Feynman, Morals and the scope of Science.

Alix and I have been reading Richard Feynman books together, and are often amazed at how much our thoughts about the world line up.

However, for the first time while reading 'The Meaning of it All' I found a major disagreement with what he said. That Science has nothing to say about moral questions.

Here is Feynman's logic. Moral questions can be simplified into,

"Should I do this?"

When analyzing this question its broken into two questions. Firstly,


"What will happen if i do this?"

and then,

"Do I want that to happen?"

Feynman says that the answer to the first question is very much a scientific one, the very purpose of science is to be able to make predictions about the world around us. However that second one, he argues, has nothing at all to do with science, but is completely a moral question.

At an earlier point in this book, Feynman talks about how Science updates itself by increasing the levels of precision an experiment is measured by. He gives an example of a spinning top. Science at the time showed that a spinning top weighs the same as one at rest... However later, when instruments improved, we were able to show that at very high speeds the weight of a top would change a very very small amount. So is the first observation wrong? Well, it depends on the point of the observation... The point of knowing the weight of spinning objects is to make predictions, so you can know what will happen if you spin things. Its very useful for making technology, and at the time, knowing that spinning things weighed the same as still things is all you needed. But later, when your finally spinning things awfully fast, and you need them to be an extremely accurately weighted, you have to use the more true rules. And there is a whole good bit about the uncertainty of Science in there.

What I would suggest is, that the same is the case with Feynman's statement about Morals. In 1963 saying that Science has nothing to say about "Do I want this to happen?" was completely valid. However here in 2010 that is not exactly the case anymore. Sense Feynman's time we have begun to deeply probe into how the human mind functions. Much effort is being made on accurately modeling the entire neural structure of the brain. And while we currently can not hook you up to a machine and tell you if you want something or not, we do have a glimpse at why such a thing is likely to happen.

I realize that the human brain is massively complicated, but it is a much more closed and finite system then the weather patterns of the earth... and even in that we are capable of scientific investigation. We are (with much varying degrees of accuracy) able to make predictions about how much snow we will get on Friday.  And I think as we continue to understand and are able to accurately model the brain, and to probe its functioning, that we will come closer to examining moral questions with science.

The answers to these questions might not be the kind you were hoping for... When Religion is asked questions like where do we come from, and why is there spring, the answers come back fairly straight forward. 'God made us' or 'Persephone returns from the underworld each year' ... when Science answers, things are usually a bit more complicated. Answers include things like the entire workings of evolutionary biology and how the whole solar system, gravity and the laws of motion function... So answers might not come back about morals the way we might want to hear them. When Religion talks about morals, they are immutable laws put in place by the deity... very epic and inspiring. For some people saying its all just values weighed out in our squishy bio computers, based on a life time of experience and a couple million years of evolution...leaves them feeling like maybe they asked the wrong question. However for me, and I think for a lot of people who are interested in the real world, rainbows are more beautiful when you understand how they work, they are a beautifully complicated and intricately detailed interaction of water and photons, just thinking about the quantum interactions involved in splitting white light into its many apparent colors fills me with wonder and amazement... Just the same, knowing how my morals function doesn't detract from their importance. Realizing that our underlying value system is supported by millions of years of evolution, that its built off the very lives of countless species, is an awe inspiring and fulfilling concept.

I think if Feynman were alive today, and could see the advances we have made in biology and computer science, that he would agree with me.

A letter to a friend

Hi :D

I don't mind talking about this at all. Hmm.. where to start... this will probably be long.

I stopped believing years ago now, more then 4. Its hard to pinpoint when because it happened so slowly, and took a lot of thought. It also wasn't any one thing that caused me to realize that god wasn't real, but a massive amount of evidence that finally convinced me.

A big part of it was coming to understand how easy it is to trick my brain. And that things which i felt or thought i saw or heard could easily be incorrect. Once i started to look at the world without the bias of my belief, it became fairly obvious that the evidence around me was pointing in another direction.

I also started having a much better understanding of biology and evolution. I found that the things in our christain biology books showing how evolution was false were old arguments that had been dis-proven countless times. This is something id be happy to go on about for pages, but basically, I learned how evolution really works, it makes sense and all of the evidence backs it up.

As other believers tried to convince me with things like the biblical prophecies of Jesus I spent a lot of time digging into and researching those things... mostly trying to defend my faith for myself... but under scrutiny it all fell flat. I couldn't find the tiniest scrap of evidence god existed, that wasn't just as likely to be caused by something else.

For instance, prayer. For the sake of argument consider two universes, one where god exists, and one where he does not. In both universes a man is praying for his sick brother. In both universes the man becomes well. In one, god healed him, in the other he just got better on his own. In both universes the man who prayed for his brother knows that it was god who did it, and is thankful. Or! In both universes the sick brother dies. In one universe it wasn't gods will for him to live, in the other, he just dies from natural causes. In both universe the man who prayed thinks "It must have been Gods will" ... how can you tell which universe your in? How can you tell if god is real or a delusion?

After I changed my mind and decided I had no proof of god, Ive had people tell me (in kinder words) there must be some sin I want to get away with, something i don't want to feel guilty about, so i abandoned god for that supposed freedom. But oddly my morals haven't changed too much, and only have started rerouting in the past two years... even then not much. Others think it was Alix (my wife) who pulled me away from god... but it took some convincing from me to sway her belief. The only reason i changed my mind is because i put the truth first, I don't care if its unpleasant or sad or whatever, I just want to get as close to the truth as i can. In fact, I'm not sure Ive cried over the loss of something more then i did god... But i can not deny the truth of it, he simply is not there.

Having overcome that, Ive never been happier. It's much harder, having to decided what your own morals and rules are, but its also more fulfilling. All my accomplishments are mine alone, as are my failures... and I feel exceptionally responsible for my actions. Its helped me become fairly amazing.

I don't mind being preached at. I'm the kind of person who invites Jehovah Witnesses in to talk about their belief. I'm very open to being wrong, I know that i could hear something new that would shatter my world. Its already happened to me twice, its likely to happen again (once when i stop believing, and a second time after reading Wolfram's 'New Kind of Science').

Anyhow, if you want any details on any of that, or want to share anything, i'm open to it.

Over and out,
Calvin

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

Here's the thing that got me to realize I needed this blog.

History Lesson:
became a Christian at age 7 after praying with my mother.
Transferred to a Christian school in high school... because high school sucks.
Went to a Bible Collage College to become a missionary, dropped out a year later.
Realized God wasn't real about 4-5 years ago.
Am now 31 years old.

Got into a discussion with friends and friends of friends on Facebook about god, specifically the christian god.

a friend posted:
"A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading." -C.S. Lewis

This seemed unfathomably odd to me. It was an excess of reading that helped me realize god didn't exist... So I asked what things exactly should i be careful of reading... and C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity was brought up. And so I obtained a copy and started reading, hoping to hear something new.

The first chapter starts with the argument from morality. Lewis considers a few moral situations and concludes that there is NOTHING that could have caused mans internal moral decisions other then it being put there by a deity. Basically, he says, I don't know why this happens, therefor, god. He writes this in the most elegant way, that's obvious... but when you break it down, that is all there is to it. He then takes this logical fallacy as an axiom and goes on to prove all kinds of other nonsense, which all falls apart if you take out the foundation.

Obviously, there are moral laws that are common to every human being, and a lot of people have all kinds of Ideas about where they come from. I can honestly say I don't know what (as if it were one thing) caused this in humanity, and in other species. I think its likely a result of evolution. But the biggest mistake ever, is to assume supernatural influence wherever there is a gap in your understanding.

I'm kinda disappointed.

Reason

I've started this blog to post things i don't seem to have a place for elsewhere. These are things i think about. Writings about what I intend to do, and why i do things.

Rock and or Roll.