Evolutionary Psychology and Materialism As A World View
I am FINALLY getting around to a subject that a reader, Dan, requested we discuss. In a comment Dan said:
I’ve had some time to read some of the earlier posts. I’m interested in the idea that “nature is all there isâ€. [I’m thinking, nature = the physical world] If I understand post #8 correctly, this is a position you hold.
I see two, somewhat different, implications:
1) the universe, as a whole, quite likely produces a consciousness; something that might be called “a godâ€
2) there is no meaning or value in life, other than what a particular individual attaches to it. And related: concepts of good and evil must be relative to the individual.So, would you be interested in a conversation in that direction?
(Disclosure, if it matters: I hold a Christian worldview.)
Dan, you are accurate to sum up my position that “nature is all there is.†I am a materialist.
But when we look at the two implications you listed, I do not subscribe to either of them. The reason I don’t agree with either of the two optional implications is that I am aware of a third implication.
There is a growing science that says the human species evolved certain psychological traits. As a quote on my previous post on Darwin Day stated, our understanding of evolution is creeping into all kinds of areas. It is changing the way we understand medicine. And it is changing the way we understanding human psychology and human nature. While Evolutionary Psychology is still young in the field of science and has much work yet to do in substantiating its claims, it contributes a third implication to Dan’s list of only two; an implication to which I currently subscribe.
In his book, The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker explains:
In the study of humans, there are major spheres of human experience–beauty, motherhood, kinship, morality, cooperation, sexuality, violence–in which evolutionary psychology provides the only coherent theory and has spawned vibrant new areas of empirical research. Behavioral genetics has revived the study of personality and will only expand with the application of knowledge from the Human Genome Project. Cognitive neuroscience will not shrink from applying its new tools to every aspect of mind and behavior, including the emotionally and politically charged ones.
Later he clarifies what evolution means for psychology:
Natural selection works to homogenize a species into a standard overall design by concentrating the effective genes–the ones that build well-functioning organs–and winnowing out the ineffective ones. When it comes to an explanation of what makes us tick, we are thus birds of a feather. Just as we all have the same physical organs (two eyes, a liver, a four-chambered heart), we have the same mental organs.” (pg. 142)
What does this have to do with finding meaning in life or understanding whether concepts of good and evil are relative? Here is what a materialist view implies when combined with the view that evolution provided us a certain innate psychology:
To quote Pinker again on pg. 145:
Regardless of IQ or physical strength or any other trait that can vary, all humans can be assumed to have certain traits in common. No one likes being enslaved. No one likes being humiliated. No one likes being treated unfairly, that is, according to traits that the person cannot control. The revulsion we feel toward discrimination and slavery comes from a conviction that however much people vary on some traits, they do not vary on these. This conviction contrasts, by the way, with the supposedly progressive doctrine that people have no inherent concerns, which implies that they could be conditioned to enjoy servitude or degradation.
Do you see how this homogeny implies a certain generality when it comes to the meaning of life or ethics/morality?
We all have the capacity to feel pain and happiness. We all want to avoid pain and increase pleasure and happiness. We also all know this is true of one another (the ability to understand even that is likewise inherent in our natural cognitive abilities). These three simple facts are enough to provide us both a compass for ethics/morality and for meaning to life.
I find meaning in the fact that I can increase my own happiness and I have the ability to help increase happiness in others. So I guess in some ways a materialist point of view may imply that “there is no meaning or value in life, other than what a particular individual attaches to it.” But in consideration of a shared human nature, or the idea that humans share certain innate traits, I do not agree with the implication.
I find value in life from the mere fact that I have approximately seventy years (if I live an average life-span) of conscious existence. If that is all you think you have, and you do not imagine another life after, what can you possibly value more than life? Not only your own life, but the lives of others?
I personally find meaning in the fact that I can do things to increase my own personal happiness and the happiness of other people. The quotes from Steven Pinker above imply that this could be a universally human objective when it comes to finding meaning in life. It implies that all humans want to be free and pursue their own happiness.
But what about the other half of the implications you listed for a materialistic worldview? Dan said it was that “concepts of good and evil must be relative to the individual.”
Some materialists do hold this view, but it does not necessarily follow as the only consistent conclusion to materialistic thought. Many scientists, philosophers and atheist writers speak of an innate “moral sense” in the human species which evolved through Natural Selection.
A few of the more popular ones that I have been referring to recently are Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Robert Wright, Daniel Dennett, and James Joyce.
Wright lists a number of traits that combine to make up this natural moral sense:
Altruism, compassion, empathy, love, conscience, the sense of justice–all of these things, the things that hold society together, can now confidently be said to have a firm genetic basis (The Moral Animal, pg. 12).
I have to qualify this quote with my own statement that I would have to review his book to find out what Wright’s sources are for the “firm genetic basis” of the traits he listed. But Pinker agrees with him when he makes a similar list which he referred to as an innate “emotional repertiore–-sympathy, trust, guilt, anger, self-esteem.â€
Pinker gave this explanation for the evolutionary endowed moral sense while discussing the dilemma of conflicting self-interests among individuals:
. . . there are reasons to believe that the solution to it–a moral sense–evolved in our species rather than having to be deduced from scratch by each of us after we’ve picked ourselves up out of the mud. Children as young as a year and a half spontaneously give toys, proffer help, and try to comfort adults or other children who are visibly distressed. People in all cultures distinguish right from wrong, have a sense of fairness, help one another, impose rights and obligations, believe that wrongs should be redressed, and proscribe rape, murder, and some kinds of violence (The Blank Slate, pg. 187-8).
And this is what I meant when I told Dan that there was a third implication:
The alternative, then, to the religious theory of the source of values is that evolution endowed us with a moral sense, and we have expanded its circle of application over the course of history through reason (grasping the logical interchangeability of our interests and others’), knowledge (learning of the advantages of cooperation over the long term), and sympathy (having experiences that allow us to feel others pain).
Steven Pinker, then, made a comparison of a religiously endowed morality to an evolutionary endowed morality:
How can we tell which theory is preferable? A thought experiment can pit them against eachother. What would be the right thing to do if God had commanded people to be selfish and cruel rather than generous and kind? Those who root their values in religion would have to say that we ought to be selfish and cruel. Those who appeal to a moral sense would say that we ought to reject God’s command.
. . .The history of religion shows that God has commanded people to do all manner of selfish and cruel acts: massacre Midianites and abduct their women, stone prostitutes, execute homosexuals, burn witches, withhold medicine from dying children, shoot up abortion clinics . . .(pg. 189).
But let’s also compare the theory of an innate moral sense to the theory that morality is relative and should not be part of the human dialogue at all. Pinker gives one example (among others) of why it is dangerous to disregard and deny this innate nature that provides us with a moral sense:
Feminism, far from needing a blank slate, needs the opposite, a clear conception of human nature. One of the most pressing feminist causes today is the condition of women in the developing world. In many places female fetuses are selectively aborted, newborn girls are killed, daughters are malnourished and kept from school, adolescent girls have their genitals cut out, young women are cloaked from head to toe, adulteresses are stoned to death, and widows are expected to fall onto their husbands’ funeral pyres. The relativist climate in many academic circles does not allow these horrors to be criticized because they are practices of other cultures, and cultures are superorganisms that, like people, have inalienable rights. To escape this trap, the feminist philosopher Martha Nussbaum has invoked “central functional capabilities” that all humans have a right to exercise, such as physical integrity, liberty of conscience, and political participation. She has been criticized in turn for taking on a colonial “civilizing mission” or “white woman’s burden,” in which arrogant Europeans would instruct the poor people of the world in what they want. But Nussbaum’s moral argument is defensible if her “capabilities” are grounded, directly or indirectly, in a universal human nature. Human nature provides a yardstick to identify suffering in any member of our species (The Blank Slate, pg.172).
This understanding of human nature is vital in preserving the freedoms of all people. White southerners justified their actions against black people, both while they were slaves and after, by pretending blacks were less than human in order to deny them the characteristics that would make their enslavement wrong. They created stereotyped caricatures of black people to portray a difference in the nature of black people compared to white people. A universality in human nature defines this as clearly wrong, not just morally but also factually.
To summarize, theories in Evolutionary Psychology regarding innate and homogeneous needs and desires across the human species provides its own implications to the materialist. In addition to the idea that humans can find meaning in life by virtue of the fact that we exist with capacities for pain and happiness, we can assume a shared concept of the meaning of life: the pursuit of happiness, both for ourselves and others. It also means that morality is not relative. The subjugation of and infliction of pain on another being is not acceptable and good to some people in some cultures. Human beings cannot be socialized to desire servitude and pain. Human beings, no matter the environment or culture, do not want pain or servitude. Therefore ethics and morality exist in real terms as revolving around this idea: we do not have the right to purposely cause others pain or deny them their happiness and freedom.
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August 2nd, 2006 @ 10:05 pm
As a fellow materialist, I concur with Noell’s position that the natural world is all there is and that the fundamental concept of a supernatural existence is invalid by definition. I also concur with the view that a secular approach to formation of a system of values can be rewarding, logical and legitimate. However, I would like to present a perspective that is different from one that is obviously based heavily on Steven Pinker’s work.
Evolution progressed from collections of chemicals that barely fit the definition of “alive†to single cell organisms to multicell organism that have the luxury of dedicating specialized cells to the processes of sensing, processing and controlling the other cells in the organism. These specialized cells make up the nervous system of the organism. The behavior of the organism, in fact every multicell organism, is entirely controlled by the nervous system whether we are talking about a fruit fly or a person.
The genome of multicell organisms contains genes that control the design and construction of the nervous system. The genomes are relatively consistent from generation to generation but there are variations and the variations sometimes have an effect on the way the nervous systems develop and these variations result in variations in behavior of the organism. A simple and well know example would be the case of mice that are born with the tendency to be reclusive or adventuresome. This is a heritable trait that has nothing to do with nurturing. A whole colony of reclusive or adventuresome mice can be developed by selective breeding. Each trait may have an evolutionary advantage. During times of plenty, the reclusive mouse may have the advantage of not being exposed to predators as often as the adventuresome while during times of scarcity the adventurous mouse may have the advantage of finding more food sources. Clearly a mixed population of both types of behavior would be an advantage for the species as a whole. In the total mice population there is a broad range of degrees of reclusive and adventurous behavior sufficient to approximate the Normal Curve or a bell shaped distribution.
While these behavior characteristics, referred to as phenotypes, are heritable there are clearly others that are learned as the organism experiences the environment and these cannot be passed on via genetics to subsequent generations but they can be transferred among members of a single generation.
My point of this is that evolution has resulted in humans that have extremely complex nervous systems and that human behavior is entirely controlled by a nervous system that implements many phenotyes that have been derived from both genetic codes and exposure to environments just as any other multicell organism. In fact, some of the behavior controlling genes in humans are in the same position in the genome as those for even the simplest of organism.
How does all this relate to values and ethics? Let me demonstrate by creating a hypothetical mouse population in which 95% of the population is reclusive and 5% is adventuresome. Somehow the mice know that a time of scarcity is just around the corner. The mice have an opportunity to make “ethical†or “wise†decisions. In this case, “ethical†or “wise†is defined to mean “good for long term survival of the colonyâ€. The “wise†thing to do would be to mate with the adventuresome 5% of the population and try to create a mixed population with a bias toward adventuresome mice. I would call this a “flourishing of the wisest†strategy.
Relating to humans is, of course, far more complex problem but the fundamental concept is there. Is it moral or ethical to engage in practices that contribute to global warming when the species is at risk? Is it moral or ethical to perform genetic engineering of new species of flora and fauna that may benefit or harm our species? Etc, etc.
Let’s continue a little further and recognize the other half of the equation of behavior, i.e., learning. Suppose our mouse colony becomes well populated with adventuresome mice and they are able to locate adequate food sources and the reclusive mice are able to learn the locations of those sources of food and thus survive also. At the same time the reclusive mice have learned the best hiding places to be alone and safe and the adventuresome mice learn these locations too and thus avoid some predators. What has happened here? All members of the population have contributed to the benefit of the population. In doing so, some form of communication took place.
I believe it is educational to extend the analogy to a population of humans. Suppose the human population were to throw away the intelligence of half the population. This is approximated in any culture where the women are reduced to a level equivalent to property to be mentally and physically abused and denied any opportunity to contribute intellectually. Modern life is complex to say the least and every advantage must be taken of every source of wisdom. It is therefore conceivable that a secular value system reveres every source of wisdom or that which expands knowledge. The ethic of education and interpersonal and species-wide communication are logical extensions.
These analogies and extensions to the human species can continue in many directions but I hope the idea is conveyed. The extension to concepts of “meaning of life†or “value of life†clearly invoke the concepts of self development to the limits of ones capabilities so that one can take responsibility for one’s own survival which necessitates liberty to benefit from the fruits of one’s own labor and a sense of happiness that is derived from a feeling of high self esteem for having contributed to the long term benefit of the species.
August 2nd, 2006 @ 10:27 pm
Y’all may want to check out what Darwin wrote about the evolution of altruism and morals, in Chapter 5 of Descent of Man.
I had an interesting conversation with a trainer for the Leave No Trace program in camping last month when I was out with the Scouts in Tennessee. He spent a fair amount of time talking about “outdoor ethics,” and it suddenly occurred to me that this was a set of ethics most religionists don’t like to discuss. I asked the guy afterward what is the philosophical basis for outdoor ethics, and he gave me the blankest look I’ve had from anybody in a long time. It’s common sense. It’s courtesy. It’s the desire to pass things along to one’s own children.
Those roots are separate from most religion, and often antithetical to what the religions tell us (think: Abraham was willing to sacrifice his own child? Was he NUTS?). No wonder the religionists don’t like to discuss that stuff: They can’t claim it all came from God.
August 3rd, 2006 @ 6:48 am
This was a really interesting read. Thanks for posting.
I might be mistaken, but I don’t think you responded to the first implication on Dan’s list; or rather, you said you didn’t agree with it but didn’t explain why. But this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now, and I think it’s pretty interesting.
I think that throughout the overarching debate of materialism vs. supernaturalism (am I using the right terms? hopefully you know what I’m referring to), things can get muddled… especially if, like most people, you start out on the supernaturalism side and end up on the materialism side.
When at first we believe in the “supernatural” world, it is inevitable that we view that plain of reality in specific terms as determined by our particular religious upbringing. For example, Fundamentalist Christians have a basic view of the supernatural as being an entity named God who is quite comparable to a large white man in the sky holding a ruler to hit us with when we screw up. But in general, what I would presume to be the most common “supernatural” view of God would be, by definition, “a higher consciousness that sits ‘up there’ (above nature)… something external that created everything and governs everything, either directly or indirectly.”
However, I think that after we go through the gradual process of switching from supernaturalism to materialism, we often don’t do it quite right. Allow me to use an analogy I just came up with:
If we were to move from one country to another and just brought all our money from our homeland… that money would be worthless. We’d go the various stores and shops and that money would simply not be useful whatsoever; no one would accept it. Indeed, it wouldn’t make sense to even hold onto it! But would it really be the best choice to just throw that money away or burn it? Of course not; it would be much wiser to find some kind of international conversion/exchange station where you can exchange your money for the currency of the new country. That way you’re not stuck with any worthless pieces of paper, and you actually have something you can use in your new homeland!
I think the same thing happens in the shift from supernaturalism to materialism. At first we have this philosophical currency that tells us certain things: there is an external Power, and things like love and compassion and morality can be attributed to that Power.” And when we change our worldview to materialism and take a look at these old beliefs, we think they sound ridiculous! So I think oftentimes we just throw them away, thinking they’re worthless. But I’d say that it’s much more beneficial if we exchange them for something of equal value that makes sense in this new philosophy.
So what am I saying we exchange them for? Well, I see it this way: just because we’ve stopped believing in the supernatural realm, doesn’t mean we’ve stopped believing in love, compassion, morality, etc. In the old country, they went in hand–these attributes were directly connected to the fact that there existed a “higher plain.” But after getting rid of the supernatural, we’re still left with these concepts, these vague essences of humanity that are now just floating around without cause or purpose. I think the evolutionary theory discussed in this post is an interesting approach, and I’d like to learn more about it. But for now I can only think about all this in more general terms: I think that if we can’t attribute these human qualities to “supernature”, and if “nature is all there is”, then we must inevitably attribute them to nature itself.
I think I have to cover something else before fully arriving at my now-obvious conclusion. It’s important that we don’t cling to any of our old currency, so to speak. In the old country, and during the trip over to the new country, there was a certain stigma attached to the idea of a “God” or “Deity”… a stigma created by the point of view of people in that old country, so to speak. “God” was virtually a corporeal being, a concrete essence that existed somewhere outside of reality and “thought things out”, planned, intervened, judged and punished. He was basically just another human being in the role of a sort of judge. So this has left many people with a bad taste in their mouths whenever they think of a “God” or “Deity”–they automatically assume that such words refer to a very particular, modern, Westernized, fundamentalist, evangelical, Protestant sort of God.
So when I say that, due to the fact that the qualities of love and compassion and morality are now attributed to nature itself… when I say that, due to that fact, nature is “deified”… I do not mean to say that nature is now that concrete being that judges and controls and is worthy of my “worship.” We can’t understand such a statement in old country, supernatural terms. We have to redefine what a “deity” even IS in the materialistic sense. It’s no longer an external, supernatural being obviously… but I think the fact that humanity is so poetic and lyrical and mystified when it comes to certain qualities of their existence.. really demands logically that we seek to understand the context of those qualities that makes us feel so deeply affected by them. And I think that context has something to do with Dan’s first implication: the idea of the material universe indeed having a kind of “consciousness,” a kind of underlying reality to it that is actually extremely meaningful, if only in an internal, insulated, non-supernatural sense.
Basically, in my view, there is no longer a Meaningful Supernature and a Meaningless Nature… rather, there is one, Meaningful Nature. There are further implications to all this, especially when you think about it in terms of Determinism and a lack of true free will… but I think this is where I’m going to stop. I don’t have much else to say, because this is the point where people have to bring their own thoughts to the table and let me know if I’ve made a huge error in my thought processes (which, I’ll readily admit, is extremely possible).
August 3rd, 2006 @ 4:43 pm
Gregg100–I wish I could communicate the concepts of evolution and genetics as well as you. It\’s still like a second language for me. I understand the concepts, but for me to try and pull it all out of my head to communicate to someone else is still very hard.
I just wanted to clarify that I while I used Steven Pinker almost exclusively as my source, I did not base my overall opinion of this matter on Steven Pinker. I want to give credit where credit is due, (while at the same time bolster my position as not one to rely too heavily on one person!).
My husband was the first, a number of years ago, to bring me the idea of moral and ethical codes having evolved in the psyche. I don\’t know if he came up with the theory himself, or if he got the idea from all the documentaries we used to watch.
Those science documentaries propelled me to the materialist direction and gave me my interest in evolution and the directions to which it extends. It was really Robert Wright who introduced the entire concept of Evolutionary Psychology. He is a scientific journalist and his book, The Moral Animal, is a great introduction where he cites the many, many theories that abound in the field.
It was really from him that I cemented my thoughts on an evolved moral sense. It wasn\’t until the last month or two, when I started reading Pinker\’s book, The Blank Slate, that I realized Pinker was a proponent of Evolutionary Psychology and held the same opinion as me about a moral sense. I had had a lot of exposure to him through recorded speeches we got off the internet, or articles. I hadn\’t quite put it all together, that Pinker was in line with my thoughts, until our recent debate on the subject of morality. I started reading his book at that time (June?).
Because I love the way Pinker communicates, there were so many passages of his that I just wanted to use. I actually wrote the above blog entry a month or so ago, but because I had used Pinker as my only source, I never posted it. I didn\’t want to give the false impression that my theory relied on him (exactly the impression you got, Gregg100).
In the end, I have not had time to go back through other sources to get some diversity so I posted it as is. I have to be realistic about the fact that I am a full-time mother, not a full-time science blogger. (Maybe that day will come?).
August 3rd, 2006 @ 4:47 pm
Ed Darrell-I have read that Darwin had similar theories on this subject, but I haven’t read them directly. It would be interesting.
And that blank stare. . .yes, I have induced a blank stare from someone recently myself. It is sure askward. I guess we’re a bit of a bizarre group here. Not just because of our take on religion, but because we’re so extremely analytical!
I am sure I have my share of readers that read the post like this one and think, “Who the heck cares?”
August 3rd, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
RE “At first we have this philosophical currency that tells us certain things: there is an external Power, and things like love and compassion and morality can be attributed to that Power.â€
As an atheist and a secularist, I think that neither god belief nor the lack of it, is any guarantee of morality.
August 3rd, 2006 @ 5:49 pm
Adam–No, you’re right. I did not address that first implication. To me it is not at all an implication of materialism. Maybe someone will disagree with me on this, but I cannot reconcile a materialist worldview with the existence of a “consciousness” of some sort.
I do not think agnosticism, or even atheism, excludes the possibility of a “consciousness.” But I think materialism does.
I did not derive my materialist standpoint out of a rejection of the western god, nor because of a “bad taste” in my mouth and negative associations to the religious. For me it was a step-by-step process as I examined all the possibilities when I left my religion.
I will address this issue in a separate post, since two other people have requested one on this topic. But to give you a general idea, as I began to learn about neurology and cognition I realized there were biological answers to so many experiences we typically attribute to the supernatural.
Did you know that we can simulate a spiritual, other-worldly type of experience by stimulating an area of the brain? The more a person is prone to spiritual experiences, the more intense the experience they have in these neurological studies.
As the number of biological explanations that came to my awareness increased, I no longer saw a need for supernatural explanations.
I have made the choice to reduce all things to natural and biological experience. I see no reason to trust any other sorts of ideas that I can’t verify.
On the other hand, one of the many reasons I call myself agnostic is because in the tradition of science, it is dangerous to close your mind one-hundred percent to the possibility of being wrong.
If I can comment on your own comment, you communicate with intelligence, and yet I am confused on your ultimate stance. Sometimes you sound like a materialist, sometimes you do not. You seemed at times to reject all things supernatural, yet talked about a “consciousness” that underlies all reality, which seems minimally supernatural to me.
I guess you are in-between? You don’t see this consciousness as being “supernatural” with powers, yet it is something that connects us all within? Within us? or Without us? But not material, right?
August 3rd, 2006 @ 7:46 pm
What you have arrived at intuitively has been modelled mathematically. See e.g. this book.
August 4th, 2006 @ 7:05 am
[...] The other one is from Agnostic Mom called:Â “Evolutionary Psychology and Materialism As A World View“Â where she discusses how humanity has evolved ethics and “morality” out of necessity and not from a deity. Fascinating reading. [...]
August 4th, 2006 @ 8:40 am
Agnostic Mom,
I believe that, yes, everything about the human experience is material. Everything MUST be material, because that’s just the way the universe works: everything has a law or equation, and things interact with each other according to those laws or equations. There’s no room for anything “supernatural”, because then life would be chaotic and unpredictable to some degree–which, ultimately, regardless of our own scientific abilities, I don’t see to be the case. There is an order to everything, and this order is indicative (in my opinion) of a closed system of a material nature; nothing more than that.
Your comment about spirituality being located in the brain goes to my point. If spirituality WEREN’T in the brain, and really was this supernatural element that we could never really study or know… then there wouldn’t be much point to it. Because it would be a vague, intuitive, supernatural sense operating in a natural universe; it would be a foreign object, in a sense, and things would just be confusing.
But I don’t believe spiritual experiences happen supernaturally. I believe they must occur naturally, in a material way–even if we’ll never entirely understand the physical properties of it in the brain.
My ultimate stance is that, just because the source of spirituality/emotions/morality/anything else people like to say separates us from the animals isn’t attributed to anything supernatural… that doesn’t mean it doesn’t say something really important about nature itself. And just because those elements of our existence are no longer other-worldly, doesn’t mean they’re not extremely special and poignant for us. And while, according to the materialist view, they don’t separate us from nature or the material world in any way… they do indicate that we are inextricably connected with the material world and that we are a part of nature itself; we are animals, nothing more.
But by coming to this conclusion, I’ve found that I’ve had to go back and change some basic assumptions. It seems to me that in Western thought, people either consciously or subconsciously believe that they are “detached” from Nature… that they are somehow above animals. Thus we have “manmade” objects, and “natural” objects. A house is manmade, a nest is natural; a powerplant is manmade, a beaver dam is natural. On a similar note, I’ve heard it said that “Beauty doesn’t actually exist in nature; humans create it,” or “There is no real purpose or meaning in the universe; humans create that for themselves.”
But I don’t think statements like that really hold up under the reality that we ARE nature… that there’s nothing separating us from the physical world around us. Everything about us is a result and product of certain natural, physical processes in the material world–including our spirituality, emotions, and other such qualities.
When I really thought about that, it forced me to change some past assumptions. It forced me to realize that, while there may not be a “supernature”, there is indeed a nature that is inevitably special in terms of our own sense of beauty and purpose. To put it in a new-agey sense, we ourselves are, in a way, the manifestation of nature’s ongoing, unfolding process of interconnected growth, expansion, whatever you want to call it.
I really wish I could make some acknowledgements here, but I’m running out of time. If I had more time, I would recognize that I’m certainly just poeticizing/romanticizing nature… that perhaps there’s a logical fallacy occuring in my mind here… that I’m basically turning nature into supernature, or something like that… but I actually really have to go… sorry!
Adam
August 4th, 2006 @ 5:35 pm
I have been viewing your blog, Noell, on an almost daily basis, and I love it. I haven’t commented before, because I haven’t felt that I had much to add or input … but I found this entry very interesting. And, call me crazy, but I totally get what Adam is saying. I, too, have recently let go of my religious upbringing/bondage, and have come to realize that nature is nature, and we’re all part of that, and have come to really appreciate life in a different way. And I see what he means when he says we tend to detach humans from things of nature. A lightbulb just went off for me when I read your entry, and Adam’s comments. I really appreciate your Agnostic Mom blog site and love all the other input as well!
August 5th, 2006 @ 4:32 am
Noell,
Thank you for the post. You make a lot of interesting points; I don’t know how far I’ll get, but starting from the beginning:
(from Pinker) “Just as we all have the same physical organs (two eyes, a liver, a four-chambered heart), we have the same mental organs.†(pg. 142) There is variation among physical organs, I suspect the same would be true of any mental organs.
(Pinker) “…all humans can be assumed to have certain traits in common.” Why is this an assumption? If there is evidence for it, I would think it would be a conclusion.
(Pinker) “No one likes being enslaved.” No, but examples from history seem to indicate to me that some people certainly enjoy enslaving others.
August 5th, 2006 @ 12:36 pm
The strong agnostic standpoint would be more like “nature is all I can know”. We are limited greatly by our senses, which I’m sure only tells us a very small part of what is actually going on in the universe. Anything that could be supernatural is outside of our ability to experience and know, so it turns out to be a nonissue for our own lives. The supernatural may exist, but who cares since we can’t know it because we are natural. It has the same implications and impacts on us as the imaginary because we are real.
Good and evil relative to the individual is the simple view that only works if the individual lives in isolation. Societies play the much bigger role in defining our good and evil from the smallest societal bonds of family to larger bonds of countries and humanity as a whole. Our good and evil depend greatly on situations and a consensus view of right and wrong.
Morality is indeed relative in my opinion. Your infliction of pain example is another case of this. There are people, as few as they may be, that derive happiness from physical pain. As twisted and weird as most of us think this is you can’t even use freedom from pain as an absolute “good”.
I also can’t use the blanket statement that we have no right to deny a person their happiness and freedom because some people’s happiness and freedom can be harmful to society. We willingly deny criminals their freedom and happiness in the best interest of society. So what is good for most can never end up being good for all. This is another reason why I believe society plays the bigger role in defining morality than the individual’s singular view of right and wrong.
August 5th, 2006 @ 3:28 pm
Right on, ffuege!
August 6th, 2006 @ 12:42 am
While I’m thinking about it, y’all may want to check out the work of Antonio D’Amasio, particularly Descartes’ Error. Brain development, emotions, good decisions, etc.
And, did you see the recent paper by the research group in England who found a picture of eyes tends to make people more honest? Discussion in the Dallas Morning News religion section today: “Sight Unseen: Are we wired to serve God?” here: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/DN-eyeswatching_05rel.ART0.State.Edition1.2be46c0.html
August 8th, 2006 @ 6:33 am
That we all feel pain and desire happiness is irrelevant when one person’s pain is another person’s happiness. Pain and happiness can not be defined in universal terms – - people can not agree on what constitutes these qualities, or on the acceptable levels.
“I’ve found you can find happiness in slavery.” – Trent Rezner
August 8th, 2006 @ 8:11 am
Great post, thanks.
August 21st, 2006 @ 4:31 am
Noell,
Shall we consider the conversation ended? Did you want to respond to my questions/comments on # 12? Are you waiting for me to write more?
Peace,
Dan
August 21st, 2006 @ 6:05 am
Dan–Thanks for following up. It is my intention to respond to your comment and a couple of the others in a separate post.
For various reasons, I have not have as much blogging time as I used to. That may or may not change with my children’s new schedule. Either way, I do plan to respond in one of the next posts. Sorry I didn’t explain that earlier! Thanks for being patient.
August 22nd, 2006 @ 6:17 pm
Noell,
You’re an excellent writer, and that takes time and mental energy. I think we both agree that family should come first. At present, my interests are changing, so I might not be around or comment in the future.
In case I don’t “see” you again, may things go well with you and your family.
Dan
August 23rd, 2006 @ 6:12 am
Yes, I understand changing interests! How funny. I started the post and hope to post it soon, but I am learning not to guarantee entries!!!!
Thanks, Dan, I wish the best for you and your family as well. Thanks for your interest and considerate comments/questions despite our differing beliefs.
August 23rd, 2006 @ 9:41 am
[...] I finally started working on a post yesterday that is a response to some of the comments on my earlier post, Evolutionary Psychology And Materialism As A Worldview. These types of posts take more time than my easer-to-write personal story posts. So in the meantime, while you wait, let me send you over to a warm-up Evolutionary Psychology article on The Evolution List blog which Panda’s Thumb quoted (yes, Panda’s Thumb endorsed this Evolutionary Psychologist’s writing). [...]
August 24th, 2006 @ 3:06 am
Noell,
The phrase “differing beliefs” interests me. Do you see yourself as someone who has beliefs? My impression was that you wanted to gain knowledge only through science, and as such wouldn’t want to have beliefs. Please explain if you like, or if you have time.
Peace,
Dan
August 24th, 2006 @ 6:09 am
Dan, I love your careful attention to words. My “beliefs” are a combination of beliefs and non-beliefs.
I don’t believe in the supernatural. I do believe that the human tendency toward supernatural beliefs is an innate coping mechanism.
I believe humans have the potential and capability to solve the world’s major problems. Over the last few hundred years we have solved an unthinkable amount of them. We have also created many of them. But in time and through our fumbling we will continue to solve them.
I believe that life is short and ends at death. Therefore I believe it is precious and sacred. Of course, the word “sacred” will raise your eye brows. It has its own meaning to me. I hold things sacred if they are most valuable to me, most precious, involve life, are fragile and could be lost from me or someone else: namely, family and life.
I believe the scientific method is the most accurate method known to humankind so far for discovering facts and perhaps truth.
I believe humans want to be happy. I believe it is good to contribute to our own happiness and that of others. I believe it is bad to purposely hurt others unnecessarily.
While I commit the human folly of thinking I “know” things that I really don’t, I try to acknowledge that my understanding is provisional and that new understanding could show me to be wrong. This is why I call myself agnostic although my beliefs are one hundred percent atheistic.
Mainly, what I call my “beliefs” are the way I view the world and understand it to be.
August 26th, 2006 @ 5:37 am
Noell,
Thanks for the explanation.
“…discovering facts and perhaps truth.” What do you see as truth, then, if it’s not exactly the same as facts?
August 26th, 2006 @ 8:21 am
I think “Truth” is an objective, complete, and accurate understanding of facts. I think there are times we may have the facts but our interpretation or understanding of them are at times be subjective, limited, or skewed.
I don’t say this to mean there is no truth. I am only acknowledging the failures of the human mind to see it, be we atheists, Christians, scientists, or whatever. I do believe there is a Truth to events that have transpired. But our ability to understand is small.
August 27th, 2006 @ 3:46 am
Noell,
Thanks for telling me your thoughts, I really appreciate your time.
Peace,
Dan
September 12th, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
Great stuff. I love Pinker.
September 16th, 2006 @ 12:20 am
I seek your advice in a matter of disagreeing beliefs between my mother and I. Recently we had the conversation on why I am not a firm believer in religion. I simply told her that I don’t claim to believe or not to believe. I believe that is called agnostic. I proceeded to tell her that I am not one of those people that feel as if I have to share this belief or rather push it as some people do. Now my question is that is there an easy way to simply express that I don’t like having their religous beliefs pushed on me as well as they wouldn’t like me to push my “on the fence” beliefs? It is really starting to bother me because it seems like even my work as a waitress is becoming as if my customers are leaving me little notes, cds, magnets, oh and the random questions about what church I attend and how often and why I work on Sundays and the very many attempts to bring me to church with them. I am growing tired of it because not only do I have these small things I also have bigger issues with people acting like they are indeedly righteous when really the majority of what I see from these people is pure ugliness.