Month: May 2015

I’ve made myself “unpopular” a couple of times with my agenda of (self-)restraint when it comes to free speech – it’s a freedom we all have all the time, but nevertheless best used where there is some prospect of positive outcome.

Sure, sometimes martyrdom (figurative and/or literal) is necessary, if the point needs to be made to publicly assert the right and take the flak (literally and/or figuratively) when the right is under physical denial. Let the deniers damn themselves from their own mouths (and/or gun barrels). But hopefully, there’s more to life than that.

Great piece here from Cruella (Kate Smurthwaite) in The Teacher magazine, on the relative priority of creating conditions in society where exercising the right of free speech is a positive experience, rather than encouraging 13 year old girls to set themselves up for abuse.

In all honesty, if I’d known when I was 13 what I know now,
I would have spoken up less. Now who wants me to come
into school and tell girls that?

Kate, of course, has had that on-line abuse experience in spades. I’ve been much more fortunate.

[Post Note : YouTube “News at Kate” version of the story.]

An agenda of mine that how funds get allocated to big science projects needs to be set by social values, not by science itself.

“Research councils often back big science out of ignorance ….”

“pathways to impact … a charter to support bullshitters.”

“…. perhaps it’s time to open up the debate to the public about what scientific agendas we should be pursuing and how they should be resourced. This could help move away from a trend where our governments are buying into ‘vanity projects’, and would have the potential to hold them more to account.”

Which means they need to be justified in terms of meaningful values.

The idea of research being funded because it leads to economic benefits is as dumb as education being designed for career paths. Those are development and training.

[Post Note : “inevitably an element of politics” in big science Jon Butterworth]

[Post Note : Shell (& BP “big oil”) influence science exhibits they sponsor – no shit Sherlock.]

Addition to the collection http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-32888548

Headway Blog http://whoareyounow.org/

Listened to Beyond Belief BBC R4 broadcast Sun 24th May on iPlayer this morning. It featured Stephen Law (@_CFIUK), Nick Spencer (@TheosNick), Marylin Mason (BHA) – with a brief inserted piece from Rory Fenton (also of the BHA) – in conversation with Ernie Rea.

Stephen and Marylin’s stories are similar to mine. Naturally atheist, yes, but that’s a negative statement, about something not believed, so more than that. Atheism-plus. Finding Humanism when noticing boxes being ticked in positive outlook and values. Few actual requirements in the accepted definitions of atheism; so possible for Christian atheism too, though usage of the word can vary the intended definition with context.

Whether “science alone” can answer the big questions of morality is a matter of broad & narrow definitions. Narrowly defined no, but broadly yes, knowledge believed based on evidence of experience. Certainly moral values have evolved with us.

Some debate about the origins of humanism, much as per two recent posts. Ancient Greek – Epicurian/Stoic origins – thinking about good lives leaving gods aside, very human gods anyway at this time. (Same as Grayling’s talk here). Versus Nick’s focus on post enlightenment / renaissance forms of humanism. Stephen conceded humanism does not preclude Christianity, it does not necessitate atheism. Marylin “hostile” to religion only where it impinges on individual daily politics – essentially the secular view.

Discussion of Humanism being used in an anti-religious sense, is really one of boring semantics. There is a lot of shared history. In fact Stephen called it a “phoney war” and then (dare I say) engaged in it – putting prickly straw-men into the discussion with “Of course what Nick thinks … / what Nick is attempting to …”

From my perspective, there was no real disagreement here. The origins of humanism are important in understanding its evolution, but no-one owns the resulting reality or its definition. Humans probably evolved humanist values independent of religion, and religion may have focussed on co-opting, codifying and maintaining them. What matters is what’s positive about it in a secular society; certainly not exclusively atheist, more atheism-plus, to use Stephen’s word. In fact surely, the more we share claims to subscribe to the content of Humanism the better? They’re in our custody now and in future.

Two significant points as the discussion drew to a close:

The idea of “bedrock” in education. Something people can be taught before and whilst they learn by thinking for themselves from experience and first principles. Humanism should be a part of that. (We may not want codification cast in stone, but there needs to be a resource – see also the Grayling piece again.)

Secondly, in defining that Humanism, Nick highlighted one possible point of difference. The clue is in its name. One key aspect is in understanding “what it means to be human“.

Hear, hear.

Had an interesting evening Thursday, listening to Rupert Sheldrake (again) at Theos, the Christian religious think-tank (for the first time), and having the opportunity to question and talk with him and with other Theos members. Also acquired a copy of Nick Spencer’s “Atheists, the Origin of the Species“; more on which later. [Post Note : Full audio of Sheldrake here.]

I sympathise with Sheldrake, indeed agree that most of his ideas benefit from [ie rationally deserve] proper scientific consideration. Pending “materialist promissary notes”, I’m even happy to hold his panpsychism-based ideas as possibilities. (Interestingly, Iain McGilchrist who was cited as a recent Theos guest speaker, and someone whose ideas I recommend to anyone who’ll listen, holds a not-quite-panpsychic position in seeing the brain more as our “transducer” of consciousness (maybe of proto-consciousness) than its physical container.) None of which means I believe in the paranormal (by definition there’s no such thing), or that “morphic resonance” is the most likely explanation. Sue Blackmore, protege of Dawkins and Dennett, of course held the same position as Sheldrake in taking scientific research of the paranormal seriously. No-one can accuse Sheldrake of not taking a properly sceptical scientific stance on these (whackier) topics. It’s science’s response to scientific questions that is the target here.

Nailing his “10 theses” to the door of the “church of reason” Sheldrake succeeds in maintaining his pariah status in mainstream science. I questioned whether greater progress might be achieved by focussing on fewer key questions that deserve answers, than turning the situation into one large battle on a very broad front. Like, for example, Unger & Smolin who support (at least) two of Sheldrake’s positions (but couldn’t admit as such). One that physical laws and constants are fixed, and somehow don’t deserve evolutionary explanations of their values and form in the current universe(*). And, two, that when it comes to form and knowledge in the universe of physics, mathematics has some absolute privileged “Platonic” position. Science needs to recognise its own metaphysical dogmas as such.

One point I take issue with Sheldrake is in placing Dennett in the camp of denying the self and the reality of consciousness. Dennett rejects “the hard problem” characterisation of their explanation. He very much sees a common sense evolutionary explanation based on information as form independent of physical substrate, as do I, as does Sheldrake.

Anyway, I’m posting these Sheldrake notes under the “Atheists, the Origin of the Species” heading because the common point is that so much of the history of post-enlightenment science has had the denial of soul-like-stuff as its materialist agenda, the thin end of a theist wedge, rather than honest, sceptical investigation of how it is properly explained by natural science.

I’m only maybe 1/4 thru reading Spencer’s “Atheists, the Origin of the Species” since Thursday, but the parallel with Anthony Grayling’s talk “Values and Humanist Values” the night before is already making me smile. They’re both taking a historical view – Spencer on Christian atheism mainly post-1500, Graying on non-Abrahamic humanism from the Greeks onwards – the common ground is obvious. Christian humanism, Christian secularism and Christian scepticism are as real as their atheistic, scientistic counterparts.

[Reformation] sceptics could believe as confidently as any religious adherent. They were simply doubtful of the rational grounds for belief, and its capacity for certainty. Scepticism was the antithesis of dogma, not faith.

The fact that theological differences might be a cipher for political and social threats was a nuance easily lost amid the aroma of cooking [human] flesh. Theological certainty could kill, and it wasn’t even certain.

Earlier in the introduction, Spencer uses a quote from Francis Bacon that has intrigued me before and, in my case. has led to a more than passing interest in OxBridge intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that converted to Catholicism late in life.

“a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism;
but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”

Or in my own corollary, even a little more attention to dialogue on philosophical common ground, might bring humanity to more rational shared values and priorities.

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[(*)Note – and there are other real physicists questioning these if sources are required.]

[Post Note : Good timing. Humanism & Christianity Discuission on BBC R4 Beyond Belief between Nick Spencer (Theos, above) Stephen Law (CFI_UK) and Marylin Mason (BHA) – and Rory Fenton (BHA). Non-contentious agreement, more notes here.]

Listened to A C Grayling talk to the Central London Humanist Group last night at Conway Hall. He’s a favourite speaker because he is such a good talker, drawing on deep knowledge of the history of philosophy since the greeks, interspersed with anecdotes from real life politics and stories from classic literature. All done naturally without slides and minimal (if any) notes.

Content-wise, his messages were pretty straightforward, his title redundant. All the values being talked about are humanist, or were humanistic anyway. Pretty well all philosophy on values, virtues and morality from the Greeks onwards is humanistic. About good behaviour of humans. Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics remains the classic standard work. The clear transition from the masculine warrior virtues to those civic virtues of a civilised society. Freedom of thought and action, think for yourself with thoughtful consideration for others, minimum harm, golden rule, etc.

Thinking for yourself and giving consideration for others at all times may be inconvenient, messy and inefficient, but it is that very muddle that helps preserve the freedoms. Legality should be case law, not detailed rules codified with comprehensive legislation and objective definition – cast in stone. And systems of enforcement should be multiple and loose, not directly constrained by technology. Bi-cameral governance should be clear on different roles and responsibilities and on different bases for membership – eg not both by popular voting.

Diversity, imperfection and redundancy are messy but good. Hear, hear say I.

Conversely, the religious and totalitarian alternatives of stricter codification and the psychological and physical means of enforcement, provided plenty of anecdotal and Q&A content for such a talk with a group of liberal, atheist, secular, humanists. “Simple, no need to think for yourself, we’ve got some clear rules for you.” Even if applied benevolently, such a scheme ossifies the natural evolution of value and, if too efficient and effective, is too easily open to malevolent or misguided misapplication. The messier, distributed, diverse approach wins. So far so good.

But, what about those values. After virtues, virtue? After virtue? Freedom and Consideration. That’s it?

All variations on that, all additions, are essentially pragmatic and contingent, towards smoother, efficient running of society, leaving more time to live life, more time free from worrying about difficult decisions, more opportunity to delegate and share the workload of governance of that society. Free society open to question and challenge, naturally, but self-sustaining and smooth running.

With only those basic values, not all decisions can be straightforward or self-consistent to work out the balance of freedoms and consequences of every decision and action. Life is full of inconsistency and conflicting pressure across multiple time-scales. It’s good that everyone – as many as possible, including the youngest in education – appreciate the philosophical questioning and thinking processes, but not that we all spend all our time being philosophers, fully working out the solution to every problem. We’d get nothing done, we’d live no lives.

So my question. Where and how do we agree practical values, useful rules of thumb for typical real life situations?

Grayling’s reply was “nowhere; we don’t”. As soon as we do record them, they risk being documented definitively, cast in stone and abused. Fair point, but.

Interestingly however, in his response Grayling used the “story” of The Good Samaritan to illustrate the message that encoding the specific values of the specific situation, would never have the same power by parallel association to apply the “story” as a parable on good behaviour in wider life situations. How often will we actually get the opportunity as a bystander to help the innocent victim of a mugging in the street?

Clearly the place we document, in order to learn, communicate and educate values of living is in stories. Parables and literature that are clearly not intended to cast values as rules in stone, but which nevertheless contain the values in ways we can appreciate in their literary (fictional, mythical, apochryphal) context yet “slip”(*) sideways into our individual daily lives, lived now in the present.

We need great works of literature. We need good books.

What was it Samira Ahmed said – the story of Ishmael reminds how good a work of literature the Old Testament is.

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(*) For “slipping” see Hofstadter.

[Post Note ; And same day today, BHA tweets on The Golden Rule.]

[Post Note : and to reinforce Samira Ahmed’s point, here is Samira Shackle in New Humanist, interviewing Azar Nafisi, writer of “Reading Lolita in Tehran”]

 

Just a holding post for 3 related links, so I can draw others attention to it:

SciAm article : Dark Energy Tested on a Tabletop

Sabine Hossenfelder’s earlier “BackReaction” response to the original source paper.

Rick Ryals speculation on consequences for the cosmological constant and the standard model (from Sabine’s Facebook timeline):

Negative mass particles would fall “up”… should have negative density and negative pressure…

A cosmological constant with negative pressure *mimics* negative mass via its anti-gravitational effect, and a cosmological constant that is a less dense form of the same mass energy as ordinary matter rho<0 would have real massive particle potential when enough of it was gravitationally condensed to attain the matter density… until then the “almost material” would logically be “dark”.

It would also be virtually undetectable, except gravitationally, and in a finite model matter generation from the vacuum structure *causes* expansion via the hole that the “hole” leaves in the vacuum during matter generation which necessarily increases negative pressure via rarefaction of the ever thinning vacuum structure.

This coincidence makes me wonder if anyone has ever written down the basis of wave functions in this background, including an expansion of the field in corresponding creation and annihilation operators… computed the stress-energy tensor in that background and quantitatively described the vacua. Has anyone worked out the matrix elements of the stress-energy tensor between Einstein’s original finite vacuum and the one-particle states?

Has anyone even checked with GR to see if negative mass has negative pressure?

Anyone else share that wonder?

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[Post Notes : Since the response trail has gone cold on Sabine’s FB thread, I’m bringing forward here for future follow-up, Ricks additional inputs. It’s a worry that serious open-minded physicists can address these details beyond the initial rebuttal:

Ian : “We know there’s no explanation for the cosmological-constant problem within general relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics,” so, maybe suspend belief in the standard model for a moment, and I’d be interested in your response to Rick Ryals speculation?

 

Rick : Thanks but it isn’t exactly speculation as it all falls naturally from the mentioned cosmological model. In General Relativity’s most natural universe, the vacuum has negative density when,

P=-u=-rho*c^2

In this static state, pressure is proportional to -rho, but pressure is negative in an expanding universe, and so energy density is positive.

The vacuum energy density is less than the matter energy density, but it is still positive, so positive matter density can be obtained locally if you condense energy from this negative pressure vacuum into a finite region of space, until the energy density over this region equals that of the matter density. This will, in-turn, cause negative pressure to increase, via the rarefaction of Einstein’s vacuum energy, (as the vacuum pulls back), so this expanding universe does not run-away, because the increase in positive mass-energy is offset by the increase in negative pressure that results when you make particles from Einstein’s negative pressure vacuum.

In Einstein’s static model, G=0 when there is no matter. The cosmological constant came about because we do have matter, so in order to get rho>0 out of Einstein’s matter-less model you have to condense the matter density from the existing structure, and in doing so the pressure of the vacuum necessarily becomes less than zero, P<0.

 

Sabine : [via twitter, (max 140 chars)]
Yes, negative (gravitational) mass has a negative pressure.
No, it doesn’t explain accelerated expansion.

 

Rick : Yes it does when a greater volume of the vacuum is required each time that you make a particle pair due to the rarefying effect that matter generation has on the finite vacuum.

But the universe is held flat and stable as acceleration increases …. until said process insidiously compromises the integrity of the structure and boom… the footprint of this universe gets laid down with the matter field for physicists of the next universe to scratch their collective heads about for all eternity… or so it would appear …

Rick and I continued some private chat on the implications, but these are not worth sharing until serious physicists take the physics inputs seriously. Anyone?]

[Continuing with chat response from Sabine (Matter corrected to Energy in the header):

Sabine:
[So, to the original question] I said, “Yes, negative gravitational mass can have a negative gravitational pressure to the same extent that positive gravitational mass can. That is to say, IF it’s pressureless, then of course it wont.

[T]he rest of the comment, I don’t know what [Rick] means.
[He asked] “Has somebody considered that the cc is a field and quantized it?”
Yes, sure. You can’t quantize a constant. And the cc doesn’t have ‘holes’ because it’s, well, constant.

From my lay perspective two obvious conditional assumptions there:

One, “if” gravitational mass (positive or negative) is pressureless.

Two, “whether” the cosmological constant is (literally) a constant. It’s that very assumption that is being questioned of course. Why it has the particular value it does in the current observable universe? The same point being questioned by Unger and Smolin, the dogma that such laws and constants are fixed and not evolving in the histories of universes.]

Heard Graham Bell talk again last week, this time a LAAG event entitled: “Making moral decisions: Are ‘you’ really in charge?” (With scare quotes around the ‘you’ in the original.) Obviously with that title presented that way, I was prejudiced to expect the usual “You and your free-will are illusions” line of denial.

In fact, although the whole thing came too close for me to denying ourselves and our free will (because it couldn’t be compatible with scientific determinism and therefore science couldn’t logically “prove it”), it was better that I expected. Good because it aired some important sources on the topic(s) — all expounded previously here at some length.

Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow from his “Prospect Theory” economics psychology work with Tversky. Good stuff, but purely labels for empirical psychology rather than any explanatory theory of what’s really going on with Fast and Slow thinking. Not mentioned by Graham, Iain McGilchrist’s “Master and Emissary” model builds on explaining the basic phenomenon in terms of how the deeply divided brain has evolved to work that way and why both halves are valuable — need to value, and be valued by, each other. The fast processes are intuitive, more “hard-wired” — almost reflex — responses necessary for flexible behaviour in broad contexts. The slow processes are reflective, more “rational” where time permits and context requires more specific targeted decisions or actions. The key process differences lie in how the divided brain communicates with itself.

Jonathan Haidt too was cited positively, though interestingly Graham backed-off from wholeheartedly recommending him as a reference — too “woo” for the scientistic. Haidt’s “Happiness Hypothesis” comes close to life-style self-help as I’ve noted before, but his empirically backed psychological explanations are nevertheless good. And Haidt’s call for “conservatism” as a restraint on “freedom” is an important message — albeit a non-PC message for those for whom freedom is the mantra. A message reinforced by Julian Baggini’s latest Freedom Regained – freedom is better if it runs on rails.

Joshua Greene is cited because it appears he too uses “empirical science” to back his decision-making — brain scans to see what’s going on in the brain as decisions are made. Problem here is that whilst these measurements are empirical, the “trolleyology” surveys his subjects take are still nevertheless “thought experiments” — not very real. In fact trolleyology and its variants are a whole industry for some in moral philosophy — but there are two real points these cases make, particularly “proximity” (how close the potentially “harmed” subjects are to you) and “instrumentality” (the extent to which your positive action “causes” the harm). The other aspect not mentioned is “historicity” or context in general, and the whole history of moral development of the subject(s) up to the decision point and their future of living with the consequences thereafter. (PS can find no references to trolleyology having anything to do with super-market trolleys, before the runaway rail-trolleys on which the cases are generally built.) Simon Blackburn, Michael Sandel, Peter Singer and others are good sources of understanding what trolleyology really tells us about moral dilemmas and their limits in reality. (In terms of limits to freedom Julian Baggini’s latest is highly recommended.)

Libet is perhaps the most famous brain-scan correlation with decision-making, and consequently the most mis-interpreted. Graham didn’t mention him. It appears to reinforce the idea that most of our decisions are made before we have any conscious part in making them. In a sense that’s true — most of it is — but the small bit in reserve is the executive override, the “free-wont” as it’s been called. I always suggest people think of the tennis player (after Daniel Wegner) returning a fast serve and how much is “pre-programmed” by experience and practice, and whether the player still has any choice in the return shot. The point is however small any physical measure of our actual free-will it’s the important — most significant – bit we retain in influencing the outcome. It’s purely a matter of efficiency evolved for maximising fitness to our environment (as indeed is the McGilchrist view earlier). We focus on what matters in the moment and delegate the rest (walking, talking and chewing gum) to subsidiary systems and “tools”.

Sadly, Graham (and LAAG generally) are too quick to dismiss — with easy ridicule — philosophy and philosophers. They’re in good company with Larry Krauss there, but no less ignorant. Which is sad, because one person with a great deal to give in the debates on what free will and our self, wielding that free will, and how they evolved to be what they really are, is Dan Dennett, a philosopher who’s has more than a little fun with his philosophy denying scientist colleagues.

Basically too simplistic a view of determinism and too greedy a view of reductionism misleads us into seeing the physical machinery of the brain as incompatible with ourselves as our minds and our free-will built on that substrate. In order to avoid some mystical dualism of independent mind-stuff incompatibilists choose(!) to deny our free will. If that logic were correct, compatibilists would be misguided too. In fact the best response is to question the causation assumed in determinism and reductionism, since ourselves and our free-will are THE most directly empirical things we can know, even accepting that knowledge can be imperfect and illusory in aspects we can know. Certainly everyone — everyone at the talk — talks about moral choices as if they are able to make choices that (a) make a difference, and (b) they can be seen as responsible for.

Sam Harris is often cited within the new-atheist movement as a fellow denier of free-will. But of course, he isn’t, as I’ve discussed before. (See also Baggini’s quotes re Sam Harris).

The whole topic is really about what our minds are — are our minds “us” and how do “we” make choices that affect the physical world. As Graham described, the moral angle of this is really a sliding scale (onion-skins) on consequential harm and how we as social animals value relative harm and benefit. Like all such topics nothing is fundamentally absolute or universal, but the result of evolution and development. Evolution of our “species” genetically and culturally, and development historically from egg to fully formed forward-thinking “individual” in the moment, and all points between. Graham is certainly a strong advocate of the “naturalistic” standpoint and, on that, he’s right.

I side with Dennett – we are our minds and our minds are collections of memes — thinking tools — and we / they are real patterns of information. But that’s another story. Looking forward to Alan Duval’s talk next month — he appears to pick-up on more sophisticated philosophical views of the “compatibilism” debate.