one honest man...? (Diogenes's quest goes on)

"...for an honorable individual there is no greater shame than receiving undeserved reward"

A moment for Death

From earth we came, and earth we'll be
and life will go ahead
Death will conquer those who see
that leaves have to be shed

An instant in one's life
a moment and no more
after you are not and
you were not before

These words are not all mine
I quoted someone else,
the Gardener from Athens
inspired this verse

DdC

Science vs. God no.2

So I split the sections because in the first one I presented the arguments put forward for the existence of God. I am not going to try here and disprove God. I just want to give two examples offered by non-believers:

- Russell's " Flying Teapot" and
- Dawkins's "Ultimated Boeing 474"

I will also not explain the Darwinian principle of natural selection, but let me state just for those who have never heard of it that the principle of natural selection is thought today, by the majority of people, to drive evolution on this planet and the known world. The law of chance and necessity drives life. Continuous changes in the organisms confer advantages, or disadvantages to groups, individuals, or genes (agents) and these advantages or disadvantages increase and decrease respectively the ability of the agent for survival and reproduction. Thus changes that increase these skills will naturally be passed sown to next generations whereas detrimental changes will be lost ipso facto. These changes are a product of chance and in no way driven by any intelligent supreme being. These chance differences will prevail or be lost according to the necessity of keeping them if they confer an advantage to the agent.

Bertrand Russell's "Flying Teapot"

The paradigm was intended to refute the idea that the burden of proof lies upon the sceptic to disprove the claims of religions.

If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

Richard Dawkins's "Ultimate Boeing 747"

Dawkins gives this example to highlight the improbability of a Supreme being out there somewhere. i will not look into the argument Dawkins puts forward as I have done so in a previous post (September 6th 2007). The general idea (and it comes from somebody else, Dawkins just borrows it) is that the probability an extremely complex structure such as a Boeing 747 aircraft being assembled from spare parts as a result of a hurricane is infinitesimal. The same goes for God, who should be considered the Ultimate Boeing 474, meaning the most complex being in this universe. Dawkins says that the probability of such a being is extremely small. So small that he is certain God does not exist. And he continuous to say that we cannot use such an improbable explanation to solve another improbable, but yet very possible and real event: life.

-John

Science vs. God no.1

So this is an ongoing for ever and ever debate and last night while the other guys were gone looking for food I sneaked in the PC room and put up a slide just for me to remind me of some key point of the debate. Christoff is an avowed atheist and JimB admittedly religious so it is left to Manolo and me to adopt a more skeptical position on the topic. Given that Manolo is after girls most of the time I should just count me. Here is the slide and some key points I overheard last week by a group of students:

I want to go over some of the arguments FOR the existence of God. These were put forwards, not surprisingly, by theologians. This is not to imply that theologians are the only people backing God, but we have to remember that monks and priests have always had the advantage of making money out of sitting all day reading books and pursuing whatever they wanted besides religion. Many individuals in the 1700's and 1800's went into priesthood so that they could study science and/or philosophy ( Gregor Mendel - 1822-84). So naturally clergy men used to be among the most educated in art, philosophy, philology and even science. That makes the fact they ignored, and still do, scientific theory even more reprehensible.

St. Thomas Aquinas's 5 arguments

- The "unmoved mover" - someone set everything in motion since whatever is in motion is set by another thing....infinite regression....God
- The "first cause" - causality...infinite regression...God
- The cosmological argument - all things have a beginning and end. But nothing comes from nothing so something must have existed when nothing else did...God
- The teleological argument - design of the world
- The absolutes argument - A good person for example is good, better, or worse compared to a standard we have. This standard is one of infinite goodness, which is God

St. Anselm's ontological argument

God is a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. If God existed only in mind, He then would not be the greatest conceivable being, for we could imagine another being that is greater because it would exist both in mind and reality ipso facto would be God. Therefore, to imagine God as existing only in the mind but not in reality leads to logical contradiction.

Immanuel Kant's moral argument

God's existence is a necessary presupposition of there bring any moral judgments that are objective, that go beyond mere relativistic moral preferences. Such judgments require standards external to any human mind-that is, they presume God's mind.

Many of these arguments have been refuted in the past and I will no go into that. For further reference one can read Bertrand Russel's "History of Western Philosophy" where he gives a very good account of the ideas of major Christian philosophers and the church fathers. Richard Dawkins in "The God Delusion" tries to refute the arguments by St. Thomas and St. Anslem. Dawkins also discusses how someone can be moral without the fear of Hell. As for the objectivity of moral judgments and the relative nature of good and bad one can turn to the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche for an enjoyable account in "Beyond Good and Evil", or to Marc Hauser for a more science oriented account in his book "Moral Minds: How Nature Designed a Universal Sense of Right and Wrong".

-John

The God Delusion

Last night all four of us went to the back to see if the cafeteria ladies left any food. Instead all we found was a pile of old books and an empty box of crackers...We were about to post our complains on the door of the school (that Luther guy was very successful doing the same thing) when one of the books got our attention all at the same time. It was that book cover, it was shiny like a huge square piece of quarter. So we went close and saw the book title "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. I've heard that name before and Christoff was all about how Dr Dawkins is a known atheist and this book was supposed to be his latest venture, so we started reading and sure enough we couldn't put it down. Christoff really enjoyed it and so did the rest of us but I cannot say it really changed my mind about God. I mean in that subject I don't think anybody can change your mind. Naturally Christoff being an atheist himself was ecstatic after the read. JimB and I just enjoyed it and Manolo I think was just angry there were no hot dogs left over from the cafeteria. Here is the gist of the book.

Dawkins's main argument

a) We try to find an explanation for the complexity and the improbability of the universe.

b) The solution must be simpler than the problem.

c) God must be much more complex and improbable than the universe since simpler things come from more complicated sources (the spear from the spearmaker).

So we cannot explain a by using c. What is a simpler explanation to satisfy b? NATURAL SELECTION!

The question for the author is not 'can we understand nature just using science', but 'can we understand God'? The assumption that if God exists then Dawkins (and any other established scientist, or clever individual) should know him/her may be perceived a bit arrogant. Moreover it illustrates an underlying reason for which many scientists do not believe in God. RD does not consider the middle way of saying "indeed if God exists he/she must be more complex and above all life and though it poses as a mystery now we might understand it tomorrow". Rd's argument for stupidity (just because you don't understand art it doesn't make it divine, chapter 3) and inconceivable science looking as magic, backfires at him in this case.

In the end this all reminds me of Friedrich W. Nietzsche who said " There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He".

To be fair though to RD here are some other Nietzsche quotes:

"A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation".
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything".

-Christoff

Animal right....trickier than it sounds #2

....In the final chapter of the book Mr. Singer calls the "lesser of two evils" argument. A pure idealist like time took 250 pages or so to bring down his noble ideas and impeccable morality to such an argument. Still how do we classify one evil lesser than the other? Aren't all living organisms equally important to the environment? Aren't all products of the same process (God for some, evolution hopefully for most of us)? "Lesser of two evils..." from whose perspective? Certainly not the virus's, or the carrot's. Mr. Singer suggests to care about "cute and cuddly" organisms but not all. He even arbitrarily classifies plants and microorganisms as less important than animals for no apparent reason what so ever. This to use his own words is an indefensible evolutionary bigotry and drives the nail to the wall about his argument having little rational basis.

Instead I propose to be fair to all living creatures. The results of our actions aren't all we should take into account (conseuqentialism) when deciding our actions. This is the easy way out and Mr. Singer having spent all those pages taking about ethics and morality should not want it. To be fair we should make sure that in our everyday lives we do not take out of their natural tendencies ANY living organism....only what am I saying that is practically impossible. It is because we are into the struggle for survival. I won't go out of my way to harm another living soul, and I will try to be as responsible and aware of my surroundings and how my actions impact the environment and its inhabitants. I will not however pretend I am the savior amongst the wolves, the defender of the weak. Some have to die for others to live and the hardest I will try to preserve life will be when it comes to the life of a fellow human and not that of an animal. Be kind out of superiority not out of guilt.

I want to focus now on another part of the book. Mr. Singer talks about people who claim that hunting is a natural human need and that it has always been in our genes so to speak. The author finds no need for hunting though on the grounds that times have changed and meat is found in plethora in the frozen section of any supermarket. Food is no longer sparse thus no need for hunting to feed ourselves. One obvious response is that hunting is the least of the animals worries. In an age when natural predators are not as many as they used to be (wolves are extremely low in Europe. The result: lambs and goats in huge numbers destroy and consume enormous amount of, at least my countries, small trees. The absence of wolves and foxes has led to considerable changes in Greece's landscape as a result of assiduous feeding of the herbivores) so humans, that represent another predator, can hunt without disturbing at all the food chain (provided of course the prey is not endangered species and the numbers killed are closely monitored). I have personally never met a hunter (Greece has plenty of amateur hunters so they are the ones I have associated with) who killed in excessive amounts, or who despised animals. Neither are all fishermen into mass fishing. I suppose Mr. Singer would discourage a father from introducing his son to the murderous sport of fishing, even if that is their time together for bonding. I do not want to seem a proponent of hunting, which I personally have never tried and never would, but attacking the claim that "hunting is a natural for humans" is preposterous.

Interestingly enough Mr. Singer himself refutes his own point (about hunting) in the same book. He finds it cruel to put animals in zoos for our own amusement. We all agree that this is true (I hope). He then goes on to point how perverse it is to force feed a lion prey already killed. But a lion is a natural hunter, how can it eat dead prey? It doesn't occur to Mr. Singer that the same might hold true for at least some human societies. We also are hunters. You don't have to hunt only animals. The human instinct of hunting and preying is evident in other aspects of our lives as well.

Finally Mr. Singer claims we do not live in a hierarchical society. Obviously he hasn't notice Manhattan. The author moreover praises utilitarian ideas such as those of Jeremy Bentham's and J.S. Mill's. What is the basis of utilitarianism? The general good is always and ever above the individual good. Equally passionate is Singer to support that humans and animals may not be the same, but have equal rights in a happy life. Now, here is what I think. I think that chickens far out-number humans on this planet. Chickens and humans have both a right to a free life. So the greater good is served by keeping the chickens alive and feeding humans to them...how does that sound. If horrific, ludicrous and paranoid are your choice of words then you will agree with me and against Mr. Singer.

-John

Animal rights...trickier than it sounds #1

...and although a noble cause it should not be confused with the extreme views on speciesm. Being a dog and all I am up us animals getting our fair share of justice and defense against cruelty and abuse from humans. I believe in common courtesy and not doing unto others what you don't want done unto you. But some people take it to the theoretical extreme and argument wise they do not stand on solid ground, to be as polite as I can. This is what I heard outside the class today:

Peter Singer "Animal Liberation"

"... the core of this book is the claim that to discriminate against beings solely on account of their species is a form of prejudice, immoral and indefensible in the same way that discrimination on the basis of race is...".

Mr. Singer deals with a sensitive subject for a lot of people and this book makes some excellent points. Although extreme at times, his intent is mainly to provoke and thus increase awareness of the people for this subject. The intent forgives some feats of fanaticism and zealously that would be otherwise deemed picturesque.

From a practical point of view there is no question that he is justified. Animals have been, and still are, mistreated in a variety of horrific ways for sometimes justifiable (justifiable cause, the violence isn't justified by the cause, that is why it is called mistreatment. ex killing vs torturing) but often questionable causes (dolphins ruining fish nets, dog-fights, bull-fights, poaching and hunting etc). Meat consumption, I will go as far to say, may really not be necessary in today's society. Abuse of the weaker inhabitants of this planet, whether this refers to animals, or humans is despicable in my opinion (I won't go into the morals behind that). The strong should wisely use their power to protect the weaker and not take advantage of them (again I won't go into why, which is a very good question. Lets just say that's how we are brought up).

Make no mistake! The above mentioned is just an opinion. Perhaps it is an opinion derived from emotion, maybe one that touches reason in terms of the fear of reciprocation (I am good to others because there are people who it is in my interest to be good to me too). In no case however, is this opinion bullet-proof, or a universal truth. We are good to others because we care about the prosperity of us and the species. We are good to others because society rewards this behaviour and punishes the exact opposite. We are good to others because of the principle of reciprocation holding for now and forever.

I however have no debt to animals or to humans. I have a practical debt to society and my family for bringing me up and depending on every persons sense of duty we may say we have an obligation to our distant ancestors. But we most certainly do not owe anything to dogs, with all due respect to the kind, loyal and loving tetrapod. What is given without choice, or as part of a fair transaction (I give the dog some food and in return I get some company), cannot be creating a debt.

I want to continue and give an account of some of the ideas that drew my attention to this book. Any disagreement is never out of spite. I want to pass my and Mr Singer's ideas through the test of fire. The one and only that removes any impurities and leaves the clean and honest truth.

Let me start by asking what is pain and suffering? The author of the book points out that every organism with a nervous system can feel pain and in this sense suffer. But should ones actions be judged only by the outcome? Shouldn't our intentions be considered too? So even if the recipient cannot suffer (as we mean it) our disposition to cause suffering should be held in contempt.

How do we cause pain or suffering? The natural state of a system, and from now on by system I mean a living organism, will not produce pain. Pain is a signal, a biological defense, whose result is to deter us from the course of action that has evoked it. It is used to protect us from the surrounding environment. By this definition any condition that can harm us, or our goals, or purpose will cause pain and suffering (if prolonged). This definition accommodates both simple needs (food, water, shelter) and more complex ones (freedom of speech).

If we cause pain to an agent by denying it the right to a free, unconstrained life, where it can freely pursue its goals and realize its potential, then I believe we all do so in our every day lives. It is called struggle for survival! Animals, plants, viruses, bacteria and trillions of microorganisms are slaughtered every day. They are brutally massacred. We are talking about atrocious genocides committed not in years but in seconds in the hands of a malicious house cleaner who dares to spill chlorine on the floor, or disinfecting a toilet bowl (what a brutal way to die). There is NO excuse for it. Humans do not require a completely sterile environment to survive and prosper. Maybe then we should clean our houses once a month...the bare minimum (the bare maximum for college students..).

The immediate counter that comes to mind? " Hahahaha...cute....Plants and microbes have no feelings...." Some scientists may disagree. Actually Mr. Singer in his book talks about a time when people where SURE that animals were machines (animal) with no feelings. How about a time when people KNEW the earth was flat. Let us then say that plants and microbes have no feelings that we know of. Still every living unit (cell to whale) has preferences. In cells we know of phototaxis, and chemotaxis. These are known behaviours, they happen in our immune system when in case of immune breach chemoattractants released form stores (dendritic cells) attract fighting cells (macrophages etc) to the site if the infection. Any interference with this behaviour is also violating the will, or the natural desire the cell is trying to exercise.

Weapons of mass destruction!!!

To be continued...

Timeline of the great philosophers (From Thales to Newton no.2)

-John

P.S. My ignorance should not take from all the great minds of European, African, Asian and Australian and American native cultures who produced great philosophy and art. I don't know you all but then again you don't know me either. This is by no means an extensive list of philosophers. All small and big contributions led us to where we are today.

Besides I am just a dog outside a school, I repeat what I hear in the class. My apologies also to great enlightened canines for not including theme here. The feeling of superiority is all humans have....if we take that away who will pay for our food, drink, shelter and pick up after us....talk about living like a dog, not too shabby.