Richard Dawkins on Late Late Show

Richard Dawkins was interviewed on RTE’s Late Late Show this Friday about his new book The Greatest Show on Earth.

Strangely, RTE invited a Catholic priest to make the only audience contribution. I am not suggesting that Father Brendan Purcell should not have made a contribution, but when RTE next interview a Catholic author, will they invite an atheist to make the only audience contribution?

Here is a YouTube video of the interview in two parts, with each part followed by a transcript.

Why did Dawkins write this book?

Ryan Tubridy: My next guest is a man known for his controversial views. He says for example that if you believe in God you may as well believe in fairies. His latest book is about evolution, which he calls not only the only show in town but also the Greatest Show on Earth…. Richard Dawkins, welcome to the Late Late Show. Another book, another day, another chat show. Why did you write this one?

Richard Dawkins: It’s about just about the most important thing you could imagine a book being about. It’s about why we are all here, why we exist, why animals and plants, just about everything we see, exists. That’s the most rivetingly exciting subject. It could have been written at any time. I take it, though, that you mean why write it now?

Tubridy: Why now?

Dawkins: Less interesting question.

Tubridy: Well I’ll take the answer, and if you can make it interesting I’d appreciate it.

Dawkins: Well, it is true that there is poll information which suggests that in the United States, somewhat more than 40% of the population thinks that the entire world is less than 10,000 years old. Now that is a bizarre circumstance, that 40% of the population of the major industrial nation in the world should have a view which is so incredibly out of tune with reality. And that is one reason I felt it was necessary to write the book.

Tubridy: What would they feel about your writing? Do they think its just that you’re being unfair to them, that you have it wrong?

Dawkins: They think that everything in the book of Genesis is literally true, if science contradicts the book of Genesis, science must be wrong and Genesis must be right.

When did humans arrive on earth?

Tubridy: What’s your take on what happened vis-a-vis humans arriving on the scene in the state that we’re in? When did that happen?

Dawkins: When did humans arrive on Earth? Well, it was a gradual process. It’s a bit like saying when does a child become an adult? You know, by convention we say that happens on the stroke of midnight on the 18th birthday, but we know that it’s actually a gradual process. So there never was a moment when the first human was born. The first human looked exactly like the last ape, so to speak. But if you put a figure of about 100,000 years, by about then you would be getting humans that looked exactly like us, as far as their anatomy was concerned, but probably not as far as their culture was concerned. They didn’t have painting and things like that.

Tubridy: And how different are we from other animals then, broadly?

Dawkins: We are hugely different from other animals in that we have language, we have art, we have mathematics, philosophy. We have all sorts of emotions that other animals probably don’t have.

Where does God fit into all of this?

Tubridy: And what about the notion of God? where does God fit into all of this?

Dawkins: Well, God as I see it has very little to do any more. There was a time when God had a lot to do in people’s minds. He made to the world, he made a life, he made humans. That’s all out now. We don’t need God any more to explain anything. And I think that pretty much means we don’t need God at all.

Tubridy: Yes, but who are ‘we’? Because pretty much everyone watching the, well, many people watching  the tv, watching us tonight would say I don’t belong to that ‘we’. That God is very much in their thesis.

Dawkins: No doubt it is. And no doubt there are people who get plenty of consolation from the idea of God, and there are people who think they talk to God, and who think God talks to them, but that doesn’t mean he’s really there.

Tubridy: So where is he?

Dawkins: He doesn’t exist.

Tubridy: Not in the slightest?

Dawkins: I would have thought not. There’s certainly no evidence that any sort of god exists, no.

Tubridy: So what is the Vatican then? Toy Town?

Dawkins: Yes. A gigantic and very expensive and very rich waste of time.

Tubridy: There will be many people watching tonight who will say that much of their lives have been lived based on a belief system that involves God very much being in existence, and that this is what they’ve lived their life based on. What do you say to them?

Dawkins: But that of course is true. There are many people who think exactly that. It doesn’t mean that they are right.

Tubridy: And your thoughts on their beliefs?

Dawkins: Well, they are misguided. Mistaken.

Tubridy: Do you feel sorry for them?

Dawkins: Yes.

Tubridy: Why?

Dawkins: Well, because if people have really sincerely lived their lives under a delusion, and feel that they needed it for support and for living a full life, if you suddenly pull it out from under them they are naturally going to feel somewhat bereft.

Tubridy: Where does the notion of God come from them?

Dawkins: Oh, well, I think it goes back a very long way. I think it partly comes from the desire to understand. We look around the world and we see what an incredibly elaborate and complicated place that it is. We’re used to the idea that complicated things must be made by something or someone. So it’s very easy to see why the idea of God should have grown up. And it took a very long time, it took until the middle of the 19th century, until people realised that there was another, better, more economical explanation for all that.

Tubridy: Do you see God as believable as the Easter Bunny?

Dawkins: Pretty much, yes.

Tubridy: Would you equate them?

Dawkins: Yes, pretty much. That sounds facetious, because of course nobody believes in the Easter Bunny, and lots of people believe in God, but if you actually examine the amount of evidence there is for either, it’s equally sparse.

Tubridy: God fills a space for a lot of people in their lives, as you probably know from talking to people who believe in God. I mean spiritual, soul and so on. And people who have religion and believe in God might believe that the road you travel is a very lonely one.

Dawkins: Not at all lonely. I have great friends and I have a wonderful life with human companionship. That’s real. Warm human companionship, it’s really there. That’s not imaginary. That’s really there. By the way, this has nothing to do with the new book. You’re asking me questions about the previous book, the God Delusion.

What happens when we die?

Tubridy: I’m also asking questions that are interesting to us. I’m not being smart about it, I’m just telling the truth. So what happens, as you see it, when we die?

Dawkins: Well, some of us get buried, and some of us get cremated.

Tubridy: And where do we go, as you see it? If that is? Game over?

Dawkins: Game over, but the game while it lasts is pretty wonderful. I mean, what happens when we die is the same as before we were born. We didn’t know anything about it when Henry VIII was alive, and we won’t know anything about it in 500 years time.

Tubridy: Do you fear death?

Dawkins: No. I fear dying.

Tubridy: Why?

Dawkins: Because I’m not, unlike my dog, allowed to go to the vet and be painlessly put to sleep. Because I belong to this privileged species, Homo Sapiens, which is the only one that is not allowed to be painlessly put out of its misery. I would like to die under a general anaesthetic, just as I would like to have my appendix out under a general anaesthetic.

Tubridy: Have you thought about, at the risk of being morbid about you, have you thought about your own funeral?

Dawkins: Yeah, I have. I thought I might like to ask for the music from the, you know, the Elephant March from Aida… do do do do, di di di do do do, di di di do do do… very triumphant trumpet music to see me out.

Tubridy: Why?

Dawkins: A triumphant exit?

Tubridy: But why do you want a ceremony to see you off?

Dawkins: Well, I have organised ceremonies for deeply loved colleagues, funeral ceremonies. I have organised readings of their favourite poetry, their favourite music, eulogies from friends who have known and loved them. I think it is important. I think that humans do need rituals, they do need rites of that sort, and when somebody dies I think it’s right to give them a proper sendoff, some sort of a wake which remembers them, and which makes you feel that you’ve somehow fulfilled something.

Audience contribution from Father Brendan Purcell

Tubridy: I want to talk to a member of the audience here, Father Brendan Purcell, a man of the cloth. Brendan, the Vatican is Toy Town, God is the Easter Bunny, and you as a priest have been wasting your time.

Father Purcell: Well, I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. I would go back to the things that Richard was saying earlier. I have no problem with science. I mean my mother left school at 16, and she read the origin of species at breakfast time. It was the only time she had free in the morning. And she followed that by reading the Bible, things she had never done in her life. I think in Ireland we don’t have the problem that you mentioned in the States. In my first year at university we did a book I’m sure you’re familiar with, All John Maynard Smith’s theory of evolution. That was taught by a priest. in other words, it isn’t a problem in Ireland, the reason that you wrote that book. I mean we never thought, I never thought there was any conflict between science and evolution and my belief at all. But I do feel, I’ve read a lot of your work and I have to say that my favourite book of yours is The Ancestor’s Tale. I think it’s totally brilliant.

Tubridy: Do you like what he writes?

Father Purcell: I like some of what he writes more than others.

Tubridy: What is your contention with what he writes?

Father Purcell: The contention I would have is, I have two or three of them, but the first and most obvious one would be science. I think, I’m not trying to annoy you, Richard, but I think he believes in science, in the sense that he thinks that science explains everything. But I mean the one thing that science doesn’t explain is science itself. I’m talking about the natural sciences, including biology. So I think there really is a problem here because the word science comes from the Latin word meaning knowledge, and I think there are other forms of knowledge that are just as well grounded as the knowledge from the natural sciences. There are questions that are not asked by the natural sciences. So I’ve always felt, in a certain sense, that you shouldn’t give answers to questions you haven’t asked.

Tubridy: Richard Dawkins, you might argue that with your theory and evolution and so on, there’s evidence to look at, to point to. Brendan, what do you point to when it comes to God?

Father Purcell: I would say that one of the good things when it comes to his book, I’ve read the reviews but they haven’t had time to read it yet, but one of the good things is that part of it is written like a detective story, and there’s clues, and you’re spotting the clues. And I would say one of the obvious clues to the existence of God, remember we’re not talking about the God of Christianity, of the Old Testament, we’re talking about a God at the level of pure reason. Effectively, the fact that you have a reality, namely the big bang, you have a question there that cannot be answered by physics or astronomy. And if you read the big guys, like Stephen Hawking, the famous guy, you’ve seen him in his wheelchair, a book that he wrote with another guy way back in the 70s, George Ellis, it’s quite clear, he said we have come to a singularity here, a singularity is a thing that we can’t repeat again and again. It’s the start of everything, which we cannot explain by physics or astronomy. and is not to jump in and say now we have a challenge. I think the classic question to ask here, which I’m sure Richard has been asked many times, is why have we something rather than nothing? And biology isn’t meant, my equivalent of biology is something like, if I can make a parallel between a farmer and a supermarket, a farmer produces the stuff, the supermarkets are selling it, the biologist deals with the stuff as its presented, it doesn’t explain where the blinking fruit came from.

Who in the audience believes in God?

Tubridy: Anyone else want to come in here on what Richard Dawkins is saying? because I would be curious to know, just looking at the audience here, hands up everyone here in the audience who believes in God. Okay, Richard what would you call that, about 50, 60, 70%?

Dawkins: I would say more, if anything.

Tubridy: 75%?

Dawkins: Let’s see those who don’t.

Tubridy: Hands up those who do not believe in God? it’s just a sprinkling. Which is quite interesting. I mean what you think of that?

Dawkins: Oh yeah, I mean that’s the kind of result I would have expected.

Tubridy: So are all the hands who went up the first time deluded?

Dawkins responds to Father Brendan Purcell

Dawkins: Look, why don’t I just come back and answer that? (referring to Father Purcell’s comments) First, I’m glad you brought the subject back in a way to the topic of this book, rather than the previous book, which was the God Delusion. Now, when you say that I believe in science, and, you know, why do I believe in science, it’s really because it works. I mean, the evidence is there. It’s a kind of self validating process, because as a result of science, these television cameras work. Planes fly. Cars go. Day after day we see that the evidence of our eyes is that science works. Now when you are asked about the evidence for God, you used my analogy of the detective coming on the scene of the crime, and you infer it from all the clues that are lying around. That’s what I use to say how we know how evolution happened, because we can’t see it, because it happened mostly before we were born. But I don’t actually think it’s right to say that the world is littered with evidence for God. I think when you look at it carefully, it turns out that this particular detective has got it wrong. You think that the evidence is there, but I think if you look is really carefully… I mean, before Darwin came along, you would, as any intelligent theologian would, believe in evolution, but, before Darwin came along, most people didn’t. Now, Darwin changed our mind on that. And I suspect that we will find that other people are going to come along and change our minds about the other clues that you think you’ve seen.

What is the future of humans?

Tubridy: Okay. Let’s talk about, another element of the book that I would like to ask you about, is the future of evolution. Where do we go from here? What is the future for humans as you see it?

Dawkins: In evolution?

Tubridy: Yes, where do you see it?

Dawkins: Well, remember that when we’re thinking about the future, we are used to thinking in a historical timescale, which is centuries. You’re not going to see much evolution in centuries. So we’ve got to look forward, say, a couple of million years in order to give that question an interesting answer. In a couple of million years, the chances are we’ll be extinct, because most species do go extinct. But, on the other hand, there is something rather special about the human species. If any species could protect itself against going extinct, the way that the dinosaurs did, it might be ours, because we do have the technology to do that. So let’s suppose that we do manage to survive through 10 million years, what are we going to look like then? Nobody has the faintest idea. But in order for any particular hypothesis to be true, like you might say perhaps the brain will go on getting bigger. The dominant trend in the last 3 million years of our evolution is that the brain has swollen up from the size of a chimpanzee’s brain about 3 million years ago, Lucy’s brain was about the size of chimpanzees brain, to now, is it going to be much bigger again In 10 million years time? Well, only if it is true that the cleverest or the brainiest, or the individuals with the biggest brains, are the ones who have the most children. So is there any evidence that the people have the most children are the brightest or the cleverest or the ones with the biggest brains? I don’t think so. But it would have to be so in order for natural selection to favour the enlargement of the brain. It must have been so during the last 3 million years, otherwise brain size would not have increased the way that it has since the time of Lucy 3 million years ago.

Tubridy: Okay, well, thank you for coming to see us this evening.

Dawkins: Thank you very much.

Tubridy: The book, by the way is there. It’s The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Nice to talk you. Richard Dawkins, ladies and gentlemen.

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Positive belief changes your brain

A book that argues that God is good for your health is based on research that suggests that it is positive belief, regardless of whether it involves gods, that can be good for you.

Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman’s book is called How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.

Newberg’s website begins with the dramatic assertion that “God is great for your mental, physical and spiritual health”. Now, you have to start with a punch, so we can read this as shorthand for “Belief in a god can be good for your health”. But even this claim should be tempered by the next paragraph.

This states that: “Newberg, therapist Mark Robert Waldman, and their research team have concluded that active and positive spiritual belief changes the human brain for the better. What’s more, actual faith isn’t always necessary: atheists who meditate on positive imagery can obtain similar neurological benefits.”

Wait a minute! Actual faith isn’t always necessary? Atheists can obtain similar benefits? From meditating on positive imagery? But meditation need not even be spiritual, never mind theistic. It can be approached quite rationally as a potentially transformative neurological experience.

Based on this, the result of Newberg and Waldman’s research could be more accurately presented like this: “Active and positive belief, including meditating on positive imagery, can change the human brain for the better. This is the case regardless of whether you believe yourself to be spiritual or believe in gods.”

The book could be more accurately retitled as: How Positive Belief Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.

And none of this, of course, has any bearing on whether or not the beliefs are true.

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The Greatest Show on Earth

“What is the greatest show on earth? Well, it’s life. The whole diversity of life, the complexity of life, the beauty of life, the sheer number of species that are all doing their own thing in their own way. How does it come about? By evolution. Evolution by natural selection. The book is about the evidence for evolution. How do we know it’s a fact?”

— Richard Dawkins introducing his new book, the Greatest Show on Earth

For decades before writing about reason and faith in The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins wrote prolifically about science for a popular audience. Now he returns to this turf, with a book that outlines the evidence for evolution. Here are some extracts and reviews of The Greatest Show on Earth, which is out today in the UK and on 22 Sep in the USA.

Extract from Chapter 1

“Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world… Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed…”

Read full extract here

Extract from Chapter 2

“We can turn to the example of dogs for some important lessons about natural selection. All breeds of dogs are domesticated wolves: not jackals, not coyotes and not foxes. But I need to qualify this in the light of a fascinating theory of the evolution of the dog, which has been most clearly articulated by the American zoologist Raymond Coppinger. The idea is that the evolution of the dog was not just a matter of artificial selection. It was at least as much a case of wolves adapting to the ways of Man by natural selection…”

Read full extract here

Review in The Times

“Thank the Lord for creationists. Without their blinkered belief in the biblical account of how life came to be, Richard Dawkins would never have felt the need to give us The Greatest Show on Earth. And what a fine, lucid and convincing exhibition he puts on, walking us through the natural world to demonstrate that evolution by natural selection is everywhere…”

Read full review here

Review in The Economist

“A SCIENTIST on a flight across America falls into conversation with his neighbour, who turns out to be gratifyingly interested in his research on wild guppy populations in Trinidad. He probes deeply the scientist’s methods, his findings and setbacks. Then comes the big question: what is the theory underlying the work? Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, replies the scientist. The rest of the journey passes in chilly silence…”

Read full review here

Querying the Dawkins view of science

“At the website for Dawkins’ latest book, The Greatest Show on Earth, we read: “Evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all reputable scientists”. However, a theory like evolution may be composed of facts but it must always extend beyond logical boundaries into the unknown – such are the “facts” of logic on which science rests. We cannot therefore explain the process of modern science using reason alone as Dawkins would have us believe…”

Read full article in Australasian Science Magazine

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Is There life on Mars?

I wrote this article for the new Atheist Ireland blog, where it was published a week ago along with another post on the same topic by James Randi. It is about how mainstream religion and conspiracy theorists might react to the news that space probes have found methane releases on Mars.

This particular field of enquiry started nearly four thousand years ago, when a long-forgotten man gazed inquisitively at the night sky over what is today near Baghdad, and started to record the movement of the stars that he could see with his naked eye.

Today NASA has mapped the oldest lights in the universe, the superstitious omens that the ancient Babylonians derived from their stargazing have evolved into vacuous horoscopes, and various religions have embedded their respective gods into seasonal celebrations of nature.

Throughout time, this is the pattern of the quest for human knowledge. Inquisitive and rational thinking has steadily helped us to understand more about how nature works, while superstitious and dogmatic thinking has hindered and corrupted this quest for knowledge.

Religious Response

As ever, the mainstream religions will adapt their theology to incorporate whatever science proves about life on Mars. In 1992, Pope John Paul II apologised for his church’s denouncing of the work of Galileo. Just last month, Pope Benedict XVI praised Galileo, and said an understanding of the laws of nature could stimulate appreciation of God’s works.

The Vatican’s chief astronomer, Father Jose Gabriel Funes, has already said that extraterrestrial brothers and sisters would still be part of creation. He accepts that God may have created some aliens who might be free from original sin. And the Islamic Society of North America has pointed out that the Koran refers to Allah as the God of ‘worlds’ and not just one world.

Religious fundamentalists may have greater difficulties. Life on Mars would put a big dent in the Adam and Eve story. But a little imagination might well reveal that God put the methane on Mars to test our faith, after he had put all those fossils into the earth of animals that never existed for the same reason.

Conspiracy Theorists

Meanwhile, the finding will delight the Roswell conspiracy theorists who see alien faces on pictures of planets and moons, in the same way that religious people can see the face of Jesus on their unevenly burnt toast at breakfast, or that Father Ted Crilly claimed to see the face of Bishop Ned Brennan on the skirting board of the parochial house on Craggy Island.

The 2007 NASA Rover Spirit probe showed an image on the surface of Mars of what might look like a man sitting down, who incidentally might also look like Jesus. Having examined it closely, I believe that Father Dougal Maguire painted the image with watercolours onto the surface of Mars, the day after he had painted Bishop Brennan’s face onto the skirting board of the bedroom on Craggy Island.

As far back as the 1970s, the American pseudoscientist Richard Hoagland argued that the Viking space probe had photographed a large face on the surface of Mars, which Hoagland claimed had been built by an advanced alien civilization. Later photos showed that the shape was a mountain, the face image was a trick of light and shade, and the other side of the mountain didn’t look like a face.

Hoagland countered that the new photos were doctored by the US Government, and that the asymetry showed that the image was half man and half cat. More recently, Hoagland claims to have used hyperdimensional physics to predict the election of Barack Obama. So will Obama release the hidden data about life on Mars? You can find out by buying Hoagland’s latest three-hour, two-dvd-set for the excellent price of $39.95!

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Medieval faith vs reason Part 2

Religious Medieval philosophers tried to use reason to do three things: to support their belief in a god, to prove their belief in a god, and to develop a unified theory of all knowledge, divine and human. They partly succeeded in the first of these aims, and failed in the other two.

We must remember the context of Medieval times. Tradition was very important. Philosophy was considered an art (or a craft in today’s language). Philosophers were expected to first learn existing knowledge, and only then start to develop their own ideas.

Medieval Christian, Islamic and Jewish philosophers each faced different problems in trying to reconcile their faith with reason and logic. In Part 1 of this article, I described how ten of them attempted to do this. In this second part, I examine why they failed to do so.

Medieval Appeals to Authority: Divine, Rational and Human

In theory, Western Medieval philosophers gave different weight to different sources of information.

The authority of God was the strongest argument: this trumped all counter arguments.

Next strongest was an argument based on reason.

Next came an argument based on human authority.

• The strength of this argument depended on the credibility of the source: ‘Aristotle has said…’ was a considerably stronger argument than ‘My slave’s daughter has said…’.
• If the source had credibility, an appeal to human authority stood as a valid argument-unless or until it was contradicted using reason.

In practice, these distinctions were often blurred. A religious philosopher could not directly challenge God’s word (level 1), but he could assert that a human authority (level 3) had misinterpreted God’s word. He could thus challenge the human authority, using reason (level 2).

(Martin, 1996: 16-20)

Religious Restrictions on Medieval Philosophers

Medieval Christian philosophers operated within a political and legal framework strongly influenced by Christian theology.

Christian theology was in turn subservient to the direct authority and approval of the Pope and various Councils, with the Pope claiming to be able to infallibly interpret the word of God.

Medieval Islamic philosophers, in theory, had more freedom.

Islamic theology was merely the thought of human theologians, who are fallible. Philosophers were therefore free to contradict Islamic theologians, assuming they could rationally defend their arguments.

In practice, they had to consider the impact of their works on the powerful and often-conservative Islamic clergy.

• For example, Ibn Rushd (Averroes) argued that the ‘creation’ of the universe means its continuous transformation. 
• However, he proposed that this argument be restricted to those educationally qualified to understand it, leaving most Muslims with more simple beliefs that would not challenge their faith in Islam.

Ultimately, philosophers could face charges of heresy under Islamic law.

(Hourani, 1987: 567)

Medieval Jewish philosophy existed largely within the context of the Islamic and Christian civilizations in which Jews lived.

(Smart, 1998: 183-184).

Did They Succeed in Creating a Unified Theory of All Knowledge?

They failed to do this.

Medieval Christian philosophers faced the following problems:

The Augustinian project sought to synthesize all knowledge by rationally reconciling Neoplatonism with Christian belief.

• Some beliefs were hard to reconcile, such as Neoplatonism’s distrust of the body (versus the incarnation of Christ), and the Neoplatonic transmigration of the Soul.
• The project thus ran the risk of stagnating into fideism, with Pagan arguments being rejected purely on the basis of faith, ignoring reason.
• In countering this risk, Augustinians found it useful to use Aristotelian logic (available via the translations of Boethius).
• Aristotle was thus incorporated into Christian tradition as ‘an authority’, whose citing gave force to Christian arguments.

Later, Aristotle’s metaphysics – with, for example, its eternity theory contradicting creationism – reached Christians via Ibn Rushd (Averroes).

• Aristotle’s logic, already cited by Christian philosophers, was naturally more consistent with his own metaphysics than with Christian theology.
• Christian philosophers now had the dilemma of rejecting Aristotle’s metaphysics, without undermining his ‘authority’.
• Aquinas attempted this, partly by arguing that some issues can only be decided by Divine revelation, but his compromise was rejected (by both conservative Augustinian Christians and strict Aristotelians).

In the University structures, this eventually led to a split between the study of Divinity and the study of the Arts-exactly the opposite of the purpose of the original ‘unified synthesis’ project.

(Martin, 1996: 57-117; Moran, 2003: 9-11; Feldman 1987: 408)

Medieval Islamic philosophers faced the following problems:

Orthodox Islam found Greek metaphysics useful in countering anthropomorphic ideas of God.

However, Al-Ghazali in particular exposed contradictions between Islamic faith and philosophy. These included the eternity of the cosmos, the claim that this is consistent with creation, God’s knowledge of universals and particulars, and the denial of the resurrection of the body.

Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Al-Ghazali’s clearest critic, was charged with heresy – or of arguing that there were two different truths, based respectively on faith and reason; a charge he denied.

Sufism-a mystical offshoot of Orthodox Islam – was more consistent with Neoplatonism, but Sufism was not the main strand of Islam. Also, it developed partly in reaction against the rationalism of philosophy.

(Smart, 1998: 168-173, 181; Martin, 1996: 116)

Medieval Jewish philosophers faced the following problems:

• Medieval Jewish philosophy existed largely within the context of the Islamic and Christian civilizations in which Jews lived.
• It only seriously emerged in the 9th century, in the context of Islamic philosophy, and then flourished in the 12th century with Ben Maimon.
• It faced broadly the same challenges as Islamic and Christian philosophy in seeking to reconcile faith and reason.

(Smart, 1998: 183-184)

Did They Succeed in Proving Their Belief in a God?

They did not succeed in this.

This is best illustrated by examining Aquinas’s attempt to use reason to prove the existence of the Christian God.

I will deal in another article with the question of whether his Five Ways arguments are valid (and I will argue that they aren’t). 

But, even if they were valid, all that they could prove only that an undefined something might exist. He ends each by simply assuming that this something ‘is what everyone calls God’.

Also, the five Ways are in any case only half of Aquinas’s attempt to prove the existence of God. His self-imposed challenge is to rationally answer two counter-arguments, not one. These are:

• That the existence of evil is inconsistent with God.
• That nature can be explained without reference to God.

His five Ways address only the second argument.

To the first he simply refers to the human authority of Augustine. His sole argument is that, ‘as Augustine says’, God is supremely good so He would not allow evil unless He could bring good from it.

The circular logic of this half of his proof fatally undermines whatever limited rational credibility the five Ways may have.

(Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.2.3)

Did They Succeed in Supporting Their Belief in a God?

They partly succeeded in this, by selectively using parts of Greek philosophy.

Aristotelian logic, and ideas such as the first unmoved mover, could be used to help to support (already-existing) beliefs in a god.

The ‘other-worldliness’ of Neoplatonism could be used to support Christian mysticism, Islamic Sufism and Jewish Kabbalah (although the latter two developed partly in reaction against the rationalism of theistic philosophy).

One illustration of their success in supporting mainstream Christianity is the painting The Triumph of Saint Thomas (1471) by Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and pictured here.

The top panel shows Christ, flanked by Paul, Moses and the four Evangelists. Christ announces: ‘You have written well about Me, Thomas.’

The centre panel shows Aquinas, with Aristotle and Plato showing him their work. Ibn Rushd (Averroes) lies at their feet, symbolizing the defeat of his arguments by Aquinas.

The bottom Panel shows Pope Sixtus IV, flanked by various clergymen.

Sources

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. In McDermott, Timothy, 1993. Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings. London: Oxford World Classics.
Feldman, Seymour, 1987. Aristotelianism, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Hourani, George F., 1987. Ibn Rushd, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Martin, Christoper J.F., 1996. An Introduction to Medieval Philosphy. Edinburgh University Press.
Moran, Dermot, 2003. Medieval Philosophy. In Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy 1. Dublin: Oscail, Dublin City University.
Smart, Ninian, 1998. World Philosophies. London: Routledge.

 

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Medieval faith vs reason Part 1

Many medieval philosophers tried to reconcile their belief in a god with the logic and reason of Greek philosophy. In this article, I outline how ten of them tried to do this:

Augustine (354-430), an Algerian Christian.
Boethius (480-524), a Roman Christian.
John Scotus Eriugena (810-877), an Irish Christian.
Psuedo-Dionysius (6th Century), a Syrian Christian.
Al-Farabi / Abunaser (870-950), a Turkish Muslim.
Ibn Sina / Avicenna (980-1037), a Persian Muslim.
Anselm (1033-1109), an Italian Christian.
Ibn Rushd / Averroes (1126-1198), a Spanish Muslim.
Moses Ben Maimon / Maimonides (1135-1204), a Spanish Jew.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), an Italian Christian.

In part two of this article, I will look at how successful they were in their attempts to reconcile faith and reason. First, here is a summary of their efforts:

4th and 5th Centuries: Augustine

Augustine (354-430) was an Algerian who found Platonic and Neoplatonic thinking full of wisdom, but said that he ‘never really fully understood either until he converted to Christianity’. He then sought to incorporate Platonic – indeed, all – human wisdom into this new understanding. 
(Martin, 1996: 58, 73).

Like others before him, Augustine adapted Plato’s Good and Forms.

• The Jewish philosopher Philo (30 BCE-45 CE) had equated them to God and God’s thoughts respectively. 
• The Neoplatonic Plotinus (204-270) had argued that everything emanates from The One to The Nous, or divine intellect. 
• Augustine equated God the Father to The One, and God the Son to The Nous, with Plato’s Forms present to humans through Christ.
• Plotinus had argued that evil is the absence of good. Augustine adopted this belief to reconcile the existence of God with the presence of evil.
• Because he saw God as the source of all wisdom, Augustine saw philosophy – ‘love of wisdom’ – as identical to ‘love of God’. He thus devalued the scientific research of Aristotle.

(Stevenson, 2002: 82; Van Fleteren, 1992: 59; Collinson, 1987: 27; Moran, 2003: 9-12)

6th Century: Boethius and Pseudo-Dionysius

Boethius (480-524) was a Roman aristocrat and an orthodox Christian.

• His Consolation of Philosophy presented Neoplatonic ideas in a Christian context, arguing that this world is a shadow compared to the true, eternal, timeless world.
• His Latin translation of, and commentary on, Porphyry’s Introduction to Aristotle’s Categories was ‘the book that originally stimulated medieval philosophical debate’.

(Moran, 1993: 9-9; Aubert, 1987: 362).

Psuedo-Dionysius (6th Century) was a Syrian Christian who was later mistakenly identified with Dionysius, a 1st Century convert of Saint Paul.

• Augustine, influenced by Plotinus, had emphasised ‘the interiority and immediacy of God’s presence in the human mind’. 
• Pseudo-Dionysius was influenced by Proclus – a later Neoplatonist – and he instead proposed ‘a hierarchical universe in which the Divine Light spread downward through a series of intermediate agents to humanity and the lower orders.’

(Dutton, 1992: 175)

9th & 10th Centuries: Eriugena and Al-Farabi (Abunaser)

John Scotus Eriugena (810-877) was an Irish Christian monk who moved to France. He was ‘the most original synthetic thinker between the times of Augustine and Aquinas’ (Dutton, 1992: 170).

Eriugena translated, from Greek, Eastern works of Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor. Maximus had taken the hierarchical emanation of Pseudo-Dionysius, and added the idea that everything is brought together again when the Divine Goodness returns to God.

Eriugena then sought to reconcile this with Augustine’s work. This was the first major attempt to combine Neoplatonic and Christian thought from the East and the West.

Eriugena’s major work is the Peryphyseon, or On the Division of Nature. In this he argues that:

• Nature is the general name for all things, whether being or nonbeing. 
• There are five modes of interpretation for ‘being-and-nonbeing’.
• Humans exist in the fifth mode, combining bodies in the material world and Souls in the intelligible.
• The whole universe is, in this sense, contained in humanity and will return to God.
• Humans can only know that God is, not what God is.

Eriugena augmented his Neoplatonic influences with a Pythagorean-style mystical discussion of the number eight as a supernatural cube, with the five parts of nature combining with the triad of God on the eighth day-the Resurrection.
(Dutton, 1992: 168-184).

Al-Farabi (870-950), sometimes Latinized as Abunaser, was a Turkish Muslim known as ‘the Second Teacher’ (i.e. second only to Aristotle).

Al-Farabi saw reason and revelation as complementary, and saw philosophers as similar to prophets.

• Aristotle saw God as the first unmoved mover. Al-Farabi saw God as the cause of the being, as well as the motion, of everything.
• Aristotle had other unmoved movers, superior to embodied Souls but inferior to God. Al-Farabi saw these as angels.

Al-Farabi then followed a Neoplatonic model: God’s contemplation of Himself overflowed into the existence of a First Intelligence, and thence onward through emanation to all else. His main work, The Virtuous City, was inspired by Plato’s Republic.

(Speake, 1979: 9; Moran, 2003: 9-22; Black, 1992: 115; Feldman, 1987: 408)

10th & 11th Centuries: Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and Anselm

Ibn Sina (980-1037), Latinized as Avicenna, was a Persian Muslim who further developed Al Farabi’s attempts to synthesize all knowledge derived from reason and faith.

• He drew on Aristotle’s theory of Eudaimonia to argue that the highest aspect of any human being, its intelligence, seeks to reach its perfection.
• He then drew on Neoplatonism to argue that the way of seeking that perfection is to return to unification with the One from which all emanates – God.

(Gohlman, 1987: 569)

Anselm (1033-1109) was an Italian-born Christian Bishop of Canterbury.

He is best known for his ontological argument for the existence of God: essentially, that ‘that-than which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’ must exist, because if it did not exist, then it would not be ‘that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’.

Whatever the merits of this argument, Anselm thus ‘introduced to the West the idea of proving the existence of God’.

(Lesconcy, 1992: 30)

11th & 12th Centuries: Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and Ben Maimon (Maimonides)

Ibn Rushd (1126-1198), Latinized as Averroes, was a Spanish Islamic Judge who became known as ‘The Commentator’ on the works of Aristotle.

He strongly defended the study of philosophy against theological-legal challenges of heresy under Islamic law.

• Ibn Rushd argued that not only did the Koran not forbid the study of philosophy, but it demanded it of those capable of doing so.
• He argued that such study must be built on all previous learning, especially that of the ancient Greeks. 
• Differences with the Koran must be reconciled, as both are forms of truth and ‘truth does not oppose truth, but accords with it and bears witness to it’.

Al-Ghazali (1058-1111) had made influential arguments against Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina in his The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Ibn Rushd responded with his The Incoherence of The Incoherence.

• Ibn Rushd defended Aristotelian ’cause-and-effect’ against the argument that only God caused any effect, and did so directly. 
• Ibn Rushd responded that denying causality denies not only the existence of essences, but the possibility of knowledge.

Ibn Rushd (Averroes) first seemed to accept the Neoplatonic emanation-of-God theory supported by Al-Farabi and Ibn Sina. Later he rejected it as a metaphor.
(Black, 1992: 68-79; Hourani, 1987: 567)

Moses Ben Maimon (1135-1204), Latinized as Maimonides, was a Spanish Rabbi and the leading intellectual of Medieval Judaism.

His major work, The Guide for the Perplexed, sought to reconcile Aristotelian philosophy with Judaic revelation. He argued that

• Anthropomorphic descriptions of God in the Bible are metaphorical: ‘The Torah speaks in the language of man’.
• God can only be described in negative terms: God’s ‘wisdom’ is not the specific presence of wisdom, but the absence of ignorance or defect of knowledge.
• Spirituality is integrated with reason; reason is the proper means to attain spiritual goals; mystical doctrines do not stand up to reason.
• Some of the archaic ritual Judaic laws only came about in the context of the struggle between Judaism and paganism in the ancient world.

In seeking to reconcile pagan philosophy with the Torah, he argued that

• Platonism may seem consistent with the Torah, with prime matter coexisting eternally with God, but it limits God’s power, however slightly.
• Aristotelian metaphysics are more compatible, to the extent that Aristotle himself at times concluded that the question of the origin of the world is beyond demonstration: it was only later Aristotelians who thought otherwise.

(Wigoder, 1989: 454-455; Dobbs-Weinstein, 1992: 272-273)

13th Century: Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was an Italian Christian who sought to reconcile Aristotelianism with Christianity.

Aquinas was particularly impressed with the work of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in translating and interpreting Aristotle.

Aquinas disagreed with Ibn Rushd’s interpretation of Aristotle’s view of the nature of the human intellect.

• Ibn Rushd had interpreted Aristotle as saying that intellect is not a faculty of the soul, and there is a single intellect for all humans.
• Aquinas countered that Aristotle held neither position, and that neither could be rationally defended. 
• Aquinas believed each human has an individual intellect; a position more in line with Christian teaching.

His five Ways of proving the existence of God draw heavily on Aristotle, and to a lesser extent on Plato and Neoplatonism.

• The first three Ways – Change, Causation and Contingency – rely on causal chains that end at Aristotle’s concept of the first mover.
• They also rely on a distinction between actual and accidental causes which Aquinas adopted from Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
• The fourth Way – Gradation – relies on Aristotelian physics and on absolute standards analogous to Plato’s Forms.
• The fifth Way – Finality – relies on Aristotle’s biological theory that all of nature moves towards a goal.

(Aquinas, De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas;  Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 1a.2.3; Moran, 2003, Unit 11)

Part Two

In part two of this article, I will look at how successful these medieval philosophers were in their attempts to reconcile faith and reason.

Sources

• Aquinas, Thomas. De Unitate Intellectus Contra Averroistas. In McInerney, Ralph M., 1993. Aquinas Against The Averroeists: On Their Being Only One Intellect. USA: Purdue University Research Foundation.
  
• Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae. In McDermott, Timothy, 1993. Aquinas: Selected Philosophical Writings. London: Oxford World Classics.
  
• Aubert, Roger, 1987. Platonism, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Black, Deborah, 1992. Al-Farabi; Averroes, both in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Collinson, Diane, 1987. Augustine, in Fifty Major Philosophers: A Reference Guide. Kent: Croom Helm.
  
• Dobbs-Weinstein, Idit, 1992. Moses Maimonides, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Dutton, Paul Edward, 1992. John Scottus Eriugena, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Feldman, Seymour, 1987. Aristotelianism, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Gohlman, William E. 1987. Ibn Sina, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Hourani, George F., 1987. Ibn Rushd, in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Mercia Eliade. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
  
• Losconcy, Thomas A., 1992. Anselm, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Martin, Christoper J.F., 1996. An Introduction to Medieval Philosphy. Edinburgh University Press.
  
• Moran, Dermot, 2003. Medieval Philosophy. In Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy 1. Dublin: Oscail, Dublin City University.
  
• Speak, Jennifer (Ed), 1979. A Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Pan Books.
  
• Stevenson, 2002. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Philosophy. Second Edition. Indianaoplis: Alpha Books.
  
• Van Fleteren, Frederick, 1992. Augustine, in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 115: Medieval Philosophers. Ed. Jeremiah Hackett. United States: Gale Research.
  
• Wigoder, Geoffrey, 1989. The Encyclodedia of Judaism. Jerusalem, Israel: G.G. The Jerusalem Publishing House.

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Most of everything is nothing

After I posted this series of articles about why I assume that reality is basically as it seems after applying reason to the evidence of my senses, I got a nice email from Bob Rees, who pointed out that:

Nothing is what it appears to our puny senses. 99.999999999999 per cent of the volume of ordinary matter, say, a concrete block, is empty space. And even the things we see and touch have to be interpreted by our brains before they ‘mean’ anything to us.

Bob is correct. Everything around us seems to be made up of tiny particles of matter called quarks and leptons, plus huge amounts of empty space, plus invisible substances called dark matter, all being moved around by energy forces like electromagnetism and gravity. 

• Atoms are incredibly tiny. A single grain of sand contains sixty million million million atoms. 
• Quarks are even tinier than atoms. If an atom was enlarged to the size of the planet earth, then each quark at the centre of it would be smaller than a tennis ball. 
• Leptons are even tinier than quarks, if you can imagine one geometric point being smaller than another. The most familiar lepton is the electron.
• Empty space makes up nearly all of every atom. Returning to our imaginary giant atom, you have clusters of quarks, each quark smaller than a tennis ball, in the middle; then a huge sphere of empty space the size of the planet earth; then a cloud cover of tiny electrons around the surface.

Here are some more fascinating details of the tiny particles of matter inside each atom:

Quarks cluster together in groups, called protons and neutrons, which form the nucleus of an atom. The atom is completed when this nucleus is surrounded by a cloud of leptons called electrons. Then huge amounts of tiny atoms combine to form either a millimetre-wide grain of sand in Cairo, or a hundred-metre-high Redwood tree in California, or a medium-sized human body such as yours.

Atoms

Atoms are incredibly tiny. A single grain of sand contains sixty million million million atoms. If you were to count these atoms, taking a second to count each one, it would take you two million million years. Now, that’s not practical, as you would need lunch-breaks and time to sleep and you may not even live for two million million years. So, if you hired other people to help you do this counting, and they all counted non-stop for an average eight-hour five-day working week, without any holidays, then the entire population of the world could spend their entire working lives to count just one twentieth of the atoms in one single grain of sand.

Quarks

Quarks are even tinier than atoms. If an atom was enlarged to the size of the planet earth, then each quark at the centre of it would be smaller than a tennis ball. Quarks are so tiny that physicists treat them as geometric points that do not even have a physical size, though they do have a tiny mass and a tiny electrical charge. Quarks cluster together in groups of three, to form either a proton (which has a positive electrical charge) or a neutron (which has no electrical charge). Some atoms contain more quarks than others: Hydrogen, the lightest atom, has just one proton and one neutron; while gold has 79 protons and 118 neutrons.

Leptons

Leptons are even tinier than quarks, if you can imagine one geometric point being smaller than another. The most familiar lepton is the electron, which moves at over 1,000 miles a second. Each electron has a tiny negative electrical charge, which causes it to be pulled towards any nearby proton, which has a positive electrical charge. Most of the time, an electron is just a tiny cloud of possible locations where the electron might actually be. This tiny cloud surrounds the nucleus of an atom, and tries to get as close as it can to a proton within it. Then the cloud settles at a certain distance away, based on the energy level of the electron. 

Empty space

Empty space makes up nearly all of every atom. Returning to our imaginary giant atom, you have clusters of quarks, each quark smaller than a tennis ball, in the middle; then a huge sphere of empty space the size of the planet earth; then a cloud cover of tiny electrons around the surface. Now reduce this imaginary giant atom to its proper size, so that sixty million million million of them fit into a grain of sand. Then combine lots of these tiny bundles to form stones and trees, ants and whales, tables and computers, planets and stars. And you realise that nearly all of everything is actually nothing. The idea that everyday objects are solid matter is only an illusion.

In a later article, I’ll look at the question of how energy causes these tiny particles to move, and why we don’t fall through the floor with every step that we take. But in the meantime, sit back and marvel at the fascinating worlds with a world that exist within every grain of sand.

Photo: Large Hadron Collider at CERN by CERN (cc)

Postscript: The photo above is part of the Large Hadron Collider project at CERN in Switzerland. Tiny protons are sent hurtling around a 27 km long underground tunnel at almost the speed of light, to investigate what happens when they collide together. For scale, see the man at the centre of the bottom of the main photo.

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Reality is basically as it seems

This is the third article in a series about why I assume that reality is basically as it seems to be. In the first article, I explained why I believe nothing can be objectively known. In the second article, I described five possible theories of reality.

This third article examines the patterns in the five theories of reality, and concludes that:

1. Each new scenario seems closer to the evidence of my experience.
2. Each assumes the existence of extra things that cannot be known to exist.
3. Each seems increasingly functional as a working assumption of reality.
4. These apparent patterns contain a key ‘on/off’ reason-switch.
5. This leads me to assume that reality is basically as it seems to be.

And here is the detail of how I arrive at this assumption:

1. Each new scenario seems closer to the evidence of my experience.

This is the first of three patterns that these possible scenarios seem to follow.

(a) In the first scenario, all that seems to exist, even what seem to be thoughts, may an illusion. This scenario seems so far away from the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’ as to be incompatible with it.

(b) Gradually extra entities are assumed to exist (‘thoughts’, ‘thinking beings’, physical objects). Each of these seems to match with parts of the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’.

(c) In the final scenario, all permutations of thoughts are combined with real physical objects. This makes the nature of reality identical to the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’.

2. Each new scenario assumes the existence of extra things that cannot be known to exist.

This is the second of three patterns that these possible scenarios seem to follow.

(a) In the first scenario, all that seems to exist, even what seem to be thoughts, may an illusion. This is the easiest to defend using reason alone, because it makes no definitive challengeable assertion.

(b) Gradually extra entities are assumed to exist (‘thoughts’, ‘thinking beings’, physical objects) that cannot be known to exist. Each of these assumptions makes each scenario a step harder to defend using reason alone.

(c) The final scenario has the greatest number of ‘entities that are assumed to exist but cannot be known to exist.’ This makes it the hardest scenario to defend using reason alone.

3. Each new scenario seems increasingly functional as a working assumption of reality.

This is the third of three patterns that these possible scenarios seem to follow.

This third pattern depends on something being assumed to exist. If everything is an illusion, then the illusory ‘me’ is at no disadvantage by virtue of being an illusion, because what seems to be ‘everything else’ is also an illusion.

(a) Stage one: ‘independent thoughts’ or another ‘thinking being’ are assumed to exist, but ‘I’ am not. This renders meaningless any attempts by the illusory ‘me’ to analyse or choose or do anything.

(b) Stage two: I am assumed to exist, as the sole ‘thinking being’. I can now seek to analyse and choose and do things, but cannot communicate as nobody else exists.

(c) Stage three: I and other ‘thinking beings’ are assumed to exist. I can now function in much the way that I seem to, based on the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’. This allows me to have a meaningful working assumption of reality.

At any of these three stages, the real or illusory ‘me’ can function in much the same way irrespective of whether the physical objects are real or illusory. This is because, at each stage, my real interaction with real physical objects seems functionally identical to ‘my’ illusory interactions with illusory physical objects.

4. These apparent patterns contain a key ‘on/off’ reason-switch.

In terms of making a working assumption about the nature of reality, the biggest conflict is not whether physical objects or gods are assumed to exist. It is whether anything is assumed to exist that cannot be known to exist, using reason alone.

In other words, the switch is turned to ‘on’ once it is assumed that anything at all exists. This may not even be ‘thoughts’; it may be something that seems to be ‘thoughts’ but is actually something else. But as long as it is assumed that that something exists, and it cannot be known to exist, the switch has been turned to ‘on’.

If it is assumed that it is self-evident that something must exist, then the switch is turned to on once something identifiable is assumed to exist that cannot be known to exist. Depending on the rational faculties of the ‘assumer’, this could be when ‘thoughts’, a ‘thinking being’ or ‘me’ is assumed to exist.

5. This leads me to assume that reality is fundamentally as it seems to be.

Once ‘I’ turn on this switch, ‘I’ have assumed in principle that “things-that-cannot-be-known-to-exist” may exist. What then might these things be?

Experience and Reason: Once I assume that anything exists, it is now rational to assume that reality consists of those specific things which seem both (a) most consistent with the apparent evidence of my experience, and (b) most likely to be the case, based on applying reason to the apparent evidence of my senses.

This leads me towards the final scenario of my five theories of reality: it includes me as a thinking entity, you and other thinking entities, thoughts that are generated by me and you and other thinking entities, and real physical objects, whether animate or inanimate. It is not rational to assume that some, but not all, of these exist.

Also, it is not rational to assume that specific things exist if they are either (a) less consistent than other possibilities with the apparent evidence of my experience, or (b) less likely to be the case than other possibilities, based on applying reason to the apparent evidence of my senses. This includes unicorns, leprechauns and gods.

Functionality: This argument is strengthened if it results in a working assumption that makes it easier for ‘me’ to function in what seems to be reality. This also leads towards the final scenario of my five theories of reality, where ‘I’ am assumed to exist and interact with other thinking beings and physical objects.

It does not matter if ‘I’ am wrong in this assumption. If so, ‘I’ will just seem to cause the same things to happen as would happen anyway.

So, for practical reasons as well as theoretical ones, my working assumption is that reality is basically as it seems to be, based on applying reason to the apparent evidence of my senses, while remaining open to changing my specific beliefs if I become aware of new evidence.

Reality is Basically as it Seems to Be

Note that I am assuming that reality is basically as it seems to be, not that every detail of reality is actually as it seems to be. I am saying that:

(a) It is reasonable to assume that we exist as thinking, sentient beings in a world of real actual objects.

(b) It is reasonable to assume that the specifics of reality are those theories that are closest to the evidence of our experience, and that seem most likely after applying reason to that evidence.

(c) It is reasonable to always be prepared to change our assumptions if we get new evidence, but not until then.

Photo: Faces of the City by CW Buecheler (cc)

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Five possible theories of reality

This is the second article in a series about why I assume that reality is basically as it seems to be. In the first article, I explained why I believe nothing can be objectively known. This second article deals with a sequence of five possible theories of what reality might consist of:

1. All that seems to exist, even what seem to be thoughts, may be an illusion.
2. Only independent thoughts exist. No separate being thinks them; the thoughts just exist by themselves.
3. Only one thinking being and its thoughts exist. The thoughts only exist when the being is thinking them.
4. Several thinking beings and their thoughts exist. The beings can interact with each other telepathically.
5. Real physical objects also exist, in conjunction with any of the above scenarios.

Here is an overview of each of these possibilities, and how each one fits in with my experience, my use of reason and the practicalities of living my life.

Theory 1: All that seems to exist, even what seem to be thoughts, may be an illusion.

Overview: This is the most cautious assumption of reality. Thoughts seem the most certain entities to exist, but maybe they only seem to be thoughts. Maybe they do not even exist. Maybe nothing actually exists except the illusion of existence itself.

Experience: This scenario seems the furthest away from the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’, to the extent of seeming incompatible with ‘my experience’.
Reason: This seems to involve a paradox. However, ‘I’ cannot rationally rule it out as I have no way of disproving it or of proving any alternative. Maybe this scenario is correct, but what seems to be ‘my thinking’ cannot comprehend how. This is the easiest scenario to defend using reason alone, because it makes no definitive challengeable assertion.
Functionality: As a working assumption of reality, this enables the illusory ‘me’ to function in what seems to be the same way as the real ‘me’ would if everything did exist. The illusory ‘me’ is at no disadvantage by virtue of being an illusion, because what seems to be ‘everything else’ is also an illusion.

Theory 2: Only independent thoughts exist. No separate being thinks them; the thoughts just exist by themselves.

Overview: If this is correct, then the illusion of ‘me’ is simply part of ‘the thoughts.’ This illusory ‘me’ cannot understand how this technically works, but this may be because ‘understanding how this works’ is not part of the ‘the thoughts.’

Experience: Assuming the actual existence of something (in this case, the ‘independent thoughts’) this scenario seems the furthest away from what the evidence of my experience. What ‘I’ seem to experience is an illusion, and so is ‘me’. What ‘you’ may seem to experience is an illusion, and so is ‘you’. What then is the relationship of the illusory ‘me’ and ‘you’ to the ‘independent thoughts’? An analogy is that the ‘independent thoughts’ are a computer programme, and ‘me’ and ‘you’ are some lines of code in that programme.
Reason: Of the scenarios that make a challengeable assertion (by assuming the actual existence of something), this seems the easiest to defend using reason alone. This is because it involves the fewest entities that are “assumed to exist without knowing that they exist,” i.e. the ‘independent thoughts’. This means there are fewest points of attack where the ‘independent thoughts’ (or indeed the illusory ‘me’ or ‘you’) are obliged to prove anything.
Functionality: As a working assumption of reality, this scenario renders meaningless any attempts to analyse or choose or do anything. The ‘independent thoughts’ are, in effect, in control. Whatever the illusory ‘me’ or ‘you’ seems to decide, the ‘independent thoughts’ just continue to do whatever they would have been doing anyway.

Theory 3: Only one thinking being and its thoughts exist. The thoughts only exist when the being is thinking them.

Overview: If this is correct, there are three sub-possibilities.

(a) Only I, Michael Nugent, exist. My thinking has generated the illusions of me having written this paragraph, and of ‘you’ existing and reading this. An analogy is that Michael Nugent is a computer programmer, and ‘you’ are some lines of code in a computer programme that he has written.

(b) Only you, the person who seems to be reading this paragraph, exist. Your thinking has generated the illusions of ‘Michael Nugent’ existing and writing this paragraph, and of you reading this. An analogy for this relationship is that you are a computer programmer, and ‘Michael Nugent’ is some lines of code in a computer programme that you have written.

(c) Only another thinking being exist. Its thinking has generated the illusions of ‘Michael Nugent’ existing and writing this paragraph, and of ‘you’ existing and reading this. An analogy is that the ‘thinking being’ is a computer programmer, and ‘Michael Nugent’ and ‘you’ are some lines of code in a computer programme that it has written.

The sole ‘thinking being’ (whichever one of ‘us’ it may be) has also generated the illusion of all of the world’s literature, history, art, sport, civilisations, wars, knowledge, pleasure, pain and ongoing events. This being is what some people (if they existed) might call a god. That said, if you are the sole ‘thinking being’, you might consider generating a higher standard of illusory life for yourself.

Experience: Because some ‘thinking being’ is assumed to exist, this scenario seems another step closer to the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’.
Reason: It also seems another step harder to defend using reason alone. Another entity (you or me or another ‘thinking being’) is assumed to exist that cannot be known to exist, i.e. its existence cannot be proved using reason alone.
Functionality: As a working assumption of reality, this may considerably boost the self-esteem of whichever ‘thinking being’ is assumed to exist. It also renders meaningless any attempts to debate or communicate anything, because nobody exists to communicate with. The thinker’s apparent disagreements with ‘other people’ are really internal arguments between the thinker’s own thoughts.

Theory 4: Several thinking beings and their thoughts exist. The beings can interact with each other telepathically.

Overview: You and I and others exist as ‘thinking beings’. We generate the illusion of sensory experiences, using our thinking, and we interact telepathically in a universe with no physical entities. However, there are limits to what our thinking can do. For example, each of us still seems to cease to exist (or ‘die’) at some stage, and we only seem able to communicate some thoughts and not others. We do not know why we all generate (more or less) the same illusions of sensory experiences, but this may be simply the way things happened to pan out.

Experience: Because the ‘thinking beings’ can communicate with each other, this scenario seems another step closer to the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’.
Reason: It also seems another step harder to defend using reason alone. Many entities (the interacting ‘thinking beings’) are assumed to exist that cannot be known to exist, i.e. their existence cannot be proved using reason alone.
Functionality: As a working assumption of reality, this enables me to function and interact with others, in what seems to be the same way as I would if our bodies and other objects actually existed. For example, we only seem able to transmit some thoughts and not others, and these ‘transmittable thoughts’ seem to correspond to those that we would communicate through our senses, if our senses existed.

Theory 5: Real physical objects also exist, in conjunction with any of the above scenarios.

Overview: Adding real physical entities to any of the above scenarios, such as atoms and rocks and trees and human bodies and bicycles and microwave ovens and space rockets and planets and galaxies.

Experience: Adding real physical entities to any scenario brings it another step closer to the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’. The effect is greatest with scenario four, which combines thinking beings, their thoughts, and interaction between the thinking beings. Here, adding real physical entities makes the nature of reality identical to the apparent evidence of ‘my experience’.
Reason: Adding real physical entities also makes each scenario another step harder to defend using reason alone, by assuming extra entities that cannot be known to exist.
Functionality: As a working assumption of reality, the real or illusory ‘me’ can function (in each scenario) in much the same way irrespective of whether the physical objects are real or illusory. This is because, in each scenario, my real interaction with real physical objects seems functionally identical to ‘my’ illusory interactions with illusory physical objects.

Assumption Based on These Theories

In the next article in this series, I will explain – based on these theories – why I assume that reality is basically as it seems to be.

Photo: How? by Not So Good Photography (cc)

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Nothing can be objectively known

This is the first article in a series about why I assume two things about reality: (1) that nothing can be objectively known, and (2) that reality is basically as it seems to be. This article is about the first of those assumptions – that nothing can be objectively known.

This is a summary of why nothing can be known:
1. I seem to interpret the universe, and make assumptions, using my thinking.
2. But I can never know if any of my interpretations or assumptions are correct.
3. It is possible that this assumption may itself be incorrect.
4. However, that possibility does not prove that anything can be known.

And here is the detail of each of these points:

1. I seem to interpret the universe, and make assumptions, using my thinking.

The universe is all that exists, whether thoughts or things. Some of these:

■ I am aware of experiencing (conscious thoughts, my house, eating ice cream)
■ I experience but am not aware of (subconscious thoughts, my 42nd eyelash)
■ I am aware of but do not experience (composing an opera, visiting the moon)
■ I neither experience nor am aware of (thoughts I have not had, specific aliens)

These entities seem to change, combine and interact in complex ways. I must therefore interpret my awareness of them, then make assumptions based on my interpretations. I call the mechanism with which I do this, ‘my thinking’.

2. But I can never know if any of my interpretations or assumptions are correct.

Why? Because I can only interpret their correctness by using the very mechanism whose ‘efficiency-in-being-correct’ that I am testing (i.e. ‘my thinking’).

■ If I assume that my thinking always produces correct interpretations, then this assumption may itself be an incorrect interpretation, caused by flaws in my thinking about which I am unaware.
■ If I doubt my thinking’s reliability in always producing correct interpretations, then I must also doubt its reliability in testing the correctness of those interpretations.

3. It is possible that this assumption may itself be incorrect.

■ It may be that something can be known, using mechanisms other than ‘my thinking’, and that ‘I’ am simply not yet aware of how this can be done.
■ If I am shown a proof that ‘something can be known’, then I will change this assumption.

4. However, that possibility does not prove that anything can be known.

■ To prove that ‘something can be known’, it is not sufficient to undermine the certainty of this or any theory of why ‘nothing can be known’.
■ Indeed, undermining the certainty of this assumption can reinforce it, unless the undermining is accompanied by a positive alternative proof.

■ To prove that ‘something can be known’, the onus is on the ‘knowledge-claimer’ to show how this can be done, using a proof that does not rely on the very thinking that is itself being tested.
■ Until this happens, this seems the safest and purest working assumption to make about the nature of the universe: that, based on what seems to be my experience so far of the universe, nothing can be known.

Five Possible Theories of Reality

In the next article in this series, I will examine five possible theories of what reality might consist of.

Photo: The Thinker by Brian – Progressive Spin (cc)

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