Thinking Christian Comments
Original URL: Daniel Dennett Again
If evolutionism means that we're completely disallowing any meaning to life, freedom, consciousness, religion, then ID is an awfully attractive option.
I think it's unfair to conflate the theory of evolution with these other peripheral issues of the soul or conscience or to use the beliefs of these outspoken evolution proponents as an argument for ID. It's like me saying all these ID proponents are Christians and using that as an argument to invalidate ID which I don't imagine you would agree with.
All ID seeks to do is tell us everything is designed by some supernatural power, I've no idea why that should be any more comforting than the thought that we might just have gotten here on our own because we have faced the tests of survival that nature has thrown at us and won (so far).
Raz, Your last statement:
I've no idea why that should be any more comforting than the thought that we might just have gotten here on our own because we have faced the tests of survival that nature has thrown at us and won (so far).is only meaningful if there is more to life than what Darwinism allows. "We" didn't doing anything, from a Darwinist perspective. As Tom accurately states, if we are just pawns of evolution, our survival is just what it is, nothin more and nothing less. It is not unfair to point out the logical consequences of a philosophy which excludes any non-materialistic entities.
Can Darwinism explain the creation of the universe as well?
How will we expect Dennett to answer that? My guess is he's disappointed or embarrassed that the editor put the question there; for all its strong claims of explanation, Darwinism has never offered to deal with that one!
Presumably, if we take Dennett's view of beliefs seriously, then Darwinism explains the creation of the universe in the same way that it explains God! Rather than being an actual, objective event or thing that we can have rational, abstract thoughts about, the creation of the universe exists as a meme, a configuration of neurons created by our genes acting on the environment, put there by natural selection.
Barry clearly since we are intelligent beings we have the ability to shape our own evolution and survival, we are not simply pawns in the same way as other organisms on the planet which do not have the power to influence their own survival in such dramatic ways.
The theory of evolution has nothing to do with non-materialistic entities, it's just a mechanism by which creatures adapt and compete for survival. It says nothing of the existence of the soul or the origin of consciousness other than that it must have had some kind of positive benefit to our species or we wouldn't have it.
It would be really helpful if people would stop using terms like Darwinism, Evolutionism etc. when they are really talking about Atheism. Darwinism and Evolutionism have concise dictionary definitions and they say nothing of religion, the belief in God or the meaning of life.
Can Darwinism explain the creation of the universe as well?
This is just a ridiculous question as evolution has nothing to do with the creation of the universe. If we assume the interviewer actually means how can Atheism explain the creation of the universe I guess all Dennett has to do is point to the big bang theory or similar.
Can Darwinism explain the creation of the universe as well?We might as well ask if dentistry can explain geography. The answer, of course, is "fish."
Paul, you get the prize for the most insightful answer!
Raz, you wrote:
I think it's unfair to conflate the theory of evolution with these other peripheral issues of the soul or conscience or to use the beliefs of these outspoken evolution proponents as an argument for ID. It's like me saying all these ID proponents are Christians and using that as an argument to invalidate ID which I don't imagine you would agree with.
Not all evolutionists conflate these ideas, but Dennett certainly does, which is what I was writing about.
On the other hand, when did "soul" and "conscience" become peripheral matters?
if evolutionism means that we're completely disallowing any meaning to life, freedom, consciousness, religion, then ID is an awfully attractive option.Or, evolution gives those of us who appreciate truth more meaning to life, by trying to answer the question of how did we get here, by using the tools of science.
The answers are much more "attractive" than the ID option, IMHO. Being related to every living thing is endlessly fascinating, and the chemical and environmental mechanisms are more interesting than any "designer did it by Magic 'Option'".
Again, just how I see it, but nature seems to back me up.
Knowing that we are a truly mortal being, can give us a much better appreciation of life. No "do-overs".
(ok, recognizing death is dirt-simple biology, not evolution, but as long as we are lumping things together into a world view)
Eric,
I'm curious: how can naturalism (which is what I'm talking about more specifically than evolution, even though Dennett combines the two) give more meaning to life?
It's not simply about which version allows us more meaningful thoughts to reflect on. There's a basic error there that would be easy to make, and we wouldn't want to make it: The problem with naturalism is that under that explanation, there is no such thing as having thoughts to reflect on. Consciousness, freedom, and beliefs are literally illusions and without meaning. They're less than vapor.
Remember that Dennett--who has put as much work into explaining these things as any naturalist--said that belief can be explained in much the same way that cancer can. He can't confine that statement purely to belief in God, it's any belief at all.
We could debate all week on which worldview is more interesting and inspiring on the surface, and we'd find it's largely a matter of taste. One must dig deeper to the foundations, where naturalism simply crumbles.
Our songs, art, books and religious beliefs are all ultimately a product of evolutionary algorithms. Some find that thrilling, others depressing.
Sounds like Dennett is arguing for ID here - for where else would the algorithms come from?
He's also making a purely subjective assertion: nobody has demonstrated any algorithms that explain the creation of songs, art, books, or religious beliefs. He's making a faith-based argument!
John Derbyshire linked to the Dawkins interview last week on NRO's The Corner, referring to Dawkins as "science's version of Pat Robertson". It's not a perfect analogy, but it hits pretty close to the mark. Dennett is in a similar position, I think.
but just God the master of ceremonies. When God is the master of ceremonies and doesn't actually play any role any more in the universe, he's sort of diminished and no longer intervenes in any way.
I don't want to make too much of this, because it's a rather silly quote, but it makes no sense. What does Dennett think that the Academy awards would look like without an MC? And has he never witnessed what happens when the MC doesn't know what he's doing? Finally, how can God be an MC, yet not intervene? In point of fact, the MC analogy is in some (weak) sense exactly what the theistic evolutionist claims is (part of) God's role. This view can be traced back to Aquinas, Augustine, and other early church thinkers. It's also quite compatible with the ID position, since surely an MC can subtly change the direction of a show.
I'm a supporter of evolution, and I think that generally speaking when Christians criticize evolution, they are ignorant of that which they criticize. But when people like Dawkins and Dennett criticize religion, they are just as bad, if not worse. They constantly attack straw men, demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the beliefs and practices they criticize. This is not to say that such beliefs or practices are beyond criticism, only that most critiques of them from the modern academy, whether from the sciences or the humanities, are ridiculous in their ignorance.
A final point: Raz is complaining about people equating Dennett's beliefs or claims with evolutionary theory. It's a fair point as far as it goes, but a large part of the problem is that the scientific community as a whole isn't vocal enough or clear enough in distancing the scientific theory from the philosophical claims of ardent materialists like Dawkins and Dennett. Since the press loves to print their claims, due to the controversy they sow, these claims get absorbed by many people as the claims of the scientific establishment. Harsher criticism of Dennett and Dawkins would do much to weaken the opposition to evolution.
Knowing that we are a truly mortal being, can give us a much better appreciation of life. No "do-overs".
The understanding of each individual having inherent, priceless, worth, is the source of Western concepts of human rights. The roots of the claims of left-liberal human rights groups, who no longer believe in God, lie in the Christian tradition. The view that we are nothing but matter arranged in particularly complex and interesting ways provides no ground for the claim of individual human rights. It results not in inherent rights, but in rights based upon external characteristics. Thus the culture wars over abortion, creation and destruction of embryos, Terri Schiavo, and euthanasia. On the one side are those, largely though not exclusively informed by Christian faith and theology, that human beings have an inherent worth, simply due to the fact that they are human beings. On the other side are those, largly though not exclusively informed by a secular worldview, that human rights are a function of one's capacities or characteristics, and not of anything inherent. This is the view that has been in practice for most of human history, in most societies - the exception being the Christian West, and those places influenced by it. This results in views like PETA, or the environmental radicals, who claim that other organisms have the same claim to "rights" that human beings do. Or like Peter Singer, who claims that it is morally acceptable to kill infants that have genetic defects. Or the Chinese or Indians, who have aborted millions of babies simply because they were female.
Secularists often make the claim that the belief in an afterlife causes religious believers to downgrade the status of this life. But the evidence doesn't support this claim. Sure, in favor of it you can point to suicide bombers. But against it you have to compare the human rights-based political systems of the West, which are rooted in Christian theology, with the massive death and destruction wrought by the Communist regimes in Russia, China, and Cambodia. You also have to ignore all the service to the poor performed by the Church. The reality is that human nature being what it is, when people think that this life is all there is, they tend to gravitate towards hedonism. Which is why I keep referring to the contrast between Islam and Europe. Europe largely holds the views espoused by Eric, but it is completely living for the moment, with the result that it's future is bleak. While Islamic societies have an eternal perspective (albeit one I think is profoundly flawed), and they are growing and spreading rapidly. Even from a purely evolutionary standpoint, it's clear that the religious worldviews are more successful than the secular ones. It's not the religious believers who are engaging in wishful thinking - it's the secularists who think that their worldview is sustainable that are delusional.
John Derbyshire linked to the Dawkins interview last week on NRO's The Corner, referring to Dawkins as "science's version of Pat Robertson". It's not a perfect analogy, but it hits pretty close to the mark. Dennett is in a similar position, I think.
Bit off-topic, but ironically that same Derbyshire approvingly cited this same interview with Dennet about a week later. Out of all the commentators on the ID debate that I've seen, from either side, I think Derb may be the most dishonest (or confused, but mainly I think he's dishonest - and I don't outright accuse people of dishonesty unless I really think it's most charitable explanation that is reasonable).
Anyhow, in Dennett's "defense", I guess I'd have to point out that he doesn't consider God to actually be the "Master of Ceremonies". In his view, God was invented by our genes, and doesn't actually exist externally. He's saying that God's role is diminished in our minds, which is the only place he ever existed in the first place.
His claim is that as we discover more and more "natural causes", we have more and more reason to think that God doesn't do anything. The problem is, if our beliefs about God can be modified by acts of reason, Dennett's entire materialist reductionist edifice comes crashing down on itself. In fact, if any of our beliefs (including Dennett's) are the product of reason, the whole thing comes crashing down (as Tom pointed out above, Dennett can't claim that only other people's beliefs can be explained like cancer).
Out of all the commentators on the ID debate that I've seen, from either side, I think Derb may be the most dishonest (or confused, but mainly I think he's dishonest - and I don't outright accuse people of dishonesty unless I really think it's most charitable explanation that is reasonable).
I don't think he's dishonest. Confused is closer to the mark, although it's not quite right, either. The impression I get from Derbyshire is that he writes based upon impressions, but doesn't examine the basis for or implications of his impressions in any rigorous analytical way. Which is ironic for someone who professes to love science so much. He's admitted as much - that he doesn't "do" philosophy or metaphysics. Periodically he posts something in The Corner, then gets jumped on by others, and ends up not being able to defend his assertion in a rational way.
In his view, God was invented by our genes, and doesn't actually exist externally. He's saying that God's role is diminished in our minds, which is the only place he ever existed in the first place.
Sure, but the key point is still what people think God is doing. My point is that his progression of people's views of God, with MC being at the "lowest" level, didn't make sense. This is true regardless of what Dennett himself thinks. A more reasonable progression would make God into a deist sort of God - distant and uninvolved in His creation. But that doesn't fit with the MC analogy.
The problem is, if our beliefs about God can be modified by acts of reason, Dennett's entire materialist reductionist edifice comes crashing down on itself. In fact, if any of our beliefs (including Dennett's) are the product of reason, the whole thing comes crashing down (as Tom pointed out above, Dennett can't claim that only other people's beliefs can be explained like cancer).
Quite right.
Excellent post and very enlightening comments..
I should point out the bogus claim that was made that ID says a supernatural force created everything. ID says no such thing. It says nothing of the designer, so it says nothing of the designer being natural of supernatural...and it doesn't say that EVERYTHING is the result of direct design. It says that many biological structures show hallmarks of design, not that ALL biological structures were designed per se. NS has a role, but not the role it has to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in NDE.
Dennett's worldview is self contradicting. If he believes that his thoughts are meaningless results of neurons firing and that's that, then there's no rational reason he can give as to why we should even listen to ANYTHING he says/writes. Blind, meaningless processes cannot possibly lead to meaningful words, thoughts, or ideas. He says that the universe has its way with you, that you have no free will- again, that means we shouldn't listen to anything he's saying, since all he says is the result of a purposeless and meaningless process that, in the end, serves no real function.
Religious ideas to him are just nonsensical ideas that need to be tossed aside...but he can't have it both ways. ALL ideas are nonsensical if there is NO meaning whatsoever...so religious ideas are in the same boat as HIS ideas ON religion- both are meaningless and nonsensical results of purposeless processes.
Blind, meaningless processes cannot possibly lead to meaningful words, thoughts, or ideas.Why not? It seems obvious, but actually working through its assumptions and logic can be revealing.
Here's a counter example of how something can lead to something else that is very different from its source: we create pictures all the time which are nothing more than individual little dots. One could just as easily argue how you could create a picture of an apple from nothing more than a picture of many little dots: that is you obviously can't get an apple from a dot.
The idea that higher level phenomenon can be radically different from their lower level components is called "emergence." Go to Wikipedia for an explanation. Here's two more examples from Wikipedia: "No physical property of an individual molecule of air would lead one to think that a large collection of them will transmit sound. The shape and behaviour of a flock of birds or school of fish are also good examples."
"One reason why emergent behaviour is hard to predict is that the number of interactions between components of a system increases combinatorially with the number of components, thus potentially allowing for many new and subtle types of behaviour to emerge. For example, the possible interactions between groups of molecules grows enormously with the number of molecules such that it is impossible for a computer to even count the number of arrangements for a system as small as 20 molecules."
So, Paul, why do you think nature has these emergent properties?
I'm not sure why emergence (or anything, for that matter) exists. I don't think that emergence requires a god any more than any other aspect of the universe requires a god, and I mean that quite literally, not rhetorically. Let's assume, hypothetically, that the universe does require a god that created it, I think we reach that conclusion with or without emergence; and the opposition conclusion similarly.
I must be slow this morning, Paul. It happens. 
I don't understand what you're trying to say in that last sentence.
I don't think that emergence requires a god any more than any other aspect of the universe requires a god, and I mean that quite literally, not rhetorically.
I'm not trying to suggest it "requires" a Creator, just that it suggests one. If you want to leave it as a totally unexplainable fact, then I obviously can't force you to wonder about it.
Let's assume, hypothetically, that the universe does require a god that created it, I think we reach that conclusion with or without emergence; and the opposition conclusion similarly.
Like I said, I'm not making some sort of rigorous logical argument: "If emergence, then God exists." I agree that logically speaking, God could have created a variety of universes. I also agree that logically speaking, the fact that nature has emergent properties doesn't compel belief in God. I am saying that from a purely materialistic point of view, emergent properties just have to be accepted as a brute fact without explanation. But from a theistic point of view, they make a lot of sense.
Mike, we're not that far apart (excepting belief in a deity). I don't want to completely leave it as an unexplained, brute fact. It should cause an intelligent person to wonder; I'm just at the place where I think it's better to leave it at that sense of wonder than to move toward belief in a deity that, I guess, causes more problems than it solves (the belief, that is, not the deity itself!).
Sorry, Tom. I meant that emergence is not crucial for determining whether a creator exists. A creator could have created a universe with emergence, and could have created a universe without it, too. And, a universe with emergence could exist without a creator as well as a universe without emergence could exist without a creator.
It should cause an intelligent person to wonder; I'm just at the place where I think it's better to leave it at that sense of wonder than to move toward belief in a deity that, I guess, causes more problems than it solves (the belief, that is, not the deity itself!).
I'm not asking any more than that...
Seek and ye shall find, then; I'm with ya. I'm completely comfortable with keeping the mystery open until a hypothesis begins to get confirmed.
But, Mike, your distinction about emergence--brute fact vs making sense from a theistic point of view--is pertinent. I guess I've said before that theism has other problems that make me reject it as privileged for explaining emergence. But, on the narrow point in this thread, I think we agree. It IS possible, people.
Tom,
How can naturalism give any less meaning to life?
As Darwin noted, our species could not survive without altruism. How does that differ from any supernatural claim for the existence of altruism as an explanation for its "meaning?"
Ed, over on the related thread we've been talking about meaning also. There are at least two senses to the term "meaning," on which it is easy to equivocate. On that thread I've been trying to focus on the fact that by Dennett's worldview, there is no meaning in the sense that we can know and understand nothing whatsoever. See http://www.haloscan.com/comments...24151756/
#98186.
If there is no meaning in this sense, I think it follows that there is no meaning in any other "meaningful" sense of the term.
But as I said there, I am definitely not claiming that persons who do not believe in God experience no meaning in their lives. I am saying that the explanation for that meaning collapses under naturalism, and we are left with a contradiction and a puzzle, which can be explained successfully only under theism.
How does that differ from any supernatural claim for the existence of altruism as an explanation for its "meaning?"
It's the difference between a monkey acting altruistically and William Wallace sacrificing himself for his country.
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