Psybertron Asks

You may have noticed that I’m an atheist, by any understanding I have of the term, but that I frequently link to Rev Sam Norton over at his Elizaphanian blog.

I’ve frequently posted on the abomination that is “Intelligent Design Creationism” IDC and variations on that theme, most recently here and here, but just see IDC or Creationism here, here, here, here, here, and so on.

Sam posts an interesting piece “God is not a Pixel” warning that theistic descriptions of scientific causality, are themselves a blasphemy and mis-appropriation of theistic religious language and belief, and he has no time for IDC. His metaphor (somewhat reductionist from a scientific perspective) is god in the whole picture, not just, or as well as, in the the individual pixels. You can see my thinking out loud from the scientific perspective in the comment thread, but there is much parallel with a holistic view of the wonder that is “nature”. Worth a read for any logical positive scientist who finds IDC utter rubbish believed only by evil idiots with more power than sense, and in doing so tends to tar all theists with the same brush.

Sam pointed me at Chris Locke’s Mystic Bourgeoisie last year (I have a link in the side-bar). I was originally turned onto Chris Locke and his fellow collaborators at The Cluetrain Mainfesto back in the dot-com-bubble-burst days. My favourite then and since …

“We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds.”
Elvis. The Cluetrain Manifesto

If you think about it, it’s my manifesto too. How do we know what people mean ? How do two parties either side of any relationship get a common understanding. Without that some misunderstanding is always suspected, but when does that matter ? Etc.

Mystic Bougeoisie pokes fun at much “New-Age” writing and ideas, but apart from being amusing I still haven’t actually got a handle on where Locke stands on these subjects. Nor have I found any way to comment on his blogs or communicate with him (help anyone ?)

Anyway he has coined “New-Age++” for modern, dare I say “holistic”, interpreters of erstwhile New-Agey concepts. Still can’t tell if he’s just taking the piss, or taking the piss whilst being sympathetic, but this collection of questions and reference materials is an interesting read. Apart from the “quantum physics” angle he doesn’t bring it completely into new-scientific realms, so the selection is partial or skewed from my perspective. Despite Dawkins pooh-poohing “the great convergence” too, I’m seriously thinking I need to write something in support of this idea.

Obviously, like the caricatures on Locke’s page, I’m far too clever to be taken in by the mystical attraction of the new-age stuff – my position is reasoned, intelligent, and based on sound scientific and epistemic fundamentals, naturally. 🙂 An interesting and provocative Catch-22. Infuriating not to be able to communicate with the guy.

[Post Note – Chris Locke has corresponded in the comment thread below.]

I vaguely recalled I’d linked to some papers by Ian before, but I must have imagined it. Follow the link from here to his “Guide to the Future” with 200+ musings on trends and predictions for the future of technology in society. [Link via Sam]

Holding post for now.
Guess I need to read and comment on a few of them 🙂

Selection from a competition by kids writing thank-you letters for Christmas gifts, with meanings completely reversed by alternative punctuation. [via BBC] Creative. Made me smile.

Just started reading Dan Dennett’s 2003 “Freedom Evolves”. I’ve had it quite some time, but I’m not sure why I’ve only just picked it up.

First off, it slays any doubts that Dennett is one of those who believes consciousness and free-will are illusory and in any sense non-existent. I always knew he was too common-sensible to think that, whatever his detractors implied. (Sue Blackmore on the other hand does really seem to say free-will is completely illusory – see her Edge 2006 Response – and everything totally pointless. I still harbour the hope she’s just being provocative on the former, even if the latter is certainly true on any over-arching teleological sense.)

I’ve only just started Dennett – but the confusion is in not making any distinction between “determinism” and the “what if” (in another possible world) I did this instead of that. The illusory intuition is in the possible worlds, not in the fact that in the actual world that does happen, it’s the actions we do take that determine the actual outcomes (determine that is, along with all the other causes and effects that actually do happen.) If A, then B happens. The inevitability is in the “then”, the free-will is in the “if”. Fundamentally the world is deterministic, but that doesn’t preclude free-will. Our will’s are applied at quite different higher levels of ontological abstraction and language, from the fundamental deterministic level. It’s one of those level-switching or “category errors”.

Interestingly all roads lead back to “if” – ie the varieties of possibility (metaphysical, conceivable, logical, physical) and to good old causation and time themselves. A promising start.

OK, I’m pretty liberal when it comes to “But is it art ?” issues. If the artists art says something, anything, that’s OK by me whatever it is. But where exactly is the artist here ?

Two links thanks to Sam at Elizaphanian.

A two part interview in Der Spiegel with Dan Dennett about the ID-Creationism vs neo-Darwinism debate. [Now read through completely. Nothing new. Just Dennett’s Darwinian put-down of any need for a super-natural causal god. Inlcudes the memetic argument for the self-preserving evolution of religions themselves. Also inlcudes the warning about mis-application of pan-Darwinist evolutionary mechanisms in inappropriate situations – neo-Darwinism is such an attractive idea it can be mis-applied. Quite tersely and clearly stated, thanks to the interview style. Worth a read if you’ve not already read and accepted “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”.]

A U-Penn paper from 2000, on the subject of memes generally, what they are and how useful the Darwinist parallel really is. [Now read through fully. Well researched detail with many references. Dawkins, Dennett, Blackmore obviously, Schank surprisingly, but no Midgley. Again nothing really new. Main message is that warning about the woolly edges in defining memes, and that users of the memetic ideas in social anthropological spheres are unlikely to be experts in detailed bio-genetic mechanisms, so precise parallels will rarely be drawn. Practical conclusion – this stuff is only useful in so far as you make use of it – the metaphor doesn’t stand up to too much “navel gazing”. Agreed.]

I mentioned in the recent post on Dennett and Blackmore, that neither seemed to be majoring on the memetic angle (or at least use of the word meme) in their current consciousness work. Intriguing.

The Edge annual question (and answers) for 2006 is up on their site. (My post header is from the BBC quote about The Edge.) This year’s theme is “Dangerous Ideas” – things that might actually be true.

I’ll post more when I’ve distilled a few of my favourite answers from the great and the good.

A welcome news story that a US court has, after pressure from parents, banned the Dover, PA education board from teaching of IDC as a scientific alternative to Evolution, moving it to it’s rightful place as a religious idea. Restores your faith.

Interview and review in New Scientist with Leonard Susskind, author of “Cosmic Landscape – string theory and the illusion of intelligent design”. Linking string theory, the cosmological constant, the anthropic principle, the multiverse, and the plausibility for an intelligent design creationist conclusion to explain the conditions that support intelligent life. [via Jorn]