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

Ha! I'm reading 'Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow' by Peter Hoeg (crossed-out o). This line strikes me as pertinent:

'Every theoretical explanation is a reduction of intuition.'

Two ways to see that though, either it means that theory is just an expression of intuition, or that theory replaces intuition. Both make sense actually! Damn novelists...

This piece replying to Bunting's article is quite interesting, and there is some good discussion (especially Mike Killingsworth's response):

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2009/04/11/so-what-if-religion-is-irrational/

Here's another interesting article about 'confabulation' (i.e. people making stuff up when they don't know or remember), and how it might be something we do all the time:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225720.100-mind-fiction-why-your-brain-tells-tall-tales.html?full=true

and if you can't look at that link, excerpts here:

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/the-situation-of-confabulation/

"He suspects that confabulation is not just something people do when the system goes wrong. We may all do it routinely. Children need little encouragement to make up stories when asked to talk about something they know little about. Adults, too, can be persuaded to confabulate, as Timothy Wilson of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and his colleague Richard Nisbett have shown. They laid out a display of four identical items of clothing and asked people to pick which they thought was the best quality. It is known that people tend to subconsciously prefer the rightmost object in a sequence if given no other choice criteria, and sure enough about four out of five participants did favour the garment on the right. Yet when asked why they made the choice they did, nobody gave position as a reason. It was always about the fineness of the weave, richer colour or superior texture. This suggests that while we may make our decisions subconsciously, we rationalise them in our consciousness, and the way we do so may be pure fiction, or confabulation."

(Not meaning to ignore Dogster's last two. I'll return to them. Honest!

Getting back to the idea of the (for practical purposes) irreduceibility of opinion...it occurs to me that here's a reason why religion is effective. Moral decisions are difficult. Who's to know what's right and what's wrong. At very least, religion offers *some* level of guidance.

And we all do this, in real life, when we agree to follow laws which are not directly of our making. For example, there's no rationally reducible reason to drive on one side of the road rather than the other. But we'd be daft not to blindly follow the local agreement.

Or tonight...there was a news item on EU demands that the UK tightens up its data protection law to prevent the use of 'phorms' technology whereby companies (specifically, BT) can target internet advertising by using personal data on internet use. There is possibly a perfectly rational moral argument that this is A Good Thing - but it's a *complex* argument, and in practice we've already decided 'No'. The fact that summarising the arguments pro and con would require a thread in itself kinda makes my point for me.

So maybe laws - or religious requirements and prohibitions - provide heuristics to guide us through the maze of moral complexity. And maybe the danger comes when we start to treat heuristics as though they were algorithms.

'Rules are for the guidance of wise men but the blind obedience of fools.'

I've a soft spot for the Jewish approach, however. The Kashruth laws are complex and somewhat arbitrary. (Some may originally have had health benefits - but even that's arguable). I mean...why's it OK to eat antelopes but not rabbits? And neither with a grilled cheese topping. Well, one interpretation is that the practice of navigating a complex set of laws primes one for making moral decisions about the really important things. (And apparently the Beth Din employs law students as inspectors).

No worries, those links just provided for general interest.

The example of which side of the road to drive on is an interesting one. It's an example of a case in which it is important to have *a* rule, but not important *which* rule (within some bounds). Lots of examples: any law which involves an age cutoff for example, i.e. you're allowed to do X when you're older than Y, but not before. The exact age usually doesn't matter too much, but for clarity and predictability it's good to have a simple rule.

But do religious rules have this quality? It doesn't seem like they do - if anything quite the opposite. It wouldn't be so bad if they stuck to these sorts of rules, but unfortunately they go for the ones that do matter.

It's also not clear to me that religious rules do simplify any of the complexity.

>>It's also not clear to me that religious rules do simplify any of the complexity.

Well...on (ahem) another thread we've encountered someone who - if I read him right - seems to think that conflicts arise when people refuse to agree on a single set of rules. So if we'd only agree that (eg) women should be barely seen and not heard at all and poofs should be stoned, we'd all get on fine and dandy. OK - so that's maybe over-satirising it a little (or maybe not...)

But it makes me wonder...*is* a consensus possible? Or even desirable? But assuming it is...why a liberal Atheist consensus? What are our arguments?

Consensus isn't possible (the earlier examples of animal killing and abortion prove that). But if we think of rules not as specifying what is right, but about providing a framework to stop any individual or group exercising too much power over another individual or group, we avoid some of the problems. It won't work for missionary types who want to exercise their will on others, but it works for everyone else, whether or not they believe in God. It's an attitude that fits nicely with my interpretation of the injunction in the Quran about there being no compulsion in religion. It also fits well with Protestantism. Catholicism looks to be more problematic with its hierarchies, but I talked to a Catholic anarchist who tried to convince me that one can interpret "the Church" as a sort of democratic expression of the community of believers, and their mutual obligations to one another. I wasn't entirely convinced, but then it's not me that has to be convinced. In conclusion, in principle this framework works for almost everyone, regardless of what they believe in.

In other words, we have to argue not for a liberal Atheist consensus, but instead for a secular consensus based around the idea that one cannot legislate for morality, but only to limit some groups from exercising power over others.

Some people won't go for it of course, but I'm happy not to try to engage into a consensus with people who want to exercise power over me, and instead to fight them (preferably with ideas rather than force, but that too if it finally comes to it). I'm happy that society reject the will of a minority who want to make it illegal for people to put their bits where they want to. On the other hand, I wouldn't be happy if we made it illegal to think or feel like that. People should be free to be homophobes and to express that if they choose, as long as it remains just their personal feeling and doesn't end up limiting the freedoms of others.

Well, I think I've said all this before and will probably say it all again. It seems somehow very obvious to me, why do we even spend so much time talking about it?

Consensus could be just the magic word. You can say consensus doesn't exist, and argue and even prove your point. On the other hand, you can see consensus all around: for instance I have observed a change in the consensus of driving behaviour over the last twenty years in my city/country.

Now, am I confabulating? Possibly. Is it a useful term nonetheless?

And if it is useful, does that justify its employment?

See where I'm getting?

Do you believe in meaningful communication? (The 'gotcha' there is, we're up to our necks in it.)

Well done, both, for spotting my straw man. 'Consensus'. What do we mean by it?

Kierkegaard, who was an anti-Dialectician, said something along the lines that truth is not to be found in stable propositions but in the process of argument.

Where does this take us? Dunno, but I have to lie down - not because my head's hurting, but my back is.

Sympathies

As Macca said, "Get Back"

Re-run of a 1970's debate between two Atheists, Gore Vidal and Clive James, on Christianity:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00k3x7k

'Edward Stourton presents a series celebrating great debates, combining archive of rare discussions between key figures with analysis by a panel of experts.

Clive James' debate with Gore Vidal on how Christianity has affected mankind's ability to think and live freely. Professors AC Grayling and Alister McGrath unpick both standpoints.'

Comments?

'I left behind the tooth fairy and discovered God instead'

'The religious right in the United States reorganised itself after the Civil Rights movement' - nice phrasing pointing out that civil rights (contrary to what many seem to claim) were not a Christian issue.

On the whole, frankly, I found the format confusing - two people discussing a debate I haven't heard between two other people. Nice to hear McGrath admit he's not 100% certain too. Kinda scary to think how much fundies have gained power in the US in the last 30 years.

Gif

But McGrath holds up that 'uncertainty' thing as a badge of honour does he not? It's the whole 'ineffability of god' routine. *Yet at the same time*...everything is made clear by faith. Which is intellectually robust.

I thought Grayling's fairies line was a bit obvious (we've all used it, haven't we?). What I'd have liked him to say is that there *are* some things we're allowed to have a closed mind. 'There is no compulsion in religion'. But there *is* compulsion in empiricism.

The bit I liked was when Vidal countered the Received Wisdom of Christianity as a liberating religion:
'If I were a ruler designing a religion, Christianity is just the sort of thing I'd cvome up with.'

I would like to hear the whole debate. I wonder if it's online?

A verse on 'the trouble with religion' has been gestating within my bowels over the past few months. Here goes:








Cosmic respect
Is justified;

It's God's Elect
I can't abide.

That verse form...clerihew?

Thank you.

A clerihew has four lines rhyming aabb, with free scansion. Most importantly, the entire first line must consist of a name, as in

Edward the Bonobo
Lived not very long ago;
He was numbered among the invincibles
For maintaining atheist principles.

Here's one by the form's originator, E Clerihew Bentley:

Sir Christopher Wren
Said 'I'm going out with some men;
If anyone calls
Say I'm designing St Paul's'.

Ooh!

Can you do me?

Well, there's an offer!