Transcript An Accidental World - Truman State University

An Accidental World
–– The Jefferson Center, August 2006 ––
Taner Edis
Truman State University
www2.truman.edu/~edis
The work of a skeptic
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Naturalism
I defend naturalism, or physicalism, or
scientific materialism, or whatever you want
to call it. No spiritual realities over and
above what is realized in the physical world.
 “An Accidental World” because I present a
variety of naturalism that emphasizes
randomness––how chance and necessity
combine to explain our world.
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What about religion?
Much of religious life
and thought not directly
about the supernatural.
 Morality, meaning.
 But belief in
supernatural/spiritual/
transcendent realities
make things hang
together.
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Liberal religion
Respectable, sophisticated,
humane. Good for science.
 But also depends on gods,
souls, transcendent forces.
 Frustratingly evasive about
science and religion.
Content with superficial
compatibilism.
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Enlightenment rationalism
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I belong to this tradition.
Yet, too much emphasis
on traditional style of
philosophy, lawful order
of nature, and a kind of
moral universalism.
Instead, I emphasize
randomness, modern
science, and moral
pluralism.
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What about morality etc?
I hope some of this will
come up in Q&A––I’m
not sure myself, and
Jefferson Center a good
place to raise questions.
 Set aside for now; draw
picture of world as I see
it…
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No gods or ghosts
Minimal sense of
naturalism: no gods,
souls, ghosts. No
magic. All persons
are embodied.
 Need better sense of
“supernatural agent”
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Supernatural agents
Gods and ghosts––stuff
of horror movies and
folk tales as much as
religions.
 Cognitive science:
category-violating
persons. Intuitive
dualism.
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The paranormal
Can be true…
 Parapsychology––seek
support for dualism, “agentcausation,” spirit acting on
matter. Anti-materialist
research program.
 But no reason to believe in
supernatural agents or
paranormal powers.
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Design from above
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Denying ghosts: not affirming
common sense. Naturalism is
more counterintuitive.
Common sense: order and
functional complexity is due to
intelligent design by a personal
agent.
In most religions, reality is
pictured hierarchically. A topdown existence.
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Top-down
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Naturalism: Bottom-up
Complexity,
including life
and mind, is
assembled
out of the
lifeless and
mindless
substrate of
mere physics.
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Life
Biology
No life force
Mole cules
Chemi stry
No magic
Particles & Forces
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Phy sics
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Assembling complexity
Darwinian evolution best
example: combine random
variation with selection:
“chance and necessity.”
 Non-directed, nonprogressive process. Not
just common descent.
 Physics of complexity.
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Order and chaos
Example:
space for
order in
system
driven away
from
equilibrium.
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Still top-down?
Common liberal theistic
view: “evolution God’s way
of creating”––behind the
scenes…
 ID-lite: God “the ultimate
source of the novel
informational patterns
available to evolution.”
 Need new emphasis.
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Chance and Necessity
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Physics relies on
chance and necessity.
Radioactive decays
happen at random.
H2O structure
explained by physical
laws; QM.
Combinations of
chance and necessity!
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Rules and Dice
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“Everything is physically realized” ~ “Everything
is due to chance and necessity.”
Chance and necessity inseparable––kind of dice.
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Contrast to generic ID
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What do I claim?
Nothing is irreducibly
personal––known agents
are entirely physical.
 Artificial intelligence is
possible.
 Cognitive neuroscience,
as well as biology, is
continuous with physics.
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Chance and disorder
Disorder vital in classical
physics–– thermal physics,
boundary conditions, etc.
 Coin flips…
 Disorder need not always
be due to randomness.
Dynamical chaos;
information available.
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Modern physics
Quantum mechanics introduces fundamental
randomness, not just disorder.
 Measurement. Radioactive decay. No further
information––
perfect disorder.
 Quantum coin.
No way to
improve.
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Cosmic randomness
Multiple universes with
differing laws natural in
quantum cosmology.
 Most basic laws very
symmetric, with very
little information.
 Generate complexity by
symmetry breaking.
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The world is a dice game
Elegant fundamental laws say very little
about our world. That comes through lowenergy laws, “frozen accidents,” randomly
realized through symmetry breaking. The
most basic laws only tell what sort of dice
generated our history.
 Randomness is fundamental.
This is no accident.
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Hidden causes?
But is randomness not just a label
for ignorance?
 A God directs seeming accidents
of evolution and cosmology? A
hidden, nonphysical cause––just
what we need.
 Wouldn’t an accidental world be
a formless chaos?
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Can it all be an accident?
Common sense rebels against the notion
that the universe is a mere accident. But for
naturalists, at some level, it must be.
 Is calling something an accident just
covering up an ignorance of real causes?
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Cause
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Effect
What of the randomness in modern physics?
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What is “randomness”?

Mathematically, a random infinite sequence
is one which lacks any pattern.
T
H
T
H
T
H
T
H
...
T
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Alternating pattern of heads and tails
H
T
H
T
T
T
H
Patternless, random sequence
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Where explanation ends
Can’t predict next coin in random sequence.
Can’t find a “theory” giving the pattern.
 Can’t do our usual pattern recognition and
find a place in a network of causes.
 Something is random if there’s no pattern
and no good prospect of finding one. When
we have to say it’s a brute fact.
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How about order?
Decay by coin flipping
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Survivors
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Series1
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Series2
Series3
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0
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Flips
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Individual unpredictability  statistical
predictability for large numbers.
Not the same as ignorance!
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Randomness is basic!
In fundamental theories of physics, we have
randomness. The laws are random, simple,
framing accidents. The dynamics are also
random.
 Everyday
cause and effect are not fundamental. They
emerge from a microscopic substrate where
things just happen randomly.
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What about persons?
Very bottom-up picture, suggesting that
specially spiritual realities are out of place at
a fundamental level.
 But physical science should be all about
mindless stuff doable through chance and
necessity. What about persons, minds?
 Why should a physical style of explanation
work across the board?
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Generalized ID again
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Explaining minds
Cognitive neuroscience has made
good progress in explaining minds.
Promises a lot more.
 Old-fashioned dualism is
far out of fashion.
 But can chance and
necessity produce real intelligence–
–genuine creativity?
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Computers are not creative
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Programming and input determine the output of a
computer. No new information added.
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Not bound by rules
Humans are creative––we are flexible, not
bound by pre-programmed rules. We always
might figure out a new way to do things.
 Gödelian critique of AI: Any system of rules
is rigid; it has blind spots. ID: no mechanism
(including Darwin’s) can be creative.
 Humans are nonalgorithmic, beyond
computer programs. Yes!
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A source of novelty
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In games where the
opponent can adapt to a
set strategy, occasional
random behavior
can be the best strategy.
Novelty, unpredictability
come from randomness.
Combine chance and
necessity for flexibility!
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Beyond rules, without magic
The most famous nonalgorithmic functions,
such as “Turing’s halting function,” are
called oracles. Not only computers, but we
also can’t compute them.
 We need flexibility without oracles.
 A machine can use a random function
(maximally nonalgorithmic) as a source of
novelty, to break out of ruts.
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Completeness Theorem
All functions are partly random.
 The only tasks beyond rules and randomness
(chance and necessity) are oracles, for which
infinite information must be known.
 Any human output can be
produced by mechanisms
including chance.
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Darwinian creativity
Intelligence relies on broadly Darwinian
processes combining chance and necessity.
 Darwinian thinking has become common in
in AI, and cognitive and brain sciences.
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Implications
The bottom-up,
naturalistic, accidental
picture of the world is
most likely correct.
 Implications for religion,
or even for the rationality
of supernatural belief, are
less clear.
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Naturalist belief is costly
Naturalism is counterintuitive––it goes
against ingrained and socially reinforced
habits of thinking. Such habits work well
enough, most of the time, at little cost.
 Naturalism is costly––it requires specialized
knowledge and training for new habits that
go against the grain of human nature.
 Won’t be widespread, not even in Europe.
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Morality is not as clear-cut
My naturalism does not fit with hard moral
objectivism. Tends toward values
pluralism, or “moral ecology.”
 There are many viable,
successfully reproducing
patterns of interests and ways
of life. For most people, most of the time,
these will include supernatural beliefs.
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Back to liberal religion
Good compromise.
 Maybe evasive, too
concerned to protect “God”
from scientific criticism.
Conservatives are wrong;
liberals are not even wrong.
 But strength of liberal
religion vital for science etc.
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Lerner accuses…
Michael Lerner in The Nation, 4/24/2006:
The left has been captivated by a belief that has been called scientism….
––the belief that the only things are real or can be known are those that
can be empirically observed and measured. As a religious person, I don’t
rely on science to tell me what is right or wrong or what love means or
why my life is important… Claims about God, ethics, beauty and any
other face of human experience that is not subject to empirical
verification––all these spiritual dimensions of life––are dismissed by the
scientistic worldview as inherently unknowable and hence meaningless.
…The view that what is real and knowable is that which can be
empirically verified or measured is a view that itself cannot be empirically
measured or verified and thus by its own criterion is unreal or
unknowable. It is a religious belief system with powerful adherents.
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Naturalism = scientism ?
Lerner is profoundly mistaken. “Spiritual
dimensions” do not get a free pass from
science-based criticism.
 Troubling, since I usually side with Lerner in
political matters. He thinks some attenuated
sense of the supernatural is vital, and my
views are a variety of “scientism.”
 Science is a much broader enterprise than
Lerner conceives!
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What is the world like?
The question of God involves all our
sciences––the best of all our knowledge.
 According to the best of our knowledge, we
inhabit an accidental world.
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In the end
Our sciences, in a broad sense, are
the best tools to bring to the debate
over spiritual/transcendent realities.
 Best view of the world: Naturalistic,
random in the end. It does a much
better job explaining things.
 Yet thoughtful naturalists perhaps
also have to be ambivalent.
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To get in touch
www2.truman.edu/~edis
Contains all sorts of articles, including the
slides of this talk, and information about my
books.
My e-mail is [email protected]
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Thanks for listening!
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Any questions?
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