Andy's recent posts

Recent public posts (showing 261-280 of 281).

The dictionary definition of religion states something about "belief in a superhuman agent." This phrase is problematic to my argument and the argument laid out above.

Taoism may present a problem the superhuman agency clause. From what I understand of Taoism, it may be a religion that does not express a belief in a superhuman agent. (Taoism experts?)

Conversely, as a thought experiment, I've been trying to think of a way to suggest rationality (if it is indeed a religion) actually expresses a belief in a superhumn agent. Here is the argument:

Premise 1: To believe in a "superhuman agent" is to believe in the authority of the superhuman agent. If the individual who believes didn't think of the superhuman agent as an authority over them, the superhuman agent would in fact be a subhuman agent.

Premise 2: The "agent" part of "superhuman agent" implies that the supposed superhuman agent has a conciousness and plays (or had played) an active role in the events of the universe.

Premise 3: In practice, the work of scientists is an expression of the authority of scientific groupthink. (Rational knowledge--aka paradigms--are created, maintained, and challenged in peer reviewed journals, symposiums, etc.)

Premise 4: The collective conciousness of the scientific community plays an active role in the decisions made by scientists (regarding what to study, how to allocate resources, etc.)

Conclusion: The scientific community is a superhuman agent because it is authoritative (super) and because it plays an active role in the events of the universe (agency).

Note: The agency of the collective scientific conciousness is expressed by individual leader-prophets: Einstein as Moses, etc.

Note 2: The active role of the collective scientific conciousness is made tangible by watching scientists submit to the wishes of the collective. For example, it may become apparent that more work needs to be done on Problem A. And suddenly the collective leadership makes funds available for work on Problem A. Scientist Z, who maybe would RATHER work on Problem B, turns his attenction to Problem A because of the active manipulation of the collective.

***The following two paragraphs are an excerpt from David Berlinski's book The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions. Being the gentle soul I am, I hate that this book has such an inflammatory title, but the state of commerce being what it is...

(Note: I stole this excerpt from the excerpt that appears in the April, 2008 Harper's Magazine.)***

"Faith," it is said in Hebrews 11:1, "is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This assertion, chaining the concepts of faith, hope, evidence, and appearance, ratifies a triviality. We can make no sense either of daily life or of the physical sciences in terms of things that are seen. The past has gone to the place where the past goes; the future has not arrived. We remember the one; we count on the other. If this is not faith, what, then, is it?

If religious belief places the human heart in
the service of an unseen world, the serious sciences have since the great revolution of the seventeenth century done precisely the same thing. Mathematical physics has the narrative shape of a quest; physicists have placed their faith in the idea that deep down the universe is coordinated by a great plan, a rational system of organization, a hidden but accessible scheme, one that, when finally seen in all its limpid but austere elegance, will flood the soul with gratitude. Every scientist since Newton has placed his allegiance in the world beyond the
world. In his treatise_The Road to Reality_, Roger Penrose quotes a letter from the mathematician Richard Thomas, of Imperial College London. What is one to make, Penrose asks, of the remarkable, strange, and baffling mathematical results that have appeared in theoretical physics over the past twenty years or so? Thomas's reply is instructive, and it is quite moving. "To a mathematician," he writes, "these things cannot be coincidence, they must come from a higher reason. And that reason is the assumption that this big mathematical theory describes nature." Western science is above all the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Charles Bukowski. What a miserable human being.

"I completely forgot about The Bridges of Madison County. Has a worse piece of dreck ever graced a bookshelf?"

Reminds me of a real hate-worthy character: whatever the hell his name is in Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend, by the same author as Bridges of Madison County.

This guy smokes cigarettes and enjoys jogging. I hate those people. He's a college professor who rides a cool motorcycle and publishes an article in The Atlantic Monthly instead of some dry, crusty adademic journal. What a jerk. He's a cool, stoic loner who steals another man's wife by having the courage to chase her to India while the husband stays back biting his fingernails. Of course, he knows everything about traveling in India. This guy's like a romantic, cigarette-smoking MacGyver hiding out in the economics department of some midwestern college, waiting for something exciting to happen and then it does and he's perfectly prepared for it. (I read it as I was quitting smoking and working out on an elliptical trainer--which made my mood worse and worse with every page I read).

It's really a terrible book. I think I could take both the main character and the author in a fist fight, not because I'm a good fighter but because I could draw upon my hatred of these &$%holes to take them down.

Nice cover. It really speaks of Wisconsin. Pot pie!

Yes that's well put, Brendan. Good thing we two are not in that last group.

I agree that mad libs are often unsound and that my particular mad lib did not escape that cruel fate.

If we were to accept that language is a process of evolution instead of an invention, I would then argue that religion is likewise an evolved process. Which, if true, would bring us around to the original conundrum: The basis of Hitchens' criticism is flawed in the exact same way as the object of his criticism.

There are obvious counter arguments to the notion of evolved religiosity:
1. Religion does not exist in any other species, therefore it could not be a result of evolution.
2. Not all people are religious, therefore it could not be evolved.


I think a challenge to the notion that religion is a result of evolution would lead to some interesting territory.

Regarding solipsism: I don't really feel the connection of "Hitchens' Conundrum" to solipsism. We may have different ideas about solipsism. But even if I have slipped into a solipsistic argument, I would challenge you to tell me what the heck is wrong with that.

(I feel that same about moral relativism as I do about solipsism, why are these terms automatic grounds for dismissal in our little cultural battles?)


Regarding your last statement, I think you're making quite a leap to equate religion with uninformed decisions and rationality with informed decisions. (I made a pretty big leap at the end of my last post, too, but really). Schools preach rationality, churches preach religion. Both institutions have a good amount of power when it comes to influencing people and helping them make informed decisions. Both institutions have political, economic, and other, less crass, motivations for winning people over. Is it possible that some people hold reason in such high esteem because of what's been drummed into them in "Monday School"? (As opposed to Sunday School, get it?)

One of my postulates is that rationality is just another religion. If that's not true, what makes rationality different than any other religion?

Brendan, regarding Message 6:

I believe you are trying to link science to progress; as in science leads to or causes progress.

The way you are using the word "progress" has positive connotations for me; as in progress is good.

I believe a more accurate word would be "change". Science, and the structure of rational thought that helps drive it, leads to and causes change. (Of course, in this sense, science is intimately connected with other socio-political factors--many of which rely on rationality as their driving engine as well. Law, governance, and business certainly rely on principles of rationality as well.) In my view, the jury is still out as to whether the changes are good, bad, or neutral--I believe arguments could be made for each of those options.

As for the second part of your argument, the part regarding proof, I believe proof is largely a matter of interpretation. So humanity developed a scientific method. And this method works well. One can use this method as evidence for the validity of science in general. I would argue that using the scientific method for proof of the validity of science is a closed loop, so to speak. We have developed a method for interpreting events of the universe, and the method works fairly well. It was very clever of us to develop the method such that it works. It would have been silly to develop a method that didn't work well.

Of course, their are limits to what science can explain. Thomas Kuhn's theories of scientific revolution, which I believe are fairly well accepted in most scientific circles, certainly introduce paradox to rational certainty. The theory suggests that all paradigms (basically, accepted theories of certain material events) have anomolies...little glitches that can't quite be explained by the prevailing theory. Eventually these anomolies will be explored and reinterpreted to the point where the prevailing paradigm has to change quite drastically to account for the new explanation.

To extend Kuhn's theory to the principals of rational thought in general (going from strictly science to the previously mentioned larger group of rational socio-political structures) would suggest that a) Kuhn's own idea will eventually become obsolete and that b) the way we understand reason today will eventually change to a point where we would barely even recognize it as reason.

These paradoxes are barely understandable in terms of language. The language doesn't exist to solve them. That is why, going back to the original post, I believe that language is an insufficient tool to accurately argue against the existence of god. If god and the religious experience are expressions of the irrational forces that seethe beneath our somewhat rational exteriors, god and the religious experience are certainly just as valid and useful as language and reason in creating and reacting to change.

I was going to say the same thing about not having many favorites, but this is one of them.

I usually describe it to friends as a concept album, but I have no idea what the concept is as of yet even though I've listened to it a million times.

I used to have it on tape and listened to it a lot driving back and forth to school. It's good for driving alone at night.

"Reason is for making the world a better place, to help improve the human condition. Gods/dogma may help some people but most organized religions just take your money."

In the religion of the academy, reason is the dogma. And they take your money, too. Another interesting similarity.

From other reviews, it sounds like Auster deals with similar themes in many of his books. I wonder if he deals with spirituality in his other books? I like his view of spirituality, it's less about god and more about balance or some sort of personal inner spirit. (The main character describes reading all his uncle's books as a spiritual task). Does anyone else get this from Auster?

That's rich, xmas.

Agreed.

It just seems silly to me to count "being invented by humanity" as a negative aspect of any institution when obviously everything is invented by humanity. The very logic Hitchens uses to create his argument has been invented by humanity, so wouldn't the basis of his argument have many of the same flaws as the world's religions? Put another way: Is Reason just another religion? Are universities--those bastions of rationality--just so many more churches dotting the country side? Are professors preachers in sheep's clothes?

Dang. No converts yet.

Premise 1: God was and continues to be invented by people.

Premise 2: Language was and continues to be invented by people.

Conclusion: Using language to argue against the existence of god is like using _____________ (noun) to _____________ (verb phrase).

Good article, if a bit long. I gotta rip more people off, but where to begin?

Here's one more who didn't finish it.

I should also add that if Foer is anything like me, he may have forgotten that he did any ripping off in the first place, which doesn't excuse him from taking responsibility for it, I suppose. I rip people off all the time in my personal writing, but then again, I don't publish anything, so I suppose it's a moot point. But it's easy to forget what's been ripped off after while.

I do think the trend toward increased protection for intellectual property is not always an entirely good thing. The arguments get pretty bizarre, though. It's one thing to protect an artist's work so they get paid properly and another thing altogether to let another artist use it as a starting point or as an element in their own work. Ugh.

Stephen King rips off T.S. Eliot in The Stand
"When the evening is spread out in the sky like a patient etherized upon a table" or something like that. No reference is made. Of course, the official, academic line I got on Eliot is that he freely ripped off the pulp writers of his time.

I didn't catch it in Everything is Illuminated. It's hard to catch if you're not real familiar with the poems that are being ripped off.

One of the foster mothers listens to Leonard Cohen. I like Leonard Cohen a lot (the 60s and 70s stuff), and I think it would probably make for good music while reading the book. But I don't really listen to music while reading. Every once in a while, I guess I do. I wonder if other people listen to music while reading?