tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72331757899169619692024-02-20T11:15:50.261-05:00Science and the Problem of CertaintyClay Fulghumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00921322612731069096noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7233175789916961969.post-9372118275584442962013-09-27T19:40:00.000-04:002020-05-02T21:05:42.102-04:00RUPERT SHELDRAKE: STILL HERETICAL AFTER ALL THESE YEARS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">British biologist Rupert Sheldrake is being
reviled again for his annoying habit of challenging scientific orthodoxy. This
is despite the fact that he's anything but shabby in the scientific
credentials department. A Cambridge Ph.D., he has also been Frank Knox Fellow
at Harvard, Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, and Steinback
Scholar-in- Residence at the Woods Hole Oceanography Institute. He was named
among the top 100 Global Thought Leaders for 2013 by the Duttweller Institute,
Switzerland's leading think tank. He is the author of more than 80
peer-reviewed scientific papers and 10 books.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">Yet his presentation at White Hall </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">in London
earlier this year, which addressed what he sees as the limitations
and hubris of contemporary scientific thought, earned him almost
universal opprobrium from scientific heavy hitters. (Esteemed physicist
Sean Carroll was one.) And when the well-regarded non-profit organization TEDx,
which offered him the platform, started getting blowback, it decided to wipe
his talk off You Tube, causing an explosion of responses on the blogosphere and
elsewhere, both pro and con. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">What is Sheldrake's sin? Admittedly, it's a pretty
big one: He doesn't buy into the material nature of reality, the foundational
tenet of modern science. No quibbling around the edges for him.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: 21pt;">On his side is the fact that the history </span><span style="font-size: 28px;">of</span><span style="font-size: 21pt;"> science is full of mavericks, some of whom have actually come up with good ideas. </span></span><span style="font-size: 21pt;">Copernicus was a maverick, overcoming (eventually) our geocentric bias. And then there's Francis Bacon, among others, whose new approaches to observing the natural world overturned Aristotle--giving us, in essence, modern science. And we mustn't forget Einstein, who superseded Newton--and Edwin Hubble, who, against formidable opposition, showed that the universe is not just the Milky Way and that "nebulae" are in fact different galaxies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: 21pt;">Mavericks eschew the practice of </span></span><span style="font-size: 28px;">"normal" science, as philosopher Thomas Kuhn called day-to-day science that doesn't question currently accepted theories. They are the folks who push the envelope, making everybo</span><span style="font-size: 28px;">dy else uncomfortable because of their contrary ideas. It's what scientific progress is all about.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 21pt;">In light
of this you would not be remiss in thinking that the scientific
establishment, though disturbed about Sheldrake's apostasy, would at
least refrain from scorning and vilifying him. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: 21pt;">It's not like materialists are
standing on solid ground. Quantum mechanics, our best bet yet to describe
underlying reality, must take into account the minds of observers that "collapse
the wave function,” creating reality as we know it on the macro scale. How
mind--and, more specifically, measurement--interact with matter still remains completely
mysterious. It's reminiscent of the so-called "hard problem" in
neuroscience, as </span><span style="font-size: 28px;">nobody has</span><span style="font-size: 21pt;"> a clue how the physical activities of the brain
lead to the non-physical, non-material experiences and feelings and perceptions
we all have as conscious beings. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">Despite these red flags,
most scientists today hold fast to reality's materialist base and
dismiss (or worse) those, like Sheldrake, who disagree with
them. Materialism is the unquestioned assumption of all "normal"
science in the twenty-first century. Protests about presentations of normal
science in public forums just don't happen. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">It should be no surprise that well-known
evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, a "normal" science proponent
in the extreme, has singled out Sheldrake as a "woomeister" in
his popular blog, <i>Why Evolution is True </i>(</span><a href="http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/"><span style="color: #0000e9; font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">Whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com</span></a><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">). And
Coyne's view, while not universal, prevails.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">Sheldrake is pretty accustomed to negative
reactions to his work. When his first book, <i>New Science of Life,</i> was
published in 1981, it was described by the editor of <i>Nature, </i>John Maddox,
as "a book for burning." Maddox went on to say that Sheldrake
"should be condemned in exactly the language that the pope used to condemn
Galileo, and for the same reason. It is heresy." </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">It’s tough when you’ve been so accused in a premier
scientific journal, and Sheldrake’s career has proceeded under a shadow.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">Maybe that's the way it should be. Maybe future
discoveries will prove Sheldrake dead wrong in every respect. If so,
Coyne's materialistic successors will no doubt write blog posts (if blogs have
managed to survive), congratulating themselves on their own perspicacious
views. Maybe even the late John Maddox, who also wrote a 1983 editorial
entitled “No Need to Panic about AIDS,” will be completely vindicated--about
Sheldrake, if not for his prognostications on the scourge of our times.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">And maybe not. After all, look what happened
in the case of Galileo and Pope Urban VIII: The heretic, quite
famously, was proven right. </span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 21.0pt;">Given the ever-evolving nature of human
understanding, I think it's not always easy to tell heresy from
scientific breakthrough.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Clay Fulghumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00921322612731069096noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7233175789916961969.post-54089230045379438032012-10-20T18:31:00.000-04:002013-09-28T18:03:02.847-04:00RICHARD DAWKINS AND THE SECOND LAW<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Physicist Steven Weinberg is not usually cited as one who
teases out reasons for personal despair from the realm of science. But in my
blog post entitled <b>WHY CERTAINTY IN
SCIENCE IS UNSCIENTIFIC</b> (June 7, 2012), I showed him doing just that. And,
as it turns out, he’s not alone. The second law of thermodynamics has evolutionary
biologist and vehement neo-atheist Richard Dawkins feeling blue.`</div>
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Writing in 1996, in the online magazine, <i>The Humanist</i>, Dawkins declares: “(W)e
know from the second law of
thermodynamics (which predicts that isolated systems will eventually wind down)
that all complexity, all life, all laughter, all sorrow is hell-bent on
leveling itself out into cold nothingness in the end. They—and we—can never be
more than temporary, local, buckings of the great universal slide into the
abyss of uniformity.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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In the same article, and over and over again in his books, Dawkins
has expressed delight at what science has shown us. But the above statement, profoundly
negative in tone, demonstrates, at the very least, that his is a complicated
response to impermanence on a universal scale. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I have caught him out in a rare (but telling) instance in
which he appears disappointed in reality as it is revealed by science.</div>
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He’s right, of course, that no one has yet shown the second
law can be violated; fortunes are not being made on the stock market from
investments in perpetual motion machines. The heat death of the universe (meaning,
ironically, the cessation of movement in cold, empty space), predicted by the
second law, may indeed transpire. </div>
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<br /></div>
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But to speak decisively, authoritatively, of an apocalyptic
event that may—or may not—occur billions of years in the future seems an
inappropriate scientific extrapolation. </div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i>Cyclic uncertainties<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Yes, the second law does point to a universal
winding down. But consider this: our familiar universe just might come into and
out of existence over and over again. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Cyclic theories such as those proposed by Paul Steinhardt
and Neil Turok as well as by Lauris Baum and Paul Frampton circumvent
conversion of everything into “cold nothingness in the end.” Eric Chaisson’s
work, based on Ilya Prigogine’s far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics, has also
brought into question the heat death scenario.</div>
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<br /></div>
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As regards cosmology, we are in the middle of a fascinating
wrangle. Various theories depict our possible fate. Uncertainty rules, and
this is as it should be. </div>
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Even Dawkins has admitted to the mysteriousness of the universe,
especially as it is revealed by quantum mechanics. He’s just forgotten that
admission here. </div>
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He knows the science, of course. But he’s not consoled.
Indeed, he seems distressed that our human experience has no obvious value or
meaning. Like many other atheists who deny that God has reserved a
unique place in the scheme of things for man, he’s still a bit upset that it’s
not the case.</div>
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<b><i>Dawkins, dissatisfied with science?</i> <o:p></o:p></b></div>
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There’s no getting around it. For a brief moment, the great
science apologist, Richard Dawkins, was at odds with science. His words even
hint that he would be happier with a kinder, gentler universe, one disposed
toward the human race. (It’s hard not to think of conventional religious views,
in this context.)</div>
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He’s missing the mark, of course. We should not feel
estranged from our world because of physical laws, much less because of our
theories about catastrophes those laws may bring to pass. This is just drawing out
bitterness from abstraction. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Let us mourn, lament, and rejoice. Let us feel all the
pleasure and pain it is our lot to feel, holding dear our extraordinary lives
and our extraordinary world, which is at once so beautiful and so terrible. But
let us refrain from making into something personal the notion of inescapable cosmological
disaster. </div>
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We just don’t know enough to take such speculation
seriously. There are important, pertinent matters we don’t have a clue about.
For example, the provenance of our physical laws—indeed their very nature—is unknown.
We can’t ascertain if they are human impositions onto the majestic chaos of
reality or if they possess transcendent reality, as the mathematics suggests. (We
have the same predicament with mathematics itself.)</div>
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`</div>
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If we did, in fact, “discover” the so-called laws of nature,
and they have an objective and primordial existence exactly as we have
formulated them, who’s to say even then that we have arrived at the final,
ultimate, algorithms? </div>
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And if they are primordial, <i>what </i>caused them to come into being in the first place? It’s
impossible to explain how everything got started without positing a prior term.
Infinite regress is unavoidable. Dawkins should remember how he himself refuted the existence of God as a final term by asking what brought God into existence.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i>No methodological errors, please<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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We are small creatures in the prodigious scheme of things. The
known universe consists of a hundred billion galaxies and a hundred billion
stars in each of them. From our vantage point on Earth, we work day and night
to unravel the unknowns of this ever-expanding cosmos, and properly rejoice at
our findings when they seem confirmed. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Over three hundred years of modern science have gone into
our current understanding of the nature of things. It’s great!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s just not forget the big picture, as we spin around our
radiant star. We can—and must—try to figure out every jot and tittle of
existence. But we need always to keep in mind that we are doing so from a point
of view limited in space and time, and limited by the nature of our own human
brains. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Cosmologist Stephen Hawking, probably the most well-known
scientific figure of our time, would agree. In his 2010 book, <i>The Grand Design, </i>he maintains: “There
is no picture-or theory-independent concept of reality.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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This is because we undeniably filter everything through the
categories of our own minds. We cannot apprehend reality except through the
lens of our human consciousness. Our data are massaged from the git-go by the
human factor.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We would do well to admit: All-that-is, is more than our
minds can comprehend. A modicum of humility is in order, here on this “pale
blue dot” of Earth. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And isn’t humility, in light of the hypothesized multiverse,
the most scientifically respectful position to stake out, choosing to make as
few assumptions as possible? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s my point: Not to acknowledge the mystery that
underlies our experience—and that underlies, as well, our great human
enterprise of science—is a serious methodological error. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Nobody, not even Richard Dawkins, should waste one moment of
life bemoaning the personal implications of scientific theorizing. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Future posts will expand on this point.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Want to know more
about Richard Dawkins? See </i><a href="http://richarddawkins.net/"><i>http://richarddawkins.net/</i></a><i>. </i></div>
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Your comments on this blog are welcome.</div>
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Clay Fulghumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00921322612731069096noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7233175789916961969.post-56200802340769227712012-06-07T20:56:00.002-04:002014-09-11T20:10:33.285-04:00HOW TO ACHIEVE UNHAPPINESS, STEVEN WEINBERG STYLE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Physicist and Nobel Prize winner, Steven Weinberg,
believes that human life in all its complexity, is meaningless—in the final
analysis no more than particles of matter impacting other particles of matter.
He's said so over and over again, while describing the godless multiverse in
elegiac terms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Speaking categorically of the most estimable human
expression of all, he told readers of the <i>The New York Review of Books</i>
that “the emotions we most treasure, our love for our wives and husbands and
children, are made possible by chemical processes in our brains that are what
they are as a result of natural selection acting on chance mutations over
millions of years. And yet we must not sink into nihilism or stifle our
emotions. At our best we live on a knife-edge, between wishful thinking on one
hand and, on the other, despair.” <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7233175789916961969#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">1</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Weinberg, reductionistic and materialistic in the
extreme, doesn’t chance to catch the wondrousness of our love, with its
correlates, causes, and conditions, rooted in the physical world. Rather, he
downplays human love because he believes, without evidence, that mere
physiology is its base.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He has stated that the worldview of science is
“rather chilling.” His view of love is a case in point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Now teaching history of science at the University
of Texas, he is perfectly aware that what is assumed as scientific fact in one
age is likely to be overthrown or superseded in the next. Nonetheless, he
doesn't harbor any doubt that a gloomy interpretation of the nature of life is
correct, or entertain the possibility that future scientific discoveries might
reveal more going on in the emotional and mental makeup of human beings, and,
for that matter, other animals, than neuroscience—currently in its infancy—has
already revealed. He employs no qualifiers or conditionals to temper his bleak
declarative statements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Is such certainty called for? How can he be so sure
he’s gotten this right, since he speaks as a truly miniscule part of the
system? How can Weinberg, who conspicuously lacks an all-embracing God’s eye
view, argue that emotions are <i>only</i> the result of brain
chemicals acting in a particular way and no more? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">After all, the so-called "hard problem"
in contemporary neuroscience is exactly this: how physical processes like the
electrochemistry of the brain translate into nonphysical consciousness in all
its manifestations—namely, into our subjective experience of the world and of
our lives. At present, there is no evidence that can explain this disconnect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Philosopher John Searle, in a letter to the <i>The
New York Review of Books, </i>has succinctly summarized the consensus view
about the origin of consciousness. He said: “(A)t present, the way neurons
produce consciousness remains mysterious.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7233175789916961969#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">2</span></a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Now that leaves a big loophole indeed. Searle, like
most other experts in neurophysiology, also believes a materialistic connection
will be made—although this is no more than an article of faith. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Given our current state of ignorance, Weinberg’s
sadness seems rather premature. Why we don’t even know how to ascertain whether
another being (human or otherwise) is conscious. What over reach it is, then, to
dismiss a complex emotion like love as a well understood materialistic
phenomenon. In doing so, Weinberg has chosen to overlook the greatest conundrum
of neuroscience. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Weinberg, a pre-Copernican?</span></i></b><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Surprisingly, Weinberg even speaks with contempt of evolution,
as if it’s the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">fault </i>of evolution
that love is an epiphenomenon of our brains. Now this is an undeserved bad rap
indeed. It’s as if Weinberg is really just pining after the religious idea that
we are a special creation of God, in which case all our particulars (maybe even
our love lives) would flow from this, not from natural selection—and brain chemistry.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">In my view, Weinberg is possessed of a
pre-Copernican mindset, characterized by a yearning for human beings to be at the
center of everything. Ironically, this puts him in league with those who
believe that God is biased in favor of us—a unique dispensation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He's inadvertently caught up in the religious
milieu he feels contempt for. Without this longing for human specialness,
he could be grateful that evolution, magnificent in scope, has actually allowed
for our development into occasionally loving creatures.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">(Or, alternatively, he might find himself
disturbed--as I am--by the fact that we can also be violent and cruel. It seems
to me Weinberg has chosen the wrong side of our natures to deprecate.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Here's what should be indisputable: Weinberg is insufficiently
skeptical of prevailing scientific beliefs. Despite the fact he knows very
well that science is an ongoing process, he seems to lose track of this
understanding when it's not his focus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">He hasn’t taken to <i>heart</i> the
changeable nature of scientific understanding over time. Stasis may seem the
norm between scientific revolutions, but even then anomalies are building up.
Future generations will always look back in wonder at the ignorance of their
forbears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Evolutionary theory itself is still evolving.
Although there are undeniable lines of proof—not just in the much criticized
(and occasionally spotty) fossil record but in genetic sequencing of organisms
and biogeography, among others, we still have a long way to go in understanding
all of evolution's mechanisms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Research into evolutionary development (evo devo)
is revealing more than Darwin could ever have imagined. And now we are
beginning to understand how some complex systems can self-organize.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Perhaps decades or centuries from now, we will
understand more clearly what life is it. (And perhaps not.) Right now, we
are completely in the dark. Evolutionary theory has never addressed the origin
of life and Darwin eschewed the issue entirely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">It is even tempting to argue that the biological
sciences are still fledglings, ruled as they are by the 19</span><sup><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">th-</span></sup><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">century
mechanistic paradigm. Quantum applications lie ahead, a mind-boggling prospect
indeed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What a shame Weinberg has such confidence in the durability
of the status quo. He has not only ruled out any possibility of transcendence;
he has concluded that the material side is dispiriting as well. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could he not be demoralized! I want to
tell him, the brilliant, much-lauded Nobelist: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buck up!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">We have a fascinating world out there—and inside
us as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">We should celebrate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7233175789916961969#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">1</span></a> Steven
Weinberg, “Without God,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York
Review of Books,</i> September 25, 2008.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7233175789916961969#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">2</span></a> John Searle,
letter to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New York Review of Books,</i>
September 29, 2011.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
<i>Want to know more about Steven Weinberg's latest book, LAKE VIEWS? See <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062306">http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674062306</a></i><br />
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<i><br /></i><i>Your comments on this blog are welcome!</i></div>
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Clay Fulghumhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00921322612731069096noreply@blogger.com2