John G. Messerly's Blog, page 71

Is There an Afterlife?

The Fountain of Eternal Life in Cleveland, Ohio is described as symbolizing “Man rising above death, reaching upward to God and toward Peace.”[1]

Belief in immortality 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.

So while personal immortality is logically possible, it’s easy enough to see it isn’t plausible. I live under the assumption that my consciousness depends on a functioning brain, and as that functioning deteriorates, so to will my consciousness. At the point at which my brain no longer functions, I assume my brain won’t either. When I die, I probably won’t move to a better neighborhood. However, it’s possible that my cryonically preserved brain can be reanimated, that future generations will possess the computing power to run ancestor simulations, or that some other future technology will defeat death. But as things stand now, there is no good reason to believe my consciousness can literally survive death. When I die I doubt that I’ll move to a better neighborhood.

Good Books on Science and Religion

These are some books on science and religion that I recommend. For more information click on one of the links below.

• Scott Atran ~ In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion…

• John H. Brooke ~ Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (Canto Classics)

• John  Brooke & Geoffrey Cantor ~ Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science…

• Paul Davies ~ The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World

• Willem Drees ~ Beyond the Big Bang: Quantum Cosmologies and God

• Stephen J. Gould ~ Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life

• Sam Harris ~ Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

• Kenneth Miller ~ Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground…

• Corey Powell ~ God in the Equation: How Einstein Transformed Religion

• Michael Shermer ~ How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God

• Michael Ruse ~ The Evolution-Creation Struggle

• Michael Ruse ~ Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith in the Age of Science

• Phil Torres ~ The End: What Science and Religion Tell Us about the Apocalypse

Communing with Nature: Is That How We Find Life’s Meaning?

Chris Crawford at Cologne Game Lab in 2011

My recent post elicited this thoughtful response from the game designer Chris Crawford. His thinking reminds me of Thoreau and the Taoists.

… The very question “What is the meaning of life?” raises my hackles, because the question has no intellectual substance. One might as well ask “What is the meaning of hamburgers?” My physicist-mind demands that I boil it down to something concrete, something — well, not tangible, but certainly something that I can nail down.

But when I attempt to translate the question into some form with a clear answer, I fail. Can we phrase it as, “What is the purpose of life?” That doesn’t help. “What is the significance of life?” No, that’s no good, either.

So I step back even further and ask “What would motivate a person to ask such a question in the first place?” Here I get my first solid answer: a person asking that question has no sense of purpose in life; they feel that they are wasting their life on petty, useless nonsense. They have no goal to aspire to, and the lack of that goal makes them feel that their life is an exercise in futility.

That’s something I can wrap my mind around. It immediately leads me to the realization that we have long had institutions designed to provide us with that answer: religion. A big guy named “God” has declared a purpose for us: we must seek to go to heaven, and we can accomplish this by obeying God’s dictates. My first problem with this idea is that it begs the question; once you get to heaven, what do you do next? What is the purpose of your existence once you have already attained the purpose laid down for you by God? Why continue existing without purpose? If the lack of purpose makes your life seem a waste, then why wouldn’t the lack of purpose in heaven make your afterlife seem a waste?

One answer to this is that we shall have all of our wants satisfied in heaven. Great movies, the latest smartphones, sexual partners galore, and we can eat all we want without getting fat. Sounds pretty good. And it makes sense when you’re a starving peasant living in a filthy hovel. But it would seem that we moderns are pricing Heaven out of the market: we already have a great deal of that stuff already. Well, yes, I must admit that I still don’t have all those nubile nymphs fawning over me, nor can I eat all the chocolate ice cream I desire, but nevertheless I’m in pretty good shape.

Still, the deal is nicely packaged, loaded with all sorts of impressive rituals, ancient (and presumably correct) books, wise people offering their support, lots of friends, and plenty of patting on the back. For somebody who is too busy worrying about paying the mortgage and getting the latest video games for the kids, it’s a quick, simple solution that doesn’t require much intellectual effort.

If that works for somebody else, more power to them. But I’m not so desperate to grab the fast-food solution. If there really were a big shot named God, and he came to me and told me to shut up and do what he tells me to do, I might well knuckle under. But I’ve never seen this guy. All I have to go on is what some people say about what other people said about what other people said about what some people wrote about what they claim to have witnessed. If I were on a jury, I certainly wouldn’t convict anybody on hearsay evidence that far removed from the source. No, I don’t get off that easily.

My solution comes to me from a walk in the forest. I am fundamentally no different from the living creatures there. I am of the same fabric as the smallest germ or the biggest tree. I am akin to the little spider and Mr. Bear and the ducks in their enclosure. Sure, I’m different in many ways, but from a cosmic point of view, those differences are of little significance. Like them, I am born, live, strive, and die.

Here we collide with human vanity. “How dare you call me a spider!” the indignant human sputters. “I’m different! I have an immortal soul!” A less religious person might not claim a soul — he’ll merely claim “consciousness”. That’s really just the modern euphemism for “soul”. I’ll not be distracted by such a silly exercise in vanity. I’ll not swaddle myself in the comforting robes of self-importance.

I see no problem identifying myself with other living creatures. That realization doesn’t diminish me; it exalts me by making me part of a gigantic system. I am one with all the other DNA-creatures. I share their deepest makeup. I pursue goals very similar to the goals they pursue. Just like them, I’ll die someday. So what? It’s part of the unity I share with them. I find it more satisfying to realize that I am one with nature, and death is just one part of that unity. To reject death is to distance me from the majesty of earth’s biosphere. Why in the world would I want to do that?

Reflections – This is a beautiful and profound statement of the meaning we can find by realizing our oneness with nature and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. As for me though, I don’t think of death as majestic and I doubt many people will believe that when death is no longer viewed as inevitable. And, given a number of caveats, I believe that science will defeat individual death and that our posthuman descendants may also defeat universal death too. In short, I believe that death should be optional.

Why is Capital Hill Gun Free?

If Congress really believes more guns will make us safer then I propose that all our representatives be armed on the House and Senate floor and that they remove all the metal detectors in their buildings. Of course, they would reject this idea because this would make them much less safe. Thus they would reveal their hypocrisy.

For more see:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatch...

https://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...

Best Books on the Meaning of Life

This is a list of the books on the meaning of life that I recommend. For more information click one of the links below. ** Books that particularly influenced me.

• Julian Baggani ~ What’s It All About?: Philosophy and the Meaning of Life

• Julian Barnes ~ Nothing to Be Frightened Of

• Raymond Belliotti ~ What Is The Meaning Of Human Life?

• Christopher Belshaw ~10 Good Questions About Life And Death

• David Benatar, ed. ~ Life, Death, and Meaning: Key Philosophical Readings on the Big …

• Simon Critchley ~ Very Little … Almost Nothing: Death, Philosophy and Literature

• Simon Critchley ~ The Book of Dead Philosophers

• The Dalai Lama ~ The Meaning of Life

• Hubert Dreyfus & Sean Kelly ~ All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find …

• Will Durant ~ Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God

• Will Durant ~ On the Meaning of Life

• Terrence Eagleton ~ The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction

• Joseph Ellin ~ Morality and the Meaning of Life: An Introduction to Ethical Theory

• Owen Flanagan ~ Self Expressions: Mind, Morals, and the Meaning of Life

• Victor Frankl ~ Man’s Search for Meaning **

• Aaron James ~ Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry into a Life of Meaning[image error]

• E. D. Klemke ~ The Meaning of Life: A Reader **

• Anthony Kronman ~ Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given …

• John Messerly ~ The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Transhumanist …  **

• Thaddeus Metz ~ Meaning in Life

• Thomas Morris ~ Making Sense of It All: Pascal and the Meaning of Life

• Massimo Pigliucci ~ Answers for Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to …

• Joshua Seachris, ed. ~ Exploring the Meaning of Life: An Anthology and Guide

• Paul Thagard ~ The Brain and the Meaning of Life

•  Clement Vidal ~ The Beginning and the End: The Meaning of Life in a Cosmological … 

• Julian Young ~ The Death of God and the Meaning of Life

Review of Roy Scranton’s, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization

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Roy Scranton served as a private in the US army from 2002 to 2006, including a term in Iraq. In his new book, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization, he reflects on one of the greatest threat to humanity—climate change. Scranton argues that, as we destroy the climate that sustains us, we are destroying ourselves. We are our own worst enemy.

Humans have thrived in a climate that has been stable for more than a half million years, but the burning of fossil fuels will end that interval. Our fate follows from our shortcomings. “The problem with our response to climate change isn’t a problem with passing the right laws or finding the right price for carbon or changing people’s minds or raising awareness … The problem is that the problem is us.”

And our capitalist system exacerbates the problem, as we exploit the resources of the earth in a profit-driven world. Our biological nature and our social, economic and political systems have brought us to the precipice. Scranton holds out some hope that things might change, although he doesn’t think this is likely. The story of human civilization, in the end, will likely be one of tragedy.

What then should we do? Scranton tells us that we should probably accept the end of civilization and learn how to die. If practicing philosophy is learning how to die, as so many philosophers have said, then we live in the quintessential philosophical age.  We should come to terms with the end of civilization.

But this is hard to do. We rebel at the idea that we are doomed, and like many previous civilizations, we continue to march headlong toward disaster. We can’t believe the end is just around the corner, so we tell ourselves we’ll be fine. We destroy the seas and atmosphere that support us, we kill off other species and pump carbon into the air with abandon. Who cares if we destroy civilization if saving it means riding bikes and becoming vegetarians? Surely that is too high a price!

Yes, we should what we can to preserve the best of human civilization. But the thoughtful, living in the Anthropocene, accept that we will all probably die. While this may be a depressing thought, only honest reflection on it gives us any chance of preventing it.

As for me, I believe we will all die unless we enhance the human species.

Good Books on Popular Science

This is a list of some good books on popular science that I recommend. For more information click on one of the links below.

• Diane Ackerman ~ The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us

• John Brockman ~ The New Humanists: Science at the Edge

• Alan Cromer ~ Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science

• Antonio Damasio ~ Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

• Richard Dawkins ~ A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love

• David Deutsch ~ The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

• Susan Fischer ~ Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray

• John Horgan ~The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight …

• Steven Johnson ~ How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

• Michio Kaku ~ The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance …

• Elizabeth Kolbert ~ The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History[image error]

• Douglas Mulhall ~ Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics …

• Carl Sagan ~The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

• Carl Sagan ~ Cosmos

• Roy Scranton ~ Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a …

• Michael Shermer ~ Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition …

• E. O. Wilson ~ Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge

• E. O. Wilson ~ Letters to a Young Scientist

• E. O. Wilson ~The Social Conquest of Earth

Meaning of the Movie “Paterson”

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My wife and I just watched Paterson, the new movie written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It touched me unlike any film I’ve seen in years, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. And what was on the screen? A box of matches, a guitar, cupcakes, the inside of a bus, the outside of a dreary house, a dark dive bar, an ugly dog, old city streets and buildings, a waterfall, a bridge, lines of poetry, and  … mature love.

The film made the ordinary—extraordinary. It reminded me of Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town,” which also exalts the wonder of ordinary things. Paterson and his wife find beauty and love in and among the ordinary. They literally create their own meaning to life, by filling its blank canvas with poetry, music, cupcakes, and love. What a contrast to the toxic masculinity and over-sexualized femininity that permeate our culture. The film is an ode to mindfulness. It is an ode to life itself. I will watch it again.

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Here are some reviews of the film:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ric...

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/pa...

https://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/2...

http://straightfromamovie.com/tag/pat...

Online Game Addiction

 

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**Originally published as “How computer games affect CS (and other) students’ school performance” in Communications of the ACM, March 2004. Reprinted as “Online Game Playing Can Be Addictive,” in Addiction: Opposing Viewpoints Series (Farmington Hills, MI.: Greenhaven Press 2009. (This was written almost 15 years ago and I no longer agree with all its sentiments. But I have left it unchanged.)

        1. THE PROBLEM

Discussions with more than a thousand college-aged students at one of the countries premier state universities have convinced me that video games ruin the social and scholastic life of many students. As a community, we must understand that this is indeed a problem. I don’t claim that this is our greatest social malady, but I do claim that many students—particularly computer science students at my university—have an addiction to these games. (And it is easy to infer that students at other institutions face this same problem.) Of course, the evidence for my claim, attested to by hundreds of students, is anecdotal. As such, it suffers from all the shortcomings of a non-scientific investigation; it is no substitute for serious investigation. With these caveats in place, I reiterate my concern about the effect contemporary computer games have on college students.

My methodology has been simple: I have asked students—all computer science majors in an elite program—if they know someone whose social or scholastic life has been negatively affected by computer games. Typically, about 95% answer in the affirmative. Students proceed to describe someone whose fascination with computer games chains them to their apartment or dorm room for days, weeks, or semesters. Many students admit to having, or having had, this problem themselves. The effect is exacerbated by the so-called “role-playing” games like Everquest, (whose addictive powers are so great that some students call it Ever-crack!), Age of Kings, Dark Age of Camelot, and so on. Players of these games create characters or alter-egos in cyberspace to live out fantasies and play roles, usually adopting exactly the kinds of traits they believe they lack in the real world. According to my informal surveys, there is something particularly addictive, if not sinister, about role-playing games. To highlight the problem, students tell multiple stories of parents withdrawing financial support from students who continually play these games at the expense of their studies; of intimate relationships that have been ruined because of an obsession with the virtual world; and of roommates who will not respond to any human interaction while playing these games—transfixed as they are to the imaginary world created by the interface of virtual world and human mind.1

The primary allure of role-playing games is escapism. And, as the graphics get better and the games more sophisticated, the pull of the games increases; the games become even more appealing.2 Now it is easy to imagine why persons want to escape our difficult world. But can they do it with ever more sophisticated computer technology? Increasingly, they can. One can live in these virtual worlds with little or no interaction with the ordinary world right now. With money, online bill paying, and delivered groceries, one can live in the early part of the 21st century peering almost exclusively into a computer screen. But would anyone really choose to live as a character in a role-playing game instead of our real world? According to my students, many students already do. Virtual reality is almost here. And many like it. These students are among the first to experience that these games may augur the future choices of the general population.

BUT IS IT REALLY A PROBLEM?

But then I began to wonder. How was I to convince students not to play such games? I don’t play them and have no desire to do so, but then they were not available when I was in college. Moreover, I’m sure I had frivolous habits of a comparable nature at their age. Still, I believe these games are a waste of time. But how to convince someone of this, that is the challenge. An obvious strategy would be to point out the negative effect these game may have on one’s social and scholastic life. But suppose they don’t care about those consequences. Suppose they say that their social and academic life pales in comparison to life in cyberspace. Suppose further that they claim that role-playing games allow them to be courageous heroes that they are not in real life, or that communication with online friends teaches them something about relationships that they might otherwise not learn. And what of their scholastic life? It is easy enough to imagine college students who don’t care about scholastics; professors have been complaining about them for years! But a committed gamer could maintain that familiarity with the fast-paced computer world is good job preparation for the 21st century.3 In short, if they prefer playing games to studying, it is hard to find a good rejoinder. I could assert my preference for reading over gaming, but surely this would merely reveal my subjective preference. Who am I to say anything about their preferences, especially when adopting these preferences doesn’t seem to hurt anyone other than possibly the players themselves? 4 Game addicts could claim that role-playing games give them a better life than the one they experience in the real world; thus, they might add, the consequences of playing the games is positive. After all, if they didn’t prefer spending time in the virtual world, they wouldn’t be playing all the time, now would they?

If gamers deny that games harm themselves—about which they may be correct—we could argue that they harm others. For example, games may interfere with the possibility of meaningful relationships, since gamers spend most of their time chained to computers. To this objection, gamers may maintain that they aren’t worthy of others, or that they want time alone. But even if we acknowledge the validity of these claims, what of the disappointment they might cause their parents? Here the gamer might reply that it isn’t obvious that college students should make decisions based on whether it disappoints their parents or not. This may be a consideration, but it is hardly the only or even the most important one. For if pleasing parents was the criterion for our actions, how many of us have disappointed our parents in the past, or continue to do so in the present? And how many of us may choose to live lives in accord with our parents, rather than our own, desires? Most of us would grant that personal autonomy holds sway over other’s preferences.  

But what if the student is financially dependent on the parent to support their habit? In that case,  parents are probably justified in removing funding from a project they deem worthless. But if students are financially independent, then they can circumvent this objection. In fact, according to my students, it is now possible to derive a living from role-playing computer games. Evidently, gamers create and develop characters—a time-consuming process—and sell them for profit. Others buy these characters because they possess greater powers or other virtues in the virtual environment. One can easily imagine that entrepreneurs will find other ways to make money via the computer and role-playing games. Thus, short of financial dependence of the gamer on someone who doesn’t condone their actions,  there seem to be no conclusive arguments, either from harming self or others, against the gamer’s fixation. And without good reasons, we have failed to convince either the gamer or ourselves to give up the habit (addiction).

MORE QUESTIONS FROM THE GAMERS

Moreover, the gamer might seriously object to our characterization of gaming by posing an obvious question: are all role-playing games bad? First, let me say that I doubt the benefits of game playing outweigh the costs in terms of the time and energy involved. It is possible that the games facilitate social interaction since many games demand that players play together as a team and get to know each other. For shy or friendless persons, this surely may be of comfort.5 Still, the games addictive effects—I believe we are justified in calling them that—suggest that they may be more pleasant than real life, otherwise their pull would not be as great. The games are less demanding and less complex than real life. Of course, this raises the question of whether this is a good or bad thing. Surely persons differ in their response, but if the most demanding and complex games are the best ones, then these games are not as good as the game of life, inasmuch as real life if more demanding and complex than gaming.6

Other strategies the gamer might turn toward in defense of their habit include the following claims: 1) most gaming doesn’t lead to the breakdown of one’s social life; 2) there are some positive lessons in gaming; 3) some gaming might actually aid a computer science education; and 4) there are many other genres of games that don’t pose these problems.7 However, I think we have strong counter arguments to most of these claims. The first issue has to do with how much gaming one can safely engage in before social relationships begin to break down. This is difficult to determine with accuracy but given my anecdotal evidence from students, when one begins to play daily one will affect their social and academic lives. As for positive lessons, there may be some such lessons regarding cooperation and strategy or for people who might design future games for example. But the fact is that the games target primal areas of the brain and satisfy primitive needs in the (primarily male) psyche. As such, they shut down more than stimulate the brain. As for the claim that some gaming is needed for a computer science education, I simply reject it. There are interface/game design courses if one wants to take them; no one needs to spend time playing these games to be a computer scientist. As for other games, I think the issues and concerns are the same, especially since the nature of the games and their effects might well converge in the future. Given then that none of these defenses seems convincing, can we make a good case against gaming? I believe we can.

GAMERS ARE ADDICTS

If we could show that gamers have an addiction to their games then our case against them seems stronger. Why? Because we think of addictions as compulsive behavior (something done regularly) which has a negative effect on an individual’s life. The key to understanding why we think addictions are bad is the conjunction of both compulsivity and negativity. If we only have one but not the other, we wouldn’t likely refer to a behavior as an addiction. It may have a negative effect on my life to smoke one time, but I’m hardly an addict if I quit immediately thereafter. Likewise, I may be compulsive about many things without being addicted to them in a negative sense. I may be compulsive about breathing and do it every few seconds, about eating small, healthy meals, or about exercising thirty minutes a day, but few would label me an addict since these behaviors positively affect my life. So compulsivity by itself doesn’t mean you are an addict—at least not in the negative sense. And the reason we aren’t likely to think of such persons as addicts is primarily that there isn’t anything negative about breathing, eating, or exercising in moderation. However, if I did nothing but eat or exercise, then you might say I was compulsive in the negative sense, and that’s precisely because I’m not exercising moderation or temperance. So we have introduced another idea in our attempt to understand addiction—moderation. Thus, I define addiction as a compulsive behavior, engaged in without moderation, that negatively affects one’s life.

According to this definition, it is easy to see that gamers are addicts. While it would be hard for them to deny that their behavior was compulsive or immoderate, they can still make the claim that it positively affects their life. But is this really the case, or does it just appear to be the case to them because they are addicts? I think it is the latter. Cigarettes may appear good to smokers, but they really are bad for persons independent of their desires for a smoke. Similarly, role-playing games may appear good to those playing—because they want to escape the world or are afraid of it—but for the moment the real world holds much more for those with the courage to face it. It holds more depth, more possible experience, more knowledge, more joy, more beauty, and more love than the world of a computer-generated reality. It is possible to imagine that in the future this may no longer be the case; but for the present, such escapism is cowardly.

NOTES.

Here’s an interesting anecdote I heard from a graduate student. A student had not gotten out of his chair in days, compulsively playing computer games. A roommate thought he had a great idea to help: he offered $50 dollars for the chair so his roommate would have to get out of it, and hopefully quench his addiction. The transaction concluded, but the first just dragged a pile of (dirty) clothes and sat on top of it… and continued on! I’ve also heard stories of persons who work helplines from home while playing computer games simultaneously.  
My informal surveys suggest that obsessive computer game playing is particularly problematic for male students since most players are men.
There appears to be some evidence for this. For example, the military has found that recruits familiar with the fast-paced action of computer games perform better than other recruits regarding certain skills.
I’m assuming that we are utilizing Mill’s “harm principle,” the notion that only harm to others can justify the use of legal coercion. Obviously, if we believe that role-playing games create harm to self, and if we believe that this is sufficient to use coercive methods to prevent persons from harming themselves, then we can simply ban RP games.
I am indebted to Kip Werking for this insight.
I am indebted to Thierry Joffrain for suggesting this line of thought.
I thank Andrew Rosenbloom for posing these issues.

I would like to thank the following: Andrew Rosenbloom of the ACM for posing many questions that made this a better paper; my colleague Thierry Joffrain for many insightful comments and suggestions; and Kip Werking, a perceptive undergraduate whose insights were beneficial.

John G. Messerly

The University of Texas at Austin

Department of Computer Sciences

2.124 Taylor Hall

Austin, TX 78712

messerly@cs.utexas.edu

Good Books on Evolution and Ethics

This is a list of some good books on evolution and ethics that I have read and recommend. For more information click on one of the links below.

• Robert Axelrod ~ The Evolution of Cooperation: Revised Edition

• Sam Harris ~ The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

• John Messerly ~ Philosophical Ethics: Theory and Practice

• James Rachels ~ Created from Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinism

• Michael Shermer ~ The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care …

• Robert Wright ~ The Moral Animal: Why We Are, the Way We Are: The New Science …

• Paul Lawrence Farber ~ The Temptations of Evolutionary Ethics[image error]

• Massimo Pigliucci ~ Evolution, the Extended Synthesis