This blog emphasizes epistemic humility, where one might say that the only genuinely mistaken position is claiming certainty about metaphysical matters (as well as many other topics beyond this blog’s scope). That’s why I describe my views as a hope rather than a certainty, and I maintain this is the only truly rational stance anyone can adopt given the inherent uncertainty in our knowledge. This means we make a choice — we are not convinced by proof, the presence or absence of evidence, or even profound personal experiences. None of these can be completely determinative; they serve only as data points around which we construct the narrative in which we choose to place our hope.
Continue readingTag Archives: cognitive science
Opening Our Minds: Why Science Shouldn’t Reject Ideas That Sound Religious
When Christian apologists point to unsolved mysteries in science as potential evidence for their faith, they often overreach. These mysteries don’t specifically validate Christianity—but dismissing them entirely may be equally problematic. The scientific community risks making a critical error: rejecting entire classes of explanations not because they lack merit, but simply because they bear a superficial resemblance to religious concepts.
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The Hard Problem of a Love-Based Society
An earlier post touched on the difficulty of building societies grounded in love, especially when viewed through the lens of evolutionary theory. In particular, the idea made famous by Richard Dawkins—that we are, in a sense, vehicles for “selfish genes”—poses a profound challenge. According to this view, the behaviors and traits that have been favored by evolution are those that enhance the survival and replication of genes, often at the expense of others. Even altruism, when it does appear, is typically explained as a strategy that ultimately serves genetic self-interest.
This perspective doesn’t necessarily mean we are doomed to be selfish in every interaction. Social cooperation, empathy, even self-sacrifice, can all arise under the right conditions. But if these behaviors are essentially byproducts of a deeper drive for genetic success, then what does it mean to hope for a society built on selfless love? Can such a vision be anything more than a noble exception to nature’s dominant rule?
Continue readingThe Pendulum Swing of Evidence
It is often stated that there is no evidence for God. That’s an easy conclusion to draw if we limit our understanding of the world to the way it seems to operate in day-to-day life. This includes the level of science and technology that we encounter on a regular basis today – things like smart phones with GPS and instant worldwide communication, modern medicine with vaccines and transplants, and AI that has made computers conversational and seemingly creative. In all these things, most people see no clear evidence for God’s existence and in fact, see evidence for the success of modern science and technology.
Given such observations, our minds usually generalize and conclude that they represent the fundamental nature of reality. In other words, what we see is all there is.1 We construct a story that explains what we see and then believe that the story represents all reality. It is then easy to reinforce this with selective learning, confirmation bias, and so on.
Continue readingDismissing Experts
I recently finished reading Daniel Dennett’s book “Consciousness Explained”. It was a significant read, full of detailed arguments and illustrations. Although there were some provocative ideas in it, most of them seemed a bit dated, probably because the book is now nearly 30 years old. In addition, the tone of the writing was a little off-putting, with Dennet apparently very confident in his model, even to the point of often deprecating other possibilities in a cringy manner.
The thing is, it seems this sort of writing often shows up when the author is making a point that seems strained, not totally convincing, and it’s as if the writer knows that and feels the need to resort to emotional manipulation. Of course, it may just be the writer’s personality, but it does seem that if a writer feels the need to resort to emotional manipulation, one can’t help but imagine that this is done because even they don’t feel that the rational arguments are sufficient.
Continue readingPretending Expertise
During the Covid pandemic, there were strongly differing opinions about things like social distancing, vaccinations, masks, and so on. Although experts gave recommendations, in most cases with good alignment between them, it was common for people to say that “I did my own research”, and claim a different, generally “better” understanding of any given topic. This phrase was so common that it became a catchphrase that’s still used to highlight people’s tendency to distrust experts.
However, it has also taken on the connotation of bad decision making because experts are generally correct much more often than lay people, and it’s not hard to find examples where someone’s “own research” was wrong. This aspect of the phrase was captured by a popular meme that circulated for a while in which the phrase was on a headstone.
Although this quote was mainly about people investigating Covid-related topics, the principle can be applied elsewhere. And perhaps it illustrates a general tendency for us to approach matters with a level of overconfidence.1
Continue readingArt, Photography, and Consciousness
In this blog, I explore metaphysical topics with an eye towards religion, mainly from a science perspective. After all, the title of the blog is taken from a speech from one of history’s great scientists. However, it’s well-known that there are limits to science, including the fact that some topics are difficult to address with scientific methods.
Because this is the case, we need to be careful with our level of certainty about topics which are not yet well understood. For example, more and more research is being conducted to understand consciousness. This is becoming increasingly relevant with the recent developments of artificial intelligence. However, there is no way to directly probe consciousness with the tools and methodologies of science; the work done by neurologists and similar and investigate things related to consciousness, but not the phenomenon itself. This is because consciousness is a strictly subjective phenomenon.
Continue readingA Different Definition of Consciousness
Definitions are important, especially when discussing complex topics. For example, the topic of consciousness is so fraught with subtleties that discussions about it really need to start with a clear definition of what it means. Definitions themselves are often the first step in exploring an idea, so creating one can be an act of investigation. In other words, proposing different definitions for a concept may help us explore what is really important or fundamental about it.
Continuing with the topic of consciousness, some define it as just information processing, some define it as the phenomenon of experience. These are very different definitions that generally reflect different metaphysical positions – strict physicalism versus somewhat more open views. I wonder if it would be possible to develop a definition based on something that cuts across these global perspectives.
Continue readingExtraordinary Claims About Consciousness
A famous statement by Carl Sagan suggested that extraordinary claims need to be backed by extraordinary evidence.1 It’s interesting to apply this claim to physicalist statements made about consciousness.
Continue readingSecular Bias
Religious people are commonly thought to be biased towards believing things that cannot be proven, that must be taken on faith. Often, the idea of faith is taken to mean that there is no evidence at all. When this perspective involves science, the result is sometimes pseudo science – things that sound scientific but are actually implausible or even incorrect.
There is often also an implicit assumption that non-religious people do not have such biases, and that secular reasoning is more rational. However, it’s clear that isn’t always the case, since all people are subject to various biases and some examples from history illustrate this particular case.
It turns out that throughout history, new ideas have been put forth that stretch existing perspectives in ways that sometimes look like religion. It seems like this is more common when the discoveries are at the edge of known science. That makes sense, because ideas that truly extend our understanding are likely to look unusual. So if that unusual characteristic looks supernatural in some way, then it is easily dismissed out of hand by secular thinking.
For example, floods swept across the Pacific Northwest at the end of the last ice age. These are called the Missoula Floods. When they were first proposed, they went against the prevailing perspective that geologic processes were generally uniform over time, not catastrophic. In addition, the catastrophic nature of the proposed floods seemed similar to the Biblical flood narrative, and this association made acceptance of the proposal even harder for some people.
Similarly, when astronomical observations began to indicate that the universe was expanding and scientists realized this implied that it had a beginning, the Big Bang model was developed. However, many did not like that proposal, and instead promoted a steady state expansion. One of the difficulties that some people had with accepting the Big Bang model was that it was too close to the idea of a Biblical creation. In addition, the concept of a beginning to space and time raised the uncomfortable (and almost metaphysical) question about what might exist outside of our spacetime reality.
Even Einstein, when struggling with some of the strange ideas related to quantum physics, referred to them as “spooky action at a distance”, as if even the appearance of something supernatural was reason to suspect it.
In all these cases, the new ideas turned out to be right, but the bias of secular thinking caused some scientists to reject them.
A new area where similarly biased thinking may be happening is with research into the nature of consciousness. This is definitely a topic that is at the edge of known science, so it is very possible that new ideas may be needed. However, because consciousness seems to be immaterial, some of the emerging ideas seem to involve metaphysics even though they have nothing to do with religion or anything supernatural.
For example, some researchers use the term “soul” as a shorthand way of representing this seemingly immaterial aspect of consciousness, even when they are not talking about anything supernatural.
The danger, of course, is that some researchers will dismiss such ideas because of a potential link to religion, just like in the previous examples. However, while those examples took time to have significant societal impact, the need for us to understand consciousness may be coming faster with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
The development of AI is beginning to raise a number of questions that would benefit from, maybe even require, a better understanding of consciousness. At some point, we will want to assess whether the things we are creating are conscious, how they relate to humans, whether they should be treated as people, and even how they might affect us as conscious beings ourselves.
Robust understanding of these things could guide the development and deployment of AI, but since we don’t currently have such understanding, AI is progressing in an unguided manner. Whether this turns out to be a problem remains to be seen, but in the race between developing and understanding AI, especially given the serious implications, it seems prudent to leave open all avenues of investigation without slowing things down due to unfounded biases.
Kelvin's Clouds 