Month: June 2015

Interesting post from Morgan Giddings, with a Facebook response from Sabine Hossenfelder:

Morgan

I have mostly maintained a façade of being that “rational, materialist scientist” most of the time …

… it was always unsettling to think that consciousness is just some byproduct of what is a random universe made up of a bunch of bouncy-balls. I had read Roger Penrose’s books such as The Empror’s New Mind more than a decade before, and that had provided some powerful arguments against this view. But I had put that aside to pursue my “practical” ego-led science career.

I found God, by another name … I found that deep power within me — and within everything.

Sabine

I think I went down the same rabbit hole but came out in a slightly different place. See, as a theoretical physicist there’s no way to deny we are fundamentally “just” elementary particles and of course there isn’t any such thing as free will. Interestingly, this isn’t entirely incompatible with what you write. In any case, I have been avoiding the topic in my writing. I’ve written about the non-existence of free will several times, and I get a lot of responses from people who are seriously bothered. (And never read far enough to get to the point where I explain it doesnt matter.) In any case, thanks for this interesting blogpost.

Morgan

Sabine – “as a theoretical physicist there’s no way to deny that we are “just” elementary particles” – of course there are theoretical physicists that have different viewpoints. Read about David Bohm’s work, among MANY other alternative views.

You state with confidence that free will doesn’t exist. When you can actually show me those “particles” you think are so deterministic as to be predictable in the way you think – yes, those same ones like quarks that nobody can actually measure in a deterministic fashion – then you may have some evidence that there’s no freewill.

However, smashing particles together in a collider and then seeing various random blips, and somehow concluding from that that there is no freewill is bogus. There’s still more that we don’t know than we do about those things.

The Seth books are better than any physics book is on this subject. Especially see the Unknown Reality, Volumes I and II by Jane Roberts.

And, yes, it IS incompatible with what I write. I won’t go into why, here. But the absence of free will misses the whole point, entirely.

Sabine

Morgan: This isn’t the point. To begin with quantum mechanics isn’t deterministic, but that doesn’t mean there is free will. (Atoms decay unpredictably, but if you’d make your decisions in that random fashion you wouldn’t call that free will either.) The relevant point is that we do not know of any example in which a macroscopic (“emergent”) theory comes about in a way that is not fully derivable from the constituents’ theory.

Now note that I carefully said “we don’t know any way in which”. This doesn’t mean there is none. (We can discuss this.) But the point is that according to our best present knowledge of the laws of nature there isn’t any such thing as free will. And unless you demonstrate to me exactly in which way you think you can avoid what is a consequence of effective field theory I’m not going to buy anything to the contrary.

Sure, I know there are some physicists who deny this too. It’s kind of interesting in a sense. Also, entirely unnecessary.

PS: I wrote a paper about this at some point here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.0720

I’m actually writing another paper about this…

I pick up on the same point of Sabine’s as does Morgan

“there’s no way to deny
we are fundamentally “just” elementary particles and
of course there isn’t any such thing as free will”.

The breathtaking arrogance of the materialist scientist – “we are just …” – “of course there isn’t …” That’s the ego driven error – that given no alternative explanation of the standard model, it’s the world that’s wrong, not the model. And it’s ego-driven because it makes the mistake of seeing “me” and the particles as distinct objects.

Even though Sabine clearly includes the force-exchange particles in that “just elementary particles” claim, it’s the “just” that’s the problem. The world is far more than particles. It’s arrangements and flows of such particles. But since we objectify only the particles, we see the arrangements and flows – dynamic patterns – as “just” properties of the particles. ie it’s “just” the particles we treat as objects of reality. In fact it’s the other way around. The flows, dynamic patterns, are reality, and the particles are the pragmatic objects of our (current) model.

It doesn’t require any “woo” or “super-natural-entities” to see alternative entirely naturalistic ways of looking at reality.

Having denied all but particles and their determinism via laws, even statistically random laws, the materialist physicist is unable to explain subjective consciousness and free-will and therefor must deny the existence of the most basic empirical evidence we have available to us. We and our will.

God by any other name? The pantheistic view is a common solution, since Spinoza, and metaphorically it’s as good as any to explain the “vital” ingredient missing from the dead model, a model without evolving will or purpose, but where these are illusory epiphenomena. This doesn’t mean that the vital agency exists as a separate god-like entity beyond the standard model, it simply confirms the standard model is more fundamentally in error.

The rabbit-hole is the standard model itself.

(I’ll come back with more when I’ve read Sabine’s referenced papers, and with better reference sources – Dennett & Baggini from mainstream philosophy; Pirsig & Rayner scientists who saw the error of their earlier ways; Nagel, Unger, Smolin, Goldstein … and many more.)

[Post Note – looking at Sabine’s paper:

The Free Will Function – Free will from the perspective of a particle physicist. It is argued that it is possible to give operational meaning to free will and the process of making a choice without employing metaphysics.

Of course these examples are arbitrarily constructed and are certainly not meant to describe actual reality. Their purpose is merely to show that it is possible to have a mathematical description of reality that does allow for free will to exist and give operational sense to the act of making a decision in a world that is determined but not deterministic.

Two immediate observations:

“Without employing metaphysics” – possibly just a classical scientist’s aversion to philosophy that is not considered to be scientific. In practice, this says, “without fundamental revision to my existing physics.”

The “arbitrary construction” says it is not really an explanation in terms of existing physics, it is speculative, and doesn’t suggest a testable physical hypothesis (yet). It also places strong reliance on the physical possibility according to mathematics, as if maths were some fundamental test of reality – see Unger & Smolin.

It confirms why I have time for Sabine. She is honestly addressing – attempting to address – the issue, even if she adopts the throwaway denials of received wisdom in her professional field. That’s a tough job. Appreciated.]

In my last post – about the BHA 2015 Conference – I noted that listening to Dr Phil Hammond had put me in mind of Dr James Willis.

Although the former is now more famous than the latter – stand-up entertainer, TV-panelist, etc – they represent two generations of medical doctors warning against the damage being done by successive top-down re-organisations of the National Health Service. Dr Phil’s latest book “Staying Alive“ – is about exactly that and how personal love and individual evidence-based care can save us, and it. Dr James’ wrote two successful books in the same vein, Friends in Low Places and The Paradox of Progress, both still recommended because clearly the situation hasn’t really changed.

One of James’ targets is the “evidence-based” concept itself – something of a mantra for a certain kind of top-down managerialism, but it’s the classic evidence as bean-counting in situations where not everything that counts can be counted. Their common message is that a large part of the value of health care experienced empirically and personally is down to qualities like love and compassion and …. personal care of the individuals involved – the art of caring. Hard to account for objectively in top-down management target-setting and the like, but clearly most meaningful at the inter-personal work-face encounters – the “low places” of James’ work. As Dick Taverne notes evidence must not be ignored, it must always be taken into account when making decisions, but it is totally wrong to assume such evidence is always of the objectively scientific kind, or to ignore the kind that isn’t. What counts as evidence in ethical and political decision-making?

Anyway, that’s a recurring theme in this blog too, so it was interesting to re-connect with Dr James Willis. As well as his original “Friends in Low Places” web-pages as a vehicle for his books and numerous other articles and references – his The Monster and the Whirlpool (Scylla and Charybdis) keynote to the Royal College of GP’s is a personal favourite – he is now active on both Twitter ( @JARWillis ) and his own “Generally Speaking” blog. But I had forgotten what first created the contact between us.

I note here that Robert Pirsig has been a source of inspiration for me to investigate philosophical grounding of the kind of knowledge that really should count as evidence, the very point of my Psybertron blog. It was of course James’ own reading of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM) that first brought him to my attention. Both being people with scientific underpinnings to our professional lives, medicine in James’ case, technology and engineering in mine, we both shrank back at the Zen, hippy lifestyle aspect of Pirsig – too “woo” in the modern rationalist vernacular – and were reluctant late readers of Pirsig. However as James puts it:

“Pirsig convinces, utterly, that in motorcycle maintenance, of all superbly-chosen examples, the art is more fundamental than the science. It’s having the right attitudes that matters. So, we must ask ourselves, how much more must this apply to medicine! How could we ever have been so blind as to think otherwise!”

Perhaps in my case it was perhaps less a case of being blind, as not having any language to get a grip on the issue of art being more fundamental than science, but the effect has been the same. Coincidentally talking with Julian Baggini the evening before hearing Dr Phil Hammond, Pirsig may still fail to “utterly convince” philosophers that he has the metaphysical solution, but it’s clear he has provided many of us with a useful insight.

BHA2015 Conference – Bristol, Grand Hotel, 19 to 21 June 2015 (~400 delegates)
Not detailed notes, just rough for-the-record of my own. Will use some to create constructive feedback.

Friday afternoon started with a so-called “Ethical Jury” list of suggested ethical dilemma topics from which to discuss 2 or 3 in round-tables of 8 or so. Worked as an “ice-breaker” to start conversation with the table of fellow attendees with whom you found yourself thrown together. (Clearly with enormous personal context differences in starting points, pretty random which topic examples were meaningfully discussed and how much progress even agreeing the issues is pretty minimal – except to note that even the simplest stated issues were complex on many levels and connected to all the others.)

Next was a Meet the BHA session – by popular request apparently. Not sure best use of time for delegates, since many will already know many. Perhaps more use with 3 or 4 sentences of self-introduction each from the front better that attempt at hot-dating moving desk to desk – at least not without a little more preparation and facilitation.

Evening session started with Julian Baggini – ostensibly showing the value of philosophy by taking basic philosophical questions of real life from the floor as part of a stand-up routine. Actually very good from Julian’s perspective in handling it with entertainment value but slightly let down by mixed audience input, initially not getting the point of the level of questions to make it work. Too many men with their hands up making too complex philosophical points to start with – though the “I have a friend who …. What would philosophy advise” format did catch-on.

Headline was Kate Smurthwaite doing a slightly cut down version of her stand-up show. Excellent performance level; pace, energy and passion. One of the highlights of the conference.

Saturday morning started with Dr Caroline Watt of the Edinburgh Koestler Parapsychology unit standing-in at less than 24 hours notice for Prof Francesca Stavrokopolou‘s advertised talk. Dr Watt gave an accomplished and entertaining talk on aspects of their work on paranormal beliefs that “might be of interest to Humanists”. Ghostbusting myths and creating normal hypotheses to test paranormal claims. Psychic claims, near-death (NDE) experiences and out-of-body (OBE) experiences, ghostly sightings, and so on. Many good psychological and neuro-scientific reasons to understand why people do sincerely believe the impressions they appear to experience. Seeing ghosts driven largely by Paraedolia – the naturally evolved tendency to seek out faces, human and animal forms in our environment. Understanding paranormal claims is part of the science of understanding actual normal psychology and neuro-science.

Next up was Prof Tim Whitmarsh, on his Deep History of Atheism. Despite parts of the delivery being read presumably from his book or prepared lecture based on it, the content was for the most part informative. Apart from a little too materialist / atomist philosophical foundation reading from Democritus onwards, Whitmarsh demonstrably knows his Greek and Roman history of daily life, politics and empire. Clearly details affect the narrative you draw from such history and a 40 minute presentation can only hit the highlights, but the main message was clear enough – the atheism of times where what gods there were, were all too human and not supernaturally powerful – indeed heroes were those humans who fought against the fates and the gods. Blasphemy would have been a meaningless concept. The transition via Mosaic invented interpretation of monotheistic religion, to become dominant as it was promoted for imperial political ends most notably by Constantine. That narrative is well enough established, even if details are up for debate. Perhaps most interesting, after Daedalus and Icarus, Dionysus and Demeter, Belerophon and the rest Whitmarsh did approach a surprising conclusion, that religion probably did have a future, religion redefined with some form of tolerant polytheism, loosely federated across global communities. A conclusion very similar to that of Jonathan Sacks last week. [Post Note : Andrew Copson’s 2016 review of Whitmarsh’s book in New Humanist.]

[The morning closed out with a discussion between the Specialist Sections of the BHA (Young Humanists, Prison Humanists and Defence / Armed-Forces Humanists pastoral support groups and LGBT sections), chaired by Andrew Copson. The afternoon session opened up with The Greater Manchester Humanist Choir renditions of their selection of secular hymns and protest songs.]

The highlight of the weekend entertainment-wise had to be the next session by Dr Phil Hammond, ex-GP, Private-Eye writer, and stand-up comedian. Serious and strongly delivered messages about health and NHS priorities – Love and Clangers, but told with anecdotes that had the audience rolling with laughter and, in my case, unable to laugh for crying. Humanist message, apart from the love obviously, was believing evidence, and not falling for the myths of management. Beautifully done. Reminded me personally very much of the work of Dr James Willis.

Follow that Helen Lewis, Sarah Ditum, and Nimko Ali in conversation on feminism, culture and belief. A tough act to follow and somewhat understated staging (low stage for seated discussion, light, sound and inadequate introductions) but some interesting content – particularly on patriarchal cultural drivers quite independent of their specific religious or racial contexts. The necessary paradox of rejecting any form of segregation whilst nevertheless providing women-only-spaces in such cultures.

Last session of the afternoon was another top-quality stand-up routine from Prof Richard Wiseman. Less uproarious laughter than Dr Phil, more understated self-deprecating meta-jokes, but very cleverly done. A major part of the routine was really about illusions – where Prof Richard has conjuring skills, in fact the main objective was to use known science of sleep and dreams to establish most effective and healthy sleep routines and habits.

[At the Gala Dinner Prof Alice Roberts was awarded British Humanist of the Year. Jim Al Khalili’s introduction to the award struggled to maintain the suspense as Alice’s achievements were already recognised by all and hence well deserving of the award. Most notable in the conversations afterwards, was the highly personal and committed tone of Alice’s acceptance speech – true emotion, very real – moved many of us grumpy old gits. Edinburgh fringe award winning Jay Foreman provided the after dinner entertainment of musical humour.]

The Sunday morning, kicked-off with what was really the only deeply technical session of the weekend from Jim Al Khalili. If you’ve seen the TV programmes and read the book, the new stories of the quantum effects at bio-chemistry levels of life are no longer new. Brave to attempt to present to a mixed, captive, lay audience, but nevertheless both fascinating and, as Jim honestly admits, downright weird. Quantum mechanics just is – trust me I’m the BHA President! Gratifying for me was the reference to the personally inspirational “What is Life” by Erwin Schroedinger – much maligned after WWII thanks to the associations with those with Nazi agendas. Biggest disappointment – Jim mentioned his damned cat, Schroedinger’s that is, after managing to avoid doing so in the TV programmes 😉

The much anticipated interview of Prof Alice Roberts by Samira Ahmed followed, though with time-pressures it ended all too soon as the dialogue started to get interesting. Alice agreeing in response to an audience question, that the future probably depended on collaboration between Humanists and the faith-based churches. They do say, leave your audience wanting more.

To round off what was for the most part an entertaining but much lighter-weight conference than last year’s World Humanist Congress – intellectually and politically – I’m sure neither Alice nor Samira would begrudge ceding the stage to Leo Igwe for our final session. As well as highlighting the inhuman irrationality around beliefs in supernatural witchcraft – mainly against women and largely supported by local the evangelical African churches – Leo was able to make a passionate case for the real value in British humanists actively supporting African humanism. There were local activists and latent sympathisers even if they couldn’t always maintain a visible profile without support, and there were real achievements in setting-up secular schools. Funding and resources to support such activities were essential, and that included follow-up resources. No point funding the building of a secular school as a physical building, only to leave it to the mercy of local extremists to turn it into a madrassa of indoctrination.

Support does work and is a multiplier in the message it gives to encouraging local initiatives.

Thanks to all the BHA staff and volunteers, and the hotel & catering staff for a successful weekend.

I promised a fuller review of Nick Spencer’s “Atheism – The Origin of the Species” when I’d completed it. It’s a rather long review with plenty of spoilers and quotes here, since I’m gutting it for content I find useful, but a recommended read for anyone from Mrs Angry Atheist to Mr Tolerant Apologist and all considered points between. All human life is here, and a witty delivery makes it a good read.

Before we start, an observation, there’s a lot of “which came first” debate around when it comes to the the content of religions and their holy books. It’s trivially true that atheism preceded theism – the latter’s a thing believed, a situation that came to be, so clearly the absence preceded the existence. This is also true independent of any debates about whether world views could be characterised as humanist without or within theistic religion. So it makes perfect sense to start a history of atheism after the height of theistic belief. How theistic religious beliefs came to be is itself interesting of course – and coincidentally has been a topic of several talks and conversations recently – but it’s seems wishful thinking to believe pre-theistic belief has much to do with our current state of post-theistic atheism and humanism.

Interestingly one talk at this weekend’s BHA 2015 conference is advertised thus:

The Deep History of Atheism – Prof Tim Whitmarsh
It seems to suit everyone to agree that atheism began with the European enlightenment. The religious can treat it as a symptom of modern decadence; the new atheists can present it as the result of science and progress. But neglecting the deeper origins of atheism not only distorts history, it also denies atheists their roots, and so in a sense their very humanity. (It is, after all, easier to persecute people with no past.) In this talk, Professor Whitmarsh shows that atheism is at least as old as monotheism itself, and was treated as largely unproblematic in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world; it was the Christianisation of the Roman Empire that shunted it off the European mental map.

My point – obviously – atheism is at least as old, if not older than theism …. Both histories are informative, before and after theism; As I said in the intro, the debate over which came first is appears trivial, but it will be interesting to hear what Tim has to say about the nature of the atheism in the context of modern humanists – “their very humanity” – since humanism by any other name also preceded theism. (**)

So, to  Nick Spencer’s book. I already said I consider it an excellent read, brilliant in fact, after just a couple of chapters, and as well as the post 1500 historical content, the selections and witty, laconic turns of phrase make it thoroughly readable. Put me in mind of Gibbon at times. I’ll not repeat the quotes from previously, but take the story up in 1697.

In that year, the 20 year old Thomas Aikenhead was the last person to be hanged for blasphemy in the UK under the 1661 Blasphemy act, enacted the year after restoration of the monarchy. He was certainly “pugnacious and contemptuous” in his criticism of both the old and new testament stories of the Bible though, allegedly going to the gallows with his bible, it’s not clear he was actually atheist; However, quoting from Hunter and Wooton:

“A year before, the [Privy] Council had heard the case of one John Frazer, who made similar claims. An immediate and fulsome recantation saved him from the gallows. Aikenhead had either been less penitent or just one atheist too many.”

But the real point, being the last execution for blasphemy didn’t appear to make him a British martyr. Inns, taverns, coffee houses and restoration drama playhouses were already “dens of unregulated wit, levity, mockery [and worse] that undermined all that was serious and godly” to the puritan. “Theatre became the epitome of practical atheism.”

There follows comparison and contrast of not only the differences but the connections between French and British intellectual contributions through the ensuing periods leading to revolution, centered particularly round Baron D’Holbach’s salon table:

The list of attendees reads like a Who’s Who of eighteenth-century European radical intellectual life. In addition to Diderot there was [D’Alembert, Rousseau, Condorcet, de Condillac … [and more] … Smith, Hume, Gibbon and Wilkes.] Not all these stayed at D’Holbach’s table for very long. Some left quietly …. Others fell out spectacularly … Not all were materialists and not all were atheists, but …. the group shared an antipathy towards Christianity, particularly the authoritarian and royalist form it took in France.

There is the fascinating story of the rise and atheist nature of the various ethical & rationalist unions, societies & associations from Robert Owen’s ultimately unsuccessful 1810’s Benthamite New Lanark Mills project via the South Place Ethical Society and the Rationalist Press Association(*) to the modern-day inheritors of their traditions and agendas.

Relevant philosophical and intellectual movements and schools of thought are also reviewed. So, for example we get another example of Spencer’s turn of phrase rounding off this quote from Owen Chadwick on German scientific materialism:

“[N]othing represents better the temporary phase of popular philosophy which combined the contradiction of lowering man to the dust by showing him to be nothing but another animal, while lifting him to the skies and singing his praises as the ruler of the world.”

It was a sage observation, except for the word temporary.

Echoing sentiments I last read in Rebecca Goldstein’s “Incompleteness – the Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel” Spencer describes Russell’s bewilderment late in life, quoting from his autobiography:

“Having for years cared only for exactness and analysis, [Feeling the unendurable loneliness of the human soul, impenetrable to all except the highest intensity of the sort of love that religious teachers have preached] I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty … and a desire almost as profound as that of the Buddha to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable.”

Whilst acknowledging Russell’s support for atheist, secular, rational and ethical projects, I’ve always been baffled at the high regard in which he is held, given that he was philosophically undermined by the first published work of his own student Wittgenstein and totally demolished by Gödel within ten years of publishing Principia Mathematica with Whitehead. Spencer spends further pages on Wittgenstein, and the Vienna Circle that practically worshipped him despite his contempt for them – again all echoed in Goldstein, as is Wittgenstein’s own debt to Spinoza, another of Goldstein’s specialities. [My personal pet theory is that the reason Wittgenstein stepped out of philosophy – before coming back to fix the damage later – was because his Tractatus was always intended as one long joke at Russell’s expense, which was unfortunately taken-up as sincere. Like something straight out of Douglas Adams or Monty Python, but I digress.]

Quoting A J Ayer, who was very influential in popularising the Vienna Circle and Logical Positivism, asked when interviewed late in life what he now thought were the defects of Logical Positivism:

“Well, I suppose the most important defect was that nearly all of it was false.”

Later, bringing us up to date commenting on New Atheism passing its peak, indeed “dying with a whimper […] Richard Dawkins [having] discovered twitter” Spencer quotes the editor of New Humanist (*) in 2013

“Dawkins provided a case study in how not to do [atheism].” Blanket condemnations of religious groups [are] morally dubious [and counter-productive]. Religious believers [are] no less intelligent than non-believers [and no less human, I say]  and secularism [does] not mean excluding religious believers from public life. The tone and arguments could hardly [be] more different from those of the New Atheists.

After a passage highlighting more subtle intellectual contributions to the current atheism debate, highlighting John Gray and Tomas Nagel, Spencer quotes a remark by Simon Blackburn, exemplifying how such atheist “heretics” are predictably “eviscerated” by their more “orthodox” atheist critics: (I cite all four positively in these pages, Gray, Nagel, Spencer and Blackburn.):

“If there were a philosophical Vatican, [Nagel’s] book [Mind and Cosmos] would be a good candidate for being placed on the index [of banned books].”

Spencer’s final observations are true enough that humanism these days – in the sincerest form of flattery – offers naming, marriage, funeral ceremonies, but not before remarking :

Alain de Botton [who pointed the way to a New Atheist church] had suggested “atheists were better stealing from religion than mocking it”.

Religious believers debated whether it was better to be patronised or ridiculed.

Nick Spencer “Atheists – the Origin of the Species” – a recommended read.

=====

[(*) Declaration of interest: New Humanist is the title owned by the Rationalist Association, also the owner of the legacy of the original Rationalist Press Association of publishers. I’m currently a serving member of the RA board of trustees.]

[(**) Post Note: Whitmarsh arguments are primarily from non-contentious atheism contrasted with the “human” polytheistic gods of Greek and Roman antiquity. His conclusion however is pretty much identical to Jonathan Sacks the other night: In order to fix conflict between monotheistic imperialisms we need a new form of “shared belief” which is polytheistic, federal, inclusive. A redefining of religion. More later.]

So, the same morning Prof Cox attempts to enlighten the perpetually perplexed John Humphrys @BBCR4Today with his pride in being wrong, Forbes highlights the cost of working on only what evidence can demonstrate you know for sure – 7 months loss of Rosetta / Philae data. No coincidence in the banner ad headline EY (the business consultants Ernst and Young) piece is on the need for good judgement about what you might not know for sure.

Being honestly sceptical about the contingency of “known” science and open to new evidence is great for the self-correcting nature of scientific knowledge itself – but being exclusively concerned with hard evidence-based logic is a fetish real life can do without. Being overly cautious where evidence is doubtful – the cautionary principle – is irrational. Don’t ignore hard evidence and watertight logic, but don’t deny decisions we need to make without it, as we must. Ethical and political decision-making – value judgements – should not be reduced to science or the scientific method.

Science is the best method we have – for advancing scientific knowledge of the natural world. That doesn’t make it the best method for making value judgements, or mean we should attempt to replace all value judgements with a scientific model. The aims of a multi-billion space research project may be scientific, but the project is not.

Refreshing piece in New Humanist from scientist Mark Lorch, about whom I know no more that this piece. I could have written the conclusion myself:

Basically, there’s no single logical explanation for why induction works: it just does. Which means I’m left with the belief that induction works without the sound evidence to support it, i.e. I have faith in the scientific method. This realisation made me stop worrying about how people can hold religious faith and scientific beliefs simultaneously. It demonstrated to me that faith and evidence-based beliefs coexist in my mind, so in a way, I am no different from my fellow scientists who have faith in the miracles of theologies. This realisation has made me no more inclined to believe in a god. But it has given me a better understanding of religious beliefs by demonstrating that, without ever realising it, I too have a deeply-seated faith in my own (scientific) belief system.

Naturally it has sprouted a thread of predictable responses. Problem for archetypal scientists is acknowledging the concepts of faith or belief. Notice no-one said “blind-faith” – this is very much eyes-open faith, the best kind. It’s really not difficult to recognise science as a (very good and very powerful) belief system and move on to more important questions and dialogues.

Noticed the expression “Rush to Judgement” in Grauniad Higher Education piece on Tim Hunt’s resignation following the reaction to his ill-judged sexist jokey remarks and equally clumsy apology. Already much twitter backlash to the reaction – few actually wished him ill or wanted him hounded out of his job, on the whole our sisters had great fun poking creative fun at the remarks. It was a silly mistake, point made – but turns out he was effectively forced to resign by his employer UCL.

I’ve long known this expression as the title of lawyer Mark Lane’s original book on the J. F. Kennedy Assassination / Warren Commission Report (*), but felt it might have Shakespearean origins? Well no actually, it was originally recorded concerning the 1800 James Hadfield assassination attempt on George III, used by his defense lawyer Thomas Erskine, then Lord Chancellor.

James Hadfield – knew the name rang a bell; no not the space-station astronaut – when found insane, he became a famous inmate of Bethlem Royal Hospital. [Follow the Wikipedia links.] Recently opened to the public and which we visited earlier this year. Small interconnected world?

[(*) Long-standing fascination of mine; read every book, seen every film or documentary – not because I’ve ever been a conspiracy theorist, but because it is a classic example of how difficult it is to establish what is known – after the event without first-hand experience. Hence Psybertron Asks – “What, why and how do we know?”.]

The evolutionary scientists and philosophers (say, Dawkins & Dennett) seem to be predicting religion is steadily on its way out, quite independently of any immediate ills and conflicts laid at its door, people are finding less reason to believe.

Actually I think they may be wrong, but let’s hold off thinking about what might be meant by religious belief in such a future. Suffice to say for now, [after Nick Spencer] think of scepticism as the antithesis of dogma, rather than as the preferred alternative to faith.

Philosopher, theologian and ex-Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks certainly begs to differ and, interestingly, bases his argument on Darwinian evolution. Listening to him last night at Spectator Events, talking and then answering questions with Andrew Neil, made it two nights in a row I heard the human social evolution story from animism to monotheism by way of Robin Dunbar. However you treat the ideas of an actual Dunbar number being meaningful, and the realities or otherwise of group selection, that story always sounds reasonable and I’ve never found reason to challenge it. And notice it’s an entirely naturalistic view. Let’s call it the “Dunbar Cycle”. The point is if those evolutionary processes and pressures are real, where are they leading now? History is one thing but prediction, especially about the future (as the saying goes) is much less certain.

Sacks picks one line of reasoning that has been central to my agenda here since the start – communication of information. Evolution is fundamentally about transmission and replication of patterns of information, including those patterns of information we use as thinking tools to interpret and manipulate information further. Major revolutions in the Dunbar Cycle are attributable to step changes in communication – physical exploration and movement of peoples, the advent of printing, electrical and electronic telegraph, radio and TV, and now the ubiquity of the internet and social media.

“Of course current violent climate ‘has to do with’ religion
but no point setting one religion against another or against none.”

Long story short, there is a string of tweets (linked below) summarising my highlights of Sacks thesis. Just a couple of the less obvious points I’d like to further record here, before we get to the conclusion.

After psychoanalysing the psychoanalyst, Sacks concludes Freud denied his own sibling guilt, when he placed Oedipus’ maternal relationship at the core of human conflict. Sibling rivalry is the real culprit. The Abrahamic monotheisms are frankly siblings of each other. Their closeness makes the conflicts over differences all the greater.

Secondly, monotheism has evolved dualistically, if that’s not an oxymoron.

“Dualism could be the most murderous doctrine ever thought up by human-beings”

Whatever god is in these religions, it’s one good version set against an evil other. An otherness all too easily transferred to problematic rivals in any context, common enemies counter to internal group cohesion. Sacks sees this as a perversion of what monotheism originally evolved to be, a truly inclusive and receptive – loving – monism.

Again, whatever values of living stem from such a monotheistic monism, and however they are either codified in moral law of that religion, or as transferrable parables in their good books, mass communication has taken the mediation of scholars and shamen and elders, and “authoritative” spokespeople and commentators out of the loop of interpretation. Unmediated freedom of thought and communication  – totally free at point of evaluation – inevitably leads to a subjective form of moral relativism – one thing Neil did take Sacks to task over in the interview.

This is a particular problem for Islam, which has not yet had its “30 years war” to settle once and for all which internal differences to leave behind. 9/11 was one of the symptoms of suppressed conflict, but the war itself has started with the “Arab spring” and the Islamic civil war is now playing out around us. Despite the speed-of-light communications, you’d need to be an optimist, said Neil, to predict Islam reaching its “Westphalia” deal anytime soon. In fact despite highlighting the accelerated pace of (potential) evolution, Sacks himself saw this as something that will take “a generation” to reach a conclusion. [Something very reminiscent here of Thomas Kuhn and Kondratiev cycles of change in science, technology, economy and society.]

Sacks’ prediction that truly monotheistic religion will be the conclusion – some totem against which to nail our flags of value. Whether it’s called a religion, and whether it features anything recognisable as a supernatural god is of course moot. So far as “we” will need a recognisable set of values, however captured from best available interpretation and maintained conservatively as “moderator rods” in the reactionary cut and thrust of democratic freedoms of thought, expression and action – I agree already.