Month: September 2014

Interesting Boyarsky Lecture at Duke, from Jonathan Haidt – who I’ve read and reviewed very positively before – which he opens by contrasting liberal unconstrained view of morality with the need for institutional constraints. And immediately nails his colours to the more conservative “centrist” mast than the vast majority of his liberal academic, medical scientific, audience.

Hat tip to Stephen Law on FB for the link.

Excellent, after a full viewing. The ultimate message is that we share most values, but our views become skewed or imbalanced by making one value “sacred” above all others, immune from any trade-offs. And the sacred choices are mostly partisan, defended vs the mad, irrational perceived opposition, liberal vs conservative at any given point in time, but environmental changes over time mean that the sacred priorities evolve. Or rather they should evolve, but become even more imbalanced by the reaction to the opposition. On the science front, the problem is scientists (the humans) are politicised on the liberal side of the balance. Hear, hear.

Definitely worth watching in full, despite the US-centric agenda.

Good to see a piece on the new computing element of the UK school curriculum, where it is more than simply a “coding” skill for immediate employment. Stuart Dredge in the Grauniad quotes Bill Mitchell of the BCS.

He says it’s “thinking about thinking”, and you can do with bits of string and card and lots of running around, without going anywhere near a computer. It can be inspirational. Hear hear. Computation is something as fundamental in this world as say physics, understanding of which is highly transferable knowledge, as I’ve mentioned several times, last time here in The Year of Code.

[Post Note : A little scare-mongering.]

Met and heard Bob Churchill of IHEU talk to the CLHG at Conway Hall last night, with an audience of 60-odd.

His provocative title “Your Humanism is a Thought Crime” left out the implied … in certain parts of the world where religious freedom is not recognised, or is actively suppressed whether by legal arrangements or by cultural taboo. His first and recurring clarification is to note that the expression Religious Freedom is a selective contraction of a much more comprehensive UN Human Rights declaration on:

Freedom of thought, expression and belief
including religious and non-religious belief.

His presentation was in two parts; Firstly, to describe and update us on the work of the many (hundreds of) international humanist groups under the IHEU umbrella, and the many examples of specific cases and countries where campaigns to help those individuals and groups subjected to discrimination and much greater lethal risks. The examples and statistics are mind-boggling in scope and variety, and the most comprehensive account of these forms the basis on the annually updated Free Thought Report (which Bob edits). The second was to focus specifically on the direct first-hand lobbying activities of IHEU and other humanist NGO’s in support of ongoing UN proposals for new and amended motions and declarations. (Be great to share the slides, Bob.)

The amount of work evident in these combined activities was and is immense – impressive and indeed inspiring. Even as an avid follower of such human rights issues and cases reported in the media, you couldn’t hope to appreciate the total scope without the IHEU work done to report them all under one umbrella. From the IHEU perspective, Humanism is as broad a church imaginable: “The global umbrella organisation embracing Humanist, atheist, secularist, skeptic, rationalist, lay, ethical, cultural, free-thought and similar organisations, worldwide since 1952.” To be whole-heartedly commended and supported.

In the Q&A, and ongoing discussions late into the evening, Bob responded to two lines of questioning amongst others:

Given the very general nature of the human rights freedoms, and the range of issues of nation, race, age, gender, sexual-orientation as well as religious and non-religious beliefs generally, how is the “Humanism” message made distinct compared to the many campaigning organisations in this broad libertarian, humanitarian sphere – such as Amnesty International it was suggested.

And secondly, given that the focus in sheer weight of example cases was religious – predominantly Moslem – suppression of freedoms, how is Humanism establishing and arguing for alternatives to the underlying fundamental tenets of specific religious beliefs.

Joining the dots between those two issues; Humanism, despite the impressively huge amount of campaigning and success against violation of general freedoms of belief and expression, it has done so largely under an anti-religion banner, often under the God vs Science wars” or, BHA specifically, secular moves to eliminate faith-based activity from any (UK) state organs. The focus has been to criticise, attack and ridicule the more “irrational” and dogmatic aspects of religious belief or otherwise exclude it from the domain. Other than some “scientific” & “democratic” forms of rationality, is Humanism doing enough to establish the nature and values of “good” Humanist beliefs, in the vacuum left behind where established religious-based moral law has withered or is otherwise being progressively swept away? The process of getting our own Humanist house in order, as it were.

Bob, from his perspective as both philosopher and campaigner, articulated a sophisticated and informed response. In summary: Firstly, we can’t be simplistic about the myriad interconnected issues. And even where we are able to propose appropriate responses, policies and values, there remain complexities in their communication. Even in the no-brainer clear cut cases, with an obvious wrong to be put right,  there remain many tactical subtleties of both communication and action depending on the short and long term risks to the individuals involved. But in general, many levels from particular campaign messages and actions to more general intellectual debate and conversations, mediated and un-mediated.

Hear, hear. And, in many ways, this represents the fear that drives the agenda here on Psybertron. In this world of ubiquitous communications, it’s all too easy to allow the focus on clear-headlines needed to pursue the clear-cut no-brainer campaigns, to crowd out the tougher, subtler conversations that are also necessary.  It’s a truism that real values are reflected in how individuals act and govern their actions in practice, and that policies and manifestos expressing aims and values, however carefully drafted, can remain theoretical. But, like The Free Thought Report, agreed and published policies and processes for addressing the real complexities of the issues, are a resource for justification and validation of action by all involved.

Impossible to be comprehensive and conclusive within the constraints of the evening, and a blogged report like this, but all in all a very encouraging conversation pointing in all the right directions.

At least it will if our all-pervasive PC standards of objectivity and democratisation give engaged judgement a chance. A talk by Tiffany Jenkins on BBC Four Thought. An important plea picking up on one point of Grayson Perry’s Reith Lectures.

In reviewing The Muslims are Coming! by Arun Kundnani, Andrew Copson writing in the New Humanist finds that whilst he supports the warnings against prejudice, the message falls short on the part the religion itself plays in Islamic extremism. He adds this point of his own:

There is a confidence imparted to a person by religious ideology that can motivate excessive violence, and the intellectual and ideological content of religion needs to be considered in any full analysis.

Of course he’s right. But there are moral distinctions to be made between “attacking” extremism and “critically debating” religion. The fact that ideological confidence can motivate violent extremism is no premise to assume that it does in anyone who identifies with any given religion. Considerate analysis must include respect for those who find value in religion, something far from ideology and a million miles from condemning violent extremism.

Mentioned a couple of times recently since reading Nagel’s most recent (2012-ish ?) Mind and Cosmos, that I’d felt the need to go back to some of his earlier work of which I was aware by reference and quotation, but had never properly read.

So, I’m reading The View From Nowhere (1986), and despite so far reading only the introduction, I’m already full of quotes I feel the need to share. Another of those I (wish I) could have written myself:

[The process of progressive objectification] will not always yield a result, and sometimes it will be thought to yield a result when it really doesn’t; then as Nietzsche warned, one will get a false objectification of an aspect of reality that cannot be better understood from a more objective standpoint. Although there is a connection between objectivity and reality [….] still not all reality is better understood the more objectively it is viewed.

Appearance and perspective are essential parts of what there is, and in some respects they are best understood from a less detached standpoint. Realism underlies claims of objectivity and detachment, but it supports them only up to a point.

The internal-external tension pervades human life, but is particularly prominent in the generation of philosophical problems. I shall concentrate on four topics: the metaphysics of mind, the theory of knowledge, free-will and ethics. But the problem has equally important manifestations with respect to the metaphysics of space and time, the philosophy of language and aesthetics. In fact there is probably no area of philosophy in which it doesn’t play a significant role.

The subjectivity of consciousness is an irreducible feature of reality – without which we couldn’t do physics or anything else – and it must occupy as fundamental a place in any credible world-view as matter, energy, space, time and numbers. [….] I believe it is already clear that any correct theory of the relation between mind and body would radically transform our overall conception of he world and would require a new understanding of the phenomena now thought of as physical. [….] The good, like the true, includes irreducibly subjective elements.

This is in some respects a deliberately reactionary work. There is a significant strain of idealism in contemporary philosophy, according to which what there is and how things are cannot go beyond what we could in principle think about. This inherits the crude appeal of logical positivism [….]. Philosophy is also infected by a broader tendency of contemporary intellectual life: SCIENTISM. Scientism is actually a special form of idealism, for it puts one type of human understanding in charge of the universe and what can be said about it. At its most myopic it assumes that everything there is must be understandable by scientific theories of the kind we have developed to date – physics and evolutionary biology being the current paradigms – as if the current age were not just another in the series [of ages of understanding].

Precisely because of their dominance, these attitudes are ripe for attack. Of course some of the opposition is foolish; it can degenerate into the rejection of science – whereas anti-scientism is essential to the defence of science against misappropriation. [….] Too much time is wasted because of the assumptions that methods already in existence will solve problems for which they were not designed.

Emphases are mine. I hadn’t realised “scientism as infection” was a Nagel concept. I’d thought it was absolutely mine – magic! Objectivity is much simpler to handle so is easier to communicate – the memetic effect:

[….] a persistent temptation to turn [intellectual pursuit of understanding]
into something less difficult and more shallow than it is.
[Whereas] it is extremely difficult.

Or, as I would put it “just complicated enough” to be at risk from simplistication.

[Post Note : where did I see another recent reference to the concept of “just complicated enough” ?]

A Grauniad post from Jon Butterworth – I’m becoming a fan, one of the more down to earth physicists I’ve met.

But, it’s another one of those nagging doubts I have. I get the 5-sigma stats, the limits to the assumptions of normal distributions, and even the subconscious Bayesian correction, but I can’t help feeling the focus on error relative to your thesis is merely reinforcing – reifying – the objectification of your own thesis. It’s about error “relative to” your set of assumptions. The smaller this error the greater the significance of some bigger error in your model / hypothesis / assumptions built into the measurements you’re seeking as well as the results you’re finding. Your ability to achieve “perfect” results is greater the more your boundary conditions constrain what you can look for.

I suspect this is tied up in the “look elsewhere” idea he mentions – which I don’t really get, yet. More reading. Sigh!

Interestingly even in the title / intro / abstract – Lyons agenda seems to be aligned with some of my issues. The rationalisation and (resource) justification aspects of large physics projects might create some self-fulfilling relationship between theory and results. Intriguing.

[Post Note : and the following day a post taking supersymmetry possibilities seriously at 2.6-sigma. Previous supersym ref here. Also ephemeral points on twitter – that big physics is using 5-sigma just because it can, given how many events it can poll. Reinforces my nagging fear that the stats are a red-herring, missing (obscuring) something of more explanatory value, more real than the standard model.]

[Post Note : Opportunity for a (real, attributable) Einstein quote

“Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity,
I do not understand it myself anymore.”

(Albert Einstein : Philosopher Scientist (1949) edited by Paul A. Schilpp)]

Tweeted and FB’d several comments at the loss of William Hague from the Foreign Office, and Baroness Warsi’s subsequent comments about his loss, her departure and the FO falling apart. Basically I was disappointed that Hague had decided to leave for his own reasons, he didn’t seem the kind of competent committed person to withdraw his old-school loyalty from a difficult job. (Made several passing references in the blog to our missing Hague in connection with immediate foreign situations that cried out for his skills. This one on Gaza, Ukraine and ISIS and UK/EU and #IndyRef. Thank god John Kerry has no home to go to and has kept the show on the road single-handedly.)

Well, it seems Hague was indeed pushed, he was just being loyal to the team by giving the public message he did. Too loyal, as I suspected. And now it seems tongues are wagging about his encumbent replacement Hammond not appreciating what they’ve lost. (Source – Twitter last night. Need to dig up refs.)