On Reconciling Atheism and Meaning in the Universe

[rug]

"Romantic reductionist" neuroscientist Christof Koch -- who previously posited how the Internet could become conscious -- discusses the search for meaning in the world of science, and the philosophical influence of working with Francis Crick.

Aug 29 2012, 9:01 AM ET
Steve Paulson

Scientists are now launching one of the most audacious projects ever conceived: an attempt to map the neural circuits within the human brain. Our brains have close to 100 billion neurons and trillions of synapses, so the task is almost impossibly complicated. For some neuroscientists, the goal isn't just to map the brain; it's to crack the mystery of consciousness. But can our minds -- our thoughts and feelings, our experience of joy and sorrow and self-awareness, even our faith in God -- be reduced to brain chemistry?

It's a sobering idea, especially for religious believers. If you really are your brain, will neuroscience bury your soul?

Not exactly, says Christof Koch, a leading neuroscientist at the California Institute of Technology. It all depends on how we understand the soul. Unlike his mentor, the legendary scientist Francis Crick, Koch has always nurtured a religious sensibility. In his new book Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, he writes about his hunger for meaning and his yearning for the transcendent. And in January he plans to meet with the Dalai Lama to talk about the connections between neuroscience and Buddhist meditation

During our interview Koch talked fast and jumped quickly from one big idea to the next. In a piece last week, "The Nature of Consciousness," we talked about Koch's search for the neural correlates of consciousness and the possibility that the Internet could learn to feel. Today, we conclude our conversation.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/08/on-reconciling-atheism-and-meaning-in-the-universe/261627/

Steve Paulson is the executive producer of Wisconsin Public Radio's To the Best of Our Knowledge and the author of the book Atoms and Eden: Conversations on Religion and Science. He is now producing a radio series on the science of consciousness.

[GodlessBiker]

1. "...he writes about his hunger for meaning...." We put meaning in the universe...

He needs to stop abdicating responsibility for his ability to create meaning and value. He doesn't seem to acknowledge our own creative abilities as far as meaning goes.

Just because each of us puts meaning in the universe, doesn't render that meaning valueless or inconsequential. In fact, it renders the meaning even more precious, as it will die with each one of us.

[rug]

3. Do you consider meaning to be subjective?

[GodlessBiker]

6. It's subjective in that it is created by the subject.

For example, a lake is made meaningful by someone who fell in love on its shores.

[rug]

10. Therefore, there is nothing that exists that has objective meaning?

[GodlessBiker]

15. Meaning which exists outside of consciousness? No.

[rug]

18. I think we're headed into falling tree sound territory.

The vibrations exist whether or not there is an ear to perceive them.

[GodlessBiker]

20. No. It's simply an attribute of consciousness to create meaning in the world.

Kind of like it is an attribute of the Higgs Boson to create mass in the world.

I don't see how meaning can exist without consciousness. It is consciousness which creates meaning, thereby finding things meaningful. A rock or a galaxy or an electron doesn't do that.

[rug]

22. Ok, but that is different from meaning being subjective.

The idea that the universe has no meaning absent conscious beings does make sense. But those conscious beings do share some common meaning, for example, survival, that is not dependent on an individual's subjective view. It is one of the basic reasons that billions of people wake up and work.

[GodlessBiker]

44. But an instinct isn't equivalent to meaning. It's just another background fact which helps create..

the situation within which we create meaning.

Some of us create meaning by valuing death over life, and they commit suicide.

Yes, most of us create meaning by choosing to value life, and most of us do not commit suicide. That does not mean that each of us is not creating the value of life subjectively, through consciousness, at each and every moment we decide to remain alive.

I really don't know what it means to say that meaning or value is not dependent on an individual's subjective view - read consciousness. If consciousness is not creating it, what is?

[rug]

69. The corrollary of that statement is that there are no shared values.

As to your last question, that's the million dollar question.

[AlbertCat]

92. The corrollary of that statement is that there are no shared values.

Nonsense.

Since we are all human, with human brains that more or less work the same and come with the same "software", humans share many values as their goals are the same. But it's still all brain chemistry.

[rug]

107. Do you realize you're disagreeing with him?

[alfredo]

49. I'm perfectly happy with it all being meaningless.

[AtheistCrusader]

54. If it was vibrating, we could objectively measure it.

[rug]

65. Not if neither you nor your equipment is there.

Does the vibration still exist?

[AtheistCrusader]

71. If it has never been measured

what is your evidence to suggest there is a vibration at all?

[rug]

74. A galaxy, yet undiscovered, does not exist now by that standard.

[AtheistCrusader]

75. We have quite a lot of evidence that we are only nibbling at the edges of how many stars and

galaxies exist in the universe. We recently upgraded the number that we KNOW to exist by about 70%, accounting for a lot of 'missing' mass to the universe that we expected to see but couldn't.

What is your evidence that suggests there is or might be such a vibration?

[rug]

77. You didn't answer.

Regarding vibrations, I suppose wave physics is a subjective discipline.

[AtheistCrusader]

78. particles may resonate and have frequency.

You attributed this 'vibration' to macro scale objects.

Do tell.

[rug]

80. Have you now become a WaveistCrusader?

[AtheistCrusader]

82. I see.

That which can be asserted without evidence, can be fairly dismissed without evidence.

You are dismissed.

[rug]

85. Well, since you're the one claiming waves don't exist unless someone measures them, this is overdue.

[AtheistCrusader]

97. And of course, that isn't what I said at all.

You must be picking up on those funny waves I give off that no one else can perceive.

[rug]

105. I am picking up smething you're giving off.

It starts with b and ends with t.

[AtheistCrusader]

110. You never answered post 75.

I wonder why.

[rug]

111. I did. Apparently you reject wave physics as evidence.

I wonder why.

[AtheistCrusader]

118. Reviewing the thread I may have read something into post 18

that you did not state.

I thought you were heading into metaphysics territory with 'vibrations' but strictly speaking, sound *IS* a vibration, so you didn't actually say what I responded to.

My apologies.

[cbayer]

2. Here is his description of his God

This God I have in mind is very ephemeral. It's much closer to Spinoza's God than to the God of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The mystic Angelus Silesius, who was a contemporary of Descartes, had this wonderful quote: "God is a lucent nothing, no Now nor Here can touch him." It's totally different from any conventional conception of a god. In fact, it's much closer to Buddhist thought than to any monotheistic religion. I just grew up calling this "God" because that's my tradition, but it's not any god that we in the Western world would recognize. There isn't an old guy with a beard who watches over us.

[rug]

4. This is where he puts himself on the atheist spectrum.

So you're not exactly an atheist.

Koch: I'm not a conventional atheist who believes it's all just a random formation. I believe there is meaning. But as you said, I don't believe in a personal god or any of the standard things that you're supposed to believe as a Christian.

[cbayer]

5. Interesting take and it resonates with me.

[cleanhippie]

8. It frustrating when people use words like "random formation"...

Because there is nothing random about natural selection or how the universe formed. Saying things like this do nothing but undermine his credibility.

[rug]

11. If not random, is it deliberate?

I understood the initial mutation to be random, with the most utile mutations surviving.

[cleanhippie]

12. Mutations are random, but nature selects only those that are fit enough.

To imply that the natural selection process is random seems to me to demonstrate ignorance on the subject.

[rug]

14. Well, personifying nature is dangerous.

I don't think we're really disagreeing. If the random mutations improve survival, that's just a fact. Dropping a rubber ball off a roof results in a bounce. Dropping an egg doesn't. Nothing or nobody selects a particular mutation. It just works better.

[cleanhippie]

17. I wasn't personifying nature, simply using vocabulary that is easy to understand.

Maybe that's what he was doing too.

[LTX]

32. Natural selection is simply

a process by which the fittest biological conglomeration for a given environment competes for and fills (or fails to fill) a niche made available by that environment. It is as random as the environmental conditions within which it occurs. If the salinity of a marsh alters, the selection pressures alter, and surviving biological adaptations reflect those alterations. Surely you are not suggesting that there is a deliberative, non-random process by which the environment itself evolves.

[eqfan592]

33. Not exactly sure how you could have possibly gotten that from what he wote... (nt)

[LTX]

34. Well, then I'm not sure what he meant by

the statement: "To imply that the natural selection process is random seems to me to demonstrate ignorance on the subject."

If the natural selection process is not random, then what is it?

[eqfan592]

35. From PBS:

7. Is evolution a random process?

Evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment. Whether or not an individual survives and reproduces depends on whether it has genes that produce traits that are well adapted to its environment.

That.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat01.html

[LTX]

37. Well gee. I guess if its PBS . . .

All this particular passage does is cut off the natural selection process at a fixed environmental point or condition. As the passage itself notes, "The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment."

And if the environment changes? Which it will, of course, randomly and in ways that defy anything other than gross prediction.

Hence, neither you nor anyone else can "predict" what the next iteration of a given, naturally selected species will be.

Maybe there's some definition of "random" here that I'm missing.

[eqfan592]

38. From talk origins:

"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating....

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html

From Berkeley:

MISCONCEPTION: Evolutionary theory implies that life evolved (and continues to evolve) randomly, or by chance.

CORRECTION: Chance and randomness do factor into evolution and the history of life in many different ways; however, some important mechanisms of evolution are non-random and these make the overall process non-random. For example, consider the process of natural selection, which results in adaptations — features of organisms that appear to suit the environment in which the organisms live (e.g., the fit between a flower and its pollinator, the coordinated response of the immune system to pathogens, and the ability of bats to echolocate). Such amazing adaptations clearly did not come about "by chance." They evolved via a combination of random and non-random processes. The process of mutation, which generates genetic variation, is random, but selection is non-random. Selection favored variants that were better able to survive and reproduce (e.g., to be pollinated, to fend off pathogens, or to navigate in the dark). Over many generations of random mutation and non-random selection, complex adaptations evolved. To say that evolution happens "by chance" ignores half of the picture. To learn more about the process of natural selection, visit our article on this topic. To learn more about random mutation, visit our article on DNA and mutations.

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/misconceptions_faq.php#a2

From biologist Richard Dawkins:

You said in a recent speech that design was not the only alternative to chance. A lot of people think that evolution is all about random chance.

That's ludicrous. That's ridiculous. Mutation is random in the sense that it's not anticipatory of what's needed. Natural selection is anything but random. Natural selection is a guided process, guided not by any higher power, but simply by which genes survive and which genes don't survive. That's a non-random process. The animals that are best at whatever they do-hunting, flying, fishing, swimming, digging-whatever the species does, the individuals that are best at it are the ones that pass on the genes. It's because of this non-random process that lions are so good at hunting, antelopes so good at running away from lions, and fish are so good at swimming.

http://www.beliefnet.com/News/Science-Religion/2005/11/The-Problem-With-God-Interview-With-Richard-Dawkins.aspx

Need I go on?

[LTX]

40. Actually, yes.

None of these passages address my principal point. Each presupposes that randomness is a non-iterative event, an inverse to a "rule" if you will. But by this definition, there is nothing about molecular mutation itself that is "random." Mutation occurs as a consequence of relatively well-known molecular attractions and collisions, and mutational "rules" can be used to explain on a post-hoc basis many molecular mutations. What has not been done (and perhaps cannot be done) is prediction of future mutational events. Such predictions, so it is said, are impossible because molecular "events" are themselves random (a proposition that gives many physicists hives).

Similarly, natural selection (although, ironically, itself less well understood than molecular mutational events) operates according to a general "fitness rule." But "environmental fitness" is contingent on environmental conditions. Those environmental conditions can be known in present and past, and hence operative selection pressures giving rise to a given species are subject to (somewhat murky and often just-so) explanations on a post-hoc basis. But again, what has not been done (and perhaps cannot be done) is prediction of future environmental conditions and hence future iterations of naturally selected species. Nonetheless, the very environmental pressures that operate on natural selection are, oddly enough, viewed as non-random "events."

I have consistently argued against the notion that natural selection is anything other than random. I have been told that I am stuck on "random outcomes," as opposed to "random interactions," but that in and of itself dismisses the random interactions that cause environmental change, and hence speciation. We know only that there is a vague "rule" associating fitness, selection and environment, but it is a non-linear "rule," and it has (at least thus far) defied any predicative powers.

Prof. Dawkins says "Natural selection is anything but random. Natural selection is a guided process." Ok. So is mutation. Perhaps you can explain the difference between the two. Nobody else has.

[eqfan592]

43. Sorry, but I'm in no mood to teach a biology lesson.

Truth be told, I'm very ill today and it took more effort than I really wished to even compose my last response. You are clearly in need of further study on the topic at hand, so I would suggest you do so of your own accord. That is, unless somebody else wishes to continue.

[LTX]

47. Really?

So your response is that I'm just ignorant?

You are either a biologist or a simple sophist.

I truly love the way scientific pronouncements (which are invariably subject to question in the spirit of science, although you would never know it from the scriptural adherents on this board) are accepted around this joint as gospel. God forbid anyone, even a scientist, should question the scientific status quo. Honestly, it looks a great deal like blind faith. Oops . . .

[eqfan592]

52. I said you were in need of further study on the subject.

You have questions you wish to be answered, which lead me to believe that it was your desire to have further information. Yet now it is clear that you have no desire to have such questions answered, and rather you enjoy feeling that somehow you're smarter than the entirety of the scientific community because they haven't "answered" your questions yet.

So yes, I do believe you are ignorant (something we all are to one degree or another), but now I see that it is willful. You were provided with a great starting point to further your knowledge in the form of a variety of links to authorities on the subject, but instead you chose to mock and deride both the entirety of the scientific community and myself.

It is you who have placed blind faith in something, and that is in your own certitude.

[LTX]

58. No, you said nothing of the kind.

There was nothing whatsoever snide or insulting to you in my post. It was a straight-forward discourse on the present challenges to the conceptions of natural selection (in connection with which I suggest the recent articles by Beatty, and Millstein's article "Are Random Drift and Natural Selection Conceptually Distinct?&quot .

In response to my post, you stated that you "didn't have time to give me a biology lesson." That kind of unwarranted crack to someone you don't know, and to someone whose scientific background you don't know, is very typical of the poseurs in this forum. Scientism is frankly rampant here, and it is deployed in ugly and snarky ways against anyone who dares to challenge the clubhouse bullies. Frankly, with all the talk about scientific "truth" and "proof" (neither of which is even conceptually compatible with actual science), I seriously doubt a single "atheist" here is anything other than a fraud. I did provide a "great starting point." And you chose to snark at it and treat me as a convenient target. Shove it.

[eqfan592]

59. You do understand people can just scroll up and read previous posts, right?

From my post in question:

You are clearly in need of further study on the topic at hand, so I would suggest you do so of your own accord.

So yes, I did say something of the kind.

And the rest of your post is more of the insulting garbage you claim you didn't say before. So yeah, I'm done with you.

[LTX]

61. Yes, people can scroll up and read previous posts.

And your snark will be self-evident. Insulting garbage indeed.

[Jim__]

114. "Are Random Drift and Natural Selection Conceptually Distinct?" - thanks for ...

... the reference.

I found a pre-publication version. Very interesting article.

[LTX]

70. Oh, and by the way,

I notice that you have not once addressed anything of substance in my post. Your sole contribution to the discussion was a few cut and pastes from some pop-science sites. Which exhausted you (couldn't resist). Current literature delves rather deeply into precisely the points I have raised, and it is well worth investigating.

I never meant for any of this to get ugly, and I apologize for the ugliness I contributed. But if you have any introspection at all, surely you will re-read your own posts with a fresh eye. You don't know me, and you don't know my scientific background. I will be happy to provide it, although ordinarily biographical information is unnecessary in issue discussions. Simple response to points made suffices.

[eqfan592]

89. Listen, as I said earlier...

...I'm very ill right now. This has made me very short tempered, so I apologize for my earlier grumpiness.

I supplied the links because I don't have it in me to go much beyond that at this time, and I had hoped you may find an answer to your questions there.

Perhaps we can try this whole discussion thing at another time when I'm feeling better and not ready to bite somebodies head off due to the pain I'm in. In fact, I think I might just avoid posting all together until then. lol

[cleanhippie]

99. I applaud your efforts and appreciate your assistance.

But you see just how deep the willful ignorance runs. Even after multiple sources verifying the fact of the matter, we can observe the cognitive dissonance hard at work, protecting the strongly held opinion.

Give it time. Facts matter, not convincing one anonymous, willfully ignorant person, who may or may not be simply playing a role for their own amusement.

[LTX]

112. What I am saying is not the product of "willful ignorance."

It is a topic of considerable debate, and not inconsiderable importance. The idea that natural selection is probabilistic has a rather long history, and the idea that natural selection is indeed stochastic has mathematical modeling ramifications.

Ernst Mayr utilized a probabilistic conception of natural selection:

Natural selection is a statistical phenomenon; it means merely that the better genotype has a ‘better chance of surviving’ (Darwin). A light-colored individual in a species of moth with industrial melanism may survive in a sooty area and reproduce, but its chances of doing so are far less than those of a blackish, cryptically colored individual. It happens not infrequently in nature that, for one reason or another, a superior individual fails to reproduce while an inferior one does so abundantly … Natural selection, being a statistical phenomenon, is not deterministic; its effects are not rigorously predictable."

In more recent writings, he asserts that “selection and chance are not two mutually exclusive alternatives…there are stochastic perturbations (“chance events”) during every stage of the selection process.”

To the extent that natural selection as a discrete process is susceptible to modeling at all (an initial question for which there are widely divergent views), the frankly random elements within the process will have to yield (it seems to me) to some variation of a Feigenbaum sequence or period-doubling. Natural selection as a gross process or rule seems otherwise to be simply a tautological escape hatch for observed variation that does not fall within genetic drift.

Science goes nowhere when it is reduced by scriptural adherents to dogmatism.

[eqfan592]

113. Honest question here.

Is there a bit of a jump from "probabilistic conception" to "random?"

[LTX]

117. The short answer is yes. Prof. Mayr's

initial discussions gave every appearance of focusing on outcome, not process (or discrete operative elements in the process). In the sense that natural selection has multiple possible outcomes with varying degrees of probability, this is pretty far from synonymous with a stochastic process.

But there was a readable evolution in his writings, where the process itself is broken down into elements, his "stochastic perturbations", and the uncertainty of outcome backed up into uncertainty in process.

Since that time the discussion has focused more on the existence or non-existence of conceptual distinctions between natural selection and genetic drift. Genetic drift is generally perceived as random (although it is as much a process as natural selection), and the modeling of drift has progressed quite a bit. Conceptually at least, it is suggested that elements of natural selection could yield to the same modeling.

[bananas]

125. They're using fucked-up semantics - The word "random" has several different meanings.

And the way they're using it is kind of fucked up.

[eqfan592]

128. Huh???

Actually, I think they're using it in the way creationists like to use it, which is what they are mainly speaking out against.

[bananas]

129. "they're using it in the way creationists like to use it" - exactly.

I'm not a creationist, so I look at that and think "wtf is this shit"?

[FiveGoodMen]

42. "directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment"

...and that local environment changes in ways which are -- deterministic, sure, but -- unplanned.

So the survival of traits is not random, but the conditions that guide that survival change ... sort of randomly.

[LTX]

48. Whoa there.

Deterministic? Care to explain? I would be very interested to hear your theory explaining the ripple between biological stasis and speciation. You'd be breaking new ground

[FiveGoodMen]

50. I said that environmental changes are deterministic.

If not, then everything that's been said about climate change is just a silly, wild guess.

You gonna take THAT position?

[LTX]

51. Actually, there's a difference.

Deterministic as in affected change is certainly not the same thing as deterministic as in "natural" (or, to be particularly difficult) regularly chaotic change. Furthermore, the two are not ultimately distinguishable. Political correctness aside, humans are an actual and inevitable natural force that cannot be dismissed as an aberration. While we know that change is occurring as a consequence of human-caused green-house gases, the consequences of that change on environmental gas and water distributions are poorly understood, and bearing that in mind, to suggest that we understand any consequences of climate change on speciation would be, well, hogwash.

[FiveGoodMen]

53. I'll leave you to your own private dictionary

[LTX]

60. It's a common dictionary.

If you have a problem with a particular word, I'll be happy to clarify.

[bananas]

124. rofl - that's as bad as creationism!

"there is nothing random about natural selection or how the universe formed."

[cleanhippie]

126. I'm unsure about exactly what it is you find so humorous.

[bananas]

130. Maybe it's a semantic problem - see my post #129. nt

[longship]

28. Interesting take, but a bit of a straw man.

The universe is not a random formation, and I don't know any atheist who would call it such. So that is a straw man.

A more proper description is that the universe operates as an organized entity based on organized principles that are at their base statistically predictable to a high degree of accuracy. Now whatever you call that, it is decidedly not random, although at the bottom, events might be.

The "laws" of the universe, expressed by the equations that a scientist may derive, show a distinctive bias. The universe is organized the way it is because it is indeed a consistent system that works by consistent rules. Otherwise, we could not make any meaningful headway in understanding it.

This gets down to one of those great philosophical questions. How can mathematics describe processes of the universe? I believe the answer to be simply that math is a organized system of logic and the universe very much seems to operate by very organized and, dare I say, universal principles. At the basic quantum level these are statistically random. But how the forces of nature act is NOT random because they each have their unique modes of action which humans have been able to predictably describe to a extremely high degree of accuracy with a logical system we call mathematics. Were the universe to be random, this wouldn't be so.

I do not buy into this guy's argument. The universe is what the universe is. We can describe it with some accuracy, but it is useless and senseless to try to find any ultimate cause, grounded in human understanding. We exist only because in our universe we can exist. Nothing more. The universe doesn't give a fuck about life, and certainly not about humans. We are merely an epiphenomenon of how the universe operates. Again, nothing more.

[rug]

29. There is a tension between organization and entropy.

I don't see a reason why one would prevail over the other, even though it does.

[longship]

30. Yes, good point!

But that also can be yet again another characteristic of our particular universe. It says nothing about purpose. Again, the universe is what it is. Life exists on Earth solely because it can exist here. There are a multitude of other places in the universe where this is true. We are not, in any sense, special. We could all be wiped out by a cometary collision next week and the universe would go on without pity. That's just the way things are. Ask the dinosaurs.

Humans exist solely by the fact that the universe sometimes reshuffles the deck with pitiless indifference.

[AlbertCat]

94. There is a tension between organization and entropy.

I don't see a reason why one would prevail over the other


**********

How about S = K log W?

It's actually entropy that wins, simply because there are more possible chaotic states than organized ones. But, as chaos theory shows, organization will always spring up in chaos. But to remain organized, energy must be put into the system. The Universe is very old and very big so lots of organized things have sprung up and there's lots of energy to keep them going.

Why anyone would think, however, this has "purpose" is beyond me, since the very concept of "purpose" we, as in humans, made up. And since the universe is clearly not made for us, we only get the last say with ourselves.... and the rest of the universe cares not. But on a time scale too vast for our comprehension, all will eventually be chaos.

[rug]

108. Chaos > Entropy > Organization?

[AlbertCat]

115. Go read a book on Chaos theory

[rug]

121. I have.

I also saw Jurassic Park twice.

[LTX]

36. There are gross "rules" that can be used

to predict linear outcomes, but interactions within the universe are non-linear, and hence defy more than gross predicative accuracy. Water and gas interactions on earth demonstrate the problems presented by non-linearity. Not the least of the non-linear equations yet to be resolved is the effect of biological A-B switches on water and gas pattern development. Indeed, this particular source of environmental chaos may never be subject to universality or predictability.

The more we know, the more the Newtonian clock falls apart.

[longship]

41. Indeed true.

Even a three body problem is not solvable analytically. However, many knotty problems like you mentioned can be modeled mathematically which many scientists do to test theory.

And quantum field theory is about as accurate as anything in science, or at least that's what Richard Feynman said.

But you are very correct.

What I don't like is when people try to shoehorn some woo woo into the knowledge gaps. That would be a logical fallacy, the argument from ignorance.

I am comfortable with the fact that we don't know everything and that we likely never will know some things. It doesn't bother me to have to say I don't know.

But as far as anybody can tell, the laws of the universe are stable throughout space and time. So it is reasonable to say we very well may have a long run of finding more and more about how the damned thing works. Or, at least I don't see why that wouldn't be so.

Thanks for your correction.

[intaglio]

7. If people are going to pontificate about the meaning of anything

It might be a good idea if they explained what they mean.

What does the word "Meaning" mean in this case? Should we be able to check an extradimensional dictionary and find out that Universe is a thing describing the cuteness of kittens. All too often what is actually meant is "purpose" and, depending upon your favourite theism, that can be worshiping God forever, perfecting your spirit or having your soul ripped to shreds by the great Norklebleme.

In actual fact both "meaning" and "purpose" when applied to a universe or an existence is meaningless.

[rug]

9. Do you prefer "pointless"?

[intaglio]

24. I might have done if I hadn't been caught up in the uses of meaning

But consider these statements

"What was the meaning of last Tuesday?"

"What was the purpose of last Tuesday?!

"What was the point of last Tuesday?"

None of them make any sense. You want meaning or point or purpose? Get out there and find such but do not assume that what you find applies universally. Do not assume even that it makes sense or has any meaning to your next door neighbour.

[rug]

27. What is the meaning of the first Tuesday in November?

You are, in essence, asserting nihilism.

[intaglio]

45. No I am just saying that the question is void

Give examples of meaning, or point or purpose. Alternatively say what class of answer would satisfy those questions. I suspect that you have no idea of examples or meanings or purposes or answers. You might come up with something like "To live in the glory God," or " to dwell forever in Heaven (or Hell)" but those are not meanings they are ends you wish to achieve. You would have unanswered the questions "what is the meaning of my glorifying God?" or "what is the purpose of living in Heaven?"

Meanings apply to words and symbols and asking for a meaning of creation (the universe) is to assume the mantle of the Gnostic or Kabalist and claim that the word, Logos, is both the act of creation and the creation itself. The universe is not a word or symbol any more than the living animals dog, or kitten, or a Guinea worm are symbols. An image or the words for any of those things can have meanings imposed upon them but those meanings are not inherent in the living, respiring biological structures.

Now to the charge of Nihilism. It is true I am saying there is no inherent purpose or meaning to life but I also say that you should get out there and find a purpose; find a way to make your life meaningful. To ask for someone or something to provide you with that purpose is asking to remain a child or slave forever and ever, amen. You may want to be spoonfed, to abdicate responsibility to another; sorry but I do not find that either appealing or indicative of maturity.

[rug]

68. You can allay your suspicions simply by answering the question.

[intaglio]

100. The November question?

There is no meaning to the day itself. There is an election on that day in the USA but that is an event on that day. You might wish to contort the word "meaning" to subsume that word into the effect of that election - but that is not meaning, it is just sloppy use of language. Perhaps instead you wish to use the word "significance" in its sense as a synonym for meaning. The trouble with significant is that it is also a synonym for importance so let me add that one as well to the lexicographic stew

If you wish to do this then reframe the question inherent the OP to use those words and compare:
Original - What is the meaning of the universe?
Derivation 1 - What is the effect of the universe?
Derivation 2 - What is the significance of the universe?
Derivation 3 - What is the importance of the universe?

Original - meaningless, so meaningless that you have not even proposed a class of answers that would satisfy it.

Derivation 1; Might have meaning if there is something other than the universe. Ignoring the contradiction inherent in that statement then it might be possible for a pocket universe to have a physical effect upon a greater universal structure - but that is not "meaning"

Derivation 2; When significance is used as a synonym for meaning the question is meaningless.

Derivation 3; This is a very different question to the original and might have answers dependent on context. For example, to us the universe is hugely important for without it we would not live as we are. A counter-example would be that for higher dimensional infinite space (and time) our universe is insignificant, as anything finite is in relation to the infinite.

So, having played your little word game, how about you put out some answers? Or might answers expose your fear of the infinite?

[rug]

104. Speaking of verbal diarrhea, you should have stopped after the first sentence.

OK, I see where you're coming from: there is no objective meaning to the election of Romney or Obama.

[intaglio]

122. Not an answer, just more evasion

Come on, no-one will laugh at you to your face. All you have to do is provide your understanding of these meaningless questions.

As to Romney/Obama there are solid reasons to vote for Obama and to ensure his victory, but meaning? Do you even understand yourself?

[rug]

127. It's your framework. Do you see meaning in tthe election.

You could have answered it earlier.

[intaglio]

131. But we were dealing with a far more complex subject

and you are still evading. Let me give you some help:

A life that partakes; even a little; of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature and music, and the chance to take part in the battles for the liberation of others, cannot be called meaningless

The author of this quote does not attempt to ask for meaning only to say that meaning can be found. It also implies that life can be without meaning but does not exclude other experiences from the finding of that meaning.

you might like to read the book, it's Hitch - 22.

[AlbertCat]

95. You are, in essence, asserting nihilism.

Nihilism is also something we, humans, made up.

And we, humans, live is a human world constructed by human notions and concepts, so to live here, as a human, it is better to ascribe meanings, purposes and what have you so our human world can work for us.

But the universe doesn't care what we do. Hell, other creatures on the planet don't care what we do. We may fly planes into buildings in NYC, but the pigeons don't care about it, even if they have relatives and roosts that get vaporized because of our action. We, humans, DO care, and should, because we live in our human world and we should be trying to make our human world someplace in which we want to live. But no one else cares about that.

Pointing this out is not nihilism.

[rug]

106. "We, humans, DO care, and should, because we live in our human world"

Why?

[AlbertCat]

116. I just told you why.

What, are you 4?

[rug]

120. No you didn't.

You said: "as a human, it is better to ascribe meanings, purposes and what have you so our human world can work for us."

Why is that better?

And can the insults or we'll have a different discussion.

[cleanhippie]

13. Atheism doesn't require meaning at all.

It's simply the rejection of or lack of belief in a god.

Meaning? To me, it means whatever meaning I choose to give it.

[rug]

16. Hmmm, atheism is meaningless.

I shall go no further.

[cleanhippie]

19. No, you shouldn't.

[mr blur]

25. Everything is meaningless, in an objective sense.

[rug]

26. That's not true. Is a life meaningless?

[cleanhippie]

31. It only has the meaning that one chooses to give it.

What other meaning is there?

[rug]

39. Ask your mother.

And that is not snark.

All our lives have meaning, great and small, beyond what we choose to give it.

[AtheistCrusader]

56. Perhaps to those that are aware of us, individually.

My life has no meaning to people who are not in any way aware of my existence, for example.

[rug]

62. Does a child blown to bits in Kabul have meaning to you?

The dead there alone are uncountable and unmentioned.

[AtheistCrusader]

66. The ones I've been able to find out about, yes.

Difficult for me to find meaning in people I do not know exist.

Primary reason we don't hear about the vast majority of people who die in these conflicts. Otherwise, we would find meaning, and we would care.

Precisely why I seek to minimize or eliminate these wars, because I simply do not know, and cannot find out about all the things that we have done to them. We probably don't know the half of it.

[rug]

67. But not the dead unknown to you?

And you're right, we don't know the half of it, or the next one.

[AtheistCrusader]

72. As soon as they become known

I can assign meaning, and act.

Becoming known can mean anything from a photo on a news site, a video, someone discovering a mass grave 30 years later, etc.

[rug]

73. I'm not nearly that solipsistic.

[AtheistCrusader]

76. You just abused that term.

Do not attempt to apply it to me.

If it applied, I wouldn't oppose war on the possibility or expectation that there are more people injured by war, than I am personally cognizant of.

A solipsist would not consider such undiscovered deaths at all, even if highly likely to exist.

[rug]

79. Is your opposition to war the result of your subjective view?

Has everyone else who opposes war arrived at the stance inedpendently?

[AtheistCrusader]

81. Absolutely.

To both questions. I am not aware of any people who oppose war because I oppose war. I may encourage others to oppose war and suggest reasons why, and if they adopt that opposition, they have still formed their own subjective view.

[rug]

86. You are confusing agreement with subjective knowledge.

[AlbertCat]

96. You are confusing agreement with subjective knowledge.

Nope. Wrong again.

Agreement may come with subjective knowledge or objective knowledge

And disagreement as well. But both are up to the individual. That is all he's saying.

[AtheistCrusader]

119. Am I?

And if the person I am trying to convince instead comes to a true belief that the dead are somehow responsible for their own death, or perhaps deserving of their death, or not worth caring about at all?

If only I could objectively show people the dead and have them reach an objective conclusion. That would make life super simple.

[intaglio]

46. Well if you believe that, then religion is meaningless

Atheism is a word and as such has meaning. In the same way the words for religion are words and have meaning. But religion as a state of mind or an attitude has no meaning whatsoever.

[rug]

63. No equivalence at all.

If nothing else, every religion I can think of teaches meaning and purpose, whether you believe it or not.

[intaglio]

101. OK so tell us what these meanings and purposes are.

You have ducked and dived long enough.

But you have no answers just declarations of faith based on nothing more than the verbal diarrhea of failed prophets, con men and drug addled shaman.

You do not even know what the words you are using mean in context and expect us to provide the definitions for you.

[rug]

103. The phrase "verbal diarrhea" is the last refuge of the intellectually bankrupt.

Your visceral hatred of anything connected with religion has overwhelmed your ability to discuss.

Nevertheless, I'll give you one example. Buddhism teaches compassion for others and detachment from material things is the meaning and purpose of living.

Howl now.

[intaglio]

123. Odd, you accept the objectionable phrase as applying to yourself

When it was normal hyperbole in respect of failed prophets, con men and drug addled shaman - not you. Do you have an objection to hyperbole? You should not because it actually made you respond - as was intended. How can anyone discuss with you when you refuse to take part in the discussion?

Now you have deigned to respond to the question it is with nothing that refers to the question at all

The meaning and purpose you have selected is neither a purpose nor a meaning, it is a set of preferred actions that are supposed to grant spiritual benefit. Are you confusing the word "means" as in "a means to an end" with meaning? Your choice of this as your example shows that you are bankrupt of ideas in this area, but that is not your fault because there is no substance to what you believe about this.

What is your fault is your failure to use critical thinking about the concepts you so thoughtlessly espouse.

[AtheistCrusader]

55. More like atheists don't require the crutch of imaginary imposed meaning by others upon the universe

to feel good about ourselves or appreciate the universe in our own way.

I don't need to be told by others how to feel about something. The universe and everything in it has it's own subjective meaning to me, that may not be the same for you, and that is perfectly fine.

I don't need a priest, or a church, or any form of 'seer' or 'leader' to discover what things mean, to me. I possess all the tools I require to find that meaning, if any, for myself.

[rug]

64. Well, if it's all in your own head, so be it.

[Jim__]

21. Interesting interview. It leads me to 2 main thoughts.

Speaking about the soul:

It could in principle survive death by using technology - if my brain has some fancy reconstruction technology to transcribe it into software on silicon. In principle this simulacrum could survive death and have aspects of the old me. Unless I have a backup code, my soul dies when my brain dies. End of game, unfortunately.

I'm not sure that even if we can preserve our brain structures, our self, or soul, survives death. Would a machine that has the same thoughts as me, be me? I don't think so. Whatever constitutes me, is more than just my thoughts, and when I die, even if some type of copy of my brain lives on, I don't believe that I do.

And on Mindscope:

We've started with a very large donation from Paul Allen, who is very interested in trying to understand the cortex. It's one of the most complex systems in the known universe. This 10-year project called MindScope has enormous resources - between 200 and 300 scientists and engineers - all focused on trying to understand the cortex, particularly the visual cortex. We want to understand its complete wiring and the structure down to the level of a single neuron. Some people call this the connectome. The Allen Institute for Brain Science is somewhere between a university and a biotech company, where we can focus all our resources to try to understand the cortex.

I hope I live to see what happens with that project.

[rug]

23. That could only work for a limited amount of time, even if it could be done.

Death is the fate of every living thing and dissolution is the fate of every material thing.

[AtheistCrusader]

57. I believe that if you transcribed everything about my brain onto a mechanical device

connections, simulated chemical responses, etc, you would end up with a complete copy of 'me' that would BE me in every sense of the term.

If the meat based version of myself was consumed and destroyed in the process, there would still only be 'me', as the machine.

If both the meat and machine survived, we would immediately be considered two separate persons, because our thoughts, perceptions, and experiences would immediately diverge from the point the copy process completed, forward.

[cpwm17]

88. It appears that you think reincarnation is possible - minus the soul

I do think it's possible, but not into computers. Either way, consciousness seems to be just a process. There's nothing magic about it, so reincarnation should be possible. I guess there needs to be a new word for reincarnation into computers.

[AtheistCrusader]

98. I am not aware of anything one might describe as a 'soul'.

I am a person, a consciousness. Given rise by physical processes in my brain. If you excise portions of my brain, you can permanently remove parts of 'me'. If my brain dies, I am gone.

I do not consider 'reincarnation' as popularly described as being possible, but I suppose, if we ever DO discover how to transcribe the mind onto a machine, that would be something like it.

[cpwm17]

109. I agree with everything you wrote

Last edited Fri Aug 31, 2012, 03:42 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm an atheist and I absolutely don't believe souls exist. But I do believe our conscious selves do not just have one existence. The best word for this is 'reincarnation.'

Our memories are destroyed when we die, so we can't know what kind of existence 'our past lives' experienced. All that happens is the particular process that creates ones current self can be duplicated in another conscious critter after we die. I'll call that 'reincarnation.'

It seems that reincarnation must happen. The apparent design of our Universe can easily be explained by the Multiverse theory. The Multiverse brings up the possibility of there being a huge (or infinite) number of universes, and also the possibility of there being a huge number (or infinite) of universes with life.

Multiverse from 11:10 to 26:40. Ignore the rest:

The possible, given infinite opportunities (or a huge number), is guaranteed to happen an infinite number (or possibly a huge number) of times. By our very existence, our conscious selves are proven to be possible. There is no separate soul that dies or an invisible sky ledger that keeps track of whether a particular consciousness has existed yet. So reincarnation should happen, and there's nothing to prevent it.

Also, it would be impossible for me to be conscious right now if I only got one life and time is infinite. Finite#/infinity = zero, which would be the odds of me living right now with only one life. Since my consciousness existing right now is the only thing that matters for my consciousness, this is the equivalent of me winning the lottery with zero odds of winning. So my reincarnation must happen an infinite number of times through infinite time.

[cpwm17]

87. It seems far-fetched that computers could ever become conscious

Consciousness in biological critters would have taken millions of years to evolve - it's complex. Even if scientists ever determine what biological processes create consciousness, there is really no way to transfer this knowledge to make computers conscious. The hardware will always be very different.

This also brings up another issue: reincarnation. If someone believes that computers can recreate the conscious self after someone dies, then they should also believe that reincarnation is possible. It is far more believable than duplicating the self into computers.

Reincarnation in this case would require no soul, or any other woo. It's just a duplication of the process that creates the self by another conscious critter. In the vast multiverse (probably exists), and through the infinite time that has ever existed, reincarnation is probably guaranteed.

Some claim that if computers (or the internet) become complex enough they may become conscious. That's assuming consciousness has no real purpose, but it's just background noise of complex machines. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Consciousness produces good and bad feelings (pain, pleasure, emotions, etc) which are the driving force for conscious animals. Without this driving force we couldn't function at all. This has taken many millions of years to evolve.

[Jim__]

90. We don't know whether or not it is far-fetched.

When you say that computers can't become conscious because they have a different hardware, you are making assumptions about consciosuness. Consciousness could be a by-product of integration of various aspects of sense, knowledge and memory; i.e. it could be a result of function rather than substrate.

Even if consciousness is essentially biological, computers of the future could well have biological components.

Your claim that animals couldn't function without consciousness is also an assumption. Are zombies (intelligent but not conscious animals) possible? No one has a definitive answer to that question.

[cpwm17]

102. I don't know whether reincarnation into computers is possible, I'm making an educated guess it's not

Predictions about the future of artificial intelligence usually turn out wrong, and are way too optimistic. The hardware and software in the brain are basically the same thing and can't be separated. They are able to evolve together. Computer hardware would be difficult to artificially evolve, at least so far. Perhaps major advancements could be made.

Computer scientists can artificially evolve computer software in simulations. This would be the best hope to create consciousness in computers. But computers are very limited in what they can do, relative to living brains.

We have no examples of anything like zombies existing. Consciousness is critical to how we evolved into complex animated beings. Consciousness solves multiple challenges needed to make animals properly function.

Consciousness produces feelings which have several functions - kills multiple birds with one stone: it is the motivational force that's impossible to ignore, and your brain automatically acts on those feelings; feelings force the complex brain to act as one unit, since the strongest feeling at the moment gets the attention; feelings are the criteria for learning (you learn and remember through your feelings). And through consciousness, the brain can attach ones thoughts and sensual experiences to ones feelings.

All we know is consciousness was the direction that evolution took to solve the problems of creating complex animated beings.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

83. I think I just saw the structure of the universe in the last topic I saw...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10368408

[rug]

84. Lol, good for Sammy.

[Kali]

91. oh sure

replace my stupid picture thread with something deep and meaningful in the "cool" section of the homepage.

[rug]

93. Oh we're nothing if not classy in here.