Yet There Is Method In It

Having already dealt in earlier parts of this review with the classic arguments for the existence of God and a postmodern interpretation of religion, I now want to examine some more metaphysical concepts. As earlier noted Richard Harries wrote this book as a realist apologetic for Christian belief. In other words he is attempting to convey through realist language and concepts a summary of what contemporary orthodox Christian belief entails. This therefore requires him to deal with metaphysics as a good deal of Christian belief involves supernatural or transcendent categories of being and reality.

In this part of the review then I will look fairly briefly at three issues he raises. First what is the soul? Secondly how should I live my life? And finally Miracles and the laws of nature.

Soul Language

Don Cupitt the radical postmodernist theologian whose influence colours Anthony Freemans theology (to which Harries book is a response) in one of his books went to great lengths to make sense of the concept of soul and spirit. Looking at their varying etymologies he pointed out that spirit came from the same word for air and the concepts must be related - spirit is supposed to be invisible yet in the traditional theistic cosmology it is also a fundamental part of our environment in which we have our being. Similarly the soul has as its latin originate “animus” from where we get the concept of animation or more literally being alive. This is fairly evident from the traditional Christian view that at death the soul and body are seperated - one may even suggest that this is the theological definition of death. What is interesting is that in Hebrew theology (still evidenced today in Judaism) is that the blood is that which carries our life - thus blood is synonymous with the soul. From that titbit of information hopefully the importance of Jewish kosher traditions should be evident. But also of dramatic interest the geophysical concept of hell as being the “underworld” probably originates from the synonymous association of the soul with blood. As likewise the notion of hell being a painful place. These ideas coagulate (!) around the simple premise that a violent death is one wherein the blood is spilt (draining into the earth and thus into the underworld).

The difficulty with soul language is that today many people of belief and unbelief are not exactly sure what the soul is meant to be. Is it a thing? A Physical entity? Is it perhaps with our greater understanding of the human body more synonymous now with our consciousness (as opposed our blood)?

Harries attempts very simply to answer these questions - and if one were to accept his explanation one may be concerned to wonder why such clarity is lacking elsewhere (pulpit, classroom, social convention).

… it is not necessary to believe that we have a soul that is a kind of a box within a box. Modern science, like the Hebrews of old, stresses that we are psychosomatic unities, body, mind and spirit all bound up together. It may be that ’soul’ language is important in drawing attention to our spiritual nature and destiny. But we do not have to believe that soul is an isolatable thing. Nor do we have to believe that our bodies will be raised from the grave like characters in a painting by Stanley Spencer. So far as we know, our bodies decompose, to become part of the earth which in due course is recycled in other ways.

I have a strong sense of approval for the psychosomatic unity of the person as described by Harries here, and I think that at a simple brushstroke hopefully it dissolves some of the more incredulous speculations made about the ’soul’ by those who either believe or disbelieve in it as being an organic ‘thing’ in the same way in which my lungs are essential to my body. It is not and Christian belief makes no such demands.

Before I move onto questions of how we should live this life of ours I want briefly to consider eschatology (the end things). Harries mentions the Christian notion of the resurrection of the body but suggests that again this is not a literal raising of our corpses from the grave but is perhaps a more symbolic concept concerning the after-life. He makes no attempt to describe what such a life may be like - whether we are conscious of it - whether it is eternal bliss or whatever. He does reiterate the traditional Christian theology that we will be re-created in the ’stuff of glory’ but humbly concedes he has no idea what this may mean. I have my own thoughts informed by Wittgenstein and Meister Eckhart not to mention zen and a scientific theory of the block universe - but I shall keep these to myself for now. I shall however quote a rather nice musical analogy that Harries proffers -

In the same way that music written for one instrument, say a violin, can sometimes be played on other instruments, the music which we are, played on the instruments of flesh and blood in this life, can be played on another instrument in the next.

How should I/we live our life?

Harries having discussed the notion of the soul and briefly addressed eschatology then discusses in an interesting and unique way a concept of heaven and divine justice. He actually agrees albeit in a limited fashion with the Christian existentialism of Freeman. Without explicit references to Kierkegaard or perhaps even to Eckhart and his exhortation to lose and then find oneself within the eternal now it is obvious that these are influences.

Freeman believes that this desire for true justice can be met by concentrating on the quality of life rather than its extent. He suggests that if we live intensely, in the here and now, in the light of our highest values, then we will achieve a quality of life which is more important than anything else. The quality of a play or poem does not depend on its length, nor does the quality of our lives.

As Martin Luther King once said “longevity has its place” but it isn’t the be -all and end-all. Our lives when scrutinized in the here and now (the eternal constant of the present) is more fruitfully lived in a quest of self-authenticity than it is in placing upon ourselves the incredible burden of the expectation of eternity and the existential paralysis that this may entail.

Although Harries offers some support for this - calling this carpe diem philosophy an important pastoral truth he does not dwell on it nor give it his total endorsement. Rather he insists on the necessity of eternal life and divine justice as an explanatory footnote for why a supposedly loving God could impose or allow some incredibly unbearable lives for so many people.

I felt a little dissappointed at this shifting of the focus onto the grander philosophical speculations about the problem of evil - when as ‘mere’ mortals a Christian Existentialism that endorses self-authenticity and intense experience of life here and now can be a legitimate response to the everyday problems of social evil that blight the world.

Miracles and the Laws of Nature

However despite my dissappointments Harries proceeds with an internal logic that continues to enchant me (as an eventual summary of my review I could simply say he makes a very convincing case). He returns to the problem of evil - not all suffering in the world is caused by human beings, there is disease and natural disasters.

Harries then offers a reason for not blaming God for natural disasters - by shifting the focus away from our sense of suffering. In our finite time and limited perspective of the entire history of the universe as it was, is and is to be it is rather short-sighted to get angry about natural disasters. To use an analogy of my own it is rather like reading sleeping beauty but getting so despondent about the chances of her ever waking up that I simply discard the book adopt a jaded view of the story and never come to realise the eucatastrophe (the happy ending) that would have awaited me had I been patient.

Of course one might argue that if we continue to insist on the positive identification of God as love as an eternal and objective truth (albeit by definition a truth that has to be accepted conditionally on faith) surely our patience is being sorely tested? As Homer Simpson once pitifully prayed “Dear God, give the bald guy a break”.

Harries though offers a slighlty more palatable explanation - whilst reaffirming his philosophical colours as a theistic evolutionist. God does not simply make the world, he makes the world make itself.

God has given the basic elements of matter a life of their own and has woven the universe from the bottom upwards through the free interplay of millions of forces.

Thus for example earthquakes are no bad of themselves - as though they were some kind of moral affrontary - it is simply a natural process and the behaviour of the earth doing what the earth is supposed to do.

This seems to be a very disinterested deistic God who sets the whole chain of events in motion and who is either disinterested in the suffering caused along the way, or who is perhaps positively insistent on the presence or perception of such suffering (which does not sit well with a loving God).

Harries offers a second justification for this view. In order to be the type of thinking and choosing beings that we are we need a relatively stable environment. In other words the environment in which we live with all its pitfalls and dangers and disasters. If, Harries argues, we lived in an Alice in Wonderland style world where the laws of nature could be abrogated by a God whose constantly saying “oops” everytime a natural disaster occurs and who plucks people into his figurative hand and takes them up to safety we would never learn to think at all.

Harries seems to be describing a distant and uninvolved God and perhaps also therefore seems to be rejecting determinism (which is not necessarily a scientifically sound view). At some times he appears to suggest that it simply wouldnt be fair for God to do one miracle and then not ot perform others… why not? If God is all-powerful then he can do anything right? Include being morally inconsistent and distinctly unfair in his treatment of people. I don’t wish to let this childish diatribe undermine Harries exposition of Christian theology or to suggest that disbelief is therefore a de facto better position to hold. I do think it perhaps illustrates though the philosophical difficulties of a via positiva - a positive list of definitions concerning God.

A few paragraphs later and Harries does suggest that possibly at some point in history a suspension of the laws of nature has taken place and a miracle has occured. He makes no effort to describe when this may have been or why it may have occured - but one could assume on account of his orthodox Christian beliefs that he may have had the bodily resurrection of Jesus as an example.

Concluding Notes

This section of the book dissappointed me the most as it seems at times he is finding himself going in circles. It is as I have already described an example of how the via positiva can make theology untenable as a series of acceptable propositions. In fairness though Harries does maintain a certain consistency with everything he has discussed previously. He by no means makes objective statements of truth but statements of objective belief liberally interspersed with a genuinely cognitive agnosticism that says ‘I don’t know all the answers but I’m doing the best that I can’.

I had hoped that the block universe and eternalism may have been discussed but perhaps he felt such concepts too difficult to describe and elaborate upon for his intended audience.

What has been evident is what one may call a primitive form of Christian universalism (though he may reject that label). And a tendency towards an Irenaen theodicy (with which I have some sympathy). Irenaeus (2nd cent.) proposed that we are made in the image of God but that it is through living our lives we grow into the likeness of Him. Similarly Harries response to the problem of evil - particularly natural evil - seems to be (and this is a fairly common theme in Christian theology) that suffering can be redemptive.

My one nod of approval in the direction of this idea - that it is through suffering and evil that we come to know the Good - is that the concept and notion of suffering - of being in a state of suffering - of identifying oneself as being a victim of some misfortune is a self-centred or solopsistic viewpoint - and that redemption may lie in resignation to the fact that we are mortal, finite beings within a specific time and space - but that if we adopt a quantum view (similar to the notion of the flapping of a butterflies wings in the amazon causes wind across the globe) and transcend our solopsism to adopt a the-optic (God’s eye) view of the universe in its entirety encompassing all space and time (the block universe) as a single place in an instantaneous present - then the problem is dissolved.

The final part of this review concerns Rationalism and Christian belief.

In this part of my review I wish to briefly explore Harries discussions on the postmodern view of language. He is attempting to describe the views of Anthony Freeman the postmodernist theologian who has ceased to believe in a supernatural or transcendent God - seeing Him rather as being a projection of human ideals. Much of postmodernism has its roots in relativism, subjectivism and a sort of late Wittgensteinian Philosophy of Language.

A simple exposition of this philosophy goes like this:

mind is a social reality and language a public phenomenon. We see mothers bending over their prams making noises at their babies. In due course the noises are reciprocated and come to be recognized as talk. Soon this talk becomes internalized as thought. But the talk is prior and public and this enters into the very soul of our thinking. Because language is a public possession, written texts are particularly important. How those texts are intepreted or read still depends very much on the interests and outlook of the readers and these in turn will reflect the ineterests and concerns already built into the language that we use to intepret the texts. If we say we want to find out what a particular text really means, we are stymied, for the language we used to interpet it ourselves is a given, which will shape how we read…

Harries, again somewhat suprisingly is not completely anti-pomo. He accepts a certain degree of interpretative and cognitive relativism. However he rejects total scepticism and abandonment of truth and meaning notions - correctly suggesting that such a position would dissolve philosophy into just one of many methods of literary criticism.

I would just add by means of a clarification that although language is public and in turn shapes our ways of thinking this should by no means be used to suggest that speech is thought, or that absence of speech indicates absence of thought. (I could write much more here on my theories of unthought-thoughts and vocal-thought-thinking-thoughts or about the conscious and unconscious but I will digress.)

I will finish with a quote from Anthony Freeman that illustrates what one may call a postmodern view of religion - it is this view which Harries is ultimately attempting to challenge with recourse to realist arguments.

“A false distinction within Christian doctrine itself between an essential core and a negotiable husk. In presenting the faith to this generation I am bound to be presenting a different faith from that which my forefathers presented. Not just a different interpretation of the same essential core, but a different faith. This is because there is no essence of inner core. The interpretation is not like taking the shell off a nut. It is like peeling the layers off an onion: the interpretation goes all the way down. All is intepretation. That is the essence.”

I saw Steve Jones (the geneticist) talking about the future of the human species. It was a very slick presentation. It seemed to be an expanded discussion of an article he published in the telegraph. He claimed that human evolution has come to a halt. The reasons for this are perhaps not interesting in this blog’s context. I was immediately skeptical of his conclusion but he did add two important conditions: he was only referring to the western world and the halt in evolution was temporary.

Any claims of constancy or certain knowledge in the apparent world should be examined closely since they can only come from two lines of reasoning:
1) A priori - there is no reason why constancy (or even inconstancy) should be expected, so no certain claim can be made.
2) A posteriori - basing a theory on past observations can never provide certainty since the next observation might disprove a theory.

The purists would try to apply this reasoning to my argument. An uncertainty might be the possibility of other sources of knowledge apart from a priori and a posteriori. What we can say is any claim about the apparent world without an element of doubt is, at best, misleading*. Since the apparent world is different at different times, we can speculate that change is possible. It seems the universe has changed greatly through out its existence, and it is therefore conceivable that constancy is illusionary. We could say some things are constant and some things are transitory. There is also a possibility that an seeming constant in the world is in fact going through a slow transition - too slow for us to perceive. As Heraclitus said, “All things are flowing.” Also Nietzsche, “Insofar as the senses show becoming, passing away, and change, they do not lie.” (A luck “guess” by Heraclitus - that everything is made of one primordial element (fire) is not so far from the modern concept of mass/energy equivalence.)

A few blogs have attempted to rebut Steve Jones on practical grounds which might be interesting for some.

Anti Citizen One

* probably

In his apologetic for Christian and Theistic Realism Richard Harries deals with the tricky field of arguments for the existence of God. This is rather important as he is after all trying to argue for the existence of God as a real being, and furthermore propose that it can be posited using realist language.

Perhaps suprisingly he is not altogether convinced by the standard or classic arguments/proofs of the existence of God and even goes so far as to describe them as “regulative ideas” inasmuch as it lends comforting support to “those who would like to see the world as the product of a rational intelligence”. Yet, he argues, such regulative ideas are nothing more than “nice” - they have little logical foundation (they cannot stand alone). His concession to the traditional arguments is thus: “the so-called proof therefore must always leave the matter open”. In other words it is not so much a logical formula that may be presented to the sceptic or unbeliever in the hope that they would somehow be convinced of the necessity of belief, as it is a grounding in rational thought that satisfies the already believing.

I would like now to focus on his treatment of the argument from design, as it is an argument that still has great currency amongst theists and which causes the most consternation for materialist atheists - not least because of the seemingly pseudo-scientific nature of the language game that some modern proponents of the design argument seem to adhere to.

Harries argues that the argument from design fails from the outset. The notion that as a computer may infer a human designer so too the world implies a divine designer is an illogical inference by progression. The inference demands a standard of comparison and by its definition the universe (i.e. all ‘created’ matter) is beyond complete or categorical perception and thus will not yeild to comparison.

When it comes to the universe, I do not have a category of designed universes to compare with another category that have somehow sprung up of themselves. There is only one universe. (There may very well be many worlds in addition to this one but by definition the God with whom we are concerned is the Creator of all possible worlds, i.e. the universe.) So we are simpy not in a position, on the basis of logic, to say whether the universe is designed or not. The matter is open.

I would add that the God-hypothesis Harries is proposing (i.e. the Judaeo-Christian creator God) similarly by necessity is the creator of all possible universes, and if we wish to talk of parallel universes then a new terminology such as meta-universe is needed.

Harries continues by praising as an example the evolutionary account of the creatures of the world such as those posited by Dawkins. He has no problem with the theory that says that “through a process of natural selection and random mutation… the most complex and beautiful forms can evolve from simple ones over a long period of time.” This is a thoroughly reasonable scientific account and as the evidence to support it grows we have little or no reason to doubt its retitude.

However this does not negate the idea of a designer - as he has already argued the classical proof as it is, is beyond resolution and the argument must remain open. Consequently he advocates a theory of theistic evolution (without going into details).

He also accepts - to the point of sympathy anyway - the position of scepticism about God’s goodness as evinced through the waste and violence that is resplendent throughout nature. But he suggests this does not negate the idea of design and is concerned with altogether a different matter entirely. He neatly wraps up the theistic evolutionary worldview with a quote from Frederick Temple in the 19th century “God makes the world make itself”. In short he argues arguments from design do not prove the existence of God or design, but neither does a scientific description of how the ‘process’ works resolve the God-hypothesis either.

A final brief comment on the classic arguments for the existence of God as found in the philosophy of religion and their alienation from religious belief as practised and lived goes as follows: “A person could come to the end of a logical train of argument with the conclusion that God must logically, exist: and it could leave him stone cold.”

The classic arguments focusing as they do on various aspects or properties of the proposed divinity always diminish the meta-concept of the divinity that the Judeao-Christian traditions believe in and worship.

Later on in his consideration of rational arguments or proofs of the existence of God he touches on a postmodern or holistic psychology of belief and disbelief. “It is always possible to give a psychological explanation of both belief and disbelief.”

Of course such explanations do not prove/disprove the beliefs but they may shed further understanding on the processes involved. He uses monotheism and its attachment to the argument from causality as an example. A monetheist

“looking at the argument from causality will always tend to have some sympathy with it and want to go along with it, because he or she already believes there is a Creator. Because their heart already moves in gratitude from Creation to Creator, it is natural for their mind to move in that direction as well. Cardinal Newman once wrote that: ‘The whole man moves, paper logic is but the record of it.’ I believe this is too extreme and that logic can act as the helmsman of the ship, not simply a log book of where we have been. Nevertheless, Newman’s remark does bring out the important truth, that our great shifts of belief or disbelief are never purely intellectual, they involve the whole person. So, because we know God in our own life, we will naturally believe him to be present in the life of the world of which we are a part.”

I am reminded of two Wittgenstein quotes here that I feel are relevent (though I shall paraphrase). Firstly that the sum of belief dawns on the believer in the same way that as the sun rises we can better see to the horizon (in other words belief may be enhanced by logical or rational argument but rarely if ever can it be prompted by it). Secondly the world of the happy man is very different to that of the unhappy man - thus reinforcing Harries psychological point I think that a person who is inclined to theism will see and feel the strength of arguments that support his belief even though independent of this a priori belief those same arguments are incapable of logically resolving the questions.

I am moved to remember that St Anselm talked of “Faith seeking Understanding” and not of understanding or knowledge in order to find Faith.

Harries concludes the chapter concerning belief with a brief discussion on the various types of disbelief. “I suspect that most of those who disbelieve do so because they have had a bad experience of religion. Some do so because their understanding of religion is full of misconceptions. Some may be unwilling to make the necessary changes in lifestyle which the Christian faith asks of us. Others see no way of reconciling the tragic quality of so much existence with the claim that there is a loving Creator. There is a variety of reasons, all of which have to be looked at seperately.”

I find this brief paragraph unsatisfactory. On the one hand I appreciate his nuanced commentary that “atheism” is not one single monolothic entity. That there are various types of disbelief and reasons for disbelief and that each needs be considered seperately. I think that this kind of pluralism is a healthy alternative to the ‘them and us’ mentality often exhibited by the loudest tub-thumpers for either side. Yet I feel that he has missed out on the category of disbelievers who genuinely have concluded - indeed one might say believe - that there is no God. He would probably classify these as ‘misconceptions’ and this would betray the chauvenistic attitude of someone who maintains that in the end belief is good and disbelief (at the least) harmful to the self.

I would add though that such a category is difficult to discuss - atheists don’t like to be called ‘believers’ - even if they object to a narrow or naive definition of faith/belief. I would propose that it may even be difficult to isolate these different types of disbelief - for a person who through a solely materialist epistemology has decided that there is no God may very well have also had a bad experience of religion, hold different views on morality, and even be responding negatively to a radically different God-hypothesis than that held by believers.

Also he tends to bypass agnostics here, although one may say that his stance that the “proofs” of the existence of God are not “proofs” and that philosophically the matter remains open is a nod in their direction. All in all though despite these criticisms I think he displays a fairmindedness and openness to plurality of belief all too rare in this arena of debate.

Here is my long overdue book review on Richard Harries “The Real God“. Published in 1994 it is a short work on the philosophy of religion and basic theology by the then Bishop of Oxford Richard Harries. The full title of the book is The Real God: A response to Anthony Freeman’s God in Us. Thus this may be seen as being part of a dialogue, however to Harries credit it is not necessary to have first read the other book in order to make sense of this work.

This book is essentially a Realist apologetic for Christian belief and its remit is neatly summed up in the blurb by the question “If God exists, how can we know this?”

Immediately this should get materialist atheists and varying degrees of agnostics interested as the question seems to imply discussion on the physical and empirical basis of theistic belief. This should also interest students of “language games” who may wonder at the degree to which Harries seeks to straddle the science-religion divide. (Note this is really a false dichotomy - as Wittgenstein rejected the notions of islands of discourse - similarly in terms of hypothesis and narratives of origin religion and science have somewhat overlapping interests).

Significantly though this book was not written with the average Dawkins supporter in mind - and predates the “God Delusion” by some years. It may be interesting and informative to compare the different God-hypothesis both authors present (but thats a whole ‘nother task!)

Primarily as noted this book was a response to Anthony Freeman’s “God in Us”. Freeman was an Anglican priest and member of the “Sea of Faith” theological school who argued from a postmodern perspective about the human origins of religion. He eventually left the institutional church after
arguing that God as a metaphysical entity was not real, but that God was a projection of human ideals.

The Sea of Faith network have been variously described as Christian Atheists and Christian Humanists. Though as befits a postmodern school of thought they evade precise definition by virtue of holding many differing views without proferring any particular orthodoxy. Perhaps the most important position they do hold in common is that irrespective of the divine or human character of religion, the reality or non-existence of a deity, religion can play a positive role both personally and socially.

Harries responds to this with the intent that he is going to present a realist thesis on God. And although I have more sympathy for arguments that come from a via negativa (a negation of talking about the attributes of God) and am described variously by many as an anti-realist, I must confess that I enjoyed Harries arguments and style of writing.

He begins by exploring the character of God. What type of a person or being is he? Interestingly he is not concerned with obscure theological points (like how many angels can dance on a pinhead) but with human projections of divinity. He argues quite sympathetically that one of the prevailing themes in modern secularism and irreligiosity is liberation from an oppressive judgemental and rule-weilding God. And then goes on to propose that the projection of the divinity that we make (as reflected in art, prayer and theological themes) changes with society. Thus at different stages of history God the creator dominates moreso than God the judge etc. An example he gives is the Medieval triumphalism of God the King - an image that has less impact, significance and relevance to the modern mind.

This interesting chapter serves to illustrate that the conception of God is multifaceted as indeed is our experience of religion. And thus it is a reminder both to the individual believer, to the unbeliever who has left religion and to the religious institution itself that theistic-themes need to be constantly re-explored, re-invigorated and re-described.

Over a series of posts I will continue this review focusing on the various themes that Harries presents, and particularly at those themes that are of interest to this blog, and finish with some of my concluding thoughts.

Part 2 will deal with belief and disbelief, specifically with attempts to argue from design, and the psychology of belief and disbelief and its irrelevance to the notion of “proof”.

Part 3 will explore a postmodern analysis of faith.

Part 4 will deal with talking about that which we call “soul”, existential fulfilment of our lives here and now, and miracles and the laws of nature.

Part 5 will explore rationalism, the nature of scientific proof, relatvism, the eschatology of genuine “truth” with regards certain philosophical speculations and an apologetic for Christian Rationalism. Plus some concluding notes from me.

Carrying on from a previous post which linked to the “Only A Game” Blog and its fascinating series of posted reviews on Charles Taylor’s “A Secular Age” - here is Part 4 “Religion” versus “Science” - It is in brief a description of the false dichotomy that the above phrase engenders not to mention the partisan psychology of many of its adherents.

Well worth a read.

Over on the “Only a Game” blog there is an interesting series of reviews on Charles “Chuck” Taylor’s latest book “A Secular Age”.

Charles Taylor is considered possibly the greatest living philosopher in the english speaking world. I must admit rather shamefully to not having heard of him until recently. He is an interesting guy and is in many respects an intellectual descendent of Wittgenstein.

A practising Catholic he nonetheless holds views that are a very unconventional fit to what most people expect a Catholic to be. He is clearly an original thinker. His latest book “A Secular Age” charts the historical development of religion in the west leading up to and including secularism. His study focuses on how society has undergone the transition from a time when it was virtually impossible not to believe in God to a time where even  those of the strongest and most determined faith accept that their is but one of many options available to them.

Rather than post a copy of somebody elses review (I haven’t read the book yet) I thought i’d just link to them. It makes interesting reading and the book is top of my wishlist. It is a serial review - here are the first three in the series:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

On the same blog an excellent (though sarcastic) post on the horrors of a “science pope” (warning may contain Feyerabend).

I thought I’d better mention I have a professional interest in non-verbal communication. (and even more importantly, a non-professional interest!) Non verbal communication usually occurs outside of conscious control. Expect more on this subject.

This is in line with my philosophic thinking, fore shadowed by FN (again) when he said of Luther and his translation of the Bible:

He gave the sacred books into the hands of everyone, -they thereby got at last into the hands of the philologists, that is to say, the annihilators of every belief based upon books. The Gay Science, 358

So back to current affairs, I was reading news of an interesting study on voting patterns shifts depending on the building where the vote was cast.

[...] in the case of polling locations, seeing lockers, desks and other things associated with schools might activate norms (such as the urge to take care of children) or identities (that is, being a parent) that then shift people to vote to support school funding.
[...]
Policy makers should definitely pay more attention to where people vote and, if possible, be more careful in the types of places selected. Choosing polling places is already a tough task, though—they need to be centrally located, handicap accessible, et cetera, so we are not arguing to eliminate churches and schools altogether. Rather, if such places are used, there are ways to minimize their potential influence. Jonah Berger

Interesting stuff. “Free will” indeed. I expect banks to be used if the government is attempting to make the economy a deciding issue!

Anti Citizen One

It has been about 10 months since I posted on my religion in the TV series Babylon 5 thread. I have been busy. (”Everything out there has only one purpose. To distract ourselves from what is truly important.” G’Kar) I have had a chance to rewatch the series again since I last thought about blogging on it.

Shadows

The Shadows are an alien civilization which also very mysterious, manipulative and powerful. Over millions of years they have come to oppose the Vorlon empire. Their philosophy and understanding are all driven by a simple question: “What do you want?” In this system, the identity of an individual is only defined in terms of actions and goals. Any identity, underlying motive or free will is not considered. This is similar to consequentialism where the ends justify the means. Since most of our immediate desires are worldly, it might also be a realist or materialistic philosophy in its routine application.

Machiavelli is a good example of this style of thought. In his most famous work, The Prince, he describes how one acquires and maintains power. He does not attempt to describe an “ideal” prince (that is to say “who he is”) but simply what actions must be performed in order to achieve a goal. This pragmatic view is political realism.

Not all desires are about the pursuit of power. For example we could ask of Socrates, “what does he want”? Could we say “rationality at any price”? (quote from Nietzsche). We could also say Plato: knowledge, Aristotle: wisdom, etc. (Incidentally Lennier indirectly asked for this of the Shadows.) If we pursue any goal too single mindedly, we risk losing our perspective.

The other questions.

I have previously mentioned the questions “who are you?”, “why are you here?” and “what do you want?” There are several secondary metaphysical questions that are mentioned by one or other of the characters but are not so critical to the story’s main conflict. These questions serve as another thematic backdrop to the TV series but are not addressed at such a literal level.
Who do you serve? (TV Movie “In The Beginning”)
How will this end? (Series 2 Ep 9)
Who do you trust? (Series 3 Ep 16)
Have you anything worth living for? (Series 4 Ep 2)
Where are you going? (Series 5 Ep 22)

This is perhaps a reference to the Socratic method, in which a thinker explores a philosophical position by using questions to stimulate thinking. In the next part I will attempt to describe and analyze the various answers to these questions.

Anti Citizen One

Perhaps the most famous story in the Zhuangzi is to be found at the end of Chapter 2.

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakeable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn’t know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things. Basic Writings p45

This seems to me to be a remarkable forecast of Descartes deus deceptus and the postmodern revisitation of epistemic and ontic uncertainty in the ‘brain in a vat’ thought experiment.

Obviously similar themes are being approached. It is interesting to note that the uncertainty that he peddles is not total scepticism. In other words he does not say there is no Zhuang Zhou or there is no butterfly, or that there can only be one and not the other. Rather his scepticism is an exercise in the uncertainty of objectivity. Note that he is convinced of being a butterfly at one point of time and in the next instance convinced of being Zhuang Zhou, and it is only on reflection between these two states of seeming certainty of being that he is led to uncertainty. That he has being (that he is) does not change but what, how and where he is undergoes metamorphoses. The ‘transformation of things’.

It is a wonderful piece of literary symbolism that he should pick the Butterfly as his alter ego. Quite aside from its similar flightiness and anarchic lifestyle to Zhuang Zhou, the butterfly is of course a marvel of nature and a paradigm example of a creature born of transformation.

Zhuang Zhou is certain of his being a butterfly - a state of being though that exists only in the “dream”. His dream like state was one of certainty. Similarly once awake he seems certain that he is Zhuang Zhou, it is only the transition from dream-state to waking-state that causes his uncertainty.

The controversial message here is that dream is objective, and that awakening is to enter into uncertainty and ignorance. Thus in reality we are all dreaming.

But as with all of the Zhuangzi each story has a point, a message. As already noted much of the Zhuangzi expounds a relativistic, pluralistic and perspectivist approach to philosophy and life, and the dream of the butterfly is not different. Whereas Descartes was concerned to find objective truth by scrutinizing and discarding all that he could be uncertain of, the Zhuangzi is concerned to open us to the possibilities of “transformation”, metamorphoses and flux.

Chinese philosopher Kuang-Ming Wu in his famous Dream in NIetzsche and Zhuangzi makes some comparisons between the two.

Having concluded that reality is subjective and dream is objective, Nietzsche did not say that we should regard dreams as some nocturnal fantasies that we should dismiss. Instead, he advises us that we should use them as a guide in our daily activities. Simlarly with Zhuang Zhou, having concluded that there must be, ontologically, a distinction between the butterfly and himself, though epistemologically unsure, and that this is nothing more than a transformation of things, he, too, advises us that we must forever live and be content with this constant transformation. - C.W.Chan The Philosopher, Volume LXXXIII No.2

That a dream may possess sights, sounds, feelings and emotions that seem real at the time, is a famous example of how one may argue for epistemic uncertainty. But the next question most philosophers normally ask is - how do we get ourselves out of this conundrum (the ultimate solopsistic paralysis - unsure or even convinced that there is nothing other than ourselves and that all reality is illusion)? Not so though Zhuangzi, he is content that we should suffer uncertainty. It is a lesson in detachment (note how this influences Zen buddhism), if we can realize the apparent reality of dreams, can we not also appreciate the dreamlike quality of the real?

And in finally subjugating the concept of the objective and allowing in its place the chaotic flux of possibilities, we can become (like the hinge of dao that moves freely) a butterfly “flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased.”

It is a challenge to reject absolutes and abstract labellings, the ideal person (as discussed in earlier posts) is one who is able to transfer themselves effortlessly and seamlessly from one situation to another without the disablement of distinguishments between real and unreal, right and wrong, etc. In this case the transformation between butterfly and man, dream and awake need not be painful. Uncertainty need not mean solopsistic paralysis, but an openness to flux, change and various different realities.

Like the flitting and floating butterfly, Zhuangzi alludes that the fully realised person follows the breeze yet arrives at the flower, its actins are spontaneous and free and it never wears itself out fighting against nature and things as they are.

In conclusion it seems novel to me that such a profound epistemic uncertainty and sceptical relativism should be proposed in such a therapeutic manner. And as often appears to be the case in Eastern Philosophy a profound philosophical widsom is expounded with the hope for practical effects (an aim that western philosophy in its ever increasing abstraction seems sometimes to neglect).