Month: July 2013

A history of the timeline. I like the “Histomap” something I’ve tried to use for schools of thought, mentally at least – but the timeline idea itself is a favourite of mine going back to Jorn Barger – the original blogger – and previously used here by me. (Hat tip to Brain Pickings.)

[And talking of Jorn, one for later – Philosophy Survey.]

Good UI.

Great piece from Slavoj Zizek in the New Statesman.

The animality with which we are dealing here — the ruthless egotism of each of the individuals pursuing his or her private interest — is the paradoxical result of the most complex network of social relations (market exchange, social mediation of production). That individuals are blinded to this network points towards its ideal (“spiritual”) character:

in the civil society structured by market,
abstraction rules more than ever.

Great post from Rev Sam over at Elizaphanian. As an atheist (science & technologist), I was seriously concerned previously that Sam, as a non-scientist (theist & theologian), was being drawn into the science of the green movement (through The Oil Drum, etc) – the last thing we needed was more scientism. Wisdom prevails.

Thai football. I guess if your name is Tuck, you can be excused an obsession with the food, but “ritualistic civility” is the real value.

(This is an ancient draft post from a year or two ago. Just decided to post it so I can link to the “rules of argumentation” resource it contains in another post on this subject about argumentation generally – NOT specifically related to the interminable God vs Science debate.)

I’m an atheist. That is I don’t “believe in” a god or gods, any being(s) with omnipotent omniscience, indeed as any kind of causal explanation for anything happening in the (real) world, ever.

Despite a large degree of inconsistency in any such body of (written) thought, I actually don’t have much problem with particular “believers” in the teachings of prophets, the word, the way, of Christians or Mohamedans (or Zoroastrians or Zen Taoists, or Mahayanan Buddhists, whatever), as exemplary moral rules for human life in the world, even if their histories are 95% apocryphal purloined and interchangeable legend. So long as “rules are for the guidance of wise men and not the enslavement of fools”, and so long as much of the apparently literal are understood to be poetic and metaphorical, including short-hand references to god(s) to denote the ineffable, and inexplicable in the current / relevant context. Even rules that are wrong – not right or true – in any absolute objective sense, have some value for obedience in a given social-anthropological situation. The slippery slope is to let the metaphors die and reify, and mistake the ineffable for the objective and causal, the ineffable or pragmatic for some absolute truth with a capital T.

That is I’m a “rational” being. But, that said, I have complementary issues with those who claim scientific, objective rationality – that long pre-date any god vs science debates of the last 5 years or so. I’ve drafted one or two posts and comments into the PZ Myers “Pharyngula” debate, but never actually published, since the discussion threads are inevitably full of participants cock-sure of either side of the argument – eventually trading insults disguised as humorous rhetoric. (I have the same problem with much of Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” debates.)

In a sense I could be accused of taking a god of the gaps view, and religion as the opiate to avoid worrying about the mysteries of those gaps, those things that “science” has not yet explained, adequately for everyday use by mortals. In a sense I do have that view, but if I ever used the word god for such ineffability, it would always be (risky) metaphorical shorthand. The ineffability is never a causal objective “thing”. In a sense a Spinozan Pantheism, but again, we need to be very cautious about attributing any causal, purposeful teleology to such ineffable pantheism – nature as wonder.

Trouble is, with this “yes and no, sorta kinda, but …” view it is much easier to compare notes with a sophisticated theist or theologian than it is with a sophisticated scientist.

So imagine my delight at finding a rules of engagement flowchart from AtheismResource.com blogged by PZ on Pharyngula.

Trouble is 95% of the subsequent discussion thread is about rehearsed (anti-Creationist) arguments using the flowchart, rather than the content of the flowchart. The meta-argument is much more interesting.

So Yes / No Box #1 – Well, sorry, but “Yes” crassly oversimplifies the situation and “No” is the more sophisticated rational answer. I’m having this argument with you because I’m pretty sure of my position. This argument is going to cost us both time and effort, so we need to start on a basis of mutual trust. I’m looking forward to the discussion because I want to learn something that might help me understand the different positions better, mine and yours. How about you ?

Yes / No Box #2 – Hmm, Yes, OK, but this therefore all hinges on “faulty use” of the argument rather than any argument content per-se. I will certainly be OK to change my use of any such argument, if we can agree what this question really means.

Yes / No Box #3 – Well the $64,000 question is in here. What are the basic principles of reason ? You give examples. “More reasonable”, “more evidence” ? Is this about keeping score. The tyranny of the majority ? Who says the person asserting a position has the onus of justification ? And what is truth anyway ? What counts as reasonable, what counts as evidence ? Does one side of the argument have the privilege of defining these terms for the other ?

Rules 1, 2, 3 & 4 – OK, in general. Specifically 1 & 2 OK unless specifically indicating a dependency on another argument as part of the process. It may not be possible to agree on the first argument we hit upon, in isolation from any others. The world may not be as conveniently subdivided into subjects as our objective argument presumes. 3 & 4, well, OK, but … what counts as “evidence“. If we presume scientific standards of evidence, are we not presuming the scientific arguments for “truth” to be privileged to start with ?

Useful resource from io9 – no idea of accuracy – another hat tip to BifRiv.

Love this one, from a Bob Mankoff TED Collection of New Yorker cartoons. The French Army Knife is a good one too, but this one, as well as the scatological reference does also of course allude to Schroedinger too, where science really does need to think outside the confines of Copenhagen and many worlds. (Hat tip to BifRiv)

Lancelot White, writing in his 1961 edited collection of pieces on Roger Boscovich says, without attributing it to Boscovich (or to anyone else for that matter), “It has been said that …

Man loves logic,
but chooses his premises with passion.”

Googled various whole and part versions of that expression, but cannot find it attributed specifically to anyone – though similar word combinations crop up with Aristotle, Aquinas and (god forbid) Ayn Rand.

It struck me immediately. I’ve used the idea as far back as my original “manifesto” that people often construct arguments that look (are formally designed to look) logical and objective, but forget that they’ve already chosen what to include in their considerations on the basis of more personal, informal, subjective, implicit or even totally invisible and forgotten values (*). My example was even a simple business-like “bid tab” to justify selection tabulated on price against a specification of some kind.

It’s part of my wider agenda, aligned with Nick Maxwell, that even science, or scientism in socio-politico-economic decision justification (evidence-based-policy, management-by-objectives, simple majority voting, etc.), often proceeds in total ignorance of its underlying value-based subjectivity. Something which it denies with a neurotic (hence ironic) vengeance of course.

[Post Note (*) – I should perhaps be explicit. It’s a good thing that they do (include these less objective things), the bad thing is that their real inclusion in practice, is forgotten / ignored / devalued / denied.]

BHA posted this Free Arab Press piece (from March) of a young Egyptian lad speaking about what’s wrong with the then current “fascist theocracy” and their “constitution”.

Bright and certainly done his listening and reading, to pick up so many issues, and respond eloquently when interviewed, apparently unprompted. Of course the translation is not his, so the stock phrases (sound-bites) for the issues and parties are obvious, but not much wrong with his logic. His argument for secular government and non-discrimination – who could disagree. Smart kid, and a welcome sign of hope in his generation.

But – vote for him as next president? Institutionally “promote” him from Free Arab Press & BHA perspective? The situation has already changed since then. And, now you’re objectifying one young individual and taking sides – with sound bites – in a complex affair at the same time. How wise is that BHA?

The point is the bigger the issue the less it is about taking sides (after Slavoj Zizek) and the more the thinking needs to be integrationist (after Mary Parker-Follett and Jim Al-Khalili).

“The ruling ideology appropriated the September 11 tragedy and used it to impose its basic message: it is time to stop playing around, you have to take sides — for or against. This, precisely, is the temptation to be resisted: in such moments of apparent clarity of choice, mystification is total. Today, more than ever, intellectuals need to step back. Are we aware that we are in the midst of a “soft revolution”, in the course of which the unwritten rules determining the most elementary international logic are changing?”
(Slavoj Zizek – The Empty Wheelbarrow)

“Just so far as people think that the basis of working together is compromise or concession, just so far do they not understand the first principles. [It’s neither fighting (win-lose) nor concession (lose-win), it’s about integration.]”
(Mary Parker-Follett)

“It’s because we are winning the battle that we can afford not to be so strident, belligerent, antagonistic, confrontational. Because we’re winning the battle that more and more people can see that humanism is an inclusive thing, … Because that is changing we don’t need to be on the attack against people with faith.”
(Jim Al-Khalili)