Is, or Is Not. There is no Why.

[elfs]

You know, normally, Francis Collins isn't that bad a guy. He's the original head of the Human Genome Project, and that's got to be for something. But he's also a committed Christian, who has spent a lot of his time trying to reconcile science and Christianity. He's even written a book, The Language of God : A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}, in which he admits he was convinced by C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, and by the "remarkable strength" faith had given his dying patients, and by the entire "beauty of nature" argument.

I think it's a load of bull, myself. Of course, given a choice between existential horror and a mythological promise of bliss, only those actually earnestly commited to reality will reject the premised promise. Of course we find some aspects of nature beautiful; nature is beautiful when it's aligned, or seems to be aligned, with our evolutionarily instilled goals of survival, sustenance, and reproduction. That's mostly what beauty is: it's an emotional reaction to the perception of furthered well-being.

Collins has an interview at BigThink, a sort of theistically-oriented version of Butterflies & Wheels (or so my limited experienced has led me to believe), and Francis goes off into the typical shallow reeds when he leads off by saying that faith is important because it asks "a different set of questions:"

Why are we all here? Why is there something instead of nothing? You either have to say, well those are inappropriate questions and we can’t discuss them or you have to say, we need something besides science to pursue some of the things that humans are curious about.

But I have to disagree with Collin's line of argument; his very premises are tragically flawed. When he asks, "Why are we all here?" the answer is, well, because in this tiny, infinitesimal fraction of the universe, conditions exist such that complex biochemical processes that support conscious thought can continue. A better question to ask would be, "What conditions would lead to a superior support structure for conscious thought?" and "What context, what supra-universe, has to exist such that the conditions for supporting biochemistry in our universe came about? Does that context support a vast probalistic array of universes, or is ours the only one?" Until and unless that last question can be answered, to lay down and start talking about the probabilities of life emerging are pointless. Even in our own universe, there is such a diversity of possible niches that our emergence is unremarkable. We are not privileged; we are simply the outcome of a universe that is, for the most part, utterly hostile to our existence. To claim that such persistence in the face of anything other than probability-- to ascribe it to the work of a loving god-- is to descend into a kind of narcissistic madness in which the rest of the universe, the other 99.999999999999999% of it, cold, irradiated, vaccuum-ridden, and so distant as to be almost unfathomable, exists just for your viewing pleasure.

Francis Collins is a shallow puddle, pleasantly surprised to discover he fits the hole in which he finds himself, and sure that somehow, somehow, the fit is the deliberate act of a conscious being, and not merely the accidental result of natural forces.

Comments

[tagryn]

I think he's asking the "why?" question in a philosophical/existentialist way rather than a scientific one, so answering it as you are doesn't really address his question. We can go into the scientific process of why life might emerge under certain conditions, but that doesn't touch whether there is or isn't an underlying meaning for why it might occur. They are different questions, and require different answers. "There isn't any meaning" is one answer, but that comes with all the nihilistic freight that undermines the existentialist perspective.

[tamino.livejournal.com]

I was about to say something similar, that "why are we here" means "what purpose do we exist in order to fulfill" not "what circumstances led to our existence".

I think I know what purpose I exist in order to fulfill, but I know of no scientific test I could possibly put that to -- it's just a personal conviction.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

We can go into the scientific process of why life might emerge under certain conditions, but that doesn't touch whether there is or isn't an underlying meaning for why it might occur.

For Elf, there is no other way. He honestly doesn't believe in an existential existence, and therefore when someone asks "why", he automatically falls back on the scientific as his only avenue of argument.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Yes, because somehow reason, evidence, consensus, and relentless questioning and skepticism of the claims of others, is somehow inferior to vague personal feelings backed up by peer pressure.

[omahas.livejournal.com]

You wish not to believe in anything else, and therefore feel you have a right to scoff at anyone who chooses to. As though acceptance must only be founded on reason, evidence, consensus (since when does consensus enter into the scientific realm, my dear?), and skepticism.

Cause anything not backed up by the aforementioned cannot therefore exist. You being all omniscient about these things and all. ;)

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

Humans are easy to fool, and easily fool themselves. They fall prey to confirmation bias, their memories can be altered after the fact, and even whole series of real-seeming experiences can be constructed out of whole cloth.

One of the reasons we rely on the scientific method when it comes to questions of "How does the universe work?" is that it has feedback mechanisms which minimize the effects of human error, bias, deception and self-deception.

One can believe in all sorts of things... but how do we distinguish the beliefs which are true (that is, which accurately reflect reality) from those that are false (i.e. that don't accurately reflect reality)?

If someone has a reliable tool for the understanding of reality, I'm all ears... but, so far, I've heard many claims from many sources as to there being other ways of knowing about reality... but those claims have yet to stand up to sincere, open-minded criticism.

[(Anonymous)]

Nature is beautiful when it's aligned, or seems to be aligned, with our evolutionarily instilled goals of survival, sustenance, and reproduction. That's mostly what beauty is: it's an emotional reaction to the perception of furthered well-being.

What fascinate me the most are the unintended side effects of this. I can't for example, think of a good (direct) evolutionary reason why we should perceive a thunderstorm, or even a rainbow, to be beautiful. Hell, an erupting volcano shooting out lightning bolts is probably one of the most hostile environments for us on earth, but, my god, look at it: http://imgur.com/24Zqd.jpg

It makes me wonder what perceptions of beauty, if any, will be possessed by the forms of artificial intelligence we create. Will AIs possess that type of emergent property? If they do, will it be something we can understand or appreciate? Or will we be fundamentally compatible because we model them after ourselves?

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