John G. Messerly's Blog, page 154

On Love and Pain

Suppose you have lived your entire life for others; suppose selflessness virtually defines you. Now assume that after a lifetime of selflessness, you are sometimes unappreciated by, or taken advantage of, or not as close as you would like to be, to those others. And this causes pain. After a lifetime of love given you sense that it wasn’t enough. What do you do?

First you want to be sure that your views corresponds to reality. Are you really unloved, unappreciated, or abused? And if so, to what extent? All of us are probably loved or appreciated less than we would like, but one might be misreading the situation. Perhaps your loved ones love you unequivocally but they are busy, stressed, distracted, unhappy, or like all of us, simply imperfect.

However, most likely your view is at least partly correct, and your feelings wholly legitimate. So what to do? First you might talk to those hurting you; tell them what’s bothering you since they can’t read your mind and may be unaware of how you feel. This may be the problem. It is hard to understand each other when we do talk with them, and that much harder still when we don’t. Yet communication is only a starting point and has its drawbacks–you can’t talk everything out. Often its better to “let sleeping dogs lie.” (This relates to my previous post of Jan. 2, 2014 “Human Relationships on a Sliding Scale.”)

Assuming then that talking doesn’t completely rectify the situation–and it usually doesn’t since words don’t fix the world–what do you do? Here the gamut of responses probably runs from hating to accepting, forgiving, and continuing to love those who sometimes hurt you. Or you could even direct these responses inward, for example by blaming or forgiving yourself.

Hating is obviously self-defeating, as the Buddha taught long ago: “In this world, hate never dispelled hate. Only love dispels hate. This is the law,ancient and inexhaustible.You too shall pass away. Knowing this, how can you quarrel?” Negative emotions directed toward others will consume and hurt you; hatred and anger are futile emotions. On the other hand, if we look past the shortcomings of people we will be happier.

This leads to the answer to our question. We should accept that relationships, like life, are imperfect, and that everyone disappoints us eventually, especially if our expectations are too high. We should lower our expectations, and forgive others for their perceived sins against us. We should love as best we can those who are probably trying to love us as best they can. Again, if we expect that our loved ones will love us unconditionally or never be rude or never hurt us, we will be disappointed.

Thus, we should accept, forgive, and love both ourselves and those that love us, however imperfectly. Tolerance springs from the realization that we all have flaws and blemishes. But these do not make any of us unlovable; they make us all what we are. And if we love and are loved in spite of all our shortcomings, then we have something that few have–imperfect love. No it is not the love of fairy tales; nothing can be as good as what’s unattainable. But it is real love, messy love and, hopefully, enduring love. Perhaps that is what the bard was getting at in sonnet 116:

… Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken … 

It is the kind of love I’m trying to send out with these feeble words to those I love most.

 

 

 

Death Should Be Optional

We have established (in previous post) that there are serious thinkers—Ray Kurzweil, Hans Moravec, Michio Kaku, Marshall Brain, and others—who foresee that technology may enable humans to overcome death. There are of course those who argue that it is exceedingly unlikely that robots could be conscious, and thus we will not become immortal by uploading ourselves into them. There are also those like Bill Joy who think that technologies for immorality will probably be developed, but find the prospect undesirable primarily because it signals the end of the human race as we know it.

As non-scientists we are not qualified to evaluate scientific claims about what science can and cannot do, but we are sure that the future will be radically different from the past. Understanding the evolution of technology makes this conclusion unavoidable. In the future the products of SciTech will increasingly allow us to vault barriers once thought insurmountable, as long as we accept the caveat that humans don’t destroy themselves, and that science continues to progress. A realistic prospect that death will be eliminated in the future is something humans have never had before. All of this leads to a question that has been with us throughout the chapter: if you could choose immortality, should you? Alternatively, if our society could choose immortality, should they?

We believe the individual question has a straightforward answer—we should respect the right of autonomous individuals to choose for themselves. If an effective pill that stops or reverses aging becomes available at your local pharmacy, then you should be free to use it. My guess is that such a pill would be wildly popular and only the equivalent of today’s Amish would reject it. (Just look at what people spend on vitamins and other elixirs on the basis of little or no evidence of their efficacy.) Or if, as you approach death, you are offered the opportunity to have your consciousness transferred to your younger cloned body, a genetically engineered body, a robotic body, or into a virtual reality, you should be free to do so. Again, we believe that nearly everyone will use such technologies once they are demonstrated effective, despite the critic’s objections. But if individuals prefer to die in the hope that the gods will revive them in paradise, thereby granting them reprieve from everlasting torment, then we ought to respect that too. Individuals should be able to end their lives whenever they want, in good health, in bad health, after death has become optional for them, or whenever.

The argument about whether a society should fund and promote such research is more complex. Societies currently invest vast sums on entertainment as opposed to scientific research; although the case is strong that the latter is a better societal investment. Ultimately the arguments for and against immortality must speak for themselves, but we reiterate the caveat that once science and technology have overcome death the point will be moot. By then almost everyone will choose more life. If people do that now, at great cost and often gaining only precious additional months of bad health, imagine how quickly they will choose life over death when the techniques are proven to lead to long, healthy lives. As for the opponents, they will get used to new technologies just like they did to previous ones.

Nonetheless the virtual inevitability of advanced technologies does not equate to their being desirable and many thinkers have campaigned actively and vehemently against utilizing such options. I label the defenders of death—deathists. They advocate maintaining the status quo with its daily dose of 150 thousand deaths worldwide. Prominent among such thinkers are Leon Kass, who chaired George W. Bush’s Council on Bioethics from 2001-2005, Francis Fukuyama, a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford, and Bill McKibbon, the Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College.

Kass opposes euthanasia, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research and was an early opponent of in vitro fertilization, which he thought would obscure truths about human life and society. (IVF had none of the dire consequences that Kass predicted; in fact, the technology goes mostly unnoticed now.) One of Kass’ main concerns is with the enhancement capability of biotechnology, which he fears will become a substitute for traditional human virtues in the quest to perfect the species. His concerns about modifying our biological inheritance extend to his worries about life extension. He values the natural cycle of life and views death as a desirable end—mortality, he says, is a blessing in disguise.[i] Kass is the quintessential deathist.

Fukuyama argues that biotechnology will alter human nature beyond recognition and have terrible consequences. One would be the undermining of liberal democracy due to radical inequality. But at an even more fundamental level:

Nobody knows what technological possibilities will emerge for human self-modification. But we can already see the stirrings of Promethean desires in how we prescribe drugs to alter the behavior and personalities of our children. The environmental movement has taught us humility and respect for the integrity of nonhuman nature. We need a similar humility concerning our human nature. If we do not develop it soon, we may unwittingly invite the transhumanists to deface humanity with their genetic bulldozers and psychotropic shopping malls. [ii]

McKibbon admits the allure of technological utopia, knowing that it will be hard to resist when presented, but he fears that the richness of human life would be sacrificed in a post-human world. Even if we were godlike, spending our time meditating on the meaning of the cosmos or reflecting on our own consciousness like Aristotle’s god, McKibbon says he would not trade his life for such an existence. He wouldn’t want to be godlike he says, preferring instead to smell the fragrant leaves, feel the cool breeze, and see the fall colors. Yes there is pain, suffering, cruelty, and death in the world, but this world is enough. “To call this world enough is not to call it perfect or fair or complete or easy. But enough, just enough. And us in it.”[iii]

There is a lot to say against all these views, but one wonders why these thinkers see human nature as sacrosanct. Is our nature really so sacred that we should be apologists for it? Is it not arrogant to think so highly of ourselves? This is the same human nature that produced what Hegel famously lampooned as “the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized.” Surely we can do a better than what was created through genetic mutations and environmental selection.

Still, we must concede something to these warnings. The same technologies that may make us immortal are also the ones that bring robotic police, soldiers, and unmanned planes. There is no way to assure that we will not suffer a nightmarish future no matter how we proceed. With greater knowledge comes greater power; and with greater power comes the possibility of making life better or worse. The future with all its promises and perils will come regardless—all we can do is do our best.

The defense of immortality against such attacks has been undertaken most thoroughly by the recent intellectual and cultural movement known as transhumanism. The philosophy of transhumanism affirms the possibility and desirability of using technology to eliminate aging and overcome all other human limitations. Adopting the evolutionary perspective mentioned earlier, transhumanists maintain that humans are in a relatively early phase of their development. They agree with humanism—that human beings matter and that reason, freedom, and tolerance make the world better—but emphasizes that we can become more than human by changing ourselves. This opens up the possibility of employing high-tech methods to transform the species and direct our own evolution, as opposed to relying on biological evolution or low-tech methods like education and training.

If science and technology develop sufficiently, this would lead to a stage where humans would no longer be recognized as human, but better described as post-human. But why would people want to transcend human nature? Because:

they yearn to reach intellectual heights as far above any current human genius as humans are above other primates; to be resistant to disease and impervious to aging; to have unlimited youth and vigor; to exercise control over their own desires, moods, and mental states; to be able to avoid feeling tired, hateful, or irritated about petty things; to have an increased capacity for pleasure, love, artistic appreciation, and serenity; to experience novel states of consciousness that current human brains cannot access. It seems likely that the simple fact of living an indefinitely long, healthy, active life would take anyone to posthumanity if they went on accumulating memories, skills, and intelligence. [iv]

And why would one want these experiences to last forever? Transhumanists answer that they would like to do, think, feel, experience, mature, discover, create, enjoy, and love beyond what one can do in seventy or eighty years. All of us would benefit from the wisdom and love that come with time.

The conduct of life and the wisdom of the heart are based upon time; in the last quartets of Beethoven, the last words and works of ‘old men’ like Sophocles and Russell and Shaw, we see glimpses of a maturity and substance, an experience and understanding, a grace and a humanity, that isn’t present in children or in teenagers. They attained it because they lived long; because they had time to experience and develop and reflect; time that we might all have. Imagine such individuals – a Benjamin Franklin, a Lincoln, a Newton, a Shakespeare, a Goethe, an Einstein [and a Gandhi] – enriching our world not for a few decades but for centuries. Imagine a world made of such individuals. It would truly be what Arthur C. Clarke called    ‘Childhood’s End’ – the beginning of the adulthood of humanity. [v]

As for the charge that creating infinitely long life spans tamper with nature, transhumanists respond that something is not good or bad because it’s natural. Some natural things are bad, and some are good; some artificial things are bad, and some are good. (Assuming we can even make an intelligible distinction between the natural and the unnatural.) As for the charge that long lives undermine humanity, the transhumanist replies that the key is to be humane, not human. Merely being human does not guarantee you are humane. As for the claim that death is natural, again, that does not make it good. Moreover, it was natural to die before the age of thirty for most of human history, so we live unnaturally long lives now by comparison. And even if death is natural; so too is the desire for immortality. It is easy to see that people had to accept death when there was nothing they could do about it, but now such deathist attitudes impede progress in eradicating death. Again, transhumanism maintains that death should be optional.

Additionally there are important reasons to be suspicious about the anti-immortality arguments—many are made by those who profit from death. For example, if you are a church selling immortality your business model is threatened by a competitor’s offering the real thing. Persons no longer need to join your institution if your promise of immortality is actually delivered elsewhere for a comparable cost. Those who make anti-technology arguments may thus be blinded by their short term self-interest. And, as we all know, most people hesitate to believe anything that is inconsistent with how they make money. Just look at the historical opposition to the rise of modern science and the accompanying real miracles it brought. Or to tobacco companies opposition to the evidence linking smoking with cancer, or to the oil companies opposition to the evidence linking burning fossil fuels with global climate change.

A closely connected reason to be suspicious of the deathists is that death is so interwoven into their world-view, eliminating it would essentially destabilize that world-view, thereby undercutting their psychological stability. If one has invested a lifetime in a world-view in which dying and an afterlife are an integral part, a challenge to that world-view will almost always be rejected. The great American philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce captured this point perfectly:

Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else. On the contrary, we cling tenaciously, not merely to believing, but to believing just what we do believe. [vi]

The defeat of death completely obliterates most world-views that have supported humans for millennia; no wonder it undermines psychological stability and arouses fierce opposition. Thus monetary and psychological reasons help to explain much opposition to life-extending therapies. Still, people do change their minds. We now no longer accept dying at age thirty and think it a great tragedy when it happens; I argue that our descendents will feel similarly about our dying at ninety. Ninety years may be a relatively long lifespan compared with those of our ancestors, but it may be exceedingly brief when compared to those of our descendents. Our mind children may shed the robotic equivalent of tears at our short and painful lifespans, as we do for the short, difficult lives of our forbearers.

In the end death eradicates the possibility of complete meaning; surely that is the best reason to desire immortality for all conscious beings. For those who do not want immortality, they should be free to die; for those of us that long to live forever, we should free to do so. I am convinced. I want more freedom. I don’t want to die. I want death to be optional.

 

 

 

[i] Leon Kass, Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002).

[ii] Francis Fukuyama, “Transhumanism,” Foreign Policy (September-October 2004).

[iii] Bill McKibbon, Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age (New York: Henry Hold & Company, 2003), 227.

[iv] http://humanityplus.org/learn/transhu...

[v] http://humanityplus.org/learn/transhu...

[vi] Charles Sanders Pierce, “The Fixation of Belief,” Popular Science Monthly, 12, (November 1877).

Chapter 9

Can Science Give Us Immortality?

As we have seen, if death is the end of us our best response to that grave tragedy is hope and optimism. But perhaps we don’t have to die! Although we previously rejected the reality of a spiritual afterlife as a fanciful solution to the disaster of death, many respectable scientists and futurists suggest that humans can overcome death through the use of future technologies. By immortality in this sense we refer roughly to the uninterrupted, eternal continuation of an individual consciousness—let us call this physical immortality in contrast to religious immortality. And we all might be immortal if technology develops fast enough, which may entail any number of technologies in any number of combinations.

The first way we might achieve physical immortality is by conquering our biological limitations—we age, become diseased, and suffer trauma. Aging research, while woefully underfunded, has yielded positive results. Average life expectancies have tripled since ancient times, increased by more than fifty percent in the industrial world in the last hundred years, and most scientists think we will continue to extend our life spans. We know that we can further increase our life span by restricting calories, and we increasingly understand the role that telomeres play in the aging process. We also know that certain jellyfish and bacteria are essentially immortal, and the bristlecone pine may be as well. There is no thermodynamic necessity for senescence—aging is presumed to be a byproduct of evolution —although why mortality should be selected for remains a mystery. There are even reputable scientists who believe we can conquer aging altogether—in the next few decades with sufficient investment—most notably the Cambridge researcher Aubrey de Grey.1[i] Still, not all researchers are convinced that our biological limitations will be eliminated.

If we do unlock the secrets of aging, we will simultaneously defeat many other diseases as well, since so many of them are symptoms of aging. (Many researches now consider aging itself to be a disease; as you age, the disease progresses.) There are also a number of strategies that could render disease mostly inconsequential. Nanotechnology may give us nanobot cell-repair machines and robotic blood cells; biotechnology may supply replacement tissues and organs; genetics may offer genetic medicine and engineering; and full-fledge genetic engineering could produce beings impervious to disease. Trauma is a more intransigent problem from the biological perspective, although it too could be defeated through some combination of cloning, regenerative medicine, and genetic engineering. We can even imagine that your physicality could be recreated from a bit of your DNA, and other technologies could then fast forward your regenerated body to the age of your traumatic death, where a backup file with all your experiences and memories would be implanted in your brain. Even the dead may be eventually resuscitated if they have undergone the process of cryonics—preserving organisms at very low temperatures in glass-like states. Ideally these clinically dead would be brought back to life when future technology was sufficiently advanced. This is a long shot, but if nanotechnology fulfills its promise, there is a reasonably good chance that cryonics may be successful.

In addition to biological strategies for eliminating death, there are a number of technological scenarios for immortality which would utilize advanced brain scanning techniques, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The most prominent scenarios have been advanced by the renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil and Carnegie-Mellon roboticist Hans Moravec.Both have argued that the exponential growth of computing power in combination with other technologies will make it possible to upload the contents of one’s consciousness into a virtual reality. This could be accomplished by cybernetics, whereby hardware would be gradually installed in the brain until the entire brain was running on that hardware, or via scanning the brain and simulating or transferring its contents to a computer with sufficient artificial intelligence. Either way we would no longer be living in a physical world. (We will discuss both of these scenarios in detail in a moment.)

In fact we may already be living in a computer simulation! Nick Bostrom has argued that it is possible that advanced civilizations have created computer simulations containing individuals with artificial intelligence, and, if they have, we might unknowingly be in the simulation.[ii] He then asks which is more likely: that we are the one civilization not in a simulation or that we are one of billions of simulations being run? Needless to say he thinks the latter more likely. So either civilizations never have the technology to run simulations, they have the technology but decided not to use it, or we almost certainly live in a simulation. Think of it this way. If the human race could develop and use simulation technology then they would likely run ancestor simulations to study their past which would lead to sub-simulations ad infinitum. And, since we cannot know if we live in the original universe or one of the multitudes of simulations, it is more likely we live in a simulation.

If one doesn’t like the idea of being immortal in a virtual reality—or one doesn’t like the idea that they may already be in one now—one could upload one’s brain to a genetically engineered body, if they liked the feel of flesh, or to a robotic body, if they liked the feel of silicon or whatever materials comprised the robotic body. MIT’s Rodney Brooks envisions the merger of human flesh and machines, wherein humans slowly incorporate technology into their bodies, thus becoming more machine-like and indestructible.[iii]So it seems a cyborg future may await us.

The rationale underlying most of these speculative scenarios has to do with adopting an evolutionary perspective. Once one embraces that perspective, it is not difficult to imagine that our descendants will resemble us about as much as we do the amino acids from which we sprang. Our knowledge is growing exponentially and, given eons of time for future innovation, it easy to envisage that humans will defeat death and evolve in unimaginable ways. For the skeptical, remember that our evolution is no longer moved be the painstakingly slow process of Darwinian evolution—where bodies exchange information through genes—but by cultural evolution—where brains exchange information  through memes. The most prominent feature of the cultural evolution driving change is the exponentially increasing pace of technological evolution—an evolution that may soon culminate in a technological singularity.

The technological singularity, an idea first proposed by the mathematician Vernor Vinge, refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater than human intelligence. (A number of futurists, in particular Ray Kurzweil, predict that the singularity will happen in our lifetimes.) Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for our minds to comprehend, the singularity is seen as an event horizonbeyond which the future becomes nearly impossible to understand or predict. Nevertheless, we may surmise that this intelligence explosion will lead to increasingly powerful minds for which the problem of death will be solvable. Science may well vanquish death—quit possibly in the lifetime of some of my readers.

[i] Aubrey de Grey, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

[ii] Nick Bostrom, “The Simulation Argument,” Philosophical Quarterly, 2003, Vol. 53, No. 211, pp. 243-255.

[iii] Rodney Brooks, Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us (New York: Vintage, 2003).

Death is Bad

Our entry from Feb. 15, 2014, “Is Death Bad for Us?” ended with the tentative conclusion that death is probably bad for us despite arguments to the contrary. What then do we do, assuming death is inevitable? (In my next entry I will suggest it might not be inevitable after all.) We really have nothing to lose by being optimistic and, given the current reality of death, this is a wise option. William James suggested as much in his essay “The Will to Believe,”

We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? ‘Be strong and of a good courage.’ Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes. … If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.

But even such stirring words do not change the fact that death is bad. Bad because it puts an end to something which at its best is beautiful; bad because all the knowledge and insight and wisdom of that person is lost; bad because of the harm it does to the living; bad because it causes people to be unconcerned about the future beyond their short lifespan; and bad because we know in our bones, that if we had the choice, and if our lives were going well, we would choose to on. That death is generally bad—especially so for the physically, morally, and intellectually vigorous—is nearly self-evident.

But most of all, death is bad because it renders completely meaningful lives impossible. It is true that longer lives do not guarantee meaningful ones, but all other things being equal, longer lives are more meaningful than shorter ones. (Both the quality and the quantity of a life are relevant to its meaning; both are necessary though not sufficient conditions for meaning.) An infinite life can be without meaning, but a life with no duration must be meaningless. Thus the possibility of greater meaning increases proportionately with the length of a lifetime.

Yes, there are indeed fates worse than death, and in some circumstances death may be welcomed even if it extinguishes the further possibility of meaning. Nevertheless, death is one of the worst fates that can befall us, despite the consolations offered by the deathists—the lovers of death. We may become bored with eternal consciousness, but as long as we can end our lives if we want, as long as we can opt out of immortality, who wouldn’t want the option to live forever?

Only if we can choose whether to live or die are we really free. Our lives are not our own if they can be taken from us without our consent, and, to the extent death can be delayed or prevented, further possibilities for meaning ensue. Perhaps with our hard-earned knowledge we can slay the dragon tyrant, thereby opening up the possibility for more meaningful lives. This is perhaps the fundamental imperative for our species. For now the best we can do is to remain optimistic in the face of the great tragedy that is death.

Climate Change and the Prisoner’s Dilemma

The Science

To understand climate change you just need basic physics and mathematics. This physics works like this. The earth’s surface temperature is governed by the absorption and emission of thermal radiation, and greenhouse gases (GHG) like CO2 and CH4 (methane) trap thermal radiation making the earth’s surface warmer. The mathematics is even simpler. GHG + GHG = more GHG = more warming. It’s that simple.

The connection between the concentration of GHG and warmer temperatures is well-established, with the analysis reaching back at least 400,000 years. If we look at the last few hundred years we find that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 and have reached almost 400 ppm today. Models project that, unless forceful steps are taken to reduce fossil fuel use, they will reach 700–900 ppm by 2100. According to climate models, this will lead to a warming averaged over the globe in the range 2 to 11.5 degrees F.1 

And what is the cause of the increase in the concentration of GHG in the atmosphere? According to the IPCC, the leading international for the assessment of climate change; the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, the leading scientific organization in the United States; and nearly two hundred scientific organizations, it is now beyond any reasonable doubt that humans are the main cause of global climate change.2 3 4

The Problem

Climate change is already beginning to alter the land, air, and water upon which life depends. 5 Higher temperatures, rising sea levels, droughts, floods, fires, changing landscapes, risks to wildlife, economic losses, and heat-related disease are just some of the consequences of changing the planet’s climate. In addition, there are consequences we can’t predict.

The Solutions

One of the first to understand the problem and propose an economic solution was the Yale economist William Nordhaus. Putting GHG into the atmosphere is free, it is an economic externality leading to a “tragedy of the commons.” The solution forces persons, countries, and corporations to pay for the GHG they pump into the atmosphere, thereby reducing the incentive to do it. He has detailed how to do this in his book Climate Casino.6 But how do we get multiple countries to cooperate in this endeavor?

Others, like the Australian public policy professor Clive Hamilton, are even more pessimistic. He worries that as we enter the “climate casino,” humans won’t do anything until the situation is critical. His book, Earthmasters: The Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering, argues that humans aren’t rational actors and this prevents them from doing what’s necessary to avoid catastrophe.7 This will lead to risky technological fixes–to reckless gambling–like spraying sulfur particles into the stratosphere. Such radical solutions will be more attractive to some capitalist than taxing GHG, but there are catastrophic risks associated with high-tech fixes. Still Hamilton thinks this is what will happen.

 Why the Problem?

But why is the situation so intransigent? The reason is that humans find themselves in this situation because it has the structure of a Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD). The PD is a non-zero sum game with roughly the following structure: it is one in which we all do better if we all cooperate, yet individually each has a strong incentive not to cooperate regardless of what others do. In the climate change debate the situation is simple. Consider two countries A and B (for the moment we’ll assume there are only two countries in the world) who have to decide to dump or not dump their carbon.

The best outcome for a country is one where the other country doesn’t dump carbon and your country does, since they pay to develop, say, greener technologies or pay carbon taxes while you do not. The second best outcome is where we all share the cost by using alternative energy sources and not dumping carbon. The third outcome is where everyone is dumping carbon and the earth’s atmosphere and environment are being destroyed. (This is the situation we are in.) The worst outcome for a country is if they pay the cost of developing and using new technologies but other countries don’t, and the climate changes for the worse anyway.

Of course everyone would do better and no one would do worse if we reached the second best outcome–the environment would be cleaner and catastrophic climate change might be avoided. So how do we get everyone to cooperate?

What are the Ultimate Solutions?

There are only a few realistic solutions to the PD. First we need people to agree to cooperate on the matter by signing a global warming treatise. Of course even if you could get agreement that still would not solve the problem because you have to guarantee that others comply. One way to do this is by negative reinforcement. We would need someone (a world government or the UN) to have the power to punish violators with fines or carbon taxes. Alternatively we could use positive reinforcement, by offering huge incentives for developing climate-friendly technologies. More radically we could use disablement strategies. We could outlaw oil companies and methane producing factory farms, but this too would demand an international coercive power, hardly realistic at this point. Perhaps most radically of all we could use technology to change human nature itself, say by using genetic engineering to make us more cooperative. Needless to say this is probably as risky as anything Hamilton has in mind.

I think we’ll probably reach a point at which we will be forced to try some risky high-tech solution to survive, hoping that our science and technology save us.

Notes

1. CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere were 280 parts per million (ppm) in 1750 and have reached 390 ppm today. Models project that, unless forceful steps are taken to reduce fossil fuel use, they will reach 700–900 ppm by 2100. According to climate models, this will lead to a warming averaged over the globe in the range

2. http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organ...

3. http://www.pnas.org/content/107/27/12...

4. http://opr.ca.gov/s_listoforganizatio...

5. http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/...

6. http://www.npr.org/books/titles/27203...

7. http://www.npr.org/2014/02/11/2715374...

Is Death Bad for Us?

In our previous post we concluded that an afterlife is very unlikely. In this case, is death good or bad for us? Vincent Barry, professor emeritus at Bakersfield College, carefully considered this question in his 2007 textbook, Philosophical Thinking About Death and Dying. I reconstruct his discussion in what follows.

Is Death Bad? – One of Barry’s main concerns is whether death is or is not bad for us. As he notes, the argument that death is not bad derives from Epicurus’ aphorism: “When I am, death is not; and when death is, I am not.” Epicurus taught that fear in general, and fear of the gods and death in particular, was evil. Consequently, using reason to rid ourselves of these fears was a primary goal of his speculative thinking. A basic assumptions of his thought was a materialistic psychology in which mind was composed of atoms, and death the dispersal of those atoms. Thus death is not then bad for us since something can be bad only if we are affected by it; but we have no sensation after death and thus being dead cannot be bad for us. Note that this does not imply that the process or the prospect of dying cannot be bad for us—they can—nor does Epicurus deny that we might prefer life to death. His argument is that being dead is not bad for the one who has died.

Epicurus’ argument relies on two separate assumptions—the experience requirement and the existence requirement.[i]The experience requirement can be summarized thus:

A harm to someone is something that is bad for them.
For something to be bad for someone it must be experienced by them.
Death is a state of no experience.
Therefore death cannot be bad for someone. 

The existence requirement can be summarized thus:

A person can be harmed only if they exist.
A dead person does not exist.
Therefore a dead person cannot be harmed.

As we will see, counter arguments attack one of the two requirements. Either they try to show that someone can be harmed without experiencing the harm, or that someone who is dead can still be harmed.

One noted philosopher who attacks the Epicurean view is Thomas Nagel. In his essay “Death,” Nagel argues that death is bad for someone who dies even if that person does not consciously survive death.According to this deprivation theory, death is bad for persons who die because of the good things their deaths deprive them of. However, if death is bad because it limits the possibility of future goods, is death not then good in limiting the possibility of future evils? So the possibility of future goods does not by itself show that death is bad; to show that one would have to show that a future life would be worth living, that is, that it would contain more good than bad. But how can any deprivation theory explain how it is bad for us to be deprived of something if we do not experience that deprivation? How can what we don’t know hurt us?

In reply Nagel argues that we can be harmed without being aware of it. An intelligent man reduced to the state of infancy by a brain injury has suffered a great misfortune, even if unaware of, and contented in, his injurious state. Nagel argues that many states that we do not experience can be bad for us—the betrayal of a friend, the loss of reputation, or the unfaithfulness of a spouse. And just as an adult reduced to infancy is the subject of a misfortune, so too is one who is dead. But critics wonder who it is that is the subject of this harm? Even if it is bad to be deprived of certain goods, who is it that is deprived? How can the dead be harmed? There apparently no answer to this question.

And there is another problem. While the deprivation argument may explain why death is bad for us, it follows from it that being denied prenatal existence would also be bad. Yet we do not ordinarily consider ourselves harmed by not having been born sooner. How can we explain this asymmetry?

Epicurus argued that this asymmetry could not be explained, and we should feel indifferent to death just as we do to prenatal existence. This sentiment was echoed by Mark Twain:

Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together. There was a peace, a serenity, an absence of all sense of responsibility, an absence of worry, an absence of care, grief, perplexity; and the presence of a deep content and unbroken satisfaction in that hundred million years of holiday which I look back upon with a tender longing and with a grateful desire to resume when the opportunity comes.[ii]

In reply, deprivationists argue that we do not have to hold symmetrical views about prenatal and postnatal experience—claiming instead that asymmetrical views are consistent with ordinary experience. To see why consider the following. Would you rather have suffered a long surgical operation last year or undergo a short one tomorrow? Would you rather have had pleasure yesterday, or pleasure tomorrow? In both cases we have more concern with the future than the past; we are less interested in past events than in future ones. Death in the future deprives us of future goods, whereas prenatal nonexistence deprived us of past goods about which we are now indifferent. For all these reason Barry concludes that death is probably bad and a fear of death rational.

[i] John Martin Fischer, ed., The Metaphysics of Death (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), 15.

[ii] Charles Neider, ed., The Autobiography of Mark Twain (New York: Perennial, 1990) ch. 49.

Is There an Afterlife?

The literature on death is voluminous and deserving of its own book length study. What we can do here is briefly discuss a few of the issues involved. Belief in immorality is widespread, as anthropological studies reveal, but most people regard death as the ultimate tragedy and crave continued existence. Yet there is little if any evidence for immortality; and we do not personally know anyone who came back from the dead to tell us about an afterlife. Still, many people cling to any indirect evidence they can—near death experiences, belief in reincarnation, ghost stories, communication with the dead, and the like. The problem is that none of this so-called evidence stands up well to critical scrutiny. It is so much more likely that the propensity of individuals to deceive or be deceived explains such beliefs, than that these phenomena are real. Those who accept such evidence are most likely grasping at straws—engaging in wishful thinking.

Modern science generally ignores this so-called evidence for an afterlife for a number of reasons. First, the soul which is thought immortal plays no explanatory or predictive role in the modern scientific study of human beings. Second, overwhelming evidence supports the view that consciousness ceases when brain functioning does. If ghosts or disembodied spirits exist, then we would be forced to rethink much of modern science—such as the belief that consciousness cannot exist without matter!

Of course this cursory treatment of the issue does not establish that an afterlife is impossible, especially since that possibility depends on answers to complicated philosophical questions about personal identity and the mind-body problem. But suffice it to say that explaining either the dualistic theory of life after death—where the soul separates from the body at death and lives forever—or the monist theory—where a new glorified body related to the earthly body lives on forever—is extraordinarily difficult. In the first case substance dualism must be defended, and in the second case the miraculous idea of the new body must be explained. Either way the philosophical task is enormous. Clearly the scientific winds are blowing against these ancient beliefs.

Still when asked about what one thinks about an afterlife, a reasonable response is that one is all for it if it’s pleasant. If it miraculously turns out that when we die we really do move to a better neighborhood … great. Yet it is easy to see that this is very unlikely.

Should We Live as if Religious Claims are True?

The main problem with religious answers to life’s problems is that religious claims may generally be false. Some might reply that even if religious claims are false, we ought to live as if they are true. After all, what does it hurt to believe comforting stories that might be true? There may be something to this argument—life is hard so why not find comfort where you can as long as you do not force your beliefs on others. But there are many replies to this line of reasoning—that religious belief is basically a docile and good thing—that do not need to appeal to inquisitions, religious wars, human sacrifice, or other examples of religious cruelty over all of recorded history. Nor do they need to appeal to the anti-democratic, anti-progressive, misogynistic, authoritarian, medieval nature of many religious institutions, or to the personal guilt, shame, and fear that often result from those beliefs.

Religious belief may be just harmful in general. There is a strong correlation between religious belief and various measures of social dysfunction including homicides, the proportion of people incarcerated, infant mortality, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage births and abortions, corruption, income inequality, and more.[i] While no causal relationship has been established, the 2009 United Nations list of the twenty best countries to live in shows the least religious nations of the world generally at the top.[ii]Only in the United States, which is ranked as the 13th best country to live in, would we say that religious belief is strong relative to other countries. Moreover, virtually all the countries with comparatively little religious belief ranked comparatively high on the list of best countries to live in, while the majority of countries with strong religious belief ranked comparatively low on the list. In fact often the overlap is striking.[iii] While correlation does not equal causation, such considerations should give pause to those who claim religious belief is beneficial. There is good reason to doubt that religious belief makes people’s lives go better, and some powerful reasons to believe it makes their lives go worse.

Again none of the foregoing discussion shows that any particular religion is false. But at the very least it is debatable whether religious belief benefits humanity, or that we are better off living as if these stories are true. One could even maintain that religious beliefs are the most damaging kind of beliefs that humans can hold. Consider that Christianity rose in power as the Roman Empire declined in the 4th century, resulting in the marginalization of the Greek science the Romans had inherited. Had the scientific achievements of the Greeks been built upon throughout the Middle Ages, it is possible that we might live in an unimaginably better world today. Carl Sagan made this same point some thirty years ago:

Something akin to laws of Nature was once glimpsed in a determinedly polytheistic society, in which some scholars toyed with a form of atheism. This approach of the pre-Socratics was, beginning in about the fourth century B.C., [quelled] by Plato, Aristotle, and the Christian theologians. If the skein of historical causality had been different—if the brilliant guesses of the atomists on the nature of matter, the plurality of worlds, the vastness of space and time had been treasured and built upon, if the innovative technology of Archimedes had been taught and emulated, if the notion of invariable laws of Nature that humans must seek out and understand had been widely propagated—I wonder what kind of world we would live in now.[iv]

It is conceivable then that had science continued to advance for those thousand years we would now live longer and better lives, or perhaps science might have conquered death altogether by now. It is conceivable we are not now immortal today because of the rise of religion. Granted such conjecture is speculative—our example may seem fantastic—but certainly the rise of religion was a major factor impeding scientific advance throughout the Middle Ages and its stifling effect on scientific advance may still be felt today.

The point is that religious belief is not innocuous. Religion may cause less harm today than it did in the medieval period, but this may be more a function of it having less power than it had previously. If that power were regained, we should not be surprised if the effect were again disastrous. (Anyone familiar with the Middle Ages does not long to go back.) We all may have paid, and could continue to pay, a heavy price for the consolation that religious beliefs provides to so many.

Thus religious beliefs are problematic and living as if religion is true is probably ill-advised. Although any religious story could be true, especially in their more sophisticated versions, religious answers to deep questions are suspect because the truth of religion and its usefulness are suspect.

[i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfr...

[ii] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...

[iii] http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com...

[iv] Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (New York: Ballantine Books, 1997).

 

 

Lying and Truth

THE LAYERS THAT HIDE REALITY

Growing up requires constantly revising our previous understanding of the world. This process begins as infants pass through various stages of cognitive and emotional development, each stage bringing the child closer to truths about the world. In the beginning, an understanding of object permanence, time, and causation, are gained. Slowly the biological impediments to understanding are being overcome. Then, as we mature, we confront a mysterious social world. There, unlike in the world of childhood books, animals and people aren’t always our friends, school and sports make demands upon us, and social groups accept or ostracize us. The cocoon of childhood slowly vanishes, as the layers of film hiding reality disappear.

As we reach late adolescence becoming educated involves acknowledging the social, historical, biological, and psychological layers that blanket reality. We discover that religion, politics, ethics, and relationships are not as they first appear. Their reality, at least to the extent we have access to them, has been buried beneath layers of falsehoods. For example, we may have been taught that religion and country are good only to find them bastions of hypocrisy and corruption; or we may have believed that some persons were trustworthy friends only to find that they were not. Such experiences bring home the difference between appearance and reality. But why the gap between our youthful idealistic views and the reality of the world? Is it that our truth-detection methods become more sophisticated as we mature thereby allowing us to see things more clearly, or have we been lied to all our young lives about the truth? Surely part of the answer is that we have been lied to, but why?

IGNORANCE, NOBLE LIES, IGNOBLE LIES

Some of this mendacity emanates from ignorance. Pseudo-authorities often don’t know what a scientific truth is, what a political party stands for, or what a relatively accurate deconstruction of the social world would be like. As a consequence, they misinform us because they don’t know what they’re talking about. Moreover, the ignorant  who teach us are often themselves taken in by and profess support for … demagogues and charlatans. Unable or unwilling to see the world through a critical lens, our teachers are purposely misled by a cadre of individuals who deceive them, and they in turn deceive us. A circle of ignorance is the result, which often takes centuries for truth to penetrate.  However the ignorant are not completely blameworthy, inasmuch as they cannot decipher the propaganda and persuasion which peddle a constant stream of nonsense.  Nonsense is all around, as are the credulous who are ready to believe it. This ignorance explains many of the untruths communicated to us throughout our lives, but we are especially susceptible when we are young.

However sometimes the deceit–regarding the difference between appearance and reality–takes the form of what Plato called a “noble lie.” The idea is to lie to someone for their own or society’s (supposed) good. Such lies are reminiscent of the saying, variously attributed to a number of people upon hearing the theory of evolution: “My dear, descended from the apes! Let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.” Surely there are lies told by those who believe their lies to be beneficial. These liars are not ignorant of the truth, but want to protect us from it. If belief in gods or country help us, then why undermine those beliefs? But while it may be beneficial for some to not know the truth, to deceive them for this reason is paternalistic. This may be appropriate for children–not to tell them about war, violence, hypocrisy and all the rest–but to lie to adults like this blatantly disregards their autonomy. 

But worse than ignorance or noble lies are ignoble lies.  Here the liars know the truth yet conceal it for self-interested reasons. These lies are perpetrated by churches, capitalists, and demagogues who lie about: a changing climate, the effects of tobacco, the benefits of universal health care, their own access to the gods, the truths of science, the injustice of the economy, and so much else. When we realize that individuals repress and distort truth for their own benefit, we have discovered something truly sinister. We have found perhaps the closest thing in the world to what the religious call sin. We have unearthed the truth-suppressors; the enemies of humanity who add layers of film to cover up their insidious ways. Tragically, because of such people, idealists often transform into cynics. After all, why love truth and pursue it, when others are so intent on distorting and covering it up?

THE POINT OF UNCOVERING UGLINESS 

But now the situation seems even worse. With the deceptive layers of reality removed, we encounter a world of pain and suffering, of depravity and immorality, of lust and greed, of ignorance and purposeful lying. We have grown up, but in some ways wish we hadn’t. The world is not what our parents or our storybooks promised. And here surely is the origin of of the cliche that ignorance is bliss. Who wants to see the bad side of life? Why become conscious if it reveals the abhorrent? Why not remain pollyannaish? Because ignorance is not bliss; ignorance is unconsciousness. And that’s no way to go through life for consciousness of the repulsive is the prerequisite for betterment. Honestly facing the worst, we a chance of creating the best.

A similar realization must have come to Victor Frankl in the concentration camps. Without any illusions about life given his experiences there, he found a deeper meaning than most, a meaning that guided him for the rest of his life. In the concentration camps–places where indescribable grotesqueness replaced the beauty of life–he did not deny the reality of his situation, nor did he imagine it the precursor to a heavenly afterlife. Instead he transformed himself, and a small part of the world too, by recognizing and confronting the evil that surrounded him.  He surely knew the mismatch between the lies, hypocrisy, and horrors he encountered, and the world he had imagined as a child. But this recognition did not destroy him; instead he was edified. 

Thus removing the layers of hypocrisy, corruption, and lying gives us a chance to see things as they really are and improve them. And while this doesn’t tell us specifically what we should do; it does tell us what we shouldn’t do. We shouldn’t lie to ourselves and others about where we came from, what we are, and what the truth is as best we can determine it. Life is hard enough when we must act based upon the truth; but if we must choose based on lies we are truly lost.

OUR MINDS AND HEARTS

Of course none of this implies that we possess truth while others wallow in ignorance. All we profess, and all one can profess given our limitations, is that we should be honest truth-seekers, telling the truth as faithfully as we can. This implies never distorting the truth for personal gain, and proclaiming the truth even when it is not in our best interest to do so.

Such reflection has brought us a long way from youthful innocence. We have discovered that truth is often buried, not because of defects in our truth-seeking methods, but from layers of lying.  When we engage in purposeful lying, truth is a casualty and we are all worse off.  In such a world, truth-lovers are left heart-broken.

But then, just as despair sets in, life goes on. New parents love their children … again; young thinkers seek truth honestly … again; idealistic youth work to relieve suffering … again; and new love transforms into older more mature love … again. The good is all around. Our hearts can be filled.

Lying and the Layers of Life

THE LAYERS THAT HIDE REALITY

Growing up requires constantly revising our previous understanding of the world. This process begins as an infant passes through various stages of cognitive and emotional development, each stage revealing more of the truth of the world. In the early stages this entails slowly understanding object permanence, time, causation, and the like; the kinds of things studied by experts in child development. As we mature we soon confront a mysterious social world. There, unlike in the world of childhood books, animals and people aren’t always our friends, school and sports make demands upon us, and social groups accept or ostracize us. The cocoon of childhood quickly vanishes.

As we reach late adolescence becoming educated involves removing the social, cultural, historical, biological, and psychological layers blanketing reality. Now we discover that religion, politics, ethics, relationships and more are different than we had previously supposed. Their reality, at least to the extent we have access to them, has been buried beneath layers of falsehood. For example we may have been taught that religion and country are good only to find them bastions of hypocrisy and corruption. We may have trusted persons we thought were our friends and who had integrity, only to find they were neither. We are beginning to encounter falsehood and untruth. But why?

AN UGLY WORLD

Some of what we confront emanates from ignorance. Sadly some don’t know what scientific truth is, what a political party stands for, who the good people really are, or what it means to be a parent or friend. The ignorant often are taken in by and profess support for … demagogues and charlatans. Still the ignorant are not completely blameworthy, inasmuch as they cannot decipher the propaganda and persuasion which peddle a constant stream of nonsense. Some of the ignorant really desire truth, they are just easily misled in their attempt to find it. Perhaps they are simply too credulous.

Sometimes the deceit takes the form of what Plato called a “noble lie.” The idea is to lie to someone for their own (supposed) good or for the promotion of social harmony. Such attempts are reminiscent of the saying, variously attributed to a number of people upon hearing the theory of evolution: “My dear, descended from the apes! Let us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray that it will not become generally known.” Surely there are religious, political or other kinds of lies told by those who believe their lies benefit others. This may sometimes be true, but it reveals a blatant disregard for the maturity and autonomy of others. 

But worse than ignorance or noble lies is purposeful lying. These lies imply that the liars know the truth and deliberately conceal it for self-interested reasons. These are perpetrated by the churches, the politicians, the capitalists, and others who lie for personal gain. They lie about the a changing climate, the benefits to all of universal health care, their access to the gods, the truths of science, the injustice of the economy, and so much else. We when uncover this layer–the layer where individuals choose to repress and distort truth for their own benefit–we have discovered something truly sinister. We have found perhaps the closest thing in the world to what the religious call sin. We have discovered purposeful lying; we have found the truth-suppressors.

THE POINT OF UNCOVERING UGLINESS 

With deceptive layers of reality removed, we encounter a world of pain and suffering, of depravity and immorality, of ignorance and purposeful lying. We have grown up, but in some ways wish we hadn’t. The world is not what our parents promised. And here surely is the origin of of the cliche that ignorance is bliss. Who wants to see the bad side of life? But of course ignorance is not bliss; ignorance is unconsciousness.  Still, why become conscious if it reveals the abhorrent? The reason is that consciousness of the unsightly and repulsive are the necessary beginning of something better. Honestly facing the worst, we have a chance of finding the best.

This happened to Victor Frankl in the concentration camps. Without illusions about life after his experiences, he found a deeper meaning than most, and a meaning that guided him for the rest of his life. In the concentration camps–places where the beauty of life was removed and replaced by an indescribable grotesqueness–he did not deny the evil or reality of his situation, nor did he imagine it the precursor to a heavenly afterlife. Instead he transformed himself, and a small part of the world, by recognizing and confronting the evil that surrounded him.  

So by removing the layers of hypocrisy, corruption, and lying, layers we at least have a chance to see things as they really are and make them better. And while this doesn’t tell us specifically what we should do; it does tell us what we shouldn’t do. We shouldn’t lie to ourselves and others about where we came from, what we are, and what the truth is as best we can determine it.

OUR MINDS AND HEARTS

Yet none of this implies that we possess truth while others wallow in ignorance. All we profess, and all one can profess given our limitations, is that we should be truth-seekers. This implies never distorting the truth for personal gain, and proclaiming the truth even when it is in our best interest to do so.

We have now come a long way from youthful ignorance and innocence. We have discovered that layers of lying bury the truth, and often not because of any defect in our truth-seeking methods, but on purpose.  When we engage in purposeful lying, truth is a casualty and in the end we will all be worse off.  In such a world, truth-lovers are left heart-broken.

But then, just as despair sets in, life goes on. We see new parents love their children … again, young thinkers seek truth honestly … again, and new love transforms into older more mature love … again. Beauty too is all around. Our hearts can be filled.