thoughts, one might see the conscious and unconscious as two conscious’ working in tandem - one sensory consciousness and one thought consciousness that create thought. For how can the “unconscious” make conscious thoughtful decisions independently, free of intention and awareness? Without awareness, which “unconscious thought” is without, “we need a sensory appreciation [awareness] of the world in order to give our thoughts palpable meaning”, says Burton (126).

The awareness of thought is a fundamental attribute to conscious thought. What is a thought without awareness? What is a thought without palpable meaning? It is nothing until the conscious makes it something palpable. Therefore, whatever the unconscious manifests is not “unconscious thought”, but a process of the marriage between sensory consciousness and thought consciousness. Again, what I am claiming is that something unfelt and unperceived, created by the unconscious, free of meaning, and intent, is not a thought. Therefore, there are no unconscious thoughts.

Burton goes on to say that “feelings of certainty, conviction, rightness and wrongness, clarity and faith arise out of involuntary mental sensory systems that are integral and inseparable components of the thoughts that they qualify” (139). This is interesting, as it gives an impression that Burton does not attribute any learned knowledge and experiences to thoughts, primarily just feelings that arise magically out of an involuntary system, nor does this account for sources of change in these so-called “involuntary mental sensory systems” which may cause an individual to change their thoughts about a conviction or certainty. What seems more likely, from this account, is that thoughts are because of that sneaky unconscious of yours, driven by hunches, gut feelings and intuitions, “mental sensations” and emotionally driven responses, because goodness, how could you ever be responsible for the way you think and feel in any way.

This is all very fun and good, to mull over years of the study of the mind, especially in light of its theoretical nature, and play at different ways of understanding of it, but perhaps I approach it with bias. I feel that I have not given Burton enough credit, simply because I don’t necessarily agree with him. He does have some valid opinions, particularly in the way of biased thinking and its predominantly emotional foundation. The only way to overcome it, he says, is through “ruthless self-reflection” and introspection, but then he has to go and assert that introspective self-examination towards personal improvement is fallible and tied to free will, which “assumes we possess a portion of mind that can rise above the biological processes that generated it” (141).

If we were to take it one-step further and ascribe to the theories of the illusion on consciousness by cognitive scientist and philosopher, Dan Dennett, who considers consciousness and free will brain tricks, we can easily deny free will as we fall slave to the control of the unconscious mind. We don’t have consciousness, and the unconscious (can you have an unconscious without a conscious?) is bias, and as Burton states, so bias that “complete objectivity is not an option” (159) in self-reflection because we can never truly determine if our thoughts are free of bias. We can never really know ourselves because our unconscious thought process is ambiguous and biased, driven by the unconscious and emotions, so life is but a product of self-fulfilling prophecy of the unconscious, and the whole of humanity is slave to what it wants them to believe. As an acquaintance/friend, John Vargas once wrote, perhaps channeling Confucius, "There is only one thing that I know for sure: I don’t know anything that I don’t know.” So with that…I do not know my unconscious, because it will not allow me to, I only know my conscious, and my conscious, knowing nothing, wants to know everything.

Sources and Citation:
Burton, Robert Alan. On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not. New York: St. Martin's, 2008. Print.
"Dan Dennett: The Illusion of Consciousness." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. Ted Conferences, Apr. 2007. Web. 1 Feb. 2014. <http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_our_consciousness.html>.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Virginia: Wilder Publications. 2008. Print
Vargas, John. "My Words." Web log post. I Hate John Vargas. N.p., 4 Feb. 2014. Web. 5 Feb. 2014. <http://www.ihatejohnvargas.com/ihatejohnvargas.com/Rantings/Entries/2014/2/4_My_Words..html>.

- Chapters 13-15

It has to be said, the final chapters of ‘On Being Certain’ were met with a degree of excitement. Finally, the finish line! Burton wraps the last couple of chapters up and still I am left feeling like he said a lot without actually coming to a point. Was he supposed to sway me? Perhaps his intent was simply just to invoke thinking about the matter. As he says, “certainty is not biologically possible” (223), but I can be certain that he did not succeed in talking my brain out of its alleged endeavor to “trick itself”, or me, into thinking we have free will. Nor has there become a sudden loss of self because my personal sense of meaning arises from reason and not faith. He asks if we are better served by reason, or faith, but why can’t they co-exist? I am not convinced that faith automatically suspends reason, or vice versa

Burton asserts that in determining life’s purpose, something beyond ourselves must be acknowledged. While he does not proclaim that he is religious man by any means, he assert that attempting to determine life’s purpose, in trying to discover “why we are here”, a privilege is to be granted by something outside of ourselves. It beg the question; what is wrong with the self being the grantor? So wrapped up in the perceived limits he is imposing on what we can and cannot know about ourselves, he creates his own irrational mind, separate from his sense of self. This I cannot understand. My “sense of self” includes a profound sense of connection with my mind, even when it is clearly not felt as being connected - which took years to understand.

Burton denies the concept of a rational mind, viewing the concept of self, and the understanding of it, to be finite, setting “limits of what we can know” (192), even through introspection and self-assessment. One man’s rational mind sounds like another man’s irrational mind. It sounds irrational to even conceptualize limiting the self of what it can know. There are boundaries to what we can know only because existence is time-sensitive. This does not mean we lack the ability because of “biological constraints […] to know what we know” (197) because of “the irrational mind”. Rather it seems a choice to think your mind irrational and impose restrictions on it. Who says that the rational mind is not capable of flexibility, it seems more logical that a rational mind is capable of more learning and knowing than an irrational mind that has set its boundaries.

Then Burton returns to the hidden later of the mind, which honestly is starting to sound like something made up to explain the parts to the mind he hasn't (or “they” haven’t) figured out yet. Just because it lacks understanding doesn't mean it’s “hidden”…it means it’s unknown. It just works towards another denial of owning responsibility, that “the feelings of correctness, conviction, and certainly aren’t deliberate conclusions and conscious choices. [But] mental sensations that happen to us.” (218) [bold mine]. It leaves me wonder if Burton has experienced profound absences of the senses of choice often in his life, and he himself feels a sense of personal powerlessness. He uses the nature of personal responsibility in conjunctions with the idea of “not knowing”, saying “the most involuntary-appearing act may arise out of a stored intention of which you have no knowledge” (214). The example of the man who harbored feelings for years against a friend who cheated him on a business deal, then twenty years later assaulted him “unexpectedly”, as if the he had no idea where the intention came from, is ridiculous. If the man had really thought about it and was honest with himself, he would not claim that he “didn’t know what came over [him]” – or perhaps he does know, but it is obviously not what he chose to admit publicly, that it was simply stored resentment. It’s not rocket science.

Of course, “unconscious thoughts” trigger conscious behavior (in common theory), and according to Burton “the feeling of choice is a poor indicator of underlying intent” (209). It seems that the feeling of choice, without a sense of self and knowing oneself, would be a poor indicator to someone who believes that they are biologically prevented from knowing themselves and understanding the source of choice which in part if driven by base desires and emotions. Learning through “profound emotional experiences that contain no element of reason” becomes the reason in itself, because the way to understanding and knowing is through self-reflection. Further, there are no “ways of seeing the world that are beyond reason and discussion” (190), there are no ways of seeing anything that is beyond discussion. Everything is up for debate.

Burton goes on to say that “if science can’t provide resolution, most will look elsewhere” (202) to faith-driven arguments, that do not need to concern themselves with contrary evidence. That is preposterous sounding, if someone isn't content with not being able to know the answers when presented with evidence, why would they ever be able to find the answers in something free of evidence based simply on a feeling of faith? Maybe it just sounds illogical to me.

While he presents some interesting theories, I found myself continually frustrated by the overall close-minded approach of Burton’s book that leaves one to feel like a victim of the unconscious, lacking in free will, chained within boundaries set by their own mind. I refuse to buy into it, and it’s not because I am misunderstanding “the biology of belief” (183), as he might purport, but rather it is a denial that biology weighs heavily in the balance between experience and choice.

He leaves you with the simple question: How do you know what you know? To which I answer: Sometimes you don’t know, but you can try – and even when you do know something, you should still explore it, because the only thing that limits what you know, is yourself.

-----------------------------------------------

If you made it this far, you can be our friend!

Next on the block is When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?
by Ian G. Barbour...so far a chapter one reflection has been submitted, the reading will be completed the beginning of April.

...More From This Class: A Critical Reflection on 'Free Will' by Sam Harris (http://just-call-me-frank.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-critical-reflection-on-free-will-by.html)