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So, i'm reading Stephen Baxter's Manifold Time, and it's okay, not great, not horrible. Towards the outset of this book the protagonist is introduced to, and convinced by, the Doomsday Argument, which holds that we consistently underestimate the likelihood of human extinction in the near future and that we have 150-220 years to live. ( Read more... )
Or, to summarize it even more succinctly (again adapting from anthropic-principle.com), based on the principles of statistics you should not expect to be one of the very first or very last human beings who ever lived. Other things equal, you should expect to find yourself to be among the middle 95%. At present, the human population of Earth comprises 15% of all the humans who have ever lived. Assuming that the population will continue to double every 20-25 years, as time passes you and i each slide out further from the statistical norm on the bell curve of historical human population. If humanity thrives for another million years, then you and i will have "self-sampled" to find ourselves in a statistically unlikely place on the bell curve.
IOW, based on a bundle of statistical laws and categorizations some philosophers claim they can predict with near certainty that humanity will go extinct in the next 200 years, even without stipulating a mechanism by which this may occur.
As Nick Bostrom, who compiled anthropic-principle.com admits, most people when exposed to this argument have an intuitive sense that it is wrong. He's complied a long list of arguments demonstrating why he thinks the Doomsday Argument (which he does not seem to personally believe, BTW) is not so easy to refute or dismiss.
But i think it doesn't hold water, and here's why. It is a case of inductive reasoning run amok, and all of the arguments for it and against it all play by the rules, by implicit agreement to accept certain frames and limitations on our conceptualizations. IOW they contain a hidden agenda. Western philosophers spend a lot of time dealing with "paradoxes" like this because they cannot rid themselves of troublesome arguments like this one, or the Simulation Argument which bears many similarities, or the Goedel Incompleteness Theorems, or the Hard Problem of Consciousness, and so on, without questioning the couch-cushion fort of conceptualizations and abstractions they've built up around themselves and upon which their livelihoods depend.
First (not stepping entirely outside the philosophical box but stretching it a little) i contest this idea of "all the humans who will ever live" as an easily-delineated set. Each one of us as individuals exists as a special case, born with unique DNA bearing variations on themes of the DNA of previous organisms. Each one of us has mutations in our DNA and so we are part of a continuum of evolution. It is not "humanity" that will live for millions of years, because the descendants of this generation will continue to evolve and will at some point, which may or may not be easily discernable, constitute one or more new species. If our descendants take to the stars and eventually inhabit the entire galaxy, it is likely that they will branch out into hundreds or thousands of new species. Some branches of this evolution may even be consciously guided by genetic engineering. Will such people still be "humanity," for the purposes of this thought experiment, as we now know it?
[I suspect this may be the direction Baxter is actually going in his book, but if you know don't tell me, i'm only 100 pages in.]
Secondly (and this is where my objection really begins) this notion that we can self-sample to find our location on an indexical continuum of "all the humans who will ever live" is based on an unspoken but assumed body-soul duality. It assumes that there is something special about humanity, that at some very clear point we stopped being "mere beasts" and became "humans with souls" qualitatively distinguishable from the beasts around us.
Suppose that instead of seeing myself as "one of a finite number of beings with souls" i see myself as a little bit of the universe folded on itself in a particular way, a unique unfolding of the holomovement renewed in every instant. What i see as "me" is a persistent pattern of unfoldings associated with a subjective consciousness. I exist in the now, and any human being who perceives and contemplates the mystery of their existence will be, similarly, a little bit of the universe folded on itself.
Taken this way, there is no logical imperative for me to see myself as a member of any given indexical continuum. If i were to self-sample and place myself on an indexical continuum of "all the humans who will ever live," why not "all the organisms who will ever live" or "all the conscious unfoldings that will ever perceive themselves to exist"? Why must i necessarily interpret my understanding of myself qua humanhood? The only answer is that the argument presumes there to be something special about the experience of "what it is like to be human" that indicates a meaningful and unique divergence from all other kinds of system... IOW a presumption analogous to saying that humans have souls and other beings do not (or do not at least have souls like ours).
Or, to summarize it even more succinctly (again adapting from anthropic-principle.com), based on the principles of statistics you should not expect to be one of the very first or very last human beings who ever lived. Other things equal, you should expect to find yourself to be among the middle 95%. At present, the human population of Earth comprises 15% of all the humans who have ever lived. Assuming that the population will continue to double every 20-25 years, as time passes you and i each slide out further from the statistical norm on the bell curve of historical human population. If humanity thrives for another million years, then you and i will have "self-sampled" to find ourselves in a statistically unlikely place on the bell curve.
IOW, based on a bundle of statistical laws and categorizations some philosophers claim they can predict with near certainty that humanity will go extinct in the next 200 years, even without stipulating a mechanism by which this may occur.
As Nick Bostrom, who compiled anthropic-principle.com admits, most people when exposed to this argument have an intuitive sense that it is wrong. He's complied a long list of arguments demonstrating why he thinks the Doomsday Argument (which he does not seem to personally believe, BTW) is not so easy to refute or dismiss.
But i think it doesn't hold water, and here's why. It is a case of inductive reasoning run amok, and all of the arguments for it and against it all play by the rules, by implicit agreement to accept certain frames and limitations on our conceptualizations. IOW they contain a hidden agenda. Western philosophers spend a lot of time dealing with "paradoxes" like this because they cannot rid themselves of troublesome arguments like this one, or the Simulation Argument which bears many similarities, or the Goedel Incompleteness Theorems, or the Hard Problem of Consciousness, and so on, without questioning the couch-cushion fort of conceptualizations and abstractions they've built up around themselves and upon which their livelihoods depend.
First (not stepping entirely outside the philosophical box but stretching it a little) i contest this idea of "all the humans who will ever live" as an easily-delineated set. Each one of us as individuals exists as a special case, born with unique DNA bearing variations on themes of the DNA of previous organisms. Each one of us has mutations in our DNA and so we are part of a continuum of evolution. It is not "humanity" that will live for millions of years, because the descendants of this generation will continue to evolve and will at some point, which may or may not be easily discernable, constitute one or more new species. If our descendants take to the stars and eventually inhabit the entire galaxy, it is likely that they will branch out into hundreds or thousands of new species. Some branches of this evolution may even be consciously guided by genetic engineering. Will such people still be "humanity," for the purposes of this thought experiment, as we now know it?
[I suspect this may be the direction Baxter is actually going in his book, but if you know don't tell me, i'm only 100 pages in.]
Secondly (and this is where my objection really begins) this notion that we can self-sample to find our location on an indexical continuum of "all the humans who will ever live" is based on an unspoken but assumed body-soul duality. It assumes that there is something special about humanity, that at some very clear point we stopped being "mere beasts" and became "humans with souls" qualitatively distinguishable from the beasts around us.
Suppose that instead of seeing myself as "one of a finite number of beings with souls" i see myself as a little bit of the universe folded on itself in a particular way, a unique unfolding of the holomovement renewed in every instant. What i see as "me" is a persistent pattern of unfoldings associated with a subjective consciousness. I exist in the now, and any human being who perceives and contemplates the mystery of their existence will be, similarly, a little bit of the universe folded on itself.
Taken this way, there is no logical imperative for me to see myself as a member of any given indexical continuum. If i were to self-sample and place myself on an indexical continuum of "all the humans who will ever live," why not "all the organisms who will ever live" or "all the conscious unfoldings that will ever perceive themselves to exist"? Why must i necessarily interpret my understanding of myself qua humanhood? The only answer is that the argument presumes there to be something special about the experience of "what it is like to be human" that indicates a meaningful and unique divergence from all other kinds of system... IOW a presumption analogous to saying that humans have souls and other beings do not (or do not at least have souls like ours).
meaning is not profitable
Sep. 12th, 2006 04:43 pmLast week, the British Association for the Advancement of Science opened the floor to Rupert Sheldrake, a controversial researcher who two decades ago proposed the theory of morphic fields (essentially an entirely new scientific paradigm). Recently he's been investigating "the sense of being stared at" and other odd "coincidences."
In front of this prestigious gathering, Sheldrake presented evidence on the phenomenon of thinking about someone, and then getting a call from that person:
This is not the first time scientists have attempted to explore meaningful coincidence. Carl Jung worked with physicist Wolfgang Pauli to design ways to test Jung's notion of 'synchronicity,' an "acausal connective principle."
This is not, though, a topic which researchers will ever make much inroads into by way of the scientific method, because meaning is not inherently repeatable from one researcher to the next.
Meaning cannot be quantified, and, more than that, meaning cannot be commodified. We have a culture industry which produces entertainment product, and a religion industry which produces a mass-marketable form of religion. Like bread made from "enriched bleached flour," this is bland consumable stuff which is as devoid of meaning as it is possible -- because meaning is threatening to the status quo. The formulaic entertainment and doctrine favored by the seekers of profit is almost utterly devoid of nuance. In the commodified version of the world there are 'good guys' who wear white hats and 'bad guys' with facial scars who sneer, and at the end the good guy defeats the bad guy and the world is saved.
A world without "good guys vs. bad guys" is not too difficult to imagine, because all we have to do is think about the conflicts we see in our own lives. In some cases, you have people who are clearly wrong; but in most cases, each person involved with a conflict is right in some ways and wrong in others. And our habit of looking for a side to take means that someone's rightness gets trampled on in the process.
So long as this is the accepted way of handling disputes there can be no justice.
Science is a microcosm of the pattern in our society whereby the difficult voices are marginalized for the "better good." And in the shadow of science's great successes -- feats of engineering which have proven very profitable -- lie questions about meaning which have been cast aside.
Seekers of profit encourage a kind of myopia regarding the connections between things. They want us to focus on the details instead of looking at the big picture, at the ways in which all aspects of human society are interconnected. These are meaningful; they are not profitable. It is no mistake that scientific advance has led to the march of global warming and the nuclear arms race. Science has not been merely a hapless tool of dictators; it has been poisoned by profit, and is thereby a willing participant in the quest to drive meaning out of human discourse.
ETA: Lest this itself be an "us vs. them" i will add a reminder that as an employee in a capitalist society i am one of the "seekers of profit" and so any awareness i have of this "meaning myopia" occurs in spite of my life and my culture, and even my own tendencies to want to see things without nuance, to seek the easy solution to every dilemma. Evidence that i do not always succeed can be readily found in my journal.
In front of this prestigious gathering, Sheldrake presented evidence on the phenomenon of thinking about someone, and then getting a call from that person:
Over the past few years, with the help of my research associate, Pam Smart, I have investigated telephone telepathy experimentally in hundreds of controlled trials. Volunteers were asked to give us the names and telephone numbers of four people they knew well. During the test session, the subject was videotaped continuously sitting by a landline telephone. We selected one of the callers at random by the throw of a die. We then asked that person to call the subject. When the telephone rang, the participant guessed who was calling before lifting the receiver. The guess was either right or wrong.
By chance, participants would have been right about one time in four. In fact, 45 per cent of the guesses were correct. This research has been replicated at the University of Amsterdam, again with positive results.
from Gosh, I was just thinking about you
This is not the first time scientists have attempted to explore meaningful coincidence. Carl Jung worked with physicist Wolfgang Pauli to design ways to test Jung's notion of 'synchronicity,' an "acausal connective principle."
This is not, though, a topic which researchers will ever make much inroads into by way of the scientific method, because meaning is not inherently repeatable from one researcher to the next.
Meaning cannot be quantified, and, more than that, meaning cannot be commodified. We have a culture industry which produces entertainment product, and a religion industry which produces a mass-marketable form of religion. Like bread made from "enriched bleached flour," this is bland consumable stuff which is as devoid of meaning as it is possible -- because meaning is threatening to the status quo. The formulaic entertainment and doctrine favored by the seekers of profit is almost utterly devoid of nuance. In the commodified version of the world there are 'good guys' who wear white hats and 'bad guys' with facial scars who sneer, and at the end the good guy defeats the bad guy and the world is saved.
A world without "good guys vs. bad guys" is not too difficult to imagine, because all we have to do is think about the conflicts we see in our own lives. In some cases, you have people who are clearly wrong; but in most cases, each person involved with a conflict is right in some ways and wrong in others. And our habit of looking for a side to take means that someone's rightness gets trampled on in the process.
So long as this is the accepted way of handling disputes there can be no justice.
Science is a microcosm of the pattern in our society whereby the difficult voices are marginalized for the "better good." And in the shadow of science's great successes -- feats of engineering which have proven very profitable -- lie questions about meaning which have been cast aside.
Seekers of profit encourage a kind of myopia regarding the connections between things. They want us to focus on the details instead of looking at the big picture, at the ways in which all aspects of human society are interconnected. These are meaningful; they are not profitable. It is no mistake that scientific advance has led to the march of global warming and the nuclear arms race. Science has not been merely a hapless tool of dictators; it has been poisoned by profit, and is thereby a willing participant in the quest to drive meaning out of human discourse.
ETA: Lest this itself be an "us vs. them" i will add a reminder that as an employee in a capitalist society i am one of the "seekers of profit" and so any awareness i have of this "meaning myopia" occurs in spite of my life and my culture, and even my own tendencies to want to see things without nuance, to seek the easy solution to every dilemma. Evidence that i do not always succeed can be readily found in my journal.
idea/context dualism
May. 3rd, 2006 02:06 pmHere's an interesting continuation from yesterday's theme on the tone of scientific rhetoric. Following is the abstract of "A Proposal to Classify Happiness as a Psychiatric Disorder" (thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaoticerotic for the link).
If you read this, you will note that it is more or less as rigorous and well-cited an argument as we might expect to encounter in academic writing (although it does contain typos).
It reminded me right away of Dextera Domini: The Declaration on the Pastoral Care of Left-Handed Persons, which was in turn a spoof, and more, of another sort of rhetoric, in this case Catholic theological argument.
These are more than merely spoofs; they teach us a lot about the direction of modern thought and the consequences of fostering "detached rhetoric" as a favorable mode of communication. In the first case, we have an examination of the way common aspects of human experience have been seen as pathologies to be corrected. In the second case we have a theological examination, complete with nuanced scriptural citations, of the sinfulness of being left-handed (a parody of similar arguments offered against homosexuality).
This brave new world teaches us that anything stated in a rational tone, with proper citations and rhetorical style (arguments offered and objections anticipated), deserves to be taken seriously. The underlying idea is that ideas can and should be examined in a vacuum, a so-called "free marketplace," weighed against counterproposals in an environment completely divorced from their real-world implications. Every idea, no matter how repugnant, deserves to be calmly and rationally examined, debated, and discussed. If an idea is truly without merit, it will prove to be such after dispassionate examination.
This comes by way of reaction, of course, against the kind of argumentation which has given us much grief in the past: appeals to emotion, to common sense, to tradition, to "truthiness." Modern rhetoric is an attempt to escape the pitfalls of the past, and the cycles of oppression and discord that they have sowed. It also comes from a justifiable fear of simply going along with any given culture's rejection of certain ideas or principles as unworthy of examination: this is, after all, a means by which prejudice has been defended and perpetuated.
I've written before, briefly, about the use of rationalization as a way of discrediting the statements of feminists and cultural critics. A large part of this, of course, is the misappropriation and subversion of playing-field-leveling measures by those who wish to maintain an un-level playing field. Since the tone of detached "objective" scientific discourse was adopted in an attempt to counter the damage caused by demagoguery and superstitition, it was found necessary for this style to be subverted to the cause of promoting injustice. And so it has: modern evil is even more banal than ever before, offering in detached and well-cited argument why black people are inferior to whites and women are less capable than men.
By bringing up the context of oppression and by employing depictions of personal experiences, critics and feminists are not playing by the rules of rhetoric. In turn, they do not feel obliged to play by these rules because they argue that these rules were chosen for memetic proliferation because they make it easier to defend the social-stratification status quo, by rendering invisible the experience of oppression. For oppression to stand, the people who are subject to it must be unaware of it; therefore any tool that promotes isolation is deemed valuable to those who have privilege in an oppressive society -- the same people who are likely to write the laws and ideologies, and who have the power to decide what is and is not acceptable discourse.
Consider my previous thoughts on the way one generation's solution to a problem becomes the basis for a new problem facing the next generation. We certainly don't want to move backwards and empower demagoguery and fanaticism. What is the way forward?
Rational debate should be tempered with a higher degree of context-awareness. I concur with Wander and Jaehne (thanks totyrsalvia for this link [PDF]) that experts have to be more aware of the effects their ideas and proposals have on people, and that we have to be always aware of the way the economics of academia has guided the course of academic discourse. We cannot successfully divorce ideas from their implications, or idea-makers from their need to eat, sleep, and live in secure comfort.
What we are seeing here at work is a dualistic scheme, rather like the idea that there is a dualism of brain and mind, only of idea and context. Once again, in another context, dualism proves to be inherently dehumanizing and offers itself to the service of defending unjust status quos.
chaoticerotic for the link).It is proposed that happiness be classified as psychiatric disorder and be included in the future editions of the major diagnostic manuals under the name Major Affective Disorder: Pleasant Type. In a review of relevant literature, it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, consists of a discrete cluster of symptoms, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains -- that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.
If you read this, you will note that it is more or less as rigorous and well-cited an argument as we might expect to encounter in academic writing (although it does contain typos).
It reminded me right away of Dextera Domini: The Declaration on the Pastoral Care of Left-Handed Persons, which was in turn a spoof, and more, of another sort of rhetoric, in this case Catholic theological argument.
These are more than merely spoofs; they teach us a lot about the direction of modern thought and the consequences of fostering "detached rhetoric" as a favorable mode of communication. In the first case, we have an examination of the way common aspects of human experience have been seen as pathologies to be corrected. In the second case we have a theological examination, complete with nuanced scriptural citations, of the sinfulness of being left-handed (a parody of similar arguments offered against homosexuality).
This brave new world teaches us that anything stated in a rational tone, with proper citations and rhetorical style (arguments offered and objections anticipated), deserves to be taken seriously. The underlying idea is that ideas can and should be examined in a vacuum, a so-called "free marketplace," weighed against counterproposals in an environment completely divorced from their real-world implications. Every idea, no matter how repugnant, deserves to be calmly and rationally examined, debated, and discussed. If an idea is truly without merit, it will prove to be such after dispassionate examination.
This comes by way of reaction, of course, against the kind of argumentation which has given us much grief in the past: appeals to emotion, to common sense, to tradition, to "truthiness." Modern rhetoric is an attempt to escape the pitfalls of the past, and the cycles of oppression and discord that they have sowed. It also comes from a justifiable fear of simply going along with any given culture's rejection of certain ideas or principles as unworthy of examination: this is, after all, a means by which prejudice has been defended and perpetuated.
I've written before, briefly, about the use of rationalization as a way of discrediting the statements of feminists and cultural critics. A large part of this, of course, is the misappropriation and subversion of playing-field-leveling measures by those who wish to maintain an un-level playing field. Since the tone of detached "objective" scientific discourse was adopted in an attempt to counter the damage caused by demagoguery and superstitition, it was found necessary for this style to be subverted to the cause of promoting injustice. And so it has: modern evil is even more banal than ever before, offering in detached and well-cited argument why black people are inferior to whites and women are less capable than men.
By bringing up the context of oppression and by employing depictions of personal experiences, critics and feminists are not playing by the rules of rhetoric. In turn, they do not feel obliged to play by these rules because they argue that these rules were chosen for memetic proliferation because they make it easier to defend the social-stratification status quo, by rendering invisible the experience of oppression. For oppression to stand, the people who are subject to it must be unaware of it; therefore any tool that promotes isolation is deemed valuable to those who have privilege in an oppressive society -- the same people who are likely to write the laws and ideologies, and who have the power to decide what is and is not acceptable discourse.
Consider my previous thoughts on the way one generation's solution to a problem becomes the basis for a new problem facing the next generation. We certainly don't want to move backwards and empower demagoguery and fanaticism. What is the way forward?
Rational debate should be tempered with a higher degree of context-awareness. I concur with Wander and Jaehne (thanks to
tyrsalvia for this link [PDF]) that experts have to be more aware of the effects their ideas and proposals have on people, and that we have to be always aware of the way the economics of academia has guided the course of academic discourse. We cannot successfully divorce ideas from their implications, or idea-makers from their need to eat, sleep, and live in secure comfort.What we are seeing here at work is a dualistic scheme, rather like the idea that there is a dualism of brain and mind, only of idea and context. Once again, in another context, dualism proves to be inherently dehumanizing and offers itself to the service of defending unjust status quos.
the scientific mystique
May. 2nd, 2006 03:12 pmI don't know if any of you out there have the same automatic internal reaction as i do when i see articles or essays that talk about a scientist's funding or other potential biases. My immediate reaction is to want to reject any such concern as "ad hominem" and therefore irrelevant to discourse about whatever matter is at hand. So, this may really only be targeted at an audience of one (me).
A while backlady_babalon linked to this news story about a researcher who examined the funding sources of scholars and clinicians who developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM).
( Read more... )
Here's a study describing some of the ways researchers finagle the bounds and methods of their research in order to tweak results so that they are favorable to the pharmaceutical companies funding their research.
Add to this a study which "reveals" (as if none of us could have possibly known) that FDA panelists who have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry are more likely to vote to approve drugs:
( Read more... )
As an interesting aside, see an article here which tries to slant this to show that there is no conflict-of-interest in FDA drug-approval votes: "The study finds that the removal of all of those advisory committee members [with dubious funding] would not have reversed the results of any of the votes at meetings between 2001 and 2004, although their removal could have made some decisions less favorable."
One is inclined to wonder how we might correct for the warping effect of big pharma as an 800-lb gorilla in the medical field. Something that big and influential is bound to force people consider their careers and personal well-being when making decisions like this, even if they do not receive direct funding from the pharma companies.
When contemplating things like this a piece of my brain shouts, "That's an ad hominem argument!" I've been trained to overlook, as much as possible, any personal information about a person making an argument and look at the merits of the argument itself. And according to the survey linked above, the merits of the research papers themselves do reveal, upon close examination, the obvious favorable tweakings in methodology.
But the public doesn't get to examine the methodology of any given study. Usually results are just presented in the media as holy proclamations. "Scientists say blah-de-blah-blah in a new report to be published today in the Journal of Very Respectable We Assure You Science." The average American may be vaguely aware of the steps in the scientific method, but unless she has been a scholar of science she is generally not hip to the subtle ways in which methodology can be tweaked to bring results in line with expectations.
And let's take this a step further and see who it is who is alleging bias in pharmaceutical research -- mostly it is people with the organization Public Citizen, who themselves can be justifiably accused of potential bias! It never ends.
Allegations of bias in science become even more explosive when you consider various research offered to support fundamentalist agenda items. The tone of sciencific speech can be adopted even by people as thoroughly discredited as anti-gay "researcher" Paul Cameron, and the media will play along, especially if it is operated by people favorable to the agenda at hand.
The idea of personal bias in researchers is like scientific kryptonite. Science is understood as a form of inquiry that allows people to pursue knowledge removed from economic, institutional, and ideological pressures. Supposedly bias is detected during the peer review process. Therefore, people are supposedly taken out of the equation, and results stand on their own as proclamations which have the blessing of an entire community, therefore carrying more weight than the simple assertions of a few individuals.
But if the reviewing peers are biased too, what then? What if "common sense" itself is biased?
We want to pretend that bias does not exist in science, or if it does, that it is rare. If bias can be sneaked into the proclamations of science, the "scientific mystique" might be undermined. Therefore it's easier to just dismiss any kind of talk about a researcher's funding or background as trivial and over-personal. Doing so belies the reality that science falls into ruts called paradigms, which in large part reflect the biases of culture and "common sense," which in turn is shaped by oppression.
A while back
lady_babalon linked to this news story about a researcher who examined the funding sources of scholars and clinicians who developed the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM).( Read more... )
Here's a study describing some of the ways researchers finagle the bounds and methods of their research in order to tweak results so that they are favorable to the pharmaceutical companies funding their research.
Objective To investigate whether funding of drug studies by the pharmaceutical industry is associated with outcomes that are favourable to the funder and whether the methods of trials funded by pharmaceutical companies differ from the methods in trials with other sources of support.
... Conclusion Systematic bias favours products which are made by the company funding the research. Explanations include the selection of an inappropriate comparator to the product being investigated and publication bias.
Add to this a study which "reveals" (as if none of us could have possibly known) that FDA panelists who have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry are more likely to vote to approve drugs:
( Read more... )
As an interesting aside, see an article here which tries to slant this to show that there is no conflict-of-interest in FDA drug-approval votes: "The study finds that the removal of all of those advisory committee members [with dubious funding] would not have reversed the results of any of the votes at meetings between 2001 and 2004, although their removal could have made some decisions less favorable."
One is inclined to wonder how we might correct for the warping effect of big pharma as an 800-lb gorilla in the medical field. Something that big and influential is bound to force people consider their careers and personal well-being when making decisions like this, even if they do not receive direct funding from the pharma companies.
When contemplating things like this a piece of my brain shouts, "That's an ad hominem argument!" I've been trained to overlook, as much as possible, any personal information about a person making an argument and look at the merits of the argument itself. And according to the survey linked above, the merits of the research papers themselves do reveal, upon close examination, the obvious favorable tweakings in methodology.
But the public doesn't get to examine the methodology of any given study. Usually results are just presented in the media as holy proclamations. "Scientists say blah-de-blah-blah in a new report to be published today in the Journal of Very Respectable We Assure You Science." The average American may be vaguely aware of the steps in the scientific method, but unless she has been a scholar of science she is generally not hip to the subtle ways in which methodology can be tweaked to bring results in line with expectations.
And let's take this a step further and see who it is who is alleging bias in pharmaceutical research -- mostly it is people with the organization Public Citizen, who themselves can be justifiably accused of potential bias! It never ends.
Allegations of bias in science become even more explosive when you consider various research offered to support fundamentalist agenda items. The tone of sciencific speech can be adopted even by people as thoroughly discredited as anti-gay "researcher" Paul Cameron, and the media will play along, especially if it is operated by people favorable to the agenda at hand.
The idea of personal bias in researchers is like scientific kryptonite. Science is understood as a form of inquiry that allows people to pursue knowledge removed from economic, institutional, and ideological pressures. Supposedly bias is detected during the peer review process. Therefore, people are supposedly taken out of the equation, and results stand on their own as proclamations which have the blessing of an entire community, therefore carrying more weight than the simple assertions of a few individuals.
But if the reviewing peers are biased too, what then? What if "common sense" itself is biased?
We want to pretend that bias does not exist in science, or if it does, that it is rare. If bias can be sneaked into the proclamations of science, the "scientific mystique" might be undermined. Therefore it's easier to just dismiss any kind of talk about a researcher's funding or background as trivial and over-personal. Doing so belies the reality that science falls into ruts called paradigms, which in large part reflect the biases of culture and "common sense," which in turn is shaped by oppression.
(no subject)
Feb. 11th, 2006 12:57 pmIn Transamerica, and in the first season of Queer as Folk which i am watching now with cowgrrl, there are story arcs dealing with stealth. (This is not an uncommon media theme, actually; while formulating this entry i also remembered a plotline about stealth in the movie Keeping the Faith, although there it dealt with someone Jewish who was dating a Gentile.)
Stealth means not letting people on about your life, when you can pull it off. If you live in a society where people will ostracize you, ridicule you, fire you, evict you, beat you, rape you, kill you, for being gay or transgendered, it is obvious why many people choose stealth. Yet many queer activists will criticize queer people who choose stealth, as if each person trying to live their lives and just be left alone is an activist and a 'representative' of our community. In the movie and TV show mentioned above, stealth is portrayed as a source of drama in which 'innocent' people get hurt, thus demonstrating how stealth is deception and we should all therefore just be trusting of people around us.
Stealth is a reasonable survival strategy, but it is one that people will criticize you for, and call you wrong, deceptive, unethical, immoral.
Along similar lines, the Happy Feminist wrote about the way women are criticized for being cold and rude to men who try to pick them up (thanks tolady_babalon for the link). As many woman can tell you (including me), trying to rebuff advances in a nice or polite way usually doesn't work. Oh, there are exceptions, yes; but eventually you learn that the most effective way to be left alone in peace is to be heartless.
Yet this goes against the cultural standard that says we should always be nice and friendly to people.
People who are oppressed have to deal with these kinds of catch-22s all the time... they rarely loom large in someone's life, but there are a hundred little scenarios like this in which there is no way to win. Like the constant flow of water, these things wear you down slowly.
cowgrrl, there are story arcs dealing with stealth. (This is not an uncommon media theme, actually; while formulating this entry i also remembered a plotline about stealth in the movie Keeping the Faith, although there it dealt with someone Jewish who was dating a Gentile.)Stealth means not letting people on about your life, when you can pull it off. If you live in a society where people will ostracize you, ridicule you, fire you, evict you, beat you, rape you, kill you, for being gay or transgendered, it is obvious why many people choose stealth. Yet many queer activists will criticize queer people who choose stealth, as if each person trying to live their lives and just be left alone is an activist and a 'representative' of our community. In the movie and TV show mentioned above, stealth is portrayed as a source of drama in which 'innocent' people get hurt, thus demonstrating how stealth is deception and we should all therefore just be trusting of people around us.
Stealth is a reasonable survival strategy, but it is one that people will criticize you for, and call you wrong, deceptive, unethical, immoral.
Along similar lines, the Happy Feminist wrote about the way women are criticized for being cold and rude to men who try to pick them up (thanks to
lady_babalon for the link). As many woman can tell you (including me), trying to rebuff advances in a nice or polite way usually doesn't work. Oh, there are exceptions, yes; but eventually you learn that the most effective way to be left alone in peace is to be heartless.Yet this goes against the cultural standard that says we should always be nice and friendly to people.
People who are oppressed have to deal with these kinds of catch-22s all the time... they rarely loom large in someone's life, but there are a hundred little scenarios like this in which there is no way to win. Like the constant flow of water, these things wear you down slowly.
decisions vs. survival strategies
Feb. 6th, 2006 03:51 pmA concern that i've been pointing towards with my last set of posts which i think has somewhat missed is the way that oppression warps free will.
Here's an easy example. Suppose you are hoping to get a promotion at work. Your boss hints that he would like some help with something outside of work. Are you more likely to offer this kind of personal favor to your boss, than you might otherwise be?
Here's another example. You are being beaten from time to time by your husband. He's never explicitly threatened your life, but you honestly don't know what he's capable of doing to you or to the child you share. Do you leave and risk enflaming his wrath?
An even more subtle example was raised last week bylady_babalon:
Going even farther into territory most people consider ethically murky, a while back i talked about expanding options and empowerment for sexworkers and drug users, among others.
An ethical system has to take this into account. The remedy i proposed last week was one element of an oppression-conscious ethics. But here's another: examining the idea of judging people as 'immoral.'
I'm not talking about torts; intentional harm to another person is not any more excusable if someone is disadvantaged. What i'm talking about are breaches of the social or cultural code of conduct that do not involve causing deliberate harm to someone else.
People who are disadvantaged are unevenly likely to be judged to be immoral or unethical, and here's why.
Our society holds the idea that everyone's will is equally free, and that we are therefore morally culpable to an equal degree for decisions we make, good or bad. People are then judged on how they perform against a list of moral absolutes -- a moral laundry list which naturally reflects the ideological value judgments of the kyriarchy. (This points to an assertion, which i am planning to develop at some time, that deontological ethics are apologetic of privilege.)
Our society looks down on things like brownnosing or staying with an abusive spouse, yet these are decisions -- or better yet, survival strategies -- that make sense to people living under oppression. It's easy for people to call prostitutes or drug users 'immoral' because they broke a rule on someone else's list, but it's not so easy for others to understand why those courses of action would make more sense to someone than sticking to 'the rules.'
Here's an easy example. Suppose you are hoping to get a promotion at work. Your boss hints that he would like some help with something outside of work. Are you more likely to offer this kind of personal favor to your boss, than you might otherwise be?
Here's another example. You are being beaten from time to time by your husband. He's never explicitly threatened your life, but you honestly don't know what he's capable of doing to you or to the child you share. Do you leave and risk enflaming his wrath?
An even more subtle example was raised last week by
lady_babalon:A long time ago I read about something runaway/throwaway children frequently have happen that is not quite prostitution and not quite rape - survival sex: sex that is not coerced nor explicitly paid for, which a disadvantaged person engages in with another so that person will be less violent towards them, give them affection, let them stay in their house, etc. While in a sense this sex is voluntary on the part of the person who has less power, I do not believe it is ethical for a person to have sex with them under those circumstances, EVEN IF THE DISADVANTAGED PERSON OFFERS IT.
Going even farther into territory most people consider ethically murky, a while back i talked about expanding options and empowerment for sexworkers and drug users, among others.
An ethical system has to take this into account. The remedy i proposed last week was one element of an oppression-conscious ethics. But here's another: examining the idea of judging people as 'immoral.'
I'm not talking about torts; intentional harm to another person is not any more excusable if someone is disadvantaged. What i'm talking about are breaches of the social or cultural code of conduct that do not involve causing deliberate harm to someone else.
People who are disadvantaged are unevenly likely to be judged to be immoral or unethical, and here's why.
Our society holds the idea that everyone's will is equally free, and that we are therefore morally culpable to an equal degree for decisions we make, good or bad. People are then judged on how they perform against a list of moral absolutes -- a moral laundry list which naturally reflects the ideological value judgments of the kyriarchy. (This points to an assertion, which i am planning to develop at some time, that deontological ethics are apologetic of privilege.)
Our society looks down on things like brownnosing or staying with an abusive spouse, yet these are decisions -- or better yet, survival strategies -- that make sense to people living under oppression. It's easy for people to call prostitutes or drug users 'immoral' because they broke a rule on someone else's list, but it's not so easy for others to understand why those courses of action would make more sense to someone than sticking to 'the rules.'
paradox in tertullian
Nov. 4th, 2005 04:08 pmThe class on Tertullian last night was illuminating. I thought i had detected while reading Apologeticum an anti-intellectual tone. Professor Koester elaborated on this by describing a tension in antiquity between Rhetoric and Philosophy, and bringing up Tertullian's use of paradox in his formulation.
Some background: Rhetoric is language and intellect aimed at persuation, focused on concrete concerns. The best rhetoricians make use of all tools at one's disposal -- appeals to reason, emotion, and antithesis (anticipating counter-arguments). Philosophical speculation and contemplation are eschewed.
For Tertullian the rhetorician, philosophy was not merely eschewed, it was despised. His concern was that contemplation of concepts and doctrine would get in the way of action and would distract from the all-important (to him) goal of following moral law.
So instead of doctrine he promotes expression of God's action in the lives of believers as unfathomable mystery. His position is that speculation on these mysteries focuses on God's being rather than God's acting, and so detracts from what they really represent. His intent was to steer Christians away from establishing doctrine. So he formulated his experience of God's actions towards Christ in terms of paradox, in a way frequently ridiculed today by atheists and rationalists:
Tertullian's approach is easy to ridicule from a modern mindset that values reason, science, investigation, and clarity. But something struck me while thinking about this. I would never advocate anti-intellectualism, but on the other hand, rationality does not have all the answers either, and so there is some value in promoting apprehension of mystery as an antidote for the phallogocentrism of modern discourse. I am not interested in strictly following moral code the way Tertullian was, but in that i am strongly interested in ethics and action over belief i am not as entirely unlike him in outlook as i previously supposed.
All too often i see logic and rational tone-of-expression used to justify racism, sexism, and all kinds of prejudice, injustice, and "legitimized" violence. Just today, for example,lady_babalon pointed me to this post about civility as a screen for misogynistic sentiment. I've seen this kind of tactic used as a trap many times -- focusing on the minutiae of one's statements so that one can overlook the real significance of the points being made.
Also, there is great danger in adherence to ideology, which is more likely to divide people than to unite them. It draws attention away from who is doing what towards who thinks what, and in this way confounds efforts to find commonality in compassion and lovingkindness.
Some background: Rhetoric is language and intellect aimed at persuation, focused on concrete concerns. The best rhetoricians make use of all tools at one's disposal -- appeals to reason, emotion, and antithesis (anticipating counter-arguments). Philosophical speculation and contemplation are eschewed.
For Tertullian the rhetorician, philosophy was not merely eschewed, it was despised. His concern was that contemplation of concepts and doctrine would get in the way of action and would distract from the all-important (to him) goal of following moral law.
So instead of doctrine he promotes expression of God's action in the lives of believers as unfathomable mystery. His position is that speculation on these mysteries focuses on God's being rather than God's acting, and so detracts from what they really represent. His intent was to steer Christians away from establishing doctrine. So he formulated his experience of God's actions towards Christ in terms of paradox, in a way frequently ridiculed today by atheists and rationalists:
The Son of God was crucified -- that is not shameful because it is a shame;
The Son of God died -- that i believe because it is absurd;
The Son of God was buried and rose -- that is certain because it is impossible.
Tertullian's approach is easy to ridicule from a modern mindset that values reason, science, investigation, and clarity. But something struck me while thinking about this. I would never advocate anti-intellectualism, but on the other hand, rationality does not have all the answers either, and so there is some value in promoting apprehension of mystery as an antidote for the phallogocentrism of modern discourse. I am not interested in strictly following moral code the way Tertullian was, but in that i am strongly interested in ethics and action over belief i am not as entirely unlike him in outlook as i previously supposed.
All too often i see logic and rational tone-of-expression used to justify racism, sexism, and all kinds of prejudice, injustice, and "legitimized" violence. Just today, for example,
lady_babalon pointed me to this post about civility as a screen for misogynistic sentiment. I've seen this kind of tactic used as a trap many times -- focusing on the minutiae of one's statements so that one can overlook the real significance of the points being made.Also, there is great danger in adherence to ideology, which is more likely to divide people than to unite them. It draws attention away from who is doing what towards who thinks what, and in this way confounds efforts to find commonality in compassion and lovingkindness.
the market system amplifies injustice
Oct. 4th, 2005 11:00 amWhen you study Economics 101, you're taught about the functioning of the free market. In theory, the price of any item is determined by demand and supply. Price therefore reflects human behavior in the face of resource scarcity. The higher the demand for an item, the more people are willing to pay for it; the higher the supply, the less people are willing to pay for it, and so on.
According to theory the prices in the free market seek a state of equilibrium -- which is said to be a state of maximum resource allocation.
Similarly, it is said that labor is also sold on a free market. Laborers seek employment and are paid a wage which is supposed to balance out to the marginal product (profit) of the items they produce.
Okay, here we're veering into Economics 201 territory. But bear with me. What this means is that the amount of profit a producer can expect to make, is the fair labor-market wage owed to the people who make the product. Any difference is called exploitation, which is endemic in capitalism, because the suppliers of capital want to keep as much of the profit as possible. This is justified with an appeal to "entrepreneurial risk" (never mind the risks that laborers take; their risks don't count).
On paper, one can be convinced that these are reasonable arguments. But you have to overlook that these arguments depend on outrageous assumptions. One such assumption is that humans will always act in their own best economic interest, and will therefore tend to maximize the effectiveness of their work and lifestyle decisions. The second assumption is that the market is "free," that is, that each person has total freedom to participate or not in the market.
Anyone with eyes and/or ears can see the flaws in these assumptions.
In recent days there has been a lot of concern in the news about rising energy prices. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, increasing worldwide demand for oil, and (some contend) the peaking of oil production worldwide, are resulting in higher prices for gasoline and natural gas. This in turn means that shipping costs more; since virtually everything we buy nowadays is shipped in from somewhere else, this means that we can expect prices all across the board to go up. On top of this, home heating costs are expected to rise 30% over last year's 30% home heating bill hike. Even the price of firewood is going up, as people try to explore alternative heating options in the face of what is expected to be a bitter winter.
In America, there is little that can be done to reduce one's demand for fuel or natural gas. If you depend on a car, especially to get to work, there are not many opportunities to consolidate or eliminate trips. If you have a home or apartment, you can only cut back so much on home heating, warm showers, and stove-cooked meals. Even a small reduction from your current usage can represent a dramatic dip in your quality of life. So your "freedom" to participate in the energy market is curtailed.
Now, we all know that not everyone is going to be affected to exactly the same degree by energy price inflation. One does not need a degree in economics to know that those with no or lower income are going to be impacted much more severely than those who have highed income.
Similarly, one does not need a degree in sociology to understand why there are groups in America which live at different levels of income.
Those who are already disadvantaged are going to be even more greatly disadvantaged by inflation of energy prices. Market instabilities tend to amplify disadvantage, and therefore economic injustice, because the brunt of the market fluctuation is felt by those at the lowest income levels. And while economic theorists claim they are free to choose other options (and therefore the suffering of the poor is their own fault, why didn't they just stay in school when their uninsured mother got sick and their brothers and sisters needed to eat and the rent had to be paid?) there are no other options to choose.
It is not just the energy market where we find this problem. Participation in many other markets is similarly not free: education, food, housing, labor, transportation. In fact, only the markets for "widgets" like iPods or remote control toys are truly free. In most of the important sectors of our resource consumption, we are driven by necessity. Unless one can do without and is willing to live and scavenge on the streets (an option which is being increasingly criminalized), one has no choice but to participate.
Those who promote the idea of a "free market" have no true answer to this conundrum, just as they have no true answer to the "paradox of libertarianism" which i articulated a few weeks ago. Ironically, both they and i are motivated by the same goal: removing restraints on genuine freedom. But this ideal, i am convinced, is not attainable until we achieve post-scarcity. And so, post-scarcity should be our primary goal.
According to theory the prices in the free market seek a state of equilibrium -- which is said to be a state of maximum resource allocation.
Similarly, it is said that labor is also sold on a free market. Laborers seek employment and are paid a wage which is supposed to balance out to the marginal product (profit) of the items they produce.
Okay, here we're veering into Economics 201 territory. But bear with me. What this means is that the amount of profit a producer can expect to make, is the fair labor-market wage owed to the people who make the product. Any difference is called exploitation, which is endemic in capitalism, because the suppliers of capital want to keep as much of the profit as possible. This is justified with an appeal to "entrepreneurial risk" (never mind the risks that laborers take; their risks don't count).
On paper, one can be convinced that these are reasonable arguments. But you have to overlook that these arguments depend on outrageous assumptions. One such assumption is that humans will always act in their own best economic interest, and will therefore tend to maximize the effectiveness of their work and lifestyle decisions. The second assumption is that the market is "free," that is, that each person has total freedom to participate or not in the market.
Anyone with eyes and/or ears can see the flaws in these assumptions.
In recent days there has been a lot of concern in the news about rising energy prices. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, increasing worldwide demand for oil, and (some contend) the peaking of oil production worldwide, are resulting in higher prices for gasoline and natural gas. This in turn means that shipping costs more; since virtually everything we buy nowadays is shipped in from somewhere else, this means that we can expect prices all across the board to go up. On top of this, home heating costs are expected to rise 30% over last year's 30% home heating bill hike. Even the price of firewood is going up, as people try to explore alternative heating options in the face of what is expected to be a bitter winter.
In America, there is little that can be done to reduce one's demand for fuel or natural gas. If you depend on a car, especially to get to work, there are not many opportunities to consolidate or eliminate trips. If you have a home or apartment, you can only cut back so much on home heating, warm showers, and stove-cooked meals. Even a small reduction from your current usage can represent a dramatic dip in your quality of life. So your "freedom" to participate in the energy market is curtailed.
Now, we all know that not everyone is going to be affected to exactly the same degree by energy price inflation. One does not need a degree in economics to know that those with no or lower income are going to be impacted much more severely than those who have highed income.
Similarly, one does not need a degree in sociology to understand why there are groups in America which live at different levels of income.
Those who are already disadvantaged are going to be even more greatly disadvantaged by inflation of energy prices. Market instabilities tend to amplify disadvantage, and therefore economic injustice, because the brunt of the market fluctuation is felt by those at the lowest income levels. And while economic theorists claim they are free to choose other options (and therefore the suffering of the poor is their own fault, why didn't they just stay in school when their uninsured mother got sick and their brothers and sisters needed to eat and the rent had to be paid?) there are no other options to choose.
It is not just the energy market where we find this problem. Participation in many other markets is similarly not free: education, food, housing, labor, transportation. In fact, only the markets for "widgets" like iPods or remote control toys are truly free. In most of the important sectors of our resource consumption, we are driven by necessity. Unless one can do without and is willing to live and scavenge on the streets (an option which is being increasingly criminalized), one has no choice but to participate.
Those who promote the idea of a "free market" have no true answer to this conundrum, just as they have no true answer to the "paradox of libertarianism" which i articulated a few weeks ago. Ironically, both they and i are motivated by the same goal: removing restraints on genuine freedom. But this ideal, i am convinced, is not attainable until we achieve post-scarcity. And so, post-scarcity should be our primary goal.
In recent months i've been flirting with the idea of socialism, though there are many ways in which i disagree with that philosophy.
For example, it has been well and conclusively demonstrated that central planning is a disaster. A national economy is too organic, too complex, to be steered by decisions from the top. Rather i would like to see something bottom-up, where priorities are defined by what people need, rather than by what experts gather and determine what people should need.
This is the respect in which the market is supposed to work -- and where U.S. society goes wrong is in failing to protect the function of the market from oligarchical forces.
I also feel strongly that government should avoid any course which is disempowering. Government is at its worst when it plays "Momma." Individual empowerment should be enhanced, not subtracted from.
This value is commonly touted in American political philosophy -- the "pursuit of happiness."
To give one perspective on this, i want to cite Robert Schmitt's depiction of the Marxian concept of freedom:
In other words, people are free if they have real say in the direction or future of society. In the United States, people have the freedom to do what they want to do with their time, to pursue what interests they want, but we do not have real freedom to shape the future, to make our voices heard against the ubiquitous ethical bankruptcy of our institutions. Our political processes are largely engineered to silence the common voice and to preserve the resource entitlement of our society's elites.
How should a society uphold individual empowerment on one hand, while at the same time confirming that there is no right to exploit others? This is a powerful and important question.
( Read more... )
For example, it has been well and conclusively demonstrated that central planning is a disaster. A national economy is too organic, too complex, to be steered by decisions from the top. Rather i would like to see something bottom-up, where priorities are defined by what people need, rather than by what experts gather and determine what people should need.
This is the respect in which the market is supposed to work -- and where U.S. society goes wrong is in failing to protect the function of the market from oligarchical forces.
I also feel strongly that government should avoid any course which is disempowering. Government is at its worst when it plays "Momma." Individual empowerment should be enhanced, not subtracted from.
This value is commonly touted in American political philosophy -- the "pursuit of happiness."
To give one perspective on this, i want to cite Robert Schmitt's depiction of the Marxian concept of freedom:
People are free... if they can and do choose deliberately how to organize their social and economic institutions with a view to making themselves and future generations into the most desireable sorts of persons. A human being is free if he "contemplates himself in a world he has created." Introduction to Marx and Engels, p. 119
In other words, people are free if they have real say in the direction or future of society. In the United States, people have the freedom to do what they want to do with their time, to pursue what interests they want, but we do not have real freedom to shape the future, to make our voices heard against the ubiquitous ethical bankruptcy of our institutions. Our political processes are largely engineered to silence the common voice and to preserve the resource entitlement of our society's elites.
How should a society uphold individual empowerment on one hand, while at the same time confirming that there is no right to exploit others? This is a powerful and important question.
( Read more... )
monistic cosmology
Aug. 18th, 2005 04:14 pmIs it possible that the Prime Mover is also the Prime Moved Object?
In a comment this morning to yesterday's post on "intelligent falling" i voiced objection to the idea of God as "all cause and no effect," that is, a causal agent who is not in turn the recipient of any effect.
The concept of "causation," dichotomizing cause from effect, sets us up to demand there be a first cause.
However, suppose that instead of a dichotomy of cause and effect, there's just effect, stemming from potential plus present condition? In other words, instead of a universe made of billiard balls rolling around and smacking into one another, what we have is a universe where the events which occur in each location build on what existed previously, creating a chain of events each one building on what happened just before.
In this view essentially the entire universe is the "cause" of any single event. Interpreters have used the metaphor of sequential lights on a Broadway sign giving the appearance of a single object in motion. One light does not "cause" the next, but rather, they are all together an explication of a deeper, hidden order. This view is not nearly as farfetched as it sounds, given the nature of quantum entanglement, and the fact that gravity interconnects every object with every other. This brings us to the view of the universe as a "holomovement," an implicate wholeness, as described by David Bohm.
"Causation" seems a more intuitive way to see the world because we, as the descendents of predators, perceive things using cognitive shortcuts that evolved over generations. Our brain takes the perception of something and makes from it a "hard" distinction between "this" and "not-this." We draw a box around something and then darken the lines of that box, as if to pretend that it has a special essence that distinguishes it from not-it.
Our use of language reinforces the darkened lines of subject vs. object, as does our interaction with one another in society.
Consider the alternative of "levation", which means to "raise up" in our awareness a thing or pattern while at the same time refusing to darken the lines of the box around it.
With holomovement replacing causation, we have no longer a need for a Prime Mover, but we might need a Prime Observer or Prime Explicator.
In a comment this morning to yesterday's post on "intelligent falling" i voiced objection to the idea of God as "all cause and no effect," that is, a causal agent who is not in turn the recipient of any effect.
The concept of "causation," dichotomizing cause from effect, sets us up to demand there be a first cause.
However, suppose that instead of a dichotomy of cause and effect, there's just effect, stemming from potential plus present condition? In other words, instead of a universe made of billiard balls rolling around and smacking into one another, what we have is a universe where the events which occur in each location build on what existed previously, creating a chain of events each one building on what happened just before.
In this view essentially the entire universe is the "cause" of any single event. Interpreters have used the metaphor of sequential lights on a Broadway sign giving the appearance of a single object in motion. One light does not "cause" the next, but rather, they are all together an explication of a deeper, hidden order. This view is not nearly as farfetched as it sounds, given the nature of quantum entanglement, and the fact that gravity interconnects every object with every other. This brings us to the view of the universe as a "holomovement," an implicate wholeness, as described by David Bohm.
"Causation" seems a more intuitive way to see the world because we, as the descendents of predators, perceive things using cognitive shortcuts that evolved over generations. Our brain takes the perception of something and makes from it a "hard" distinction between "this" and "not-this." We draw a box around something and then darken the lines of that box, as if to pretend that it has a special essence that distinguishes it from not-it.
Our use of language reinforces the darkened lines of subject vs. object, as does our interaction with one another in society.
Consider the alternative of "levation", which means to "raise up" in our awareness a thing or pattern while at the same time refusing to darken the lines of the box around it.
With holomovement replacing causation, we have no longer a need for a Prime Mover, but we might need a Prime Observer or Prime Explicator.
(no subject)
Jun. 23rd, 2005 09:53 amIn ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
real_philosophy lately there has been a lot of give-and-take on a priori, a posteriori, synthetic, and analytic statements. In college I was fascinated enough by philosophy of language to take a course on the subject.
However, I can't muster any excitement for it now. Besides, the monistic perspective makes that whole argument seem like just a bunch of wanking. Without an underlying assumption of dualism the distinction between a priori and a posteriori is weak.
And also, didn't Quine put all of that to rest anyway?
real_philosophy lately there has been a lot of give-and-take on a priori, a posteriori, synthetic, and analytic statements. In college I was fascinated enough by philosophy of language to take a course on the subject.However, I can't muster any excitement for it now. Besides, the monistic perspective makes that whole argument seem like just a bunch of wanking. Without an underlying assumption of dualism the distinction between a priori and a posteriori is weak.
And also, didn't Quine put all of that to rest anyway?
postmodernist hermeneutics
Sep. 9th, 2003 02:42 pmI wanted to store for posterity this comment which I just made in this discussion in challenging_god. It reflects the entire hermeneutic by which I approach matters of "truth," "religion," "philosophy," and so on.
"Reality" refers to that which is or happens. Reality is real. It's the same for all of us.
"Perceptions-of-reality" refers to data collected by the senses, the only gateways by which humans are capable of knowing anything about what goes on outside of their heads.
"Conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality" refers to concepts we formulate in our minds to make sense out of the sensory data our senses bring in.
"Statements-reflecting-conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality" refer to words that come out of our mouths or pens or keyboards which reflect these conceptions formulated in our mind in response to sensory data.
So. Religions are statements-reflecting-conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality. If religions contradict, it is not because of any flaw in reality, and probably not because of any flaws in the process of perception (though this is where distortions begin). The biggest flaws, IMO, come from the process whereby we draw conclusions based on the sensory data we have received. The second biggest sets of flaws occur when we translate these conclusions into words.
If our statements-reflecting-conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality contradict, particularly where the perceptions involved reflect "spiritual" or "metaphysical" experience, it is most likely that these contradictions are rooted in limited or erroneous conclusions.
challenging_god. It reflects the entire hermeneutic by which I approach matters of "truth," "religion," "philosophy," and so on."Reality" refers to that which is or happens. Reality is real. It's the same for all of us.
"Perceptions-of-reality" refers to data collected by the senses, the only gateways by which humans are capable of knowing anything about what goes on outside of their heads.
"Conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality" refers to concepts we formulate in our minds to make sense out of the sensory data our senses bring in.
"Statements-reflecting-conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality" refer to words that come out of our mouths or pens or keyboards which reflect these conceptions formulated in our mind in response to sensory data.
So. Religions are statements-reflecting-conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality. If religions contradict, it is not because of any flaw in reality, and probably not because of any flaws in the process of perception (though this is where distortions begin). The biggest flaws, IMO, come from the process whereby we draw conclusions based on the sensory data we have received. The second biggest sets of flaws occur when we translate these conclusions into words.
If our statements-reflecting-conclusions-based-on-perceptions-of-reality contradict, particularly where the perceptions involved reflect "spiritual" or "metaphysical" experience, it is most likely that these contradictions are rooted in limited or erroneous conclusions.
