Author: Bill Vallicella

Will Science Put Religion out of Business? A Preliminary Tilt at Transhumanism

A correspondent writes:

Here's how I think science will eventually put religion out of business. Soon medical science is going to be able to offer serious life extension, not pie-in-the-sky soul survival or re-incarnation, but real life extension with possible rejuvenation. When science can offer and DELIVER what religion can only promise, religion is done.

1.  Religion is in the transcendence business.  The type of transcendence offered depends on the particular religion.  The highly sophisticated form of Christianity expounded by Thomas Aquinas offers the visio beata, the Beatific Vision.  In the BV — you will forgive the abbreviation — the soul does not lose its identity.  It maintains its identity, though in a transformed mode, while participating in the divine life.  Hinduism and Buddhism offer even more rarefied forms of transcendence in which the individual self is either absorbed into the eternal Atman, thereby losing its individual identity, or extinguished altogether  by entry into Nirvana.  And there are cruder forms of transcendence, in popular forms of Christianity, in Islam, and in other faiths, in which the individual continues to exist after death  but with little or no transformation to enjoy delights that are commensurable with the ones enjoyed here below.  The crudest form, no doubt, is the popular Islamic notion of paradise as an endless sporting with 72 black-eyed virgins.  So on the one end of the spectrum: transcendence as something difficult to distinguish from utter extinction; on the other end, immortality mit Haut und Haar (to borrow a delightful phrase from Schopenhauer), "with skin and hair" in a realm of sensuous delights but without the usual negatives such as heart burn and erectile dysfunction. 

I think we can safely say that a religion that offers no form of transcendence, whether Here or Hereafter, is no religion at all.  Religion, then, is in the business of offering transcendence.

2.  I agree with my correspondent that if science can provide what religion promises, then science will put religion out  of business.  But as my crude little sketch above shows, different religions promise different things.  Now the crudest form of transcendence is physical immortality, immortality "with skin and hair."  Is it reasonable to hope that future science will give rise to a technology that will make us, or some of us, physically immortal?  I don't think so.  That would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics according to which the entropy of an irreversible process in an isolated system increases leading in the case of the universe (which is both isolated and irreversible) to the heat death of the universe and the end of all life.  Granted, that is way off in the future.  But that is irrelevant if the claim is that physical immortality is possible by purely physical means.  And if that is not the claim, then the use of the phrase 'physical immortality' is out of place.  In a serious discussion like this word games are strictly verboten.

3.  Physical immortality is nomologically impossible, impossible given the laws of nature.  Of course, a certain amount of life extension has been achieved and it is reasonable to expect that more will be achieved. So suppose the average life expectancy of people like us gets cranked up to 130 years.  To underscore the obvious, to live to 130 is not to live forever. Suppose you have made it to 130 and are now on your death bed.  If you have any spiritual depth at all, your lament is likely to be similar to that of Jacob's: "The length of my pilgrimage  has been one hundred and thirty years; short and wretched has been my life, nor does it compare with the years my fathers lived during their pilgrimage." (Genesis 47:9) 

The important point here is that once a period of time is over, it makes no difference how long it has lasted.  It is over and done with and accessible only in the flickering and dim light of intermittent and fallible memory.  The past 'telescopes' and 'scrunches up,' the years melt into one another; the past cannot be relived.  What was distinctly lived is now all a blur.  And now death looms before you.  What does it matter that you lived 130 or 260 years? You are going to die all the same, and be forgotten, and all your works with you. After a while it will be as if you never existed.

The problem is not that our lives are short; the problem is that we are in time at all.  No matter how long a life extends it is still a life in time, a life in which the past is no longer, the future not yet, and  the present a passing away.  This problem, the problem of the transitoriness of life, cannot be solved by life extension even if, per impossibile, physical immortality were possible.  This problem of the transitoriness and vanity of life is one that religion addresses.

So my first conclusion is this.  Even if we take religion in its crudest form, as promising physical immortality, "with skin and hair," science cannot put such a crude religion out of business.  For, first of all, physical immortality is physically impossible, and second, mere life extension, even unto the age of a Methuselah, does not solve the problem of the transitoriness of life.

4.  But I have just begun to scratch the surface of the absurdities of transhumanism. No higher religion is about providing natural goodies  by supernatural means, goodies  that cannot be had by natural means.   Talk of pie-in-the-sky is but a cartoonish misrepresentation by those materialists who can only think in material terms and only believe in what they can hold in their hands. A religion such as Christianity promises a way out of the unsatisfactory predicament we find ourselves in in this life.  What makes our situation unsatisfactory is not merely our physical and mental weakness and the shortness of our lives.  It is primarily our moral defects that make our lives in this world miserable.  We lie and slander, steal and cheat, rape and murder.  We are ungrateful for what we have and filled with inordinate desire for what we don't have and wouldn't satisfy us even if we had it.  We are avaricious, gluttonous, proud, boastful and self-deceived.  It is not just that our wills are weak; our wills are perverse.  It is not just that are hearts are cold; our hearts are foul.  You say none of this applies to you?  Very well, you will end up the victim of those to whom these predicates do apply. And then your misery will be, not the misery of the evil-doer, but the misery of the victim and the slave.  You may find yourself forlorn and forsaken in a concentration camp. Suffering you can bear, but not meaningless suffering, not injustice and absurdity.

Whether or not the higher religions can deliver what they promise, what they promise first and foremost is deliverance from ignorance and delusion, salvation from meaninglessness and moral evil.  So my correspondent couldn't be more wrong.  No physical technology can do what religion tries to do.  Suppose a technology is developed that actually reverses the processes of aging and keeps us all alive indefinitely.  This is pure fantasy, of course, given the manifold contingencies of the world (nuclear and biological warfare, terrorism, natural disasters, etc.); but just suppose.  Our spiritual and moral predicament would remain as deeply fouled-up as it has always been and religion would remain in business.

5.  If, like my correspondent, you accept naturalism and scientism, then you ought to face what you take to be reality, namely, that we are all just clever animals slated to perish utterly in a few years, and not seek transcendence where it cannot be found.  Accept no substitutes!  Transhumanism is an ersatz religion.

It could be like this.  All religions are false; none can deliver what they promise.  Naturalism is true: reality is exhausted by the space-time system.  You are not unreasonable if you believe this.  But I say you are unreasonable if you think that technologies derived from the sciences of nature can deliver what religions have promised.

As long as there are human beings there will be religion.  The only way I can imagine religion withering away is if humanity allows itself to be gradually replaced by soulless robots.  But in that case it will not be that the promises of religion are fulfilled by science; it would be that no one would be around having religious needs.

 

All’s Well That Ends Well

Yesterday's hike was almost over.  The light was failing as we gingerly negotiated the last steps of the treacherous downgrade of Heart Attack Hill.  Suddenly my hiking partner let out a yell and jumped back at the unmistakable sound of a diamond back rattlesnake (crotalus atrox).  It was a perfect hike: physically demanding in excellent company with a dash of danger at the end. 

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Typos!

Despite my 'due diligence,' typographical errors, though I strive to ferret them out, often go undetected on the day of publication.  All of yesterday's posts contain them.  So I will correct them now.  No, I don't use any SpellCheck utility.  That's like having a jackass of an editor looking over my shoulder, a miserable Besserwisser who thinks he knows what I am 'trying' to say and how I want to say it.  I'll say it my own way, damn you, and without your political correctness and school-marmish rules.

Philosophy, Debate, and Dialog

The proprietor of Beyond Necessity tells us that he is thinking of attending the London debate between William Lane Craig and atheist philosopher Stephen Law on 17 October.  I hope he attends and files his report.

But can philosophy be debated?  In a loose sense, yes, but not in a strict sense.  I say that if debate is occurring in a certain place, then no philosophy is occurring in that place.  Philosophy is not a matter of debate.  That is a nonnegotiable point with me.  So I won't debate it, nor can I consistently with what I have just said.   It is after all a (meta)philosophical point: if philosophy cannot be debated then the same goes for this particular philosopheme.  But though I won't debate the point, I must in my capacity as philosopher give some reasons for my view.  My view is a logical consequence of my view of debate in conjunction with my view of philosophy.

Debate is a game in which the interlocutors attempt to defeat each other, typically before an audience whose approbation they strive to secure.  Hence the query 'Who won the debate?' which implies that the transaction is about attacking and defending, winning and losing.  I don't deny that debates can be worthwhile in politics and in other areas.  And even in philosophy they may have some use.  Someone who attends the Craig-Law debate will come away with some idea of what sorts of issues philosophers of religion discuss.  What he won't come away with is any understanding of the  essence of philosophy.

Why is philosophy — the genuine article — not something that can be debated? 

Philosophy is inquiry.  It is inquiry by those who don't know (and know that they don't know) with the sincere intention of increasing their insight and understanding.  Philosophy is motivated by the love of truth, not the love of verbal battle or the need to defeat an opponent or shore up and promote a preconceived opinion about which one has no real doubt.  When philosophy is done with others it takes the form of dialog, not debate. It is conversation between friends, not opponents, who are friends of the truth before they are friends of each other.  Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.

There is nothing adversarial  in a genuine philosophical conversation.  The person I am addressing and responding to is not my adversary but a co-inquirer.  In the ideal case there is between us a bond of friendship, a philiatic bond.  But this philia subserves the eros of inquiry.  The philosopher's love of truth is erotic, the love of one who lacks for that which he lacks.  It is not the agapic love of one who knows and bestows his pearls of wisdom.

There is nothing like this in a debate.  The aim in a debate is not to work with the other towards a truth that neither claims to possess.  On the contrary, each already 'knows' what the truth is and is merely trying to attack the other's counter-position while defending his own.  Thus the whole transation is ideological the two sides of which are polemics and apologetics.  Debate is verbal warfare.  This is why debaters never show doubt or admit they are wrong.  To show doubt is to show weakness.  To prevail against an enemy you must not appear weak but intimidating.

There is no place for polemics in philosophy.  To the extent that polemics creeps in, philosophy becomes ideology.  This is not to say that there is no place for polemics or apologetics.  It is to say that that place is not philosophy.

Discussions with ideologues, whether religious or anti-religious, tend to be unpleasant and unproductive.  They see everything in terms of attack and defense.  If you merely question their views they are liable to become angry or flustered.  I once questioned a Buddhist on his 'no self' doctrine.  He became hostile.  His hostility at my questioning of one of the beliefs with which he identifies proved that his 'self' was alive and kicking despite doctrinal asseverations to the contrary.

Athens, Jerusalem, and Karl Jaspers

I stand astride both cities, with a foot in each.  But I favor one leg . . . .

Or to change the metaphor:  I do not look down upon the cities from above as from an Olympian standpoint but sight from the perspective of one of the cities, Athens, towards the other, Jerusalem.

So while I attempt a syn-optic view, my syn-optics cannot quite shake off the perspectivism of all finite optics.  My intellectual honesty demands recognition of this fact. 

JaspersIn the last paragraph of the preface to the book that bears the slightly inaccurate English title Philosophical Faith and Revelation, Karl Jaspers explains why he entitled his book Der Philosophische Glaube Angesichts der Offenbarung and not Der Philosophische Glaube und Offenbarung.  Jaspers remarks that und (and) would be inappropriate because it would suggest that he was laying claim to a superior standpoint outside both philosophy and revelation, a standpoint that Jaspers does not claim to occupy.  He speaks from the side of philosophy while being touched, struck, affected (betroffen) by  the claims of revelation.  Thus his philosophical faith is in the face of (angesichts) revelation, elaborated in confrontation with it.  And so his philosophical optics are situated and perspectival, not synoptic or panoptic.

 

It seems we have only four options assuming that an Hegelian panoptical God's eye view is unavailable to us, a view which would somehow synthesize philosophy and religion:

1. Deny the tension by eliminating Athens in favor of Jersualem in the manner of an irrationalist like Lev Shestov.
2. Deny the tension by eliminating Jerusalem in favor Athens.
3. Live the tension as a philosopher who takes seriously the claims and demands of revelation.
4. Live the tension as a religionist who take seriously the claims and demands of philosophy.

(1) and (2) are nonstarters.  So we are left with the difficult choice between (3) and (4).

A Test for the Religious Sensibility

Some have the religious sensibility (inclination, predisposition, call it what you will) and some don't.  Here is one of several possible tests to see if you have it.  Get hold of Augustine's Confessions and Pascal's Pensées. If you read these books and they do not speak to you at all, if they do not move you, if they leave you cold, if they do not in any measure inspire you to reform your life, then it is a good bet that you don't have a religious bone in your body. It is not matter of intelligence but of sensibility.

"He didn't have a religious bone in his body." I recall that line from Stephanie Lewis' obituary for her husband David, one of the most brilliant American philosophers of the postwar period. He was highly intelligent and irreligious. Others are highly intelligent and religious. Among contemporary philosophers one could mention Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, and Richard Swinburne.

The belief that being intelligent rules out being religious casts doubt on the intelligence of those who hold it.

Bierce, Blondel, and Nirvana

This from The Devil's Dictionary:

     Nirvana, n. In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable
     annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough
     to understand it. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, c. 1911)

Although intended sardonically, there is a serious point here to which Maurice Blondel alludes in the following quotation:

     . . . if there is a salvation it cannot be tied to the learned
     solution of an obscure problem. . . It can only be offered clearly
     to all. (Action, p. 14)

It might be fruitful for someone to develop a comparison of Buddhism and Christianity on this point. Buddhism is a religion of self-help: "Be ye lamps unto yourselves, etc." Trouble is, how many attain the Goal? And if only a few renunciates ever attain it, how does that help the rest of us poor schleps? By contrast, in Christianity, God, in the person of the Word (Logos) made flesh, does the work for us. Unable ultimately to help ourselves, we are helped by Another. And the help is available to all despite their skills in metaphysics and meditation. (By "do the work for us," I of course do not mean to suggest the sola fide extremism of some Protestants.)

Obviously, what I have just written is but a crude gesture in the direction of a whole constellation of problem-clusters. For example, a thorough comparison would have to go into the role of the Bodhisattva as a sort of helper of samsarically-bound 'schleps.'

George Will on the Liberal-Collectivist Agenda

Excerpt:

The collectivist agenda is antithetical to America’s premise, which is: Government — including such public goods as roads, schools and police — is instituted to facilitate individual striving, a.k.a. the pursuit of happiness. The fact that collective choices facilitate this striving does not compel the conclusion that the collectivity (Warren’s “the rest of us”) is entitled to take as much as it pleases of the results of the striving.

Warren’s statement is a footnote to modern liberalism’s more comprehensive disparagement of individualism and the reality of individual autonomy. A particular liberalism, partly incubated at Harvard, intimates the impossibility, for most people, of self-government — of the ability to govern one’s self. This liberalism postulates that, in the modern social context, only a special few people can literally make up their own minds.

Should One Stoop to a Defense of Philosophy or the Humanities?

Philosophy_discussionThe place of philosophy in college curricula is often defended on the ground that its study promotes critical thinking.

Now I don't doubt that courses in logic, epistemology, and ethics can help inculcate habits of critical thinking and good judgment. And it may also be true that philosophy has a unique role to play here. So, while it is true that every discipline teaches habits of critical thinking and good judgment in that discipline, there are plenty of issues that are not discipline-specific, and these need to be addressed critically as well.

What I object to, however, is the notion that philosophy needs to justify itself in terms of an end external to it, and that its main justification is in terms of an end outside of it. The main reason to study philosophy is not to become a more critical reasoner or a better evaluator of evidence, but to grapple with the ultimate questions of human existence and to arrive at as much insight into them as is possible. What drives philosophy is the desire to know the ultimate truth about the ultimate matters. Let's not confuse a useful byproduct of philosophical study (development of critical thinking skills) with the goal of philosophical study. The reason to study English literature is not to improve one's vocabulary or to prepare for a career as a journalist.   Similarly, the reason to study philosophy is not to improve one's ability to think clearly about extraphilosophical matters or to acquire skills that may prove handy in law school.

Philosophy is an end in itself. This is why it is foolish to try to convince philistines that it is good for something. It is not primarily good for something. It is a good in itself. Otherwise you are acquiescing in the philistinism you ought to be combating. Is listening to the sublime adagio movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony good for something? And what would that be, to impress people with how cultured you are?

To the philistine's "Philosophy bakes no bread" you should not respond "Yes it does," for such responses are patently lame. You should say, "Man does not live by bread alone," or "Not everything is pursued as a means to something else," or "A university is not a trade school."  You should not acquiesce in the philistine's values and assumptions, but go on the attack and question his values and assumptions.  Put him on the spot.  Play the Socratic gadfly.  If a philistine wants to know how much you got paid for writing an article for a professional journal, say, "Do you really think that only what one is paid to do is worth doing?"  

Admittedly, this is a lofty conception of philosophy and I would hate to have to defend it before the uncomprehending philistines one would expect to find on the typical Board of Regents. But philosophy is what it is, lofty by nature, and if we are to defend it we must do so in a way that does not betray it.

It might be better, though, not to stoop to defend it at all, at least not before the uncomprehending.  It might be better to show contempt and supercilious disdain. Not everyone can be reasoned with, and part of being reasonable is understanding this fact.

Mark Steyn on the Wall Street ‘Occupiers’

Excerpt:

So they are in favor of open borders, presumably so that exotic Third World peasants can perform the labor to which they are noticeably averse. Of the 13 items on that “proposed list of demands,” Demand Four calls for “free college education,” and Demand Eleven returns to the theme, demanding debt forgiveness for all existing student loans. I yield to no one in my general antipathy to the racket that is American college education, but it’s difficult to see why this is the fault of the mustache-twirling robber barons who head up Global MegaCorp, Inc. One sympathizes, of course. It can’t be easy finding yourself saddled with a six-figure debt and nothing to show for it but some watery bromides from the “Transgender and Colonialism” class. Americans collectively have north of a trillion dollars in personal college debt. Say what you like about Enron and, er, Solyndra and all those other evil corporations, but they didn’t relieve you of a quarter-mil in exchange for a master’s in Maya Angelou. So why not try occupying the dean’s office at Shakedown U?