h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But on Free Will vs Predestination...I maintain that the whole 'debate' is a monstrously irrelevant theological artefact. It was St Gus the Hippopotamus who made Free Will fashionable, was it not? (I'm in danger of being criticised by anti-Dawkinsites for getting my - er - their theology wrong here).

To some religious types (Muslims?) all is laid down by god. This gives 'problems' such as why does a benevolent god allow suffering; why dows an omnipotent god allow people to make the harmful choices, etc. etc. As far as I understand it, the Muslim solution to this is 'Ours is not to reason why' (only god knows)...but god is still benevolent because it could be a damned sight worse. Plus we've got 'submission' (also translatable as peace, acceptance, inevitability, etc. etc.) as a comfort, gifted by god via The Recitation.

This type of thing didn't work for (?) Gus (although presumably he was arguing against the dark side of Manichean dualism). His god endowed humans with the 'gift' of free will, with which they could ameliorate suffering through the right choices. As I understand it (which is not very much!), natural calamities are 'gifts' which give us the opportunity to exercise Free Will. See my previous comment about the vile Mother Theresa's attitude to the suffering of others. (But not towards her own suffering: she was happy to grab for herself the modern medicine she rationed parsimoniously to others).

But as Vonnegut (peace be upon him) wrote, "See the cat? See the cradle?" As soon as we abandon the notion of god, we don't need any of this.

The comparable question for rational Atheists is, "Is the universe predictable?" This is an easy one: In principle, "Yes". But you'd need full data on all the particles in the universe, their energy states and trajectories. You'd need to know the entire history of the universe. The predicting machine would be as big as the universe.

So clearly computing machines such as humans *do* make choices based on the data available. Those choices are (theoretically) predictable, with full information on what knowledge and processing the human has (ie their full biology and life history) - but the problem's too big. Meanwhile, partly-predictable choices based on generalisations about psychological processes is a reasonable model. The illusion of Free Will.

>The predicting machine would be as big as the universe.

DNA's point entirely.

Dennett makes useful drawings to model the way intelligences of various levels deal with reality by evolving helpful predictions. Trying out theories and discarding the sterile ones. Looking at his sketches (e.g. in "Consciousness Explained", the book they love to hate) we can get an inkling of the origin of problems of free-will and epistemology (how do we know anything?) -- we use models in our brains to predict reality. Simple example: we use calendars to predict seasons. Complex example: from our visual input we construct 3-D models of the stairs we are walking down.

The problem arises when we start wondering "is this reality I am perceiving, or my internal model of reality?"

An answer that plumps for either alternative, to the extent of denying the other, will put you into one of two unnecessarily warring camps.

I'm re-reading 'Consciousness Explained Away' at the moment. Mighty powerful stuff. I'm also reading a Susan Blackmore collection of interviews with various people working in the field. Lots of naysayers, but I've not yet read anything to convince me that it's other than the non-problem that Dennett implies.

>>An answer that plumps for either alternative, to the extent of denying the other, will put you into one of two unnecessarily warring camps.

Another perspective. As Bernard Russell realised (and, apparently, fell off his bike on doing so), a set of teaspoons is not itself a member of the set of teaspoons.

No - but it's still got teaspoons in it.

But has the set of all sets that are not members of themselves got teaspoons in it?

It's struck me recently that none of us can ever imagine being non-existent. And that's why an afterlife seems so appealing to some.

But then again, we have proof we were non-existent. Where was our consciousness we before we were conceived?

Derek Parfit ('Reasons and Persons') is fond of this analogy. We don't regret the loss of life we suffered before we were born, so we shouldn't regret the loss after we/they die. But people do, because they are not what Parfit calls "timeless". They feel apprehensive about future pain and blithe about past pain.

I don't see them about to change, though.

Quote from Kurt Vonnegut (Timequake, 1977)

The funniest American of his time, Mark Twain, found life for himself and everybody else so stressful when he was in his seventies, like me, that he wrote as follows: "I have never wanted any released friend of mine restored to life since I reached manhood." That is in an essay on the sudden death of his daughter Jean a few days earlier. Among those he wouldn't have resurrected were Jean, and another daughter, Susy, and his beloved wife, and his best friend, Henry Rogers.

Twain didn't live to see World War One, but still he felt that way.

Perhaps the body fears death, even when the mind doesn't.

I remember once trying to break into my own home through an upstairs window. At one point, I found myself perched on a narrow window ledge, clutching at the frame by my fingernails. I didn't feel particularly concerned - yet I noticed that my legs were somewhat inconveniently shaking.

And it is 'death' we fear: the moment of dying and the circumstances leading up to it. That's our biological programming. But Atheists don't fear being dead. Do we? It's irrelevant. We won't be around to experience it.

"Apres moi, la deluge."

>Perhaps the body fears death, even when the mind doesn't.

Well put, I'd say. Wittgenstein A1024156 thought about suicide (three of his brothers had carried it off) but decided that it would involve "rushing his own defences" and he didn't want to do that.

You could say his mind respected the wishes of his body in that instance; which is not what people think of him--he was famously ascetic.

In the end he was relieved to be told at the age of 60-odd that his prostate cancer was incurable, and he died with a happy quip.

We all respect our bodies' wishes; as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi said, "Logic favours my cup of tea."

I keep meaning to read Hume on suicide. http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/suicide.htm

To be or not to be? That is the question. Scary 'Too Much Information' bit coming:
My proudest life achievement is to have decided to check myself into hospital, rather than killing myself. Well...I *say* proudest - but again it was biology. Part of my biology was malfunctioning and making plans for departure. Another part was thinking "That would be awful for my loved one."

(that should have been 'ones'. There are four of them.)

Well done. It only hurts everyone else.

Well...that certainly silenced everyone.

For a while I had a motto, "it only hurts while you're alive"

Yes - we're still listening! Your tale certainly gave us pause to reflect on things.

I'm reading through an interesting debate between Sam Harris and Andrew Sullivan (well, when I get a chance):

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904_1.html

That's nice. I like "blogalogue" (Add to dictionary).

"The View from the Centre of the Universe" is good on religion. I haven't got to the exact part yet, but I gather that the gist is: religion says something valuable, since the only way to grasp things outside the scale of our own experience is through metaphor; but don't expect God to be like man in any way. Man can only be this size.

The thrust of it is wonder at the cosmos (Dawkins shares this) and waking up to the urgency of looking after our planet. We are in many important ways central in the universe. It is no small thing that we have the intelligence to comprehend the bit we can see, with our extended senses through micro- and tele- scopes and other instruments. We have a duty.

So far not a lot on religion, I know, but I'll keep you posted.

I answered a relevant question on Yahoo Answers today: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AieGoMxRtewt9fbmXKYoYQDsy6IX?qid=20070424023508AAz1jS1&show=7#profile-info-L5FcgJNOaa
seventh answer down. A Dalai Lama approach.

I dunno...I think that there *is* something wrong with religion. It justifies the bad of the evil. It makes the good do bad.

Meanwhile...The Atheists Strike Back:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2064899,00.html

Dan D's quote is interesting. He's usually relatively mild-mannered and conciliatory.

Now that is interesting: Winston is Jewish. Whatever about their current behaviour in the Middle East, the Jewish religion has always seemed to me the most sensible. Pity it is restricted to a race; that is simply unsustainable in my view.

Pinker is also Jewish, and I hadn't gathered from his books that he ever repudiated that. He describes himself as a (former) Sunday School teacher.

Well...according to the Reform Shul, you *can* convert. And obviously the kabbalistic types take Italian-Americans (wealthy ones anyway).

In Howard Jacobson's 'Roots Schmoots: Journeys Amongst Jews', he comes across the definition of Judaism as 'The evolving religion of the Jewish peoples.' It is important to remember that all religions tend towards the pluralistic. Abrahamic Judaism was different to Moasaic was different to Temple era is different to Talmudic...etc. etc.

A singular feature of Judaism is its emphasis on ritual. This obviously has aspects of tribal loyalty, connection with the past, etc. etc. It has also been put to me that one of the values of strictly observing kashrut is that one is constantly rehearsing one's moral sensibilities. Practice on issues such as whether it is acceptable to include cheese with a burger sharpens the faculties for the really important ethical matters.

And while I generally loathe R4's Anodyne Homily for the Day, especially when it gives a platform for the reactionary Rabbi Sacks (second only to that fool Ann Atkins), I do rather like this gem of a man:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/documents/t20070418.shtml

Remember the brilliantly titled Jack Rosenthal TV play about the Catholic girl converting to Judaism? 'Oy Vey, Maria'.