Author Archives: jbernal

Robert Richert: The Bible and Creation

Note – the information below is essentially what is taught in Biblical studies courses at major universities and seminaries. I derived most of the material in this article from the following college textbooks:

Stephen Harris – “Understanding the Bible, a Readers Introduction”, Mayfield Publishers, second edition, 1985

Gerald LaRue – “Ancient Myth and Modern Life”, Centerline Press, 1988

Almost fifty percent of American citizens believe that the creation stories in the Book of Genesis are literally true. Other Christians believe that while these stories may not be literally true, they are consistent with modern scientific knowledge (for example, the sequence of creation is roughly consistent with what is known from science). In this paper, I will explain what today’s Biblical scholars know about these ancient accounts and argue that they bear no resemblance to the modern scientific view of the cosmos.

Interestingly, the Book of Genesis contains two different creation stories. There is general agreement amongst scholars that Genesis 2:4b to 3:24 was written during the time of King Solomon, about 950 BCE. Scholars refer to Genesis 2 as “J” for Jahweh, the German spelling of Yahweh. Genesis 1 (1:1 to 2:4a) is called “P”, for Priestly account; it was written about 550 to 400 BCE, much later than Genesis 1.

Here is a condensed version of the two creation stories placed side by side (From Ancient Myth and Modern Life, p63c):

Gen 2:4b-23 (circa 950 BCE)          Gen. 1:1-2:4a (circa 550 to 400 BCE)

1. Heavens and earth                        1. Primeval ocean, formless earth,
*                                                                     light formed to separate day and night

2. Mist to dampen ground              2. Firmament created in primeval ocean
*                                                                      – water above and below

3. Man (Adam) molded from         3. Waters gathered, earth appears,
earth                                                         vegetation created

4. Garden planted including          4. Sun, moon, stars created
tree of knowledge

5. Rivers of Eden                                5. Birds and sea creatures created

6. Assignment of Man                      6. Animals created
as gardener

7. Beasts, birds molded                    7. Humans created
from the earth

8. Woman formed from                    8. Sabbath created
(Adam’s) rib

Many Biblical apologists claim that Genesis 2 is a more detailed elaboration on Genesis 1. However, as the illustration above clearly shows, the sequences of creation in the two stories are contradictory and do not harmonize anywhere. Harmonizing these two stories requires dismissing modern scholarship and/or ‘elasticizing’ the text to fit with theological presuppositions. Genesis 1 and 2 are two completely different stories written by different peoples at different times – Genesis 1 was written hundreds of years after Genesis 2!

There are many parallels to earlier stories from other cultures in the two Genesis myths. The story of Adam and Eve shares a similar motif to the earlier Egyptian myth of Ra. In this story, men and gods lived together in a primordial paradise. Several ancient myths tell of an evil, seductive serpent that tempts man. The story of Noah and the flood is paralleled in two ancient Babylonian writings. One is about a high priest named Ziasudra that rescues his family and animals from a great flood. The other is found in the writing called, The Epic of Gilgamesh. In this story, the god Ninigiku-Ea instructs Utnapishtim to build a boat and rescue, “The seed of all living things” from the coming floodwaters. The Gilgamesh flood story, dating back to the third millennium BCE, shares many parallels to the story of Noah, which was written much later. In Babylonian mythology pre-dating Genesis, gods create man and animals from clay. In Genesis 2, God creates Adam from clay.
For decades, scholars have known that the creation account in Genesis 1 was derived from a much earlier Babylonian creation myth called Enuma Elish. Here are the similarities of the two accounts placed in sequence and side-by-side. (From Ancient Myth and Modern Life, p63c):

ENUMA ELISH                                               GENESIS

Divine spirit and cosmic matter are     Divine spirit creates cosmic
coexistent and coeternal                           matter and exists independently
*                                                                           of  it

Primeval chaos, the god Tiamat             Earth a desolate waste,
enveloped in darkness                                with darkness covering the deep

Light emanating from the gods               Light created

Creation of the firmament                         Creation of the firmament

Creation of dry land                                     Creation of dry land

Creation of the luminaries                         Creation of the luminaries

Creation of man                                              Creation of man

Gods rest and celebrate                               God rests and sanctifies
*                                                                              the 7th day

These two stories share far too many similarities to be dismissed as merely a matter of coincidence. Babylonian literature was known throughout the near east before the Hebrews became a nation. Genesis 1:1-2:4b likely came into existence during the Hebrew exile in Babylon. At that time, it is known that Babylonian thought influenced and impacted the Judean priesthood.

A popular modern interpretation of the opening verses of Genesis 1 is that God created the universe out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo). This idea stems from the fact that the King James Version of the Bible contains an incomplete translation; “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” However, today’s more accurate translations read; “When God began to create the heaven and the earth – the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the deep (Hebrew, “tehom”) and a wind from God sweeping over the water…” (Understanding the Bible, p52). Just like their ancient Canaanite, Babylonian and Egyptian counterparts, the Biblical God creates the world in the midst of a primordial watery abyss, not out of nothing! Creation from nothing was not part of ancient Hebrew thought.

Genesis 1 goes on to say that God separated the primeval waters with the firmament above and the earth below. The Hebrew word for firmament means ‘beaten out, like metal’, or ‘beaten metal bowl’. Genesis doesn’t mention the specific shape of the earth, but the common view at the time in this part of the world was that the earth is flat. In the Genesis 1 story, the earth below and dome above in tandem hold back the watery abyss that lies beyond. Recall that when God begins the flood in Genesis 6:11, “All the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens (dome) were opened”.

All of this is consistent with neighboring ancient pre-scientific cosmologies; an earth-centered cosmos, the optical illusion that the earth is flat and that the sky is a dome that meets the earth at the horizon. For example, in an Egyptian depiction (Papyrus of Ani, Book of the Dead, dating back to about the fifteenth century B.C.E.), the sky goddess Nut is posed in a semi-circular arching ‘dome-like’ position representing the heavens. Her body is supported by the outstretched arms of Shu, the air god. Below him is Geb, the earth god, posed in a reclining position to represent the hills and valleys of the otherwise flat earth.

The two creation stories in Genesis were written at different times by different authors. Much of the material is derived from more ancient myths and motifs. They are inconsistent with one another and modern scientific knowledge. Nothing in Genesis describes a vast expanding universe; deep time and space; a sun-centered solar system; the formation of the earth from the gravitational attraction of matter; and the subsequent evolution of life. The Biblical creation stories don’t even come close to getting it right! However, they are consistent with the cosmological thought of surrounding cultures that existed before and during the times in which the Genesis accounts were written.

There certainly is no objective reason to believe that these stories are divinely inspired. The evidence is crystal clear that men limited by the parochial knowledge of their time authored these ancient myths.

Mad Men Series #5: Martin Gardner on mathematics as reality and the mystery of free will

A few days after the death of Martin Gardner this past May 22, 2010, a friend handed me the text of a very interesting interview that he did with “Skeptic” magazine. Most likely Michael Shermer, the editor, was the interviewer. In this interview Gardner discussed of number of fascinating issues and questions in science, philosophy, and religion. The interview gives us a picture of a lively, probing intellect, which Gardner unquestionably was. Although I often disagreed with some of his views, I always felt that reading and listening to what Gardner had to say taught me a lot. So my criticism of a couple of ideas brought out by this interview should not be read as implying that I did not respect and admire Gardner’s work.

What Mr. Gardner says concerning the possibility of an afterlife and the “mystery” of free will reminds me that even very intelligent persons can go off on the wrong track. Even a genius can sometimes affirm ideas, which in other contexts we might associate with the assertions of mad men. This overstates the issue, of course, but I’m impressed by the ease with which critics admit crazy ideas as respectable just because respected scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers affirm them. In this context, I propose inclusion of the following two sets of ideas in my mad man series.

Mathematics, Reality, and Possible After-Life

First, Gardner on the possibility of an afterlife based on the possibilities suggested by string theory in physics:

“ ..you can defend immortality on the grounds that everything that constitutes our selves or our identity is a mathematical pattern. If superstring theory turns out to be true, they you can ask what are superstrings made up of, and they aren’t made of anything! If all matter is pure mathematics, then you can imagine that an all powerful deity who knew the pattern could reconstruct you. .”

The proposition that “everything that constitutes our selves or our identity is a mathematical pattern” is simply fantastic. Doesn’t it simply ignore biological reality, that is, the fact that first and foremost, human beings are biological beings? Regardless of where the highly theoretical work of string theorists seems to point, the facts are that physical, chemical, and biological reality is not just a mathematical pattern. To say that much of physical reality can be analyzed in terms of mathematical patterns is not to demonstrate that physical reality reduces to a mathematical pattern. This is simply a leap in reasoning, a fallacy, that too many mathematical physicists (e.g. string theorists) and metaphysically inclined mathematicians make. Gardner should have been more cautious in his philosophical inference.

The other part of Gardner’s statement, that one can ask “what superstrings are made up of” and answers that, since they’re not made of anything, “all matter is pure mathematics,” is simply some very hasty generalizations that don’t stand up to scrutiny. First, with regard to a highly mathematized physical theory like string theory, our intuitive concepts and ordinary language probably are not applicable. It is far from clear what is meant by asking what “superstrings are made of” or to see the equation of a constitutive ‘nothing’ with pure mathematics. These are simply metaphysical inferences that would need a lot of clarification before we could draw such inferences as Gardner is inclined to make: His conclusion that “matter is pure mathematics,” strikes me as just a piece of confused mystical metaphysics. Again it is surprising that Gardner would make such a careless move.

Surely such hasty and careless inferences regarding mathematics and physics cannot offer any support for the idea that a person, once having physically expired, can somehow be reconstituted. There is no support here for the idea of an afterlife.

Mystery of Free Will

Now let me turn to the other set of ideas, those concerning free will, that Mr. Gardner discussed in the interview:

M.G. “…there is the problem of human free will that makes prediction extremely difficult. On this question of free will, as a member of a group called the mysterians, I believe that we have no idea whether free will exists or how it works. .. “

Skeptic: You don’t believe free will is at the quantum level like some physicists do?

M.G. “ It doesn’t help if it is at the quantum level. That just makes it a random event, as if there is some kind of a roulette wheel in the brain. That doesn’t give you a choice. There are certain things I regards as ultimate mysteries. Free will is one of those. . . . Free will is bound up in the mysteries of time about which we can never understand, at least at this stage of our evolutionary history. . . ….. Mysterians believe that at this point in our evolutionary history there are mysteries that cannot be resolved, like free will. Noam Chomsky, for example, is a mysterian. He is on record saying that we don’t have the mental capacity to understand the nature of free will. . .”

Gardner claims that free will is a profound mystery beyond our power to resolve at this stage of our evolutionary history. This raises a number of issues which would take up more time and space than I have in this brief article. But I shall bring up a few outstanding problems and what I see as fallacies in this line of reasoning. It is commendable that Mr. Gardner gives short shrift to the idea that quantum physics somehow enables us to have free will. As Daniel Dennett has ably stated, this is wrong turn based on a misconception of what the free will problem amounts to; and would only show that some action is random. This does not show that humans are capable of what is normally understood by “free will.”

But Gardner’s statement that “we have no idea whether free will exists or how it works” assumes that free will is a mysterious entity which functions (works) in some way. This is surely a very questionable, likely confused, assumption. At the very least, this assumption needs to be examined and evaluated, not simply accepted as clear and unquestioned. It is the basis for much of the mystery of free will which Gardner then mentions as beyond our capacity to understand; hence, the embrace of the view of persons who call themselves “Mysterians.” (Daniel Dennett, in one of his books dealing the with free will issue, refers to the ‘mysterians.’ But I thought he was just applying a derogatory term to some of his opponents, like John Searle. Now I see that there is a group who go under that label.)

Admittedly, there are some puzzles and questions as to how our ability to make choices and engage in actions of our choosing (act ‘freely’ in this sense) is consistent with causal, scientific explanations (physics, biology, physiology, genetics, evolutionary psychology) of our conduct. But these puzzles do not demonstrate that we are incapable of free action or what traditionally has been called “free will.”
As Dennett has argued well, in this books Elbow Room and Freedom Evolves, nothing brought out by any of the relevant sciences show that what we ordinarily call free choice or free action are paradoxes or impossible in the context of scientific explanation.

The mystery that impresses Gardner only arises because people assume that free will is a faculty or power that operates outside the scope of the physical-biological functions that comprise the physical human person. It is much like the mystery that arises when one assumes that the soul and the mind are entities which are not accounted for by the natural sciences as they apply to human beings. Yes, if we assume the presence of such entities as the soul and the mind, which are not part of the human brain, nervous system, sense faculties, and such — then you have a great mystery. The same is true regarding the very questionable assumption that free will is an entity operating independently of a person’s physical nature. But there is no reason whatsoever to make that assumption. A number of clear-headed philosophers, like Daniel Dennett, have shown that our capacity for free action — what is ordinarily called “free will’ – is compatible with all that the sciences have to say regarding human behavior. The so-called, mysterians, despite counting among themselves brilliant people like Gardner and Noam Chomsky, have simply followed a very confused path on this question.

There are many mysteries, some even profound mysteries, which science has not yet solved and which we might not be capable of resolving at this stage of our evolutionary history. But the puzzle of free will is not one of them.

Robert Richert: Second Letter to a Christian friend

Hi Friend,

In a recent conversation, you brought up the point that we mere mortal humans do not have the science and knowledge to make something as simple as a leaf. You made this argument to me several months ago – I surmise the implication is that scientists will never be able to create life out of non-life. As to this question, ‘life’ has been created in the laboratory, albeit primitive life. Check out the article on the website below.

Craig Venter creates synthetic life form

Craig Venter and his team have built the genome of a bacterium from scratch and incorporated it into a cell to make what they call the world’s first synthetic life form. For more information on Venter’s work, link to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form

As to the question, can humans ‘make’ something as simple as a leaf, the answer is yes, and it is done every day! For example, if you want to ‘make’ oak leaves, just plant acorns, nurture them and wait for the tree to grow. Eventually, you’ll get oak leaves. Before you dismiss my point here, please understand that there is a method to my madness! You see, if one looks to nature, one sees a clear distinction between the way that humans make things – usually by assembling various parts – and the way that living things come into existence. No leaf or any living thing for that matter is assembled whole cloth from a batch of parts lying around. Instead, living things begin as a single cell that divides, diversifies and eventually grows into an adult with various complex parts. It amazes me that some people cannot accept that we humans evolved by means of a step by step process from simple one-celled organisms over eons of time – when each individual human goes through a similar evolutionary process from fertilization to adulthood in a few years!

We tend to be anthropomorphic. That is, we tend to view nature from our own perspective and apply our own ways and means of thinking and doing to nature. What makes Darwin’s insight – evolution by means of natural selection – so brilliant and magnificent is its counter-intuitiveness – and its continual confirmation since its debut in 1859. Nature, in ‘making’ living things, doesn’t work like a watchmaker, an architect, or an engineer. I do not have the time or space to show how natural selection works – I can say that it is NOT like a tornado rushing through a junkyard and assembling a 747, as Creationists say. Natural selection IS a powerful process that in an incremental, step by step way that adds/builds upon previous changes as it goes, produces incredible complex ‘design’ purely by natural mechanisms. This is known beyond reasonable doubt – it has been observed in nature and reproduced in the lab. There are many good sources that explain this process, and I would be glad to send you references if you so desire. To conclude this section, I pose this thought from the perspective of a religious believer: Which God is wiser – one who must make each living thing or species individually like a factory worker – or one who creates a vast universe in which with the touch of a button (so to speak) initiates a process that needs no further guidance or tweaking: Just lots of space – the right raw materials and conditions (lots of stars, planets – the right elements; water, etc.) – add in deep time for all of this to unfold – and eventually (on a few rare worlds) evolves intelligent creatures like us! The latter is what Christian evolutionary biologists believe.

Everyday, scientists are discovering more about how living things evolved, and more importantly, the genetic mechanisms involved in evolution – its nuts and bolts. For example, did you know that each of us humans has a gene for ‘making’ the distribution of hair over our bodies virtually identical to that of a chimpanzee? Did you know that each of us has a gene for making a tail? Our genetic code includes many such remnants of our past. So…why aren’t we hairy and have tails? Because these genes get switched off during development of the embryo! Over time in the distant past, humans gradually lost their ape-ish hairiness and mammalian tales, but the gene is still with us; they just became dormant. It is one of the many little details about us that separates humans from our cousins the apes and other more distant relatives, and also demonstrates our connection to them. In fact, we are learning that many evolutionary changes in organisms are due to a ‘mutation’ that causes a particular gene or gene segment to switch on or off. Finally, upon rare occasions, humans are born with tails or hairy like an ape. Not that long ago, these unfortunate ‘freaks of nature’ would be ostracized by family and society. Many ended up working in circuses and side shows in order to make a meager living. However, thanks to our modern understanding of evolution and genetics, we know why these people are the way they are.

We now have fantastic sequences of fossils demonstrating evolution. For example, we have a beautiful fossil sequence of many specimens showing the evolution of whales from a ground dwelling carnivore that looked somewhat like a wolf and lived over 50 million years ago. We have sequences of fossils showing the evolution of fish to amphibians, amphibians to reptiles, and reptiles to mammals and birds. We have over 200 specimens of our own ancient ancestors. We now know that our ancestors and that of the chimpanzees diverged from a common ancestor 6 to 7 million years ago. We know that our ancestors began to walk upright long before our brains became bigger. The famous fossil Lucy is about 3.5 million years old. Her skull and brain case is much more – but not exactly – like that of an ape than that of a modern human. Yet, her pelvis and leg structure is much more – but not exactly – like that of a modern human. Lucy has characteristics more human than ape and others more ape than human and others right in between the two – a transitional form between species – exactly what was predicted by Darwin’s theory before we had these fossils!

I know that your church or elements of your church are Creationists. I must say that Creationism and its counterpart, Intelligent Design (ID) have zero credibility in academia! In fact were it not for their well financed efforts to undermine the teaching of evolution in our schools, they would be a laughing stock. There are no Creation/ID departments at any major university in the free world, no scientific conferences on the subject, no papers being published in peer reviewed scientific journals. In short, no Creationist/ID activity, research, or even slight interest as a real science exists within the scientific community at all! In fact, despite Creationist’s bogus claims of thousands of scientist supporters, there are only a tiny handful of Creationist/ID people with advanced scientific degrees related to evolution – and none of this pitifully few has any status or stature in the scientific community. Creationism/ID is a social/religious movement, NOT a scientific one. The only debates in science about evolution are about the details of how evolution works, not whether it happened. In science, evolution by means of natural selection has been a settled issue for over 100 years. It’s a done deal!

If there were no Book of Genesis, there would be no conflict about evolution today between Fundamentalists and scientists. In fact, most mainstream Christian churches have made their peace with evolution (ex. Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists). What is ironic to me is that the two creation accounts in Genesis, when taken literally, do not jibe at all with what we now know about the universe, earth, and life – and to make matters worse, the two accounts don’t even match each other!

My friend, you are an intelligent, inquisitive person. Yes, you can be a good Christian and also accept the reality of the world as science has ‘revealed’ to us. Most Bible scholars will tell you that the Bible, especially Genesis, was not written to be taken literally. The Bible is NOT a science book! In fact, many religious thinkers believe that Biblical Literalism undermines the deeper meanings and greater scope of the Bible’s message.

This is my long-winded response to your comments…and I have plenty more! I hope this e-mail gives you some food for thought.

Bob

More of the Mad Men Series: Car Culture

“I constantly think about and dream about my car! My car is an extension of me. Without my car I feel lost.”

—- any number of adolescent and young males in the USA

We’re so accustomed to the automobile in our daily existence that people who get around by walking, bicycle, or public transportation, when they could drive a car, appear odd, if not downright mentally unbalanced. In a sequel novel, Duane’s Depressed, which followed his earlier works, The Last Picture Show and Texasville, the novelist Larry McMurty, presents his protagonist, Duane Moore, as a slightly disturbed man who decides to park his pickup and walk wherever he needs to go. His family, relatives, and friends all think he has gone mad. Duane simply wants to get out of his pickup (in which he feels stagnant), walk in the open air, and think about things. McMurty presents, Duane, as undergoing a psychological crisis in his life; but the fact that McMurty portrays Duane’s “psychological crisis” by his decision to walk rather than drive and the way other characters in the novel react to Duane’s behavior shows the degree to which we think that the automobile is essential to our lives, and the degree to which we question the good sense of anyone who tries to live without the almighty automobile. McMurty uses this episode as a way of showing Duane’s mental depression; and the reader understands because he, like most of us, thinks that abandoning a perfectly good automobile to travel by foot indicates odd behavior, if not a degree neurosis. In short, we all assume the values of the car culture.

However, today more and more people are beginning to question the assumptions and values of our “car culture.” These people are not at all odd folks and people slightly mentally unbalanced. The opposite is more likely the case: They’re very sane, fine people.

Who really is the mad person? Is it the person who has come to think that a four-wheeled machine is essential to his existence or is it the person who has begun to think that this machine, useful though it might be, should not dominate our actions and thinking?

Before making a few statements as to where our real madness lies, I will admit the value of the automobile as a form of transportation (after all, who can rationally deny this?). In short, I shall credit the view that our car culture may not be indicate complete madness.

To appreciate the value of the automobile you only need to try walking distances that normally take only a few minutes on the automobile. Unless you’re a great walker, you will quickly appreciate the value of automobile travel. The automobile has allowed communities to spread out in ways impossible before the automobile. We can have more “elbow room” in our cities and towns, and more choices in where we live and work. Much of our economy depends on automobile travel and transportation, as do the greater variety and the availability of consumer goods. It is hard to argue against the proposition that our material standard of life has improved as a result of the automobile. As means of travel and transportation, the automobile is unquestionably valuable. Most people would argue that the automobile culture represents a rational life style.

Yes, automobile travel represents a rational alternative with plenty of social benefit. And the skeptic might seem as silly as Duane walking the long distances of Western Texas when he could drive his pickup. But this is not the complete story, because the social benefits of the car culture come with social and ecological cost.

First, let’s ask just how rational a life style does the automobile represent? In other words, let us ask who really is the mad man: the person who parks his car and walks and the one that cannot be removed from his beloved car? Walking is healthy; sitting behind the wheel every day makes you fat and lazy.

The car-culture life style is not very rational when you think in terms of efficiency, and conjoin this with our habit of driving alone. Many foreigners remark on our one-person , one-car pattern of travel. This means that a 3-4 thousand pound machine with 110-190 horsepower is used to transport one person, average weight 150 lbs. This is neither efficient nor rational.

As a counter-example, bicycle travel is many times more efficient and more practical than the automobile for distances in the 5-8 mile range. At such distances, when you take into account delays due to street congestion, the time needed to find parking, and the time spent moving from parked vehicle to your destination, the difference in travel time between automobile and bicycle is negligible, if not one favoring the bicycle.
[….the WorldWatch Institute published some .. figures on cycling. Comparing energy used per passenger-mile (calories), they found that a bicycle needed only 35 calories, whereas a car expended a whopping 1,860. Bus and trains fell about midway between, and walking still took 3 times as many calories as riding a bike the same distance. ]
————————–

Who is the mad man?

Our driving habits are also not very rational when you think in terms of cost, both to the individual and to society. We use fossil fuels at an alarming rate and will eventually drain the earth of these resources.

The automobile is also not seen as a rational alternative when you take into account the negative impact on the environment: air pollution and CO2 emissions which are a major cause of the looming global climate change.

Cities, especially in western U.S., have been designed to accommodate our automobile culture. This is evident in the growth and expansion of outlying suburbs; in the continuing need for more and more freeways and the constant transformation of every available space into multi-level parking structures at business and retail locations, both in the urban centers and throughout the suburbs. In spite of all the construction and transformation to accommodate the automobile, most of us in urban and suburban areas suffer the daily affliction of traffic congestion and lack of room for parking all those vehicles.

Who is the mad man when you consider the cost of the automobile in terms of yearly deaths, maiming, and serious, debilitating injuries due to automobile accidents? Check out the statistics and weep. Moreover, have you tried driving the freeway and streets of any major city during rush hour? Welcome to the daily grid lock!

Who is the mad man?

Remarks on Abortion and the person not-yet-present

Often the horror that people feel before the prospect of aborting an early pregnancy is caused by thought of the “future person” that is being terminated. In other words, people’s attention focuses on potential existence rather than the actual reality: something-that-will-become-a-person, rather than a zygote or embryo, is being destroyed. From this it becomes an easy step in thinking to arrive at the thought that a person is being destroyed. The thinking is that only time and development separate a potential person from an actual person; and somehow “time and development” become irrelevant to the issue of abortion. Aborting the actual is killing the potential.

Sometimes the position is advanced by way of an anecdote: we’re told that the mother of some famous, creative individual (call him “Beethoven”) considered aborting her pregnancy prior to giving birth to Beethoven. Then we all heave a sigh of relief because Beethoven’s mother decided not to abort, and thus did not deprive the world of a great creative talent. For many the thought is: “What a horrible thing! She almost killed Beethoven!”

From such stories we’re expected to draw the moral lesson: avoid abortions, unless they are absolutely necessary; for you may likely be killing a wonderful and great human being (albeit a potential human being).
—————-

From the premise ‘that we have destroyed X which had the potential of becoming Y’ the conclusion ‘that we have destroyed Y’ does not follow.

The zygote has the potential of becoming a human infant, thus we place high value on the zygote. But placing high value on the zygote in virtue of its potential for personhood is not the same as ascribing personhood to the zygote.

What is the mark of personhood? Certainly not the mere potential to develop into a human individual; otherwise, human eggs and spermatozoa would count as human beings.

Abortion should not be seen as merely another form of birth-control; of course, only early-term abortion could reasonably be seen this way. At any rate, destruction of the developing human fetus should not be a routine matter, lightly undertaken. (Spoken like a man! How often do women lightly undertake abortions?)

What’s our concern here? ….the potential human life that’s being destroyed? …the human being who shall not exist, but could have existed? …. “We project our thoughts to a future stage, to the existence of a human individual; and then see this human (potential human) as being destroyed or being denied entry. We see an evil perpetrated on this future being.
————–
Something having the potential to develop into a human infant is not yet a human infant.
If X can develop into Y, or is in the process of becoming a Y, destruction of X prevents the emergence of Y; but surely is not the destruction of Y; for Y has not yet come into existence. The killing of a tadpole prevents that tadpole from developing into a frog; but this cannot be correctly characterized as the killing of a frog. How can we kill something which is not yet present?

Principle: a necessary condition of the killing of @ is that @ is present (exists).
Corollary: given that @ is not yet present, @ cannot be killed.

————

Human life, as with all life, can be seen as a continuum: a continuous line from conception to death. In principle, all persons can trace their development from the point when an egg was fertilized by a sperm resulting in zygote, which later became an embryo and then a fetus developing to viability, and eventual birth as a human infant.
However, this continuum is not static or uniform. Different kinds of entities exist at different stages. The process is one of growth, development and transformation. An embryo grows and becomes a fetus, which becomes an infant, which becomes a child, and so on. Ordinarily a child will develop into an adult, but disease or accident can kill the child and cancel the emergence of the adult. Suppose the child is killed; surely only from a state of great confusion would one say that the adult was killed. The adult never appeared. How can anyone reasonably say that the adult was killed?
—————–

A moral sleight of hand:
We look back to an earlier stage and attribute to the earlier stage (some of) the properties of the later stage.
“At an early stage of our existence we were fetuses (mere embryos, zygotes, fertilized eggs); so in a sense we are just ‘fully developed fetuses.’
Looking back, we specify a fetus as being not a mere fetus, but the fetus-that-will-develop-into-a-person we love and admire. So, in a sense, we assign the same high value to the fetus that we attribute to the person that we love and admire.

A misconception arises: for the view of a value-laden fetus is not based (as it should be) on recognition of the potential of the fetus, but is based on the erroneous belief that, in some sense, the fetus already possesses that future personhood.

A fetus in retrospection is not seen as a fetus, but is perceived as possessing in some way the attributes of the eventual person. Small wonder that abortion of the fetus is seen as killing of the developed human being.

Remarks about the Philosophy-as-Therapy Idea

One dictionary definition of ‘therapy’ is the treatment of a disease, physical or mental, by medical or physical means, usually excluding surgery. A more general definition refers to ‘therapy’ as the effort to alleviate some disorder, usually mental in some sense, by some use of a therapeutic method or technique. It is doubtful that the study of philosophy is a form of therapy in either of these primary meanings of the term “therapy.” Generally philosophers do not offer treatments for psychological problems; nor are there widely accepted philosophical methods or techniques for treating those who seek therapy. But maybe the case for philosophy as therapy is better when we consider other accepted uses of the term ‘therapy,’ as when one speaks of the therapeutic benefit of a relaxed walk in the woods, or a session of meditation, or a visit to the Grand Canyon, or a conversation with good friends, or from listening to great music or reading our favorite poets. This secondary sense of “therapy” is one that might apply when we consider the question whether philosophy can have therapeutic value.
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The proposition that philosophy can function as a form of therapy brings up two related questions:

1) Can the study of philosophy help a person to improve his thinking and actions, and maybe realizing some version of the ‘good’ life?

2) Can we describe philosophy, as a family of disciplines, as aiming in part to helping individuals deal with suffering, frustration, unhappiness and mild mental disorders; i.e., does the work of philosophers aim at some form of therapy?

My answer is a qualified “yes” to the first, and “no” to the second question. Philosophy is primarily an intellectual discipline, focused on conceptual-theoretical issues, not at all a method of therapy. In its primary function philosophy is not a therapeutic method or practice. However, there are aspects of philosophy, past and present, which allow a more favorable assessment of the therapeutic value of philosophical study for some forms of ‘philosophy’ and for some individual needs.
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Many students and practitioners of philosophy do not associate philosophy with therapy of any kind. I would guess that this is the opinion held by many of my contemporaries, who were trained in philosophy at American colleges and universities back in the 1960-70s decades (my period of formal studies in philosophy at the undergraduate and graduate levels). Our training in philosophy enabled us to teach, analyze, discuss, and write concerning great figures in philosophy, differing schools of philosophy, different issues, problems and persisting questions in philosophy. Among other things, the objective was to familiarize students with the history, the great philosophers, and the persisting questions in philosophy; and eventually to enable students (those who majored in philosophy) to handle philosophical questions in logical and critically-informed ways. Any grading of students’ performance was based on critical, conceptual criteria. Most people did not expect that students would realize some therapeutic value from taking a course in philosophy. If some students did realize some personal, psychological benefit, it was seen as an accidental affect of the course of study, which often resulted in disturbing students more than reassuring them. Generally students did not expect any significant personal improvement or psychological benefit to result from their study of philosophy.
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There are some aspects of the subject of philosophy which suggest the contrary view: that philosophy touches on ‘therapy’ insofar as it has something to do with challenges of living a good life and working toward some form of personal happiness or fulfillment. The famous quote from the great Socrates, “the unexamined life is not worth living,” and his reference to the inscription at Delphi to “know thyself” surely suggest a view of philosophical life which is more than an impersonal study of theories, concepts, and problems. It suggests the life and teachings of Socrates as an example of a life worth living. In addition, the ethical works of Aristotle, which give guidance to a life of ethical excellence and the development of a morally virtuous character, surely seem to imply that philosophy aims not simply at enabling philosophical knowledge but also at instructing us to act well in the world. When we add the reflections of the Stoic philosophers, the ‘consolations’ of Beothius (“.. a just man unjustly suffering is confirmed in his conviction that happiness and fortitude may be found in adversity.” ), and in later period, the rational faith expressed by Spinoza in his Ethics (“to act in conformity with virtue is nothing but acting, living, and preserving our being as reason dictates.”), we see an aspect of traditional philosophy which has much to do with the individual’s attempts to cope with the challenges of life, to find ways handling tragedies and difficulties, and eventually to find the path to personal excellence and fulfillment. Thereby, we can say that some aspects of traditional philosophy in the West appear to support the idea that the practice of philosophy somehow touches on a form of personal therapy. At least this much is true: many figures in the history of Western philosophy have pursued philosophy as a form of life rather than just an academic field of study.

None of this implies that an essential element of the study of philosophy is either a therapeutic method or a form of personal therapy. Some people may realize therapeutic value from such a study, and surely many great figures in history saw philosophy as something directly applicable to the problems of living. But many individuals have studied philosophy and pursued philosophical answers to a variety of philosophical questions in ways that cannot be characterized as therapeutic or applying to problems of living. Of course, much depends on the ‘philosophy’ that one engages; or if you like, the nature of the philosophical task that one takes on. In the area of practical ethics and some aspects of normative ethics, it makes sense to propose that one’s aim is a practical one of specifying the paths to moral virtue and the higher good of human existence. To the extent that one does not merely try to define these, but also tries to put them into practice in one’s own existence, one might approach philosophy as activity having therapeutic value. A fairly recent book by Robert Nozick, The Examined Life, is a good example. But this is only one side of the field of Ethics; other aspects are not much concerned with values of life. Other areas of the philosophical disciplines include logic, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, of mathematics, and analytical, linguistic philosophy. In these areas one is not trying to find the key to better living, but concerned with more conceptual issues. (For example, much of the work in epistemology by John Locke, David Hume and Immanuel Kant; and work in logic, philosophy of math, and philosophy of science by such modern philosophers as Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and the early Wittgenstein.)
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In Western tradition starting in the seventeenth and running through the nineteenth centuries, attention turned to problems related to knowledge, perception, consciousness, and theory of mind with Rene Descartes, through the line of British Empiricists, and given a critical analysis by Immanuel Kant. The student of philosophy working in these areas of epistemology and philosophy of mind did not focus much attention on questions of the good life and ways of attaining it. Contrary to this intellectual concentration, we find the Romantic writers and philosophers emphasizing a more vital perspective of human reality, which could be seen as involving some practices which could be called forms of therapy. We might also mention that philosophies in other cultures, e.g. Asian philosophies, tend to emphasize the themes of wisdom and a life more attuned to higher values and different dimensions of consciousness, rather than focusing attention on the intellectual-conceptual approach dominant in the West.

In English speaking societies, the trend in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was toward the more logical, analytical, ‘scientific’ form of philosophy. Here the natural sciences and mathematics were seen as models for intellectual disciplines. Insofar as English speaking philosophers (in the U.K., in the U.S., Canada and Australia) saw their discipline in this light, the philosophical disciplines are not characterized as a search for wisdom and rules for better living. These simply were not part of the philosophy practiced at many universities.

But the contrary case is evident with respect to schools of philosophy in Europe and South America, where Existentialism and more personally-oriented philosophies are in evidence. Many existentialist philosophers are concerned with the problems of human existence, although they may reject traditional ideas of wisdom and virtue. Insofar as their writing is directed to helping someone (writer, readers) cope with the absurdity, inauthentic values, and lack of integrity in modern life they can be seen as involved in a kind of therapeutic work. The works of philosophers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Miguel de Unamuno, Sartre, and Albert Camus can surely be read in this light. In America, the works of William James, Walter Kaufmann, Robert Nozick, more recently Martin Gardner and Stanley Cavell, reflect a philosophical approach concerned with ‘existential’ issues and thus touch on ways of coping with challenges of life. Philosophy here is not limited to conceptual and theoretical problems, but grapples with issues of living and working our way through the difficulties that life often brings. Hence, some people are inclined to see the work in a therapeutic context.
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Most students of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy are not surprised to hear that some aspects of his work (e.g., in the Philosophical Investigations) can be seen as therapeutic in a philosophical sense. Some of his metaphors and analogies suggest that philosophical reflection of problems of language aim at enabling movement from a state of ‘disorder’ to a ‘healthier’ state. His reference to the need to recognize the extent to which language can “bewitch us,” his reference to philosophical problems as much like “philosophical cramp” that needs relief and his metaphor of “trying to show the fly how to escape the bottle,” all suggest that philosophy can be viewed as a sort of therapy.
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Sometimes we might say that the writer himself (or herself) realizes some ‘therapy’ from his (her) work. A Wittgenstein or a Nietzsche intensely works to relieve some conceptual problem, in some cases, even some mental-spiritual difficulty. Readers or the audience of this effort might also get some help in dealing with their philosophical difficulties.

But does any of this indicate anything more than the fact that some people indulge in some intellectual, literary, or artistic activity — in some cases called a ‘philosophy’ – that has some therapeutic significance? Does it come to anything more than the fact that occasionally one feels better about one’s situation after reading some ‘therapeutic’ writer? Those who promote the idea of philosophy-as-therapy would argue that there is more to it than that; but this does not show that philosophy is a therapy. At best, some aspects of philosophical work may have therapeutic implications. Even those of us who remain skeptical of the idea of philosophy-as-therapy may assent to the qualified idea that some aspects of philosophy can help people to improve their thinking and actions, and thus prove ‘therapeutic’ in this sense.
David's watercolor fish

Some Remarks about the Concept of ‘Belief’

The Spanish Philosopher Miguel de Unamuno once described his approach to philosophy as trying on a glove in different ways, even inside-out, to see how many different ways the glove could be worn. It is in this spirit that I offer my somewhat disconnected thoughts on the concept of ‘belief’: I trying out different perspectives to see how they fit.

William James wrote a well-known essay “The Will to Believe,” in which he defended certain religious belief as compelling even if not rationally grounded beliefs; for example, the decision to belief in God as a vital choice that many persons make, despite lacking good rational grounds to support that belief. We will to believe in God.

In one sense of the term “belief,” what James contends may strike us as being absurd. For in ordinary circumstances our belief that something is such & such (e.g., that it will rain today, or that my car has enough gasoline to get me home) is not a matter of choice or of our willing it, but rather a case in which we base the belief on supporting evidence. Here making a decision to believe irrespective of the evidence could get us in trouble. To the degree that we operate intelligently in the world, we believe that it will rain today based on relevant evidence (heavy storm clouds moving in, or a reliable weather forecast). We believe that the car has enough gasoline to make it home because the fuel tank gauge indicates the tank is half full, and we know that home is only twenty miles away; and half a tank of gasoline is good enough for 150 miles travel. The notion of “will to believe” or freedom of choice with regard to what I believe does not apply here. To operate well in the world, we strive for beliefs that conform to reality. (There is not much room here for “will to believe” or choosing to believe.)

However, Mr. James probably had in mind another sense of the term “belief” when he wrote his famous essay. This is ‘belief’ in the sense of faith or conviction, in which notions of “the will to believe” or “deciding to believe” do apply. The area of religious faith is an obvious case; but first let us try to approach the subject indirectly.

No one has knowledge of what will happen in the future, although sometimes we have some basis for highly probable inferences. Yet we never know for sure, and sometimes don’t even have a clue as to how things will turn out in the future. But we often need to assume a belief (or beliefs) as to what will happen, or at least assume beliefs as to the general pattern of future events. Sometimes we must make a choice as to how we “see” the future. If we tend to be optimists, we choose optimistic beliefs concerning the future; if we tend to be pessimists, we choose less positive beliefs.

In our daily routine, we may come in contact with hundreds of people. We don’t know most of them and really have no evidence for thinking that they are decent, law-abiding people. But in order to carry on with our daily routines and not become paranoid, we work with the belief that, like ourselves, they are decent, law-abiding people.
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Sometimes opting to believe one way or another comes by way of a “working hypothesis”; at this time we have no evidence to support any belief, but we must make a choice in order to get on with what we’re doing.

Suppose we use the terms “faith” and “objective belief” to distinguish between these two kinds of belief. Faith involves the will-to-believe; objective belief does not.

This may help some in our effort to sort through the concept of ‘belief’ in its various uses; but let’s not jump to the conclusion that this distinction tells the whole story. For we must allow that emotion, the desire or will to believe that something is true, sometimes occur with regard to our “objective beliefs”; on the other hand, some people of strong religious faith will find the notion of ‘will to believe’ foreign to their experience of faith, holding instead that they have no choice in matters of religious faith.
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In religion, opting to believe [in God, for example] may or may not be analogous to adopting a working hypothesis. Blaise Pascal may conceive of belief in God as taking the “rational” option; but many other theists will argue that their experience (religious and existential experience) is such that they have no choice on the question of God’s reality.

However, this gives us pause: most people did not originally make a conscious choice to adopt the religious belief they hold. They were born into a “world” of people holding, teaching, and imparting such religious beliefs, and never examined or questioned those beliefs. The religious beliefs just became part of their view of reality.

Nevertheless, for many people religious belief does seem to be in a different category from belief in other contexts. In a religious context, the term “belief” is used more like the term “conviction” or the related term “faith.”

Here the “belief that X” may express a strong conviction (or as some people put it: “a rock-solid conviction.” My belief that X here is not understood as a peripheral claim (tentative, subject to reexamination). It is certainly not a weak epistemic claim, made in place of a stronger claim to know that X. Here my claim that “X is true” functions much like a basic principle that defines and controls my existence. (Let “X” stand for “Jesus is the divine redeemer.”)

Here we might think of an analogy with Thomas Reid’s Principles of Common Sense. Our very existence as social beings demands the reality of the external, material world, even if the skeptic (D. Hume) demonstrates that from a subjective perspective we cannot prove that this belief is true.
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Another way of stating it: In the religious context, belief functions at a primary level —much like a principle or rule of action. It does not function like a weak epistemic claim that needs supporting evidence. The call for supporting evidence is seen as irrelevant.

It is in this context that a proponent of religious faith will say that rational skepticism is “out of order.”

Here one is more likely to “believe in something or someone” as opposed to “believing that such and such.” An example could be “belief in the goodness of human beings.”

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Much of what I believe comes from other people. People whom I admire or whom I recognize as knowledgeable authorities advance arguments and establish certain conclusions, which I accept as my beliefs. (“The belief strikes me as a reasonable one, so I adopt as my belief”).

Much of what we believe comes from familial and cultural conditioning. There is a vast body of beliefs (presuppositions) that forms the basis for our outlook on the world and our acting in the world. Most of us have never examined or evaluated these beliefs. (In what sense are these beliefs subject to choice?)

Intellectual growth and development toward some psychological maturity requires that we rationally evaluate these beliefs that we have inherited. Have we educated ourselves sufficiently to recognize the different features of our body of beliefs?

“I’ll believe what I please!” makes sense in some contexts, but not in others. And here too there will be a matter of degrees.

In some cases, beliefs are much like preferences, as in “I prefer coffee to tea.”
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On the other hand, when we remark that “Based on the evidence, I think he did it,” or “I have good reasons for thinking he did it” we are in the realm of rational belief: I believe it because I have evidence or good reasons for the belief.

By “objective belief” I mean that type of belief that a person holds because evidence or rational considerations, such as perception, factual evidence, logical inference, compel him to hold the belief. Consider, for example, the case of my belief that it will rain because heavy storm clouds are moving this way and reliable meteorological forecasts have predicted rain for today. There’s a sense in which we don’t have a choice in what we belief.

The ideal here is that our beliefs all be well-grounded (rationally well-grounded, that is). The person consciously working to realize this ideal would try to limit his beliefs to those beliefs that are supported by the facts, rational inference or immediate experience. And in those areas where such beliefs are not found, he proceeds hypothetically and experimentally.

In this context, belief that such & such is a weaker epistemic claim than knowledge that such & such. For example, I don’t know that O.J. Simpson killed his wife (in the sense that I would know if I had seen him do it), but I believe he did it (in the sense, I have some evidence that points to his doing it, although it does not prove that he did it). And I believe this only because there is much evidence that points to this as highly probable.

Here we could set up a scale of epistemic weight:

1) I know that X. (We have full, undeniable knowledge)
2) I am sure that X. (I have every reason to believe X and nothing that stands against it.)
3) Probably X. (There is a strong case to be made of X.)
4) I believe that X. (I have some reason for thinking that X. I lean this way.)
5) Possibly X. (X may be true, but we have to look more.)
6) I doubt that X. (There are good reasons against X being true.)
7) I know that not-X. (We have knowledge that X is not the case.)

Only #1 and #7 represent knowledge. The other marks on the scale represent varying degrees of belief, all weaker epistemic claims. We fall back on some form of belief when we lack knowledge or objective certainty.

In this context, my desire or need to believe are irrelevant; the strength of my faith or conviction are irrelevant.
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One attempt to define “knowledge”:
Knowledge obtains when one affirms P (some proposition, e.g., the U.S. is a democracy); and
a) the proposition affirmed (P) is true;
b) there is a rationally relevant basis for affirming ‘P’.

Of course, this applies to propositional knowledge; here we tend to analyze knowledge in terms of belief. However, this is not so obvious the way to break down ‘knowledge’ in cases of knowing by direct acquaintance (as in case of knowing that you’re here because I see you and touch you) or in the case of knowledge that applies when we ‘know how’ to do something. (I know how to ride a bicycle.)
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Don’t let our ‘belief’ expressions mislead you to think that beliefs are independent entities, existing separately from all believers. We might say that a belief is something held by some person; but should not think this implies a special entity ‘belief.’ Beliefs don’t have existence. People exist who think this or that, and hold beliefs.
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Thus, one way of dealing with beliefs leads us toward psychology: an examination of the believer.

We’re probably dealing with different personality types:

1) The rational/scientific type who feels that, as much as possible, our beliefs should be rational, well-grounded beliefs. The important things are acquiring knowledge, understanding, eventually gaining some truth about ourselves and our world, and operating intelligently in this world.

2) The religious type, who feels that the over-riding importance is that our basic beliefs reflect the highest values and convictions that we hold, and that we hold beliefs that will promote the spiritual, moral aspects of our existence. (The over-riding concerns are the kinds of lives we live and, in case of Christians, our personal salvation.)
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What I directly experience compels me to assent. In other cases, an obvious rational inference from the factual evidence compels me to believe. Objective conditions push me one way or the other. In so far as we are conscious, intelligent beings, we are pushed (by objective conditions) to believe one way or another.

When these compelling objective conditions are absent, people respond in different ways, depending on their inclinations:
The rationalist, given to logical/scientific habits of thought, will suspend belief, at most allow himself very tentative hypothesis.
The religious type will adopt some kind of “religious belief,” belief in or faith that works despite the push/pull of objective conditions, or even works in opposition to the “force” of objective conditions.

It is in this context that some people say such things as “Science and rational inquiry do not give us complete knowledge; they leave many gaps. Therefore, we must turn to religious faith to get a complete picture of reality.” Or “Science and rational inquiry takes us only part of the way; to complete the trip, we need to turn to religion.”

It is likely true that everyone has some degree of faith, including the hardest scientists and the strongest skeptic. It is also true that some people use the term “faith” to cover the most irrational fanaticism or the most absurd fantasies. And we have many degrees and gradations in between.

But having faith need not imply that the person of faith embraces irrational fanaticism or childish fantasies.

Is our world a virtual reality?

Do we inhabit a virtual world, a world which our brains create? Many of us would reply in the negative: “No; our world is real and not our invention.” Are the things which we perceive (see, hear, touch) virtual objects? Again, many of us would reply that we perceive real things like trees, dogs, and apples, not virtual objects.

Why bring up such questions? Why should anyone think that we live in a virtual world and perceive virtual objects? Surprisingly a number of people have affirmed such a philosophy and continue to do so. In the world of philosophy nothing should surprise us; but the world of biology should be different, we think. However, the famous evolutionary biologists, Richard Dawkins, in chapter 11 of his book Unweaving the Rainbow, (Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, 1998) seems to adopt this view of things when he claims that we experience a virtual world. When we take what he says seriously, and not as mere metaphors or figurative language, we find that his philosophy presents significant conceptual problems. Consider the following argument:

1) Virtual models constructed by the brain’s simulation software exist in the brain; sometimes Dawkins states this as “in the head.”

“…every species that has a nervous system uses it to construct a model of its own particular world, constrained by continuous updating through the sense organs …. “Our brain constructs a three-dimensional model. It is virtual reality in the head.”

(Unweaving the Rainbow, pages 274, 276)

2) The world that we inhabit and perceptually experience is a virtual world, viz., a world comprised of virtual models constructed by the brain’s simulation software.

“..we humans, we mammals, we animals, inhabit a virtual world, constructed from elements that are, at successively higher levels, useful for representing the real world. Of course, we feel as if we are firmly placed in the real world — which is exactly as it should be if our constrained virtual reality software is any good.

. “ (Ibid.,275)

“We are so used to living in our simulated world and it is kept so beautifully in synchrony with the real world that we don’t realize it is a simulated world.”

(Ibid., pages 279-280)

From (1) and (2) we draw the fantastic inferences:

A) We perceive a “world” that is really only in the brain; and

B) We inhabit a “world” that is really only in the brain.

This, in turn, implies that
we exist only in the brain.

Surely Dawkins does not embrace that proposition. He seems to distance himself from such thinking when he qualifies this ‘thesis,’ which he does by acknowledging the misleading aspect of his talk of virtual reality:

“The metaphor of virtual reality [misleads] us into thinking that there is a “little man’ or ‘homunculus’ in the brain watching the virtual reality show.”

(Ibid., page 283)

This is the misconception that Daniel Dennett warns against and which Dawkins acknowledges as a misconception on page 283.

“The problem arises [when] we take the virtual reality metaphor literally and imagine that some agent locked inside the head is ‘experiencing’ the virtual reality performance.”

(Ibid., page 283)

Dawkins explains that his thesis is a more modest one:

“…that each species, in each situation, needs to deploy its information about the world in whatever way is most useful for taking action. ‘Constructing a model in the head’ is a helpful way to express how it is done, and comparing it to virtual reality is especially helpful in the case of humans.”

(Ibid., 283)

Although this qualification might help somewhat, the problem seems to remain; for Dawkins does not appear to completely disengage from those propositions that imply absurd conclusions. If his reference to “constructing a model in the head” is just a helpful way of explaining human experience, he should have qualified his earlier statements. Instead of the flat statement that “we inhabit and perceive a virtual world” he should have written that it is as if we experienced a virtual reality, given the extent to which our nervous system shapes the reality we experience.

As long as Dawkins holds on to the earlier statement he seems to remain in the grip of a ‘model’ which implies a “homunculus inhabiting the brain and perceiving a virtual world only,” despite his recognition of the conceptual problem that all this involves.

Moreover, all this talk about virtual or simulated worlds in the brain (or in the head) suggests that that we don’t experience a public world, a common framework that human beings share. Virtual world talk implies that I don’t share the simulated world in your head, nor do you share the simulated world in my head. Isn’t it a mystery how these separate worlds seem to intersect? Of course we don’t need to introduce such a mystery. The obvious and reasonable assumption is that we share a common framework, i.e., the real world, a public world as opposed to a private, simulated world constructed by the brain inside the brain. As the English philosopher D.W. Hamlyn tells us in his book, A Theory of Knowledge (1970), a common, public framework must be our starting point, if there’s to be any intelligible discourse at all. Simulated, virtual worlds existing inside individual’s skulls do not give us such common framework, although reference to such a ‘model’ might help to highlight how much brain contributes to ‘color’ the world that we perceive. Surely Dawkins does not mean to deny all this. Most likely he just got carried away with his metaphors, analogies, and “poetic science.”

His qualification of his “model” (see Unweaving the Rainbow, page 283) suggests that by referring to the workings of the nervous system (sense organ, brain, simulation software, virtual models), Dawkins is simply explaining how it is possible that animals (including humans) acquire (through perception) enough information about the world in order to negotiate successfully through that world. The world here is the objective, public world, the real world that we all share despite the earlier statements by Dawkins to the contrary.

References:
D.W. Hamlyn, The Theory of Knowledge, (1970, Doubleday)
George Pitcher, A theory of perception, (1971, Princeton Univ. Press)
Perceive, Sensing, and Knowing, (1965, Doubleday) edited by Robert J. Swartz

Are moderates the real obstacles to social justice and religious freedom?

“A man on a mission has no time for moderation or for moderates.”

Regardless of the cause (political, religious, anti-religious, racial justice), people dedicated to the fight and willing to put themselves on the line tend to be critical of the moderates, who often advise patience, compromise, and negotiation. I was reminded of this when my study group chose to read and discuss Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” (This was an open letter written on April 16, 1963.) In that letter, while defending the acts of civil disobedience by himself and his organization, King expresses some surprisingly harsh criticism of religious and political moderates. His criticism of moderates reminded me of a similar type of strong criticism of the moderates by the so-called neo-atheistic writers, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett. In their recent best-sellers, Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett call on atheists and non-religious folk to show courage in asserting their atheism in the face of the strong theistic, religious culture in the US.

Why do these activists and “crusaders” direct so much criticism against the person of moderation, since many of us hold that moderation is a virtue. Recall Aristotle’s ethics and the ethics of the Stoics which advocate a life of balance and moderation in all things. Isn’t moderation usually a good thing?

Of course it stands to reason that activists, missionaries, and crusaders-for-a-cause tend to dismiss the moderate as little more than an obstacle in their struggle. However, most people will admit that in some situations moderation is a good thing, as when passion and greed dispose people to do stupid and destructive things. However, when the context is one of fighting for social justice or religious freedom for secular-minded people, calls for moderation are heard as obstacles rather than assets to the cause. At least, this is what Martin Luther King held with regard to the struggle for civil rights and what the neo-atheistic activists seem to believe in their effort to bring about equal rights of secular-minded people.

Let’s consider some specific points of this rejection of moderation. First, consider some of what Martin Luther King wrote:

….over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice

King’s problem with the moderates is that they counsel patience and advise the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season,” when in fact the time of waiting has ended and action is demanded. As he saw things, the moderate may say that he agrees with the goal of racial justice, but he “paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.” In other words, moderates are quite willing to counsel patience when it is another people’s freedom that is at stake. King expresses his growing frustration with the moderates:

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

He was so frustrated and bewildered by the moderates’ failure to understand the gravity of the situation for the Negro that he was tempted to express preference for the outright rejection and opposition from the segregationists. Furthermore, King implied that white moderates do not understand that

“law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.”

In other words, the white moderates did not understand that the movement for social justice requires that those tensions that lie hidden in respectable society be exposed, and that this cannot be done without the pressure and tension created by active defiance of unjust laws.

King implied that the moderate preferred that everything be done quietly and peacefully; but years of trying to do things quietly and peacefully had produced nothing but a continuation of segregation and racial injustice. Because the moderate did not understand this or lacked the courage to acknowledge this, he was as great an obstacle to the fight for justice and civil rights as the racists and segregationists. We can almost imagine Dr. King asserting that moderates lacked the understanding and courage required for reliable allies in the fight for justice. Either they should recognize the urgency of the situation and join in the fight, or get out of the way; because, as moderates they were not helping at all.

Now let us look at what neo-atheistic authors have to say about moderates. Generally, the argument is that that people of moderate religious faith, by their acceptance of a scripture containing barbaric ‘morality’ (which endorses all kinds of violence and injustice), enable the fanatics of that faith to carry out their violence and extremism. To my knowledge it was Sam Harris, writing in his book, The End of Faith (W W Norton & Co. – New York, NY, 2004, “Religion, Terror, and The Future of Reason” who initiated the current discussion of the ‘responsibility’ that moderates bear for the actions of the extremists. On page 45 of that book Harris writes as follows:

“We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism; rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself. Religious moderates are, in large part, responsible for the religious conflicts in our world, because their beliefs provide the context in which scriptural literalism and religious violence can never be adequately opposed.”

(Ibid., page 45)

It is Harris’s style in this book to exaggerate things. Moderates may share responsibility for the actions of their more extreme brethren, but it surely overstates things to refer to this as the / greatest problem confronting civilization.” It doesn’t take much imagination to find much greater problems that confront civilization. But first let’s look at what the others have to say.

The evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, includes a section with the heading: “How moderation in faith fosters extremism.” (Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, 2006, page 301) In this section, Dawkins does not offer any argument for the claim that moderation fosters extremism. He seems to assume that any kind of religious faith, because it does not require rational justification, encourages fanaticism. As he states it,

“.. even mild and moderate religion helps to provide the climate of faith in which extremism naturally flourishes.”

(Ibid. page 302)

The third neo-atheistic writer, the philosopher Daniel Dennett, tends to be more careful in his remarks; but even Dennett, in his book, Breaking the Spell, states the case against religious moderates:

“Every religion … has a healthy population of ecumenical-minded people who are eager to reach out to people of other faiths, or no faith at all, and consider the moral quandaries of the world on a rational basis. . . . …but these well-intentioned and energetic people are singularly ineffective in dealing with the more radical members of their own faiths. In many instances, they are, rightly, terrified of them. Moderate Muslims have so far been utterly unable to turn the tide of Islamic opinion against Wahhabists and other extremists, but moderate Christians and Jews and Hindus have been equally feckless in countering the outrageous demands and acts of their own radical elements.”

(Breaking the Spell, Viking Penguin, 2006, New York, NY, page 297-298)

Dennett tells us that moderates are not only ineffective in shutting down the extremist elements in their religion, but that “the moderates in all religions are being used by the fanatics and should not only resent this; they should take whatever steps they can find to curtail it in their own tradition.” (Ibid. page 300)

So we see, Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett claim that moderate people of faith (Christians, Jews, and especially Muslims) do not do enough (even do not do anything) to shut down the fanatics in their ranks. Those fanatics are pretty much unopposed when they resort to violence in the name of religion. Our neo-atheists even claim that because moderates fail to condemn and rein in the extremists, they (the moderates) are complicit in the violence carried out by the fanatics.

In my view, this is too harsh a criticism of the moderates of the Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Many of them in their own way criticize and work against excesses of the extremists among them. Among these we could include such people as Barry Lynn (Americans United for Separation of Church and State), Cesar Chavez, Bill Moyers, President Jimmy Carter, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Buber, some of the Hebrew Prophets, and Jewish Talmudic scholars. We can even include Martin Luther King in this grouping. These people have actively opposed the advocates of scriptural literalism that justifies violence against those of other faiths or no religious faith at all; these people have actively fought for social justice and against all forms of chauvinism, including religious chauvinism. They are representative of many religious moderates and do not at all resemble the “allies of fanatics” that Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett describe.

But my main point was to compare the frustration with moderates expressed by Dr. Martin Luther King and by the neo-atheists. King held that religious moderates, presumably white moderates but probably black moderates as well, were obstacles to the mission of the civil rights movement. He went as far as to express a preference for the outright opposition of the segregationist to the lukewarm, ineffective ‘support’ of the moderates. Likewise, the frustration of the neo-atheists with religious moderates often was expressed in exaggerated terms: religious moderates do not just tolerate the violent religious extremists but often are so ineffective and cowardly that they’re seen as giving moral support to extremist acts.

Since I see King’s mission as a clear case of a fight for social and racial justice, I’m more inclined to sympathize with his criticism of the moderates. Clearly black people had waited long enough for racial justice and were more than justified in acting, even if that action was disobedience of law and resulted in violence.

The case of the atheists, while being a fight for religious freedom, is not so clearly a mission for social justice. Atheists surely do not enjoy political equality with believers in our society; the media and the general public hold false and very distorted notions about atheists. In the past this has resulted in a lay-low attitude by many atheists; they don’t go around touting their atheism. Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris are correct in calling for a better deal for atheists; but the plight of atheists does not at all compare with the plight of black people leading up to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Atheists do not suffer anything close to the social and political injustice imposed on black people.

On the issue of the role of moderates, we can easily understand Dr King’s frustration with moderates who urged that blacks show more patience and wait for society to change and accept them as full-fledged citizens. They had waited long enough and segregated society in the South showed few signs of any progress toward racial equality. But the claim that religious moderates are similar obstacles to the rights of atheists is not at all a clear one and convincing one. As anyone who has followed the debate in the secular community can attest, many atheists, agnostics, humanists, and assorted non-believers do not agree with the claims of Harris, Dawkins, and Dennett on this specific issue. For many of us, religious moderates are effective allies in the fight for religious freedom, not ‘obstacles’ in any sense of the term.

Philosophical Jokes and Embellishments

Most people are surprised to hear there’s such a thing as philosophical humor, since most philosophy and philosophers, with a few exceptions, seem humorless. Well, it may just be a way of keeping their sanity, but some people in philosophy do have a sense of humor and can poke fun at themselves. Here I offer a few examples of philosophical humor, with some embellishment to bring out the more subtle points of each joke. (These are jokes that have been floating around the philosophy-blogosphere; their original authorship is mostly unknown.)

I do not suggest that most readers of this blog need help understanding the point of the joke. I’m sure that most of you do not. But I feel that even philosophical jokes have multiple levels of meaning and can be instructive. (Hopefully this is not a case of someone elaborating a joke to make it humorless!)
Look for the bracketed commentary: [xx]

First I have a set of fairly obvious jokes that don’t require much elaboration. But being an incurable elaborator, I shall elaborate a little.

Easy & Obvious Jokes:

Dean, to the physics department: “Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff? Why couldn’t you be like the math department? All they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets? Or even better, why aren’t you like the philosophy department? All they need are pencils and paper.”

[In Mathematics they keep only that work which passes muster, theorems which can be proved. The rest is thrown in the waste basket. But in philosophy everything is kept; nothing is rejected as unworthy of attention. Nothing is thrown away, so there’s no need for waste baskets.
Actually this is a bit unfair to the discipline of philosophy. All ideas and theories might be discussed; but some are rejected in favor of others which stand the tests of logic, reason, and evidence better. But it is true that philosophy lacks the clear criteria of proof that’s found in mathematics and the general methodology of the sciences; and too much attention is devoted to ideas and theories which should have been discarded.]
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The First Law of Philosophy: For every philosopher, there exists an equal and opposite philosopher.
The Second Law of Philosophy: They’re both wrong.

[This plays on the principle of dynamic physics that each action has an equal reaction, and pokes fun at the fact that for every philosophical proposition one can find a contrary proposition, and for every philosophical theory and equal, opposing theory. Philosophical disagreements seem without end; and most often there are no clear and objective criteria for evaluating those competing theories. In so far as philosophical consensus is lacking, all philosophical theories are wrong, but philosophers never seem to stop talking. This is often the criticism that scientists bring against philosophy. There’s some truth to it; but it tends to over-simply the issues. Consensus among scientific and mathematical professionals is not as pure and complete as they like to believe; and philosophers are not completely lost in a maze of competing ideas and theories. Philosophers actually manage to reach some agreement, make some progress on specific issues, and make positive contributions to a number of other disciplines, including science and mathematics.]

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What is Mind? It does not matter.
What is Matter? Never mind.

[Bertrand Russell attributed this one to his grandmother, in his autobiography. It’s a good rejoinder to the classical metaphysical propositions asserting the dual nature of reality: mental and material. Much time, effort, and print have been expended by philosophers in trying to state the nature of matter and mind, and the relation between the two realms. This is a problem best left to the relevant sciences, which have made great progress in providing meaningful answers. On the contrary, metaphysical speculation seems to go nowhere. Hence, many of us are inclined to repeat the response to the metaphysical question: it doesn’t matter and never mind!]
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The second set is a little more demanding. My exposition might have a point here.

Moderate Difficulty:

A man was walking in the mountains just enjoying the scenery when he stepped too close to the edge of the mountain and started to fall. In desperation he reached out and grabbed a limb of a gnarly old tree hanging onto the side of the cliff. Full of fear he assessed his situation. He was about 100 feet down a shear cliff and about 900 feet from the floor of the canyon below. If he should slip again he’d plummet to his death.

Full of fear, he cries out, “Help me!”

But there was no answer. Again and again he cried out but to no avail.

Finally he yelled, “Is anybody up there?”

A deep voice replied, “Yes, I’m up here.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s the Lord”
“Can you help me?”
“Yes, I can help.”
“Help me!”
“Let go.”
Looking around the man became full of panic. “What?!?!”
“Let go. I will catch you.”

“Uh… Is there anybody else up there?

[Here we have the “test of faith.” In this case, the desperate man was not sure that should he let go he would be saved from sure death by the Lord. He may not even have been sure that the voice which responded to his cry for help was that of the Lord. The man lacks faith in the Lord, or at least in the presence of the Lord. Like many of us, he wants some empirical evidence of an effective rescuer. He could be a rational skeptic, unlike the man of faith who is prepared to make Kierkegaard’s leap of faith despite it’s having no rational grounds at all. Do we let go and trust in God or do we ask whether there’s “anybody else up there”? Most of us secular-minded types would continue yelling for help.]
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A very religious man lived right next door to an atheist. While the religious man prayed day in, day out, and was constantly on his knees in communion with his Lord, the atheist never even looked twice at a church. However, the atheist’s life was good, he had a well-paying job and a beautiful wife, and his children were healthy and good-natured, whereas the pious man’s job was strenuous and his wages were low, his wife was getting fatter every day and his kids wouldn’t give him the time of the day.

So one day, deep in prayer as usual, he raised his eyes towards heaven and asked, “Oh God, I honor you every day, I ask your advice for every problem and confess to you my every sin. Yet my neighbor, who doesn’t even believe in you and certainly never prays, seems blessed with every happiness, while I go poor and suffer many an indignity. Why is this?”

And a great voice was heard from above,
BECAUSE HE DOESN’T BOTHER ME ALL THE TIME!”

[The heathen and non-believers among us love this one. People of religions faith, not so much. But the joke also oversimplifies the faith of religious folks. Many of them do not see their faith as a prudent one which will yield good material results in this life. This is not why they value their faith in God. But some do. I have occasionally joked that if God exists, he would prefer skeptics and atheists to the pious folks. The latter tend to bother him with their petitions and adorations. On the other hand, the skeptics and non-believers tend to be more interesting and entertaining for Him. He prefers a good game of chess to the constant “hosanna” from the pious believers. After all, eternity is a long, long time; and things can get boring even for God.]

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When I was young I badly wanted a new, red, Schwinn bicycle in the local store window. But my parents were poor and could not afford to buy it for me. So, being a good Catholic, I recited special prayers each night for that bicycle. After months of diligent praying and not getting my bike, I set aside my prayers and thought long and hard on the problem. Finally I realized that God doesn’t work that way. I had to get the bicycle myself. So after carefully planning my move so as not to get caught, I stole that beautiful, Schwinn bicycle. Then I prayed to God for forgiveness.

[Are prayers answered? It depends on the prayer. How does God work? In mysterious ways, of course. Because of my history of poverty and longing for shiny, new bicycles -- which I never got -- I really enjoyed this one. I was a Catholic kid, but not able to improvise as the boy in this story. It was only after seeing this joke that I really understood that old bumper sticker that many Christians had on their cars: “CHRISTIANS ARE NOT PERFECT, JUST FORGIVEN.” Part of Christian teaching is that the redemptive work of Christ is necessary because humans are weak and cannot avoid sin. Humans need the grace that comes from Christ in order to be saved. Good works alone are insufficient; you need faith, grace, and forgiveness from God. The boy in the story realized this quite well, and got his bicycle in the bargain!]
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Overheard outside the lecture hall: I passed my ethics exam today. I cheated!

[Cheating on an ethics exam? Isn’t that a paradox? Didn’t the course teach that student anything? These are questions that we raise when we think of a course in ethics as providing some moral training, or at least raising the moral consciousness of the students. Seeing an ethics course in this light, we would not expect a student to cheat on his exam. But this assumes too much. A course in ethics most often is a course in ethical theories and principles. The exercises of the course are intellectual ones; not ones in moral training. If students gain in moral consciousness, it is a side product of their primary lessons. Likely, those students who do well in the exam demonstrate only some intellectual progress, and not necessarily moral progress. But most people continue to think that an academic course in ethics does involve some form of moral training or moral awakening. Hence, the statement above sounds funny and paradoxical.]
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A philosophy professor walks in to give his class their final. Placing his chair on his desk the professor instructs the class, “Using every applicable thing you’ve learned in this course, prove to me that this chair DOES NOT EXIST.”
So, pencils are writing and erasers are erasing, students are preparing to embark on novels proving that this chair doesn’t exist, except for one student. He spends thirty seconds writing his answer, then quickly turns in his final to the astonishment of his peers.
Time goes by, and the day comes when all the students get their final grades…and to the amazement of the class, the student who only wrote for thirty seconds gets the highest grade in the class.
His answer to the question: “What chair?”

[This is a clever one. How do you prove that something, like the chair on the desk, does not exist? Simply asking “what chair?” does not prove anything. So there’s more going on here.
All philosophy students know that one way to question ordinary existence of something is to focus on the meaning of “exists.” What do we mean when we affirm that X exists? Well, if X is there before me, and I can see and touch it, it exists. But what if I don’t perceive it? Most of us would reply, well you need to get your perceptual faculties checked; because the chair is there on the professor’s desk, whether you see it or not. But some philosophers have argued in favor of the counter-intuitive proposition that “to be is to be perceived” (Bishop Berkeley: esse est percipi). “To exist” is defined as “to be perceived.” The bright and quick student was probably applying this Berkeleian principle in his answer: What chair? I see no chair; therefore it does not exist. This was an exercise in Berkeley’s Idealism.]
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The jokes in the third set are such that you must be familiar with some of what philosophers say and do to get the full implication of the joke.

For the sophisticated:

A boy is about to go on his first date, and is nervous about what to talk about. He asks his father for advice. The father replies: “My son, there are three subjects that always work. These are food, family, and philosophy.”
The boy picks up his date and they go to a soda fountain. Ice cream sodas in front of them, they stare at each other for a long time, as the boy’s nervousness builds. He remembers his father’s advice, and chooses the first topic. He asks the girl: “Do you like potato pancakes?” She says “No,” and the silence returns.
After a few more uncomfortable minutes, the boy thinks of his father’s suggestion and turns to the second item on the list. He asks, “Do you have a brother?” Again, the girl says “No” and there is silence once again.
The boy then plays his last card. He thinks of his father’s advice and asks the girl the following question:
“If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?”

[It is hard to say whether the young man impressed his date. Likely not, and if she agreed to see him again, he would be advised to abandon the philosophical tactic. But his hypothetical statement about a hypothetical brother directs attention to the way that philosophers and writers often proceed. In order to explore an issue they often set up hypothetical situations and try to learn the implications: if Jesus did return and tried to help the poor, downtrodden people, what would religious leaders do? (Dostoevsky takes up this hypothetical in his great novel, The Brothers Karamazov, and concludes that Jesus would be imprisoned as a troublemaker.)

Bertrand Russell and G. Frege present the following hypothetical: Suppose there’s a barber in the village who shaves every man who does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself? Yes, then he does not. No, then he does. This is a little puzzle in formal logic.

By analogy, does the non-existent brother like potato pancakes? We can excuse the girl if she ended that first date early.

Philosophers dealing with the logic of language often assert counter-factuals (contrary to fact situations) and try to draw the relevant implications. A recent example of the statement: “The current king of France is bald.” Do we say that this statement is false or true? If false, then it follows that the king has a full head of hair, which in turn implies the false statement that he exists. If we say that it is true, then the false statement follows that a bald fellow exists and is currently the king of France. The original statement is a coherent one which is either true or false; but either evaluating it as true or as false entails a falsehood. So we’re stuck and don’t know what to say about that perfectly coherent proposition: “The king of France is bald.” Hence, the paradox of the counter-factual proposition.]

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Descartes is sitting in a bar, having a drink. The bartender asks him if he would like another. “I think not,” he says and vanishes in a puff of logic.

[Most students of philosophy recognized this one as playing on Descartes famous Cogito, ergo sum argument: I think, therefore I am. In other words, given that I have some conscious thought (even a state of doubt), I exist as a thinking being. Then if you deny the antecedent, denial of the consequent seems to follow. I do not think, thus I do not exist. However, this is a logical fallacy, as anyone who has had a basic course in logic knows; and it is not clear that Descartes ever asserted denial of the antecedent of his Cogito argument. The joke is good in that it stimulates some thinking about Descartes’ tactics in his famous work.]
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The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre was in a café working at his craft when a waitress approached him: “Can I get you something to drink, Monsieur Sartre?”

Sartre replied, “Yes, I’d like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream”.

Nodding agreement, the waitress walked off to fill the order and Sartre returned to his writing. A few minutes later, however, the waitress returned and said, “I’m sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream — how about with no milk?”

[This is a subtle one, folks. It requires reference to one theme of Sartre’s philosophy, that of the concept of ‘nothing’ in his work Being and Nothingness. Sartre, along with some of the Germans, e.g. Martin Heidegger, often wrote of nothing as if it were a something. If you delve into certain styles of metaphysics and theology, you will find the writer talking about nothingness as if it constituted a special category of reality. It is in this spirit that we should interpret the waitresses question: “We’re out of cream, how about coffee with no milk?”
We ordinary mortals might think that coffee without cream is exactly the same as coffee without milk: namely, black coffee. However, those philosophers who probe deep reality will argue that ‘no cream’ signifies a different reality from ‘no milk.’ Maybe the joke is on them.

With apologies to Lewis Carroll: Nobody unlocked the doors to the office this morning. Nobody must have the keys to the office. How did he get them? That person, nobody, surely gets around! ---- Maybe I’m missing something about the Heideggerian-Sartrean style of metaphysics!]
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