John G. Messerly's Blog, page 29

It’s Groundhog Day

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Groundhog Day has long been one of my very favorite movies. On one level it is a very funny movie; on another, it is a particular take on Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence. It is definitely a film that rewards rewatching. In fact, the legendary film critic Roger Ebert reviewed it twice and included it in his list of great movies. In his 2005 review he says:

“Groundhog Day” is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.

The film is about a jerk who slowly becomes a good man. Listen to Ebert again:

His journey has become a parable for our materialistic age; it embodies a view of human growth that, at its heart, reflects the same spiritual view of existence Murray explored in his very personal project “The Razor’s Edge[image error].” [Another of my favorite movies.] He is bound to the wheel of time, and destined to revolve until he earns his promotion to the next level. A long article in the British newspaper the Independent says “Groundhog Day” is “hailed by religious leaders as the most spiritual film of all time.”

The movie is about a guy named Phil, played by Bill Murray, who is living the same day over and over again. He is essentially immortal. In the scene below, Phil’s co-worker Rita, played by Andie McDowell, recites a few lines of poetry. Here are the lines that precede the ones she recites:

High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,

And here is the scene in which she recites the poem’s next lines:

The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.

(from “Breathes There The Man,” an excerpt from “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,”
~ Sir Walter Scott.)

No matter how famous or wealthy, narcissists are among the worst of humankind.

Religion and Transhumanism

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I have stated my opposition to religion many times on this blog. (My essay in Salon, “Religion’s Smart-People Problem,” generated much hate mail.) However, let me add that religion—while I believe it to be generally as harmful and untrue—is not the only cause of the world’s problems. Any fervently held ideology—social, political, moral, economic—that is immune to rational critique and the scientific method is inherently dangerous. Those who believe they possess the truth invariably want to force their beliefs on others.

Furthermore, there are other causes of our difficulties as well—we have reptilian brains, medieval institutions, and 21st-century technologies. Give human animals easy access to powerful firearms, much less nuclear weapons, and the results will surely be disastrous with or without religious belief. Clearly, we need moral and intellectual enhancement to assure our survival and flourishing. Supernaturalism holds us back, but so do our ideologies, our institutions, and our evolved human nature.

But can we say anything good about religion? Yes. Believers have done some good things in addition to all the harm they caused—the creation of schools and hospitals is a primary example. Moreover, for some people, religious beliefs provide great comfort, and if it does who am I to try to convince them to think otherwise?

But seen in its best light religion is transhumanism at a childlike stage. Lacking a germ theory of disease, clean water, sewer systems, vaccines, and antibiotics, what else could we do but pray when we fell ill? In a world deficient in truth, beauty, goodness, and justice, what else to do but hope that a supernatural being ensures their triumph in an imaginary heaven? Arising before science, technology, and transhumanism, religions had to advise their followers to accept death and hope for the best. 

So religion and transhumanism emanate from similar sources. Religious people want to overcome the limitations of the body and mind and live forever, as do transhumanists. The religious want infinite being, consciousness, and bliss as do transhumanists. The problem is that religion originated before science, and thus it can only offer promises and not the real thing. 

Finally, let me say that longings for truth, beauty, joy, justice, meaning, and immortality are praiseworthy. These are good things. Now if you want to call such values religious, fine. Personally, I wouldn’t do that because the desire for these good things has natural origins. But even if you call these desires, religious, John Dewey told us precisely why the distinction between “religious” and “religion” is important,

If I have said anything about religions and religion that seems harsh, I have said those things because of a firm belief that the claim on the part of religions to possess a monopoly of ideals and of the supernatural means by which alone, it is alleged, they can be furthered, stands in the way of the realization of distinctively religious values inherent in natural experience. For that reason, if for no other, I should be sorry if any were misled by the frequency with which I have employed the adjective “religious” to conceive of what I have said as a disguised apology for what have passed as religions. The opposition between religious values as I conceive them and religions is not to be abridged. Just because the release of these values is so important, their identification with the creeds and cults of religions must be dissolved. 

Religion and Transhumanism: Premature Transhumanism?

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I have made my opposition to religion clear many times on this blog. However, let me add that religion—while I believe it to be generally as harmful and untrue—is not the only cause of the world’s problems. Any fervently held ideology—social, political, moral, economic—that is immune to rational critique and the scientific method is inherently dangerous. Those who believe they possess the truth invariably want to force their beliefs on others.

There are other causes of our difficulties as well—we have reptilian brains, medieval institutions, and 21st century technologies. Give human animals powerful firearms, much less nuclear weapons, and the results will surely be disastrous with or without religious belief. Clearly, we need moral and intellectual enhancement to assure our survival and flourishing. Supernaturalism holds us back, but so do our ideologies, our institutions, and our evolved human nature.

But can we say anything good about religion? Yes. Believers have done some good things in addition to all the harm they caused—the creation of schools and hospitals is a primary example. Moreover, for some, it provides great comfort of religion. Perhaps some people simply can’t or don’t want to live without it. And, if it provides them comfort, who am I to try to convince them otherwise?

But seen in its best light religion is premature transhumanism. Lacking a germ theory of disease, clean water, sewer systems, vaccines, and antibiotics, what else could we do but pray when we fell ill? In a world deficient in truth, beauty, goodness, and justice, what else to do but hope that a supernatural being ensures their triumph in an imaginary heaven? Arising before science, technology, and transhumanism, religions had to advise their followers to accept death and hope for the best. 

So religion and transhumanism emanate from similar sources. Religious people want to overcome the limitations of the body and mind and live forever, as do transhumanists. The religious want infinite being, consciousness, and bliss as do transhumanists. The problem is that religion originated before science, and thus it can only offer promises and not the real thing. 

Finally, let me say that longings for truth, beauty, joy, justice, meaning, and immortality are praiseworthy. These are good things. Now if you want to call such values religious, fine. Personally, I wouldn’t do that because the desire for these good things has natural origins. But even if you call these desires, religious, John Dewey told us precisely why the distinction between “religious” and “religion” is important,

If I have said anything about religions and religion that seems harsh, I have said those things because of a firm belief that the claim on the part of religions to possess a monopoly of ideals and of the supernatural means by which alone, it is alleged, they can be furthered, stands in the way of the realization of distinctively religious values inherent in natural experience. For that reason, if for no other, I should be sorry if any were misled by the frequency with which I have employed the adjective “religious” to conceive of what I have said as a disguised apology for what have passed as religions. The opposition between religious values as I conceive them and religions is not to be abridged. Just because the release of these values is so important, their identification with the creeds and cults of religions must be dissolved. 

5,000,000 views! Thank You

[image error]Hip, Hip, Hurrah! (1888) a painting portraying an artists’ party in 19th century Denmark

My blog passed 5,000,000 page views today, which translates to about 4,000,000 visitors. (A visitor reads on average 1.2 pages.) That’s 8 years’ worth of blogging and over 1,000 posts.  Now Google probably gets at least 5 million clicks per millisecond but, heck, I’m just an old philosopher trying to organize and share my thoughts.

Anyway, I want to thank my many readers for spending some of their precious time reading my musings. Also, a special shout-out to those who take the time to comment. I often learn a lot from others’ ideas.

Finally, I would especially like to thank my patrons who offset the cost of hosting the site. In fact, my costs for hosting, spam filter, etc are now covered. Yeah!  That strangers contribute to the site just fills me with ineffable joy and gratitude. Thank you so much.

John

Russell on the Fear of Thinking

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. ~ Bertrand Russell (“Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel,” pp. 178-179)

I don’t usually devote a column to a discussion of a quote but I had forgotten about this old chestnut and thought it merited comment. Let me begin by saying that I doubt that people fear thought more than they fear torture, cancer, or the death of their children. So I don’t think Russell meant this literally. But with that caveat out of the way, let’s proceed.

Russell thought that most people don’t like to think, as another of his quotes reveals: “Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.” When he says that people “fear thought,” he is giving a reason why many people don’t like to think. Of course, persons reject thinking because of laziness or inability or other reasons too, but fear is a major inhibitor of thought. But why?

People reject thinking not just because it is hard, but because they worry it will undermine their long-held, comfortable beliefs. Having taught university philosophy for more than 30 years I have seen this first hand. Students often dread thinking about controversial topics like politics, ethics, and religion.

But probe even deeper. If you start thinking, you may reject not only god and country but love, friendship, freedom, and more. You may discover that what is called love is reducible to chemical attraction; that friendship is mutual reciprocity; that morality is what those in power decree; that messengers of the gods are often psychologically deranged; that freedom is an illusion; and that life is absurd. Thought breeds the fear that we will lose our equilibrium, that we will be forced to see the world anew. We fear thinking because what we and others think matters to us. As Camus put it “beginning to think is beginning to be undermined.”

I used to tell my students to not believe that ideas and thoughts don’t matter—that they only exist in the ivory tower with no significance for the real world—as if beer and football are more important. No. Thoughts and ideas incite political revolutions; they inspire people to sacrifice their lives or kill others for just and unjust causes alike. They determine how one treats both friends and enemies, and whether family is more important than money.

Even the most abstract thinking affects the world. Non-euclidean geometry or symbolic logic are about as abstract as thinking gets—yet you can’t understand Einsteinian theory of gravity without the one, or run computers without the other. Thinking matters to us, to others, and to our world. That’s one reason why we fear it so much—it shakes our foundations.

But not just any thinking will do. If we truly love truth we will engage in careful and conscientious thinking informed by the best reason and evidence available—our dignity consists, in large part, on good thinking. Almost fifty years ago I entered a university where the following inscription was etched on its library’s wall. I have never forgotten it:

“This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Do We Know Anything For Sure?

Rene Descartes

There are many reasons we might want to philosophize—to become better people, gain self-knowledge, understand the history of thought, etc. But I was drawn to philosophy because I wanted to know, as far as is possible, what was true. This sentiment echoes the first sentence of the first book we read in my very first college philosophy class, way back in 1973. They are the opening lines of Descartes’ Meditations on First Philosophy:

It is now some years since I detected how many were the false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since constructed on this basis; and from that time I was convinced that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself of all the opinions which I had formerly accepted, and commence to build anew from the foundation, if I wanted to establish any firm and permanent structure in the sciences.

Later I read Descartes’ Discourse on Method where he states the origins of his doubts:

I was nourished by study from my earliest childhood; and since I was convinced that this was the means to acquire a clear and certain knowledge of all that is useful in life, I had an extreme desire to learn. But as soon as I had finished a course of studies which usually culminates in one being accepted as one of the learned, I changed my opinion completely; for I found myself troubled by so many doubts and errors that the only profit I had gained in seeking to educate myself was to discover more and more clearly the extent of my ignorance.

As many of my readers know, Descartes begins with skepticism but doesn’t end there. In fact, he’s trying to do the opposite—rid himself of his false beliefs so that he can replace them with true ones based on the firm foundation of clear and distinct ideas. He concludes that “I think, therefore I am” is that foundation. And this presumably indubitable proposition leads to the discovery of other clear and distinct ideas for Descartes—most notably the existence of the external world and God.

Then as a graduate student, I encountered  Edmund Husserl‘s Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology.[image error] In it, Husserl developed what he called presuppositionless philosophy—the idea of philosophy without any presuppositions. He criticized Descartes for beginning with what he saw as unjustified presuppositions about the cogito. How did Descartes know there was an “I” doing the thinking? Instead, Husserl believed he could place philosophy on firm foundations by examining subjective consciousness.

Yet a problem bedevils those who seek foundations of knowledge. On what foundation does that foundation rest? And, if we ask this question indefinitely, we find ourselves in an infinite regress. Aristotle avoided this regress by appealing to intuitive truths, basic laws of logic on which all knowledge is based—the law of identity, the law of the excluded middles, the law of non-contradiction. Another approach is that of Jean Piaget who argued for “the circle of the sciences.” The idea that one science reduces to another in the following order: psychology -> biology -> chemistry -> physics -> mathematics -> logic and then back to psychology, thus forming a circle. (For a detailed discussion see my Piaget’s Conception of Evolution[image error].)

A different approach rejects foundationalism altogether. Consider the following quote from the Austrian-born philosopher Otto Neurath,

“We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood, the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”1

In this vision of philosophizing we always necessarily begin in the middle. We can’t escape our situation or get outside of ourselves to construct some foundation. According to Neurath, contra to Descartes and Husserl,  we can’t raze all that came before and begin anew but philosophical inquiry can improve our pre-philosophical views.

I think this is about right. While I desperately wanted firm foundations for my philosophical beliefs when I was a teenager, I long ago gave up that dream. Even my intellectual hero Bertrand Russell came to a similar conclusion. In  Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, he wrote of his reaction to Gödel’s ‘Theorems of Undecidability’,

I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers wanted me to accept, were full of fallacies … I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.

Life is full of ambiguity, and we either tolerate it, ignore it, or escape into a fanatical ideology. We can never be absolutely certain of anything; we know of no absolute foundation on which to build knowledge. In the end, I’m a fallibilist, any idea I have might be wrong.

Still, we needn’t accept epistemological relativism either because … some ideas are much more likely to be true than others.

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Otto Neurath (1921), “Spengler’s Description of the World,” as cited in Nancy Cartwright et al. Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 28 Apr. 2008 p. 191

Overpopulation and Living Forever – Part 3

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In my last two posts, I have replied to the overpopulation objection to radical life extension, the most common objection to those of us who want to defeat death. While my defense of indefinite lifespans has so far centered around moral concerns, the computer scientist Alexandre Maurer has recently offered mathematical reasons to doubt the whole premise of the overpopulation objection to longer lifespans.

His main conclusion is that fertility rates and not longevity are the true culprits in population increases. A spectacular extension of life will have a negligible effect on population growth compared with a slightly greater fertility rates. To explain, he offers a simple example.

Assume an initial population of 1000 people. The fertility rate is 2, and the life expectancy is 80. Women give birth at 20. Now, let us consider two variations:

Case A: Death disappears. Nobody dies anymore!
Case B: The fertility rate slightly increases from 2 to 2.5.

Which of these two cases will lead to the greater population increase? A quick calculation gives the following results:

– After 500 years, the population will be 26 000 in case A, and at least 780 000 in case B: 30 times more than in case A.
– After 1000 years, the population will be 51 000 in case A, and at least 206 000 000 in case B: more than 4000 times case A! The gap will be enormous.

The point is that the disappearance of death “only causes a linear population increase; while a fertility rate slightly greater than 2 causes an exponential population increase.” And this means that early death is an inefficient means of population control compared to lower birth rates.

Another consideration is that:

There is an inverse correlation between fertility and longevity: population increases the most in the countries with the shortest life expectancy. The common cause is poverty: when infant mortality is high, there is an incentive to have many children to ensure that some of them eventually survive. In addition, when there is no retirement system, the only “retirement insurance” consists in having many children. Further, to this double incentive to have children, must be added the lack of access to contraception, and a lack of information about it.

The implication of all this is that “people concerned about overpopulation should focus on reducing inequalities and improving the standard of living of the poorest countries.”

In fact, in rich countries, underpopulation is more of a problem rather than overpopulation, and rich countries would benefit enormously from increased healthy lifespans. Moreover, since rich countries will probably be the first to benefit from life-sustaining technologies, “is very unlikely that increasing life expectancy will result in an overpopulation crisis; especially since such an increase will first happen in rich countries, where the fertility rate is low.”

Furthermore, better material security generally leads people to have fewer children. Remember too that a “even if we lived 1000 years, a fertility rate slightly lower than 2 (e.g.,1.9) is sufficient in the long-term to result in a decreasing population.”

So in addition to all the moral arguments I have made in my two previous posts, I add Maurer’s insight: fertility rates are much more significant in causing population increase than death rates.

Overpopulation and Living Forever – Part 2

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In my previous post, we discussed worries that radical life extension or the elimination of death will lead to overpopulation and ecological destruction. In other words, while it may be best for individuals to live forever, it might be collectively disastrous. Readers may recognize this situation as an instance of the “tragedy of the commons.” Acting in their apparent self-interest, individuals destroy a common good. It may be convenient for individuals to pollute the air, earth, and water, but eventually, this is catastrophic for all. However, I don’t believe that overpopulation and its attendant problems should give researchers in this area pause. Here are some reasons why.

Let’s begin with a few simple things. First of all, fertility rates are currently plummeting around the world. In addition, the carrying capacity of our planet in terms of the population depends on our technology, which is constantly progressing. Technology itself may allow us to comfortably feed more people with less environmental impact in the near future. Next consider that if the choice is between using technology to prolong healthy lives or having more children, most of us would choose the latter. Wouldn’t you prefer to have fewer children than having your parents get Alzheimer’s?

But there’s more. If we have conquered death, then we may already be transhumans or post-humans living after a technological singularity. Such beings may not want to propagate, since achieving a kind of immortality is a major motivation for having children. Posthumans would be relatively independent of the physical environment too—their bodies may be impervious to environmental stressors, or they may not have bodies at all. In such cases, concerns about overpopulation would be irrelevant. I’m not saying that they will be irrelevant, but that the tragedy of 150,000 people dying every single day—100,000 of them from age-related causes—is a huge price to pay for speculative hypotheses about the future. We shouldn’t assume that our concerns as biological beings today will be relevant in the future.

Of course, I don’t know how the future will unfold. But preserving the minds that now exist may be a better survival strategy than educating new ones. In the future, we will probably need educated and mature minds—their invaluable knowledge and wisdom. So I argue that we should try to eliminate death, dealing with overpopulation—assuming we even have to—when the time comes. My suggestions may be considered reckless, but remember there is no risk-free way to proceed into the future. Whatever we do, or don’t do, has risks. If we cease developing technology we will not be able to prevent the inevitable asteroid strike that will decimate our planet; if we continue to die young we may not develop the intelligence necessary to design better technology. Given these considerations, we shouldn’t let hypotheticals about the future deter our research into defeating death.

Note too that this objection to life-extending research could have been leveled at work on the germ theory of disease, or other life-extending research and technology in the past. Don’t cure diseases because that will lead to overpopulation! Don’t treat sick children because they might survive and have more children! I think most of us are glad we have a germ theory of disease and treat sick children. Our responsibility is to help people live long, healthy lives, not worry that by doing so other negative consequences might ensue. We are glad that some of our ancestors decided that a twenty-five-year life span was insufficient, instead of worrying that curing diseases and extending life might have negative consequences.

Most importantly, I believe it is immoral for us to reject anti-aging research and the technologies it will produce, thereby forcing future generations to die involuntarily. After anti-aging technologies are developed, the living should be free to choose to live longer, live forever, or even die young if they want to. But it would be immoral for us not to try to make death optional for them. If we made decisions for them, we would be imposing our values on them. At the moment we tolerate a high death rate to compensate for a high birth rate, but our descendants may not share this value.

Moreover, as I have argued previously, death is like a bomb strapped to our chest. The bomb is with us from birth and can detonate at any time. If it is in our power to remove that bomb for future generations, then we should. We should not let hypothetical concerns about negative consequences deter our removing those explosives. I’d bet future generations will thank us for removing such bombs, and even if our descendants do decide that a hundred years of consciousness is enough, they will probably be thankful that we gave them the option to live longer. I’d guess that higher forms of being and consciousness will want to preserve their being. They would want us to disarm the bomb.

The lovers of death don’t want to disarm the bomb because its detonation transports you to a better address—from a slum to a mansion. Even better, in the mansion, your mind and body are eternally bathed in a salve of peace, love, and joy. That is the justification for opposing the bomb’s removal. The problem is this story is fictional. And we know that most people agree because when humans conquer death when they learn to remove the bomb—they will. Those in the future who have the option to live forever will be eternally grateful that they have the real thing, instead of the empty promises we now pay for each Sunday in church. Consciousness has come a long way from its beginnings in a primordial soup, but there is so much farther to go. Let’s put our childhood behind us, and make something of ourselves. (to be continued.)

Overpopulation and Living Forever – Part 1

[This column is dedicated to my mother, Mary Jane Hurley Messerly (1919-2005).]

I have been engaged in a dialogue with a scientist who is doing anti-aging research. He worries that anti-aging technologies, including the possibility of physical immortality, will lead to overpopulation and ecological destruction. In other words, while it may be best for individuals to live forever, it might be collectively disastrous. Readers may recognize this situation as an instance of the “tragedy of the commons.” Acting in their apparent self-interest, individuals destroy a common good. It may be convenient for individuals to pollute the air, earth, and water, but eventually, this is catastrophic for all.

His research suggests:

that aging is controlled by biochemical signals. If we wish to be younger, we don’t have to repair everything that goes wrong with the body, one by one, with a bio-engineering approach.  All we have to do is to tamper with the body’s signaling chemistry … But … the increase in human life span from ~40 years 200 years ago to ~80 in advanced countries today has been accompanied by devastating global overpopulation … The rate of extinctions is far higher than during the great extinction events of the past … Never before has a single species adapted to every climate and habitat.  Never before has a single species systematically mined the biosphere as if it were a disposable trifle.

While I am unqualified to assess the worthiness of these scientific conclusions, I do not believe that overpopulation and its attendant problems should give researchers in this area pause. Here are some reasons why.

If we have conquered death we may already be transhumans or post-humans living after a technological singularity. Such beings may not want to propagate, since achieving a kind of immortality is a major motivation for having children. Such beings may be relatively independent of the physical environment too—their bodies may be impervious to environmental stressors or they may not have bodies at all. In such cases, concerns about overpopulation would be irrelevant. I am not saying that they will be irrelevant, but that the tragedy of 150,000 people dying each and every day—100,000 of them from age-related causes—is a huge price to pay for speculative hypotheses about the future. We should not assume that our concerns as biological beings today will be relevant in the future.

Of course, I don’t know how the future will unfold. But preserving the minds that now exist may be a better survival strategy than educating new ones. In the future, we will probably need educated and mature minds—their invaluable knowledge and wisdom. So I argue that we should try to eliminate death, dealing with overpopulation—assuming we even have to—when the time comes. (Remember predictions are for the global population to start to stabilize around 2050.) My suggestions may be considered reckless, but remember there is no risk-free way to proceed into the future. Whatever we do, or don’t do, has risks. If we cease developing technology, we will not be able to prevent the inevitable asteroid strike that will decimate our planet; if we continue to die young we may not develop the intelligence necessary to design better technology. Given these considerations, I wouldn’t let hypotheticals about the future deter my research into defeating death.

Note too that this objection to life-extending research could have been leveled at work on the germ theory of disease or other life-extending research and technology in the past. Don’t cure diseases because that will lead to overpopulation! Don’t treat sick children because they might survive and have more children! I think most of us are glad we have a germ theory of disease and treat sick children. Our responsibility is to help people live long, healthy lives, not worry that by doing so other negative consequences might ensue. We are glad that some of our ancestors decided that a twenty-five-year life span was insufficient, instead of worrying that curing diseases and extending life might have negative consequences. 

Most importantly, I believe it is immoral for us to reject anti-aging research and the technologies it will produce, thereby forcing future generations to die involuntarily. After anti-aging technologies are developed, the living should be free to choose to live longer, live forever, or even die young if they want to. But it would be immoral for us not to try to make death optional for them. If we made decisions for them, we would be imposing our values on them. (At the moment we tolerate a high death rate to compensate for a high birth rate, but our descendants may not share this value.)

Moreover, death is like a bomb strapped to our chest waiting to go off. The bomb is with us from birth. If it is in our power to remove that bomb for future generations, then we should. We should not let hypothetical concerns about negative consequences deter removing those explosives. I’d bet future generations will thank us for removing such bombs. And even if our descendants do decide that a hundred years of consciousness is enough, they will probably be thankful that we gave them the option to live longer. But I’d guess that higher forms of being and consciousness will want to preserve their being. (to be continued.)

(For more watch this Ted talk by Aubrey de Grey.)

(For a more detailed discussion about these issues and a plethora of arguments for life-extending therapies see Max More’s: “Superlongevity Without Overpopulation.”)

Review of Michael Ruse’s “A Philosopher Looks At Human Beings”

Michael Ruse (1940 – ) is one of the world’s most important living philosophers. He currently holds the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor and is Director of History of Philosophy and Science Program at Florida State University. He is the author of more than 50 books, a former Guggenheim Fellow and Gifford Lecturer, a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Bertrand Russell Society award winner for his dedication to science and reason. He has also received four honorary degrees.

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Ruse’s newest book A Philosopher Looks at Human Beings so captivated me that I finished it in a few days. The prose is carefully and conscientiously crafted with a graceful literary style that treats complex concepts with clarity and brevity. Sometimes with one-word sentences. Oneword. And so funny! Whitehead’s process philosophy “must have St. Augustine revolving rapidly in his grave.” And discussing the pangs of moral conscience that follow from marking up library books–which is funny in itself–he writes,

God help the library books because apparently Darwin won’t. You’ll be sorry. Sleepless nights, wracked by conscience at that yellow highlighting of the Critique or Pure Reason. How could you destroy the joy of others as they set out, all pure and innocent and eager, into The Transcendental Analytic to find the Metaphysical Deduction has been marked up like a copy-editor’s proof.

Hilarious. If you ever tried to read Kant … well, it’s not a joyful experience. The pages of my old copy are brittle from long ago tears.

Ruse does assume his readers have some background in philosophy. He writes “better Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” or “existence precedes essence” or “Popperian” without explanation. But this is not problematic. Such examples are rare and almost always self-explanatory. If not there’s always google.

A Brief Synopsis – With my commentary in [brackets.]

Ruse wants to know if human beings are justified in thinking themselves special. The answer to this question comes from science, specifically from evolutionary biology. Moreover, his discussion will lead to moral questions such as, what should we do and why should we do it? Again evolutionary biology provides the most important insights. I agree. We can’t talk intelligently about human nature or ethics without an understanding of our evolutionary past.

The first chapter distinguishes between a)religious; b)secular; and c)creationists views of human nature. It’s important to note that his small (c) creationists are NOT biblical literalists. Instead, they are those who think “human nature is … created not discovered.” They think that we are special because “we have the ability to make ourselves special.” [If we are indeed special because we can improve our nature then, as a transhumanist, I ask “why not follow this evolutionary thinking to its logical conclusion? Why not transcend our nature? Don’t we have a moral obligation to make ourselves more special?]

For Ruse, Sartre exemplifies small (c) creationism. Quoting Sartre,

God does not exist, yet there is still a being in whom existence precedes essence, a being which exists before being defined by any concept, and this being is man or, as Heidegger puts it, human reality. That means that man first exists, encounters himself and emerges in the world, to be defined afterwards. Thus, there is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it. It is man who conceives himself, who propels himself towards existence …

[The transhumanism here is implicit. If we define ourselves, if we conceive ourselves, then let’s use every means available to do that. Remember that we call our human nature is not static, it simply refers to our current stage of evolutionary development.] Ruse argues then that it isn’t God or nature that makes us special—if indeed we are special—rather that is a judgment we make about ourselves. We are nothing more or less than what we have made of ourselves. [Agreed. So let’s make more of ourselves.]

There is a lot to say about the intervening chapters but let me outline the logic that leads to the book’s conclusions so as not to provide too many spoilers.

If science is the key to answering questions about our nature then “we must dig into the underlying metaphysical presumptions that people bring to their science.” This is the subject matter of the second chapter. Here he introduces the distinction between organicism and mechanism—the two metaphysical assumptions brought to science. Roughly speaking, some people think that the world is an organism and that humans have a natural value because they are the most special part of this world (or of the creation for the religious.) Others think that the world is a machine and that we must make our own value judgments, including judgments about ourselves.

Next, in Chapter 3, he turns to Darwinian evolutionary theory which explains human nature. [This should be obvious but many philosophers, particularly religious ones, use a 2,500-year-old version of human nature in their philosophy.] Chapters 4 & 5 evaluate Darwinian claims about human nature in light of the metaphysical assumptions discussed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 6 Ruse considers the question of progress, to see if organicism and mechanism reach different conclusions. In the last 2 chapters, he compares the views of organicism and mechanism in the moral realm.

The epilogue looks at the moral realm, “as seen through the lenses and demands of the three groups of the first chapter—the religious, the secular, the creationist?” Ruse defends small (c) creationism, what he calls Darwinian existentialism—we create our own values, we create our own meaning.

However, this does not imply naive moral relativism. For we are social, we are part of a group and our ancestors found rules of behavior that worked—we all do better if we all cooperate; we benefit from reciprocity. We get our morality from our evolved human nature along with cultural influences. There is no higher standard than that.

What then makes humans special? Ruse concludes,

As a Darwinian existentialist, I ask for no more than I have. As a Darwinian existentialist, I want no more than I have. I am so privileged to have had the gift of life and the abilities and the possibilities to make full use of it.

Reflections

I am moved by Ruse’s humble gratitude for the chance to have lived, and in his case, to have lived well-lived. But he can do all this and take a final step. Let me explain.

E.O. Wilson wrote,

The human species can change its own nature. What will it choose? Will it remain the same, teetering on a jerrybuilt foundation of partly obsolete Ice-Age adaptations? Or will it press toward still higher intelligence and creativity …

Now consider Ruse’s creationism (c), standing on our own, looking within, Darwinian existentialism. I agree but with a major caveat. I do ask for more and I do want more. Not just for myself but for others. For all of us, I want more consciousness, more justice, more joy, more life.

I believe that Ruse’s evolutionary perspective, his emphasis on creating our own meaning and values leads naturally to transhumanism. If “it is having to stand on your own … that makes humans of great worth” then we really stand on our own, really create ourselves if we transcend our current nature. Why be content with our current nature? Why not direct evolution?

Yes, this is risky, but with no risk-free way to proceed, we either evolve or we will die. We know what we are, but we know not what we may become. Or, as Nietzsche put it “What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal…” Nietzsche wasn’t on board with all this “humans are so great stuff.” I’m not either. I’m no angel, just a modified monkey who was lucky to have great parents, a middle-class lifestyle, a good education, and a job where I received free exam copies of Michael Ruse books!

So transhumanism complements Ruse’s evolutionary vision. Once you adopt an evolutionary perspective, and Ruse is one of the world’s more ardent defenders of the truth of Darwinism, then you should look not just to the past and present but to the future. Ruse is a philosopher looking at human beings as they are now. His analysis is spot on. But taking an evolutionary perspective, I’m more interested in what we might become. What can we make of ourselves?

I do know this. If we survive and prosper, our descendants will come to resemble us about as much as we do the amino acids from which we sprang. Surely this is something for any evolutionist to ponder.

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I’d like to thank Professor Ruse for writing his book. I’ve read many of his works over the years and have always enjoyed them. (I previously reviewed his A Meaning to Life.)