Is There a Scientific Basis for an Adequate Theory of Morality?

A psychologist once told me that "psychology is everything."  I suspect the main reason for her saying this was to refute supernatural beliefs, specifically those of fundamentalist religions. I am in agreement;  as I have made clear in previous blogs, I am convinced  that no educated, twenty-first century mind can accept as fact any religious dogma, such as the belief that a man named Jesus literally rose from the dead or that a god that exists beyond human consciousness intervenes in history.  Wishful thinking is no substitute for evidence.  The psychologist, however, was, I am convinced,  implying something in addition.  She was using the word "psychology" to denote not only the scientific investigation of the human psyche, but as a synecdoche for science in the broadest sense of that word.  In other words, what she really was saying is "science is everything."  Since morality is definitely something, she implied that a scientific basis for morality is possible--in fact, science provides the sole possibility for determining the validity of moral norms.  This is a widespread belief, one that has been gaining traction.  But is this a fact?  The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate that this is an unprovable assumption.  We all do need a vibrant sense of morality to live meaningful and useful lives; the content of morality, however, has, at best,  only a tangential relation to science.

The Dual System for Moral Decision Making--Can Morality be Reduced to Neuroscience?

In 2001, neuroscientist Jonathan Cohen discovered that moral decision making apparently involves two areas of the brain.  Functional MRIs, (fMRIs,) of the brain revealed that, when subjects were asked to work out a moral dilemma, the amygdala and the medial prefrontal cortex lit up very quickly.  This demonstrated two responses.  The first was a fast and presumably intuitive response; the second response was slower and involved areas of the brain involved with cognitive processing.  The first response was thought to have its evolutionary basis in the need for quick decision making in the face of peril.  Since little deliberation is involved, Cohen thought that this response is not to be trusted.  The second response, the slow and analytic response, was believed to be the true source of morality.  The graduate student involved with this project, Jonathan Greene, asserted that abstract reasoning is more or less impersonal and that personal factors are basically irrelevant when considering the second response.   This dual-theory of morality has gained widespread acceptance.  The second process supposedly  reveals a biological basis for abstract moral concepts, such as universal justice.  This, I am convinced, is untrue.  Personal factors are always present--One can use analysis to come up with a good plan to act according to a particular value, but that value must be assumed first.  For instance, if one's value system asserts that fulfilling personal desires is all that really matters, that person is going to use his analytical abilities in a very different way from a person who asserts that the common good is of primary importance.  A good example of demonstrating that morality does not have a neurologic basis is an episode in early American history.  The European settlers were convinced that "manifest destiny" meant that it was morally justifiable to displace native populations in order to achieve control over the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean.  Rational analysis--today--exposes the dubious assertions underlying the carrying out of that ethnic cleansing--namely, that Europeans were superior and that manifest destiny was God's will--in this case, yesterday's rational analyses had very different assumptions from those of today.  It is indeed a fact: science can never demonstrate that even genocide is wrong.  If some scientists believe that science and ethnic cleansing are incompatible, it is due to moral axioms assumed at the very beginning, and not due to conclusions based on science.

A less strong scientific theory for the basis of morality has been proposed by evolutionary biologists, specifically, kin selection.  Some animals--soldier bees for instance--will sacrifice their own lives for the sake of the group.  But is this really altruism?  Honeybees give a good indication that this supposed altruism is merely the best way for  a worker ant to assure that its genes survive, albeit in their kin.  Due to their unique genetic make-up, workers are more genetically related to their sisters than they would be to their own children!  So it makes sense--in a gene-based selfish way, for these ants to sacrifice themselves when necessary for the sake of their sisters.  Kin selection is, certainly, a type of cooperation.  Unconscious altruism is, however, a contradiction in terms. The statement that cooperation is in our genes is, therefore, only partially, and thus only weakly, true.

Positive Psychology and the American Psychological Association

                             Martin Seligman

Martin Seligman invented Positive Psychology in 1998.  It is based on the dual origin theory of morality already discussed.  He believes  that depression is a state of "learned helplessness," a negative intuitive response to inner turmoil.  This could be overcome by supporting the analytic areas of the brain.  With the help of cognitive therapy, one can learn, well, to accentuate the positive and reduce, if not eliminate, the negative.  One of his main reasons for advocating this technique was to help people to stop considering themselves victims.  Like the learned helplessness of a depressed person, blacks, for instance, supposedly suffer from the learned helplessness of defeatism.  It is clear to me, however, that the belief that positive psychology can eliminate defeatism among the poor without any consideration of what brought about and is still causing that defeatism, rests on a very dubious moral assumption. Individual responsibility is emphasized; legislation aimed at helping those in need is not.  It is apparent that Seligman's view is basically a conservative view; this does not mean that it is wrong.   It does mean, however, that it is a moral view and as such is not based on science.

This is clear from the writing of a prominent member of the Positive Psychology school, Jonathan Haidt.  As Tamsin Shaw points out in an excellent article in the February 25, 2016 edition of The  New York Review of Books, "The Psychologists Take Power," Haidt gives a very biased prescription to advance much-needed  political cooperation in the United States.  He asserts that there are six essential pairs of morality: care vs. harm, fairness vs. cheating, loyalty vs. betrayal, authority vs. subversion, sanctity vs degradation and liberty vs. oppression.  He asserts that progressives, who are basically interested in care for those in need, have a narrow view, while conservatives, who are interested in all six moral virtues, have a wider moral perspective.  Political harmony can be reached if the liberals learn to appreciate the more broad-based perspective of conservatives.  Contrary to what Haidt might think, his is not an objective, science-based view of a biological imperative advocating increased cooperation;  his conclusions are based on conservative moral assumptions which came before, and thus only seemingly substantiate, his analysis.

    Bruce Jessen (l), James Mitchell, Psychologists and Torturers

Were some members of The American Psychology Association, which actively supported Positive Psychology and the promotion of moral behavior, immune to corruption?  Tamsin Shaw's article provides a convincing summary of the American Psychological Association's capitulation--for money, what else?-- to the demands of the CIA and the DOD.  Seligman's learned helplessness could be induced, the military was told.  "Enhanced interrogation techniques," that is, torture, can induce a state in which the victim is no longer capable of any kind of resistance.  It was soon found out, however,  that torture didn't provide any useful information.  The tortured person eventually said what the torturer wanted him to say.  The A.P.A., after the 9/11 attacks, changed its guidelines and gave the green light to involvement with the CIA and DOD.  The association received millions of dollars; two notorious psychologist members, Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell were involved with torturing detainee--for which they apparently received 81 million dollars from the United States government!  One hapless victim who had nothing to confess, was waterboarded 83 times, in addition to other severe tortures such as being locked in a box full of insects, sexual humiliations, etc.  His left eye was destroyed during one of these torture sessions.  The Bush administration was told that further torture was of no avail; they were ordered to proceed until they got what they wanted.  The victim, Abu Zubaydah, eventually confessed to "knowledge" of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda.  This was, of course, a false confession, but just what the Bush regime wanted to help justify its plans for an imminent invasion of Iraq.

The A.P.A. the guardian of the knowledge that a neurology-based system of morality had (supposedly) been found, failed to practice what it preached.  Psychology obviously isn't everything.  It can not be considered to be the source of morality; its norms are subject to manipulation and corruption.  

If not science, however, what is the source of morality?

The Golden Rule

                                    Tamsin Shaw


The article by Tamsin Shaw. after coming to the conclusion that science is not the source of morality, concludes as follows:

No psychologist has yet developed a method that can be substituted for moral reflection and reasoning, for employing our own institutions and principles, weighing them against one another and judging as best we can.  This is necessary labor for all of us.  We cannot delegate it to higher authorities or replace it with handbooks.  Humanly created suffering will continue to demand of us not simply new "technologies of behavior" but genuine moral understanding.  We will certainly not find it in the recent books claiming the superior wisdom of psychology.

I completely agree with Shaw's conclusion; however, it does not go far enough.  What criterion or criteria are we to use to guide us to the best moral judgment in any particular situation?  We have determined that abstract reasoning is not disinterested; it can be abused by conscious or unconscious desires that can be quite immoral.  (In fact, everyone making a moral decision needs to acknowledge that he or she can be misguided.  This is why the First Amendment is of vital importance.  One needs to make a decision and stand by it; one must realize however, that other views need to be heard as well.  Encountering others' opinions might reveal hidden biases of one's own. We must always admit the possibility that we can be wrong.   Self-righteousness is never good; listening to and weighing the opinions of others is an essential virtue in a vibrant democracy.)

We need a criterion to guide us in the right direction and by which we are to judge our decisions and the decisions of others.  The Golden Rule, that is, doing unto others what you would like them to do unto you, is one such criterion.  Since our moral touchstone cannot be derived from science, it must be accepted as an axiom.  I think Shaw might have been hesitant to assert this, since the Golden Rule and its cognate, Love your Neighbor as Yourself, are most often associated with religious faith, with the assumption the source of morality comes from a god outside nature.  Such belief is not necessary.  The Golden Rule applies to the religious and the secular alike.  Even the "love your neighbor" principle can be viewed as a secular criterion for moral judgment.

Every healthy human has access to an inner core that can provide one with a moral compass.  There is nothing wrong with deriving this moral guide from intuition alone.  We intuit many of the truths we live by. Science, for instance, teaches us that we are  material beings.  Insight, however, does not permit us from viewing ourselves and our neighbors as mere concatenations of atoms. Reflection on what direction our moral compass should point to always leads in a healthy mind to some form of the Golden Rule.

I consider "Love thy neighbor as Thyself" to be the best moral principle of them all.  What is the nature of this "commandment?" This is the subject of Part ll of this essay: "Leviticus 19: The Ultimate Win-Win Equation."

Rezension/Zusammenfassung: Nacht ist der Tag, von Peter Stamm

Nacht ist der Tag
Peter Stamm
Fischer Taschenbuch
Frankfurt am Main, 2015
253 Seiten

Nacht ist der Tag 

Was ist das Ich?  Kann man eine echte Beziehung haben, ehe man eine echte Beziehung zu sich hat?  Ein Thema, das Gedanken auslöst und dem philosophisch veranlangten Leser vielen Anlass gibt, mit ihm auseinanderzusetzen.  Aber er ist kein Luftroman; die Erde steht fest unter den Füssen des Autors.  Einem  Leser, der nicht so sehr für Philosophisches interessiert ist, bietet Stamm eine gute Geschichte, die mit sehr viel Kunst erzählt worden ist; dem Leser, der über den Stoff nachdenken möchte, bietet er beides. Einen Erfog auf beiden Ebenen hat uns Stamm gegeben.

Im Roman kommen zwei Hauptfiguren vor, Gillian, eine Moderateurin bei einem Fersehsender, und Hubert, ein Künstler.  Sie sind Gegenpole; Gillian fehlt gleichsam ein Gesicht, weil sie kein festes Ichgefühl hat, und dem Künstler fehlt gleichsam ein Körper, weil er nur an seine Kunst denkt und sich selbst dabei vernachlässigt. Gillian ist ein Null am Anfang; die Handlung ist mehr oder weniger ihre Reise von einem Null zu einer Person, die endlich weiss, wer sie ist und was sie will.  Das klingt banal, aber Stamm schildert mit grosser Kunst und Vielseitigkeit jemanden, den Erfahrung endlich reifen lässt.  Dem Leser der wähnt, dass der Roman mit einem Hollywood Ende schliessen wird, wird aber am Ende keine übel riechende Lösung vor die Nase kommen.

Ein Kunstgriff des Autors besteht darin, dass er virtuos in der Erzählung Rückblenden benützt.  Manchmal ist einem zuerst der Zusammenhang nicht klar, bis er einige Seiten weiter liest.  Die Rückblenden sind sehr sorgfältig aufgebaut; die Handlung entfaltet sich ohne lose Stricke nahtlos bis zum letzten Wort.

Zuerst studierte Gillian Theater, und wurde Schauspielerin vom zweiten Rang.  Im Leben ist sie auch eine Schauspielerin vom zweiten Rang: sie spielt immer eine Rolle, weil keine selbstbewusstee Person hinter ihren Augen steckt, die sie zulässt, dementsprechend zu handeln. Im folgenden Zitat ist ihr unruhig geworden, während Hubert sie photographiert:

Gillian war schon oft photographiert worden, aber dabei war es immer um die Rollen gegangen, die sie spielte, erst im Theater, dann in der Öffentlichkeit.  Sie hatte sich vor der Kamera in Posen geworfen, hatte Haltungen eingenommen, die sie aus den Illustrierten kannte. 
                                           S.99

Die Lehrer in der Schauspielschule haben diese Tendenz, sich hinter einer Maske zu verbergen, bemerkt und kritisiert:

Sie musste an ihre erste Zeit an der Schauspielschule denken, wenn ihr Lehrer sie kritisiert hatte: Du spielst, hatte er immer gesagt, sei du selbst, zeig dich.   
                                                S. 103

Das eben kann sie nicht.  Sie verlässt das Theater, und wird eine Moderateurin beim Fernshen.  Das passt ihr; ihre Aufgabe bei Interviews ist persönliche Fragen zu stellen und nicht persönliche Fragen zu beantworten.

Der Roman beginnt als Gillian, halbbewusst, träumt, dass sie im Wasser schwebt.  Als sie zu sich kommt und aus dem Wasser taucht, findet sie sich im Krankenhaus. Sie war in einem Unfall schwer verletzt.  Ihr Mann ist tot; ihre Nase ist weg, ihr Gesicht ist zerstört.  Die Tatsache ist doppelt erschreckend für sie: mit ihrem Gesicht hat sie ihre Maske verloren.  Jetzt muss das innere Ich zum Vorschein kommen, aber in ihrem Fall ist keines da.  Was ist sie jetzt?  Nichts, nichts, nichts.

In der ersten Rückblende entdecken wir, was geschehen ist.  In einer Schublade endeckte ihr Mann Fotos von ihr, in denen sie völlig nackt vorkommt.  Er ist wütend.  Betrunken auf dem Weg nach Hause fahrend, rammt er einen Reh und ist sofort tot.  Gillian wacht später auf mit zerstörtem Gesicht.

In der nächsten Rückblende erfahren wir wie die Fotos entstanden sind.  Gillian hat einen Künstler namens Hubert interviewt.  Er photographiert nackte Frauen.  Nichts Lüsternes liegt in diesem Vohaben; die Frauen sind alt und jung, schön und unaktraktiv. Seine Absicht ist immer sachlich: er will Fotos machen in denen  die innere Natur durch den Körper zum Vorschein kommt, so wie Matisse Farben benutzt hatte,  um die innere Natur seiner Welt zu entdecken. Hubert verführt keine der Frauen.

Hubert faziniert Gillian.  Sie verabreden sich.  In Huberts vernachlässigtem Atelier zeichnet er sie. Unmöglcih!  Sie habe keine Präzenz.  Gillian flirtet.  Er lässt sie schroff wissen, dass seine Freundin ein Kind erwartet.  Bemerkenswert ist, was er nicht sagt: dass er seine Freundin liebt.  Das einzig Wichtige ist für ihn die Kunst.  Sie will trotzdem dass sie sich in die Arme fallen.  Er sagt ihr kurz angebunden dass sie das Haus verlassen müsse.  Und das tut sie.

Sechs Jahre sind verflossen.  Jetzt heisst Gilian, mit neuem Gesicht, Jill.  Sie leitet Programme in einem Ferienhaus in einem entlegten Dorf in den Bergen.   Sie ist nett.  Die Gäste sind nett. Vermutlich ahnt Jill im Innern wie langweilig ihr Leben ist.  Dem Hotel nebenan ist das Kulturzentrum, wo Hubert vor Jahren seine Aktenbilder ausstellte.  Sie redet den Direktor überein, Herbert einzuladen, um eine neue Austellung abzugeben.  Hubert will nicht zuerst, weil er schon längst in eine Schaffenskrise gefallen ist.  Endlich willigt er ein.  Jill und Hubert kennen sich teilweise wieder und teilweise zum ersten Mal.   Er bekennt, dass ihn seine Frau Astrid verlassen hat, weil er "sich nicht öffnen kann." 

Hubert und Jill werden ein Paar.  Aber Astrid liebt Hubert noch; ihr neuer Freund ist ein unzulänglicher Ersatzmann.  Lukas, Huberts Sohn, besucht sie in den Bergen.  Jill entdeckt, dass sie--ihr wirkliches Ich--Kinder liebt.  Sie bringt Lukas ins Bett; sie reden über einen Bär, den Lukas in der Umgebung sah:

Hast du ihn gesehen?, fragte er.
Nein, sagte Jill. Er ist sehr scheu, er zeigt sich nicht gern.
Hat er keine Familie?, fragte der Junge.
Nein, sagte Jill,  Ich glaube, er ist noch jung. Er streunt ein bisschen herum and schaut sich die Welt an.  Ich glaube, Bären sind gern allein.
Ich nicht, sagte Lukas.
Ich auch nicht, sagt Jill.  Sie küsste den Jungen auf die Stirn und rief nach Hubert.
                                                       S. 232

Hubert und Jill sind endlich glücklich.  Ihre Beziehung hat eine neue Schaffensperiode für Hubert mit sich gebracht. Das Hollywood Ende kommt aber nicht.  Hubert besucht Astrid, weil sie in eine Krise geraten ist.  An dem Abend seines erwartenten Rückkehrs sagt er telefonisch plötzlich ab.  Jill sieht ein, dass er wohl nicht wieder kommen werde.

Sie ist verzweifelt.  Sie geht zu einem "Open-Air" wo die meisten  Teilnehmer sehr viel jünger als sie ist.  Sie nimmt eine Pille, vielleicht LSD.  Sie verliert das Bewusstsein; sie tuacht gleichsam ins dunkle Wasser wieder wie am Anfang des Romans.  Aber als sie aufwacht steht hinter ihrem neuen Gesicht ein neues Ich. Jetzt ist sie endlich ihre eigene Person:

Jill stand unter der Dusche, wusch sich den Dreck von den Füssen und wusste plötzlich dass sie würde ihre Stelle kündigen und weggehen von hier.  Nicht gleich, sie hatte keine Eile.  Vielleicht würde Hubert mit ihr kommen, um gemeinsam irgendwo neu anzufangen, aber ihre Entscheidung hatte nichts mit seiner zu tun.  Das Speil war zu Ende, sie war frei und konnte gehen, wohin sie wollte.
                                                    S. 252

Wird sie in der Zukunft glücklich sein?  Vielleicht, vielleicht nicht. Ein einsamer Triumph ist der Ihre am Schluss; aber  wie Michel Houellebecq in seinem neuen Roman, Soumission, fesstellt, sind Unabhäningkeit und Glück  sehr oft Gegensätze.  Die Beziehung zu anderen und die Beziehung zur Umwelt ist was die Menschen glücklich macht, selbst wenn man dabei seine Unabhängigkeit verliert.  Das ist das Haupthema von Houellebecqs Bestseller.  Das ist aber ein anderer Roman, dessen Weltanschaung--leider--wenigstens teilweise gültig ist.  Aber nur teilweise--Stamms steht fest auf seinen eigenen Beinen; der Roman braucht sich Soumission nicht zu unterwerfen.


Anmerkungen

Mein besonderer Dank gilt Mary Upman vom Deutschen Literaturkreis in Baltimore.  Sie hat diese Rezension vorsichtig korrigiert and verbessert  Vielen Dank, Mary!

Weitere Artikel auf deutsch von Thomas Dorsett (Googeln Sie den Titel und dem Namen, Thomas Dorsett)

1. Jakob der Lügner, von Jurek Becker
2. Die Weisheit und das Alter
3. Ruhm von Daniel Kehlmann
4. Die letzte Welt von Christoph Ransmeyer
5. Die Herrlichkeit des Lebens von Michael Kumpfmüller

Everything and Almost Nothing: Consiousness and the Theory of Everything

In this article we will travel from large to small in two ways; for the first, we will travel on the thoughtship of philosophy; for the second our minds will hurtle down to almost nothing on the abstract vehicle of particle physics.  On the first journey the last stop is transcendence; on the second it is the theory of everything (TOE).We will finish by interpreting where we've been.

1. Almost Nothing, The Journey of Simone Weil

Simone Weil (1909-1943) is very hard to categorize.  She was a social activist, and was sometimes referred to as "the Red Saint,"although she never joined the Communist party, and eventually became highly critical of communism.  She is best known for her religious philosophy.  Some refer to her as a Christian mystic, although she never converted to Christianity and would probably have objected to the term, "mystic."  Albert Camus held her in the highest regard, for him she was "the only great spirit of our times."  In contrast, Charles de Gaulle thought she was "crazy."  Still others refer to her as the greatest female philosopher who ever lived.

The aphorisms about life, nature and God, collected in a book after her death entitled, "Gravity and Grace," are astounding--at least that's this author's opinion.   Inwardly she experienced God; she was well aware of the outward absence of God as well.  In this essay, our journey begins with the following aphorism: "Every order which transcends another can only be introduced into it under the form of something infinitely small."

This pithy statement might seem inconsequential at first, but that would be incorrect, for this aphorism contains a great and essential truth.  Weil did not elaborate; the sentence came from her notebooks and was not "fleshed out" for publication.  Putting muscle onto this skeletal framework results in a body whose message is of great philosophical and religious import.

Let us first consider the largest order to be transcended: space.  (Space is something and is never empty; what we refer to as "empty space" is the vacuum, a volume containing no or very very little matter. This vacuum is seething with activity at the magnitude at which space breaks down, the Planck scale, which is unimaginably small.)  From our perspective, space is the void.  If we refer to substance as matter, the universe is much much much more space than substance.  Even our  own solar system is mostly space; all the known planets could easily fit into the space between Earth and the moon.  Earth is 93 million miles from the sun; this is defined as one astronomical unit. Neptune, the farthest away from the sun of the eight known planets, is over thirty astronomical units from the source of its faint day.  Recently, there has been convincing evidence, based on the gravitational behavior of planetoids father away than Neptune, of a ninth planet.  Its calculated orbit extends to 100 astronomical units! Beyond that,  the huge stretches of interstellar space begin.

To gauge the size of the visible universe, distance is calculated in light-years. The human mind can only mathematically comprehend a light-year.  Light traveling 186,000 miles per second covers a lot of space in one year.  Yet as a measure of the size of the universe a light-year is very, very small.  Our own galaxy imeasures 100,000 light-years across!  Andromeda, the closest galaxy to us is about 2.5 million light-years away!  The light from the galaxies farthest away from us has taken over 13 billion years to reach our eyes!  Invisible to the naked eye, these large bodies appear as mere specks even to the Hubble telescope--to put it mildly, there is a lot of space between them and us that from our non-mathematical perspective, it might as well be considered an infinite distance.  It doesn't stop even there, however--the visible universe is thought to be only a fraction of the actual universe, invisible to us because not enough time has elapsed since the universe came into being for it to reach our eyes. Yes, it doesn't stop even there; many scientists assert--string theory demands it--that there might be other universes, perhaps an infinite number of them.  Space, Space, space!

Yet to us space is made negligible due to an "infinitely small" element that transcends it.  When we look at the night sky, it is not space which impresses us, but the sparsely dispersed stars which shine through it.  The volume of space taken up by suns and planets compared to the volume of matterless space is truly infinitesimal.  Yet it is this matter--(we exclude here dark matter which is about five times the mass of the total amount of planets and stars in the universe, since we cannot see it)--which gives space definition.  Space for us is the background.  The infinitely smaller element of heavenly bodies transcends it.

We could view habitable planets as the next small order which transcends a larger one.  There might be billions of them, but their total mass compared to the total mass of stars and uninhabitable planets is infinitely small.  But let's skip to the reason why we are so interested in hospitable planets: life.  The bio-mass of Earth is infinitely small when compared to the mass of the entire planet, not to mention the total mass of suns and planets in the universe.  We would all agree that from our perspective life is a smaller yet higher order which transcends the vast order of inanimate matter.

Once again, we can consider the next higher order as intelligent or multicellular life, but let's jump to the most important one for us: human life.  It comprises a fraction of the Earth's bio-mass and has only been on the planet for a million years or so of the four and a half billion years of Earth's existence.

That human intelligence is the highest order known is demonstrated by the fact that the universe does not understand itself; a stone has no science; the tremendous size of the universe fits, as it were, snugly inside the human skull--an astonishing "miracle!"

Simone Weil did not intend for us to stop with human intelligence; for her, the supernatural being called God, is behind all existence.  The divine is an infinitely small element because it would overwhelm human existence if it were any larger.  For Weil, this ultimate higher order gives everything else definition.  It is so small that it is almost nothing; there is, in fact, no evidence for it.

This is the ultimate God-of-the-gaps position.  It is non-falsifiable, meaning that it is not a scientific view.  It is, however, a respectable view, it is natural to intuit that God exists.  In our summary, we shall discuss whether this view is necessary for one to consider oneself religious.

Addendum: Almost Nothing

Simone Weil had a great influence on me, especially in the past.  Here is a poem I wrote twenty-five years ago, excerpted from my first collection of poems, Dance Fire Dance, which demonstrates how important Weil's axiom was--and is--for me:

Almost Nothing

Every order which transcends another can only be introduced into it as something infinitely small--Simone Weil

Compared to nothing, what is matter?
A few grains in an empty silo;
a few flecks of dust scattered
here and there through a deep tarn;
seen cosmically or quantumly,
nearly everything is space,
almost everything's nothing at all.

Compared to mater, what is life?
A lichen patch on surface rock;
upon vast, ancient inorganics,
a few unstable molecules
propagating selves on top,
a fraction of this tiny planet's,
almost nothing compared to the sun.

And, capable of self-removal,
an inch on evolution's scale,
compared to the rest of life,
what are we?  Almost nothing;
there are more germs in you now
than the number of people in China,
ancient and modern, combined.

(June bug on a mountain stream
approaching a vast waterfall,
what is an individual?
Almost nothing; can one blame you
if you wish to close your eyes
and wish to create yourself, a god
stalking the primeval forest?)

When has the power of prayer
cut through death's closing-in vines
to lead us where spring water falls
in the jungle of necessity?
What is superhuman grace
compared to the world of blind force?
Again, almost nothing at all.


ll.  Effective Theory--The Journey of Physics

This journey is similar to the first in that the road leads us from largest to smallest; it differs, however, in a very significant way: it is a scientific journey.  The description of each realm we pass through must be proven by the scientific method, that is, by (direct or indirect) observation; if it isn't we can proceed no farther.  The string theory has devised a plausible path for the last steps toward the Theory of Everything; although eloquent, many questions remain.  It is unproven and remains a theory.  (Einstein's theory of general relativity which asserted that the mass of an object bends light wasn't demonstrated until 1919.  The position of Mercury appeared closer to the sun than it actually is, due to the bending of its light by the mass of the sun.  Breaking news: today, February 11, 2016, it was announced that LIGO--the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory-- confirmed the existence of gravitational waves--101 years after Einstein's theory of general relativity predicted their existence!)  Exploration of the final steps are impossible; the distances are too small necessitating an unimaginably huge amount of energy to explore them.  However, a piece of the puzzle might be found at the energy level of CERN or at another collider in the near future. This would be of tremendous importance and is a top priority.  It would be a good indication that the string theory actually describes the way nature works.

We will now travel from huge to tiny via effective theories.  What is an effective theory?  It is a technical term. An effective theory is one that describes the workings of nature without explaining why nature works in a specific way.  It is necessarily incomplete--the theory of everything, however, is not an effective theory, it is the final theory.

A good example is cosmology.  To understand the movement of all heavenly bodies you need to know only two things: mass and gravity.  Newton discovered the laws of gravity in the seventeenth century.  Utilizing them, Kepler determined the orbits of the planets with great accuracy.  Once the mass of an object is known--even the entire mass of a galaxy can be determined--its movements can be demonstrated and observed to be in perfect accord with Newton's laws. (Stars do not move in accordance with the gravity supplied by heavenly bodies; there has to be a huge amount of unseen matter to explain their movements.  This invisible matter is dark matter; scientists have theories of what dark matter might be; none of them has as yet been proven.)

Newton, however, had no idea how gravity worked.  For the effective theory of cosmology this knowledge is not necessary.   To help explain a particular effective theory, we need more information; this is called input, which corresponds to the "higher order" of Weil's maxim.  What is the underlying structure of mass?  

The next effective theory on our way to the final theory is the theory of atoms.  You don't have to know anything about the inner structure of atoms at this level.  All we need know are the elements and the electromagnetic force, which enables atoms to form molecules.  It makes no difference if one knows about the existence of quarks for the effective theory of atomic behavior..  An important question, however, remains unanswered: What is the structure of atoms which causes them to behave the way they do? As we proceed from the effective theory of the behavior of atoms, we need quantum input.  The particles which compose the quantum world are referred to in aggregate as the Standard Model.  The essential and last piece to be discovered was the Higgs boson, which occurred  in 2015.  The Standard Model is now complete.  

The Higgs boson gives mass to quantum particles.  But why are the masses just what they are; what is the cause of the mass of the electron, for instance?  For this we need the input of the final theory, the Theory of Everything.  At this level, bosons, various examples of which are responsible for the four forces of nature, (gravity,  the electromagnetic, the weak and the strong forces), are very different from fermions, the matter particles.  In the final theory, fermions and bosons are interchangeable.  Absolute unity exists at this level; no further explanation is necessary or scientifically possible.  Absolute unity simply is.

Weil's journey is plausible--from our point of view; many would agree that  the hierarchy of existence culminates in God.  The scientific leads to a theory which explains why things are the way they are.  God of the one voyage and absolute unity of the other are not the same thing, unless God is viewed in an absolutely impersonal way.  Weil's "infinitely small" higher order ("extremley small" would be a better term) corresponds to the input of each  effective theory all the way down until unity is reached and effective theories are no longer needed.


One is a journey of the heart; the other is a journey of the mind. But what is the source of both the heart and the mind in which both journeys exist?

Conclusion

We will answer that question shortly.  First, I must assert that my Weltanschaung, my world-view, has changed somewhat over the years.  I can no longer follow Weil's journey to its last step, at least the last step as she envisioned it.  For her, God is a supernatural phenomenon, that is, God exists out there, and is able to intervene, however sparingly, in human history.  In other words, God exists beyond consciousness and not only within it.  I do not find a shred of evidence for this.  For me the source of both the heart and the mind is consciousness, and consciousness alone.

Buddha believed that when anyone asserts a dogmatic statement about ultimate reality, the only proper response is, "Nahi, nahi," "no, no" that is, "not this, not that."

Jesus is the only begotten Son of God?  Muhammad is the final prophet?  The Lord presented the Jews with the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai?  Nahi, nahi, nahi! Such assertions are metaphors--and can be very meaningful as such--but they are not facts.  I don't understand how any twenty-first century mind can believe the contrary--although some very educated people, much smarter than I am, still do.  But they are apparently becoming rarer and rare.

The all is not lost, however.  It can indeed be asserted that God exists within.  As Jesus of Nazareth said, "The Kingdom of God is within you."

As the great poet Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote, "There lives the dearest freshness deep down things."  Zen teaches that a diamond of pure consciousness exists within us.  One can access it through meditation as one rises about superficial concerns.  We eventually not only realize but fully experience, at least in our best moments,  that everything is connected. This is wisdom.  One puts wisdom into practice through selfless action.  This is love.

Mind you, I stated that "it can be asserted that God exists." It is not necessary.  One may call the God within the inner light, as the Quakers do, or "the still small voice" or the core of conscience, or well, cosmic consciousness.  Call it any awesome name you like, it does not matter.  That you access it and act upon it, however, matters a great deal.

One might object that a God that exists merely (in Shakespeare's time "merely" meant "entirely") in consciousness is not the living God, but just another idea, a fantasy, albeit a noble one. For God to be real, according to this view, God must have an objective existence.  But what does objective existence man?

Modern physics can help us here.  Like the ancient Hindus, some scientists are convinced that it is consciousness that in a very real sense creates the world.  Many top physicists assert that there is no objective reality without the observer.  (There is, of course no observation without consciousness.)  John Wheeler, one of the greatest scientists of the past century, was convinced that  observation has a central role in the nature of reality.  I will close with a quote by the eminent particle physicist, Andrei Linde, as quoted in Michio Kaku's wonderful book, "Parallel Worlds":

For me, as a human being, I do not know any sense in which I could claim that the universe is here in the absence of observers...The moment you say that the universe exists without any observers, I can't make any sense of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness...In the absence of observers, the universe is dead.

Another way of saying this: consciousness creates "objective" reality by interacting with the ghostly quantum world which cannot be called objective in any real sense. (Caveat: observation cannot choose which quantum outcome arises.  Volition has nothing to do with it; it is an entirely impersonal process.  You can't win the lottery with the "power of positive thinking!") Therefore, what is outside us is not independent of what is inside us.  In a real sense, therefore, outside is inside.  Thus, the Kingdom of God within us is also the Kingdom of God in our world.  It takes a leap of faith to believe in an external God, that is, a deity with an independent existence beyond consciousness who controls everything; there is, as we have asserted, absolutely no evidence in the material world that supports this view.   This belief,  however, as we have is unnecessary.  Wisdom is ultimately all we need to know; love is ultimately all we need do. What we experience is consciousness, and it is enough.

In my view, this is the only way to be deeply religious without coming in conflict with science.

Addendum: The Actual Apple

Everything is connected with everything else; a fully separate existence is an illusion.  As we have asserted, this is wisdom.  I would like to conclude with a poem by Michael Ende, which I translated years ago. It is the same journey as the two we took in this article, except in reverse, namely, from the small to the large.   Feel free to substitute yourself for the apple!

The Actual Apple

A writer and a  realist, well known

for his literality,

searched for something found at home

to delineate from A to Z:

an apple, for instance, an organic bit,

and all that goes along with it.

He described the core, the pulp, the skin,

the stem, the leaves, the branch, the tree,

the roots, the ground the roots grew in,

and Newton's Law of Gravity--

But that wasn't the actual apple at all;

he must include spring, summer, winter, and fall,

the sun and the moon and the stars--

He filled enough paper to paper a wall,

yet the ending seemed farther than quasars:

for actually he belonged there too,

this man of prose who hated verse,

and Adam and Eve and I and you

and God and the whole universe--

Finally he became fully aware

that apples are just indescribably there;

neither he nor another shall ever define

something so common, something so sublime--

He lifts his apple to the light;

smiling now, he takes a bite.

Michael Ende

--translated from the German by

Thomas Dorsett



Your comments are most welcome!

Redrad Porridge and Gach; Two Healthful, Tasty Dishes

Our family tends to eat well and healthfully.  A good result our good relation to food is that none of us ever diets and none of us has a BMI in the overweight range. We eat what I would call a green Mediterranean diet; vegetables and salads are our staples.  We have wine with our evening meal, otherwise it's only water, coffee or tea.  Ours is more accurately called an Indo-Mediterranean diet, since we are very fond of Indian cuisine.

One might assume that we're rather Spartan in our eating habits, but we're not.  We put a major emphasis on taste.  In fact, we only eat what is healthful if we can make it taste good.  And we can--at least to our satisfaction.  (We do, however, rather severely limit our added sugar intake, consuming even less than the recommended amount of about six teaspoons per day, including the sugar found in processed foods.  For some more details of our opinion on added sugar, please refer to "The Sweet God of Premature Death," on my blog,)

Once in a while we invent our own recipes, though we usually merely modify to our taste and whims recipes that we either know well or have found online.  I would like to share with you two  original recipes.  I make no claims that they are especially creative; I make no claims of being a gourmet.  That both these dishes are easy to make, taste good--at least to my family's taste--and are good for you is, however, undeniable.  I will include a little information about why they are so healthful.

1.  Redrad Porridge

Ingredients: radishes, tahini and beet hummus.

Health Benefits: Regarding radishes, there is a well known proverb in China that is a variation of "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."  The benefits of eating radishes are considerable.  They contain very few calories and much fiber--they thus satisfy hunger in a healthful fashion.  They are also rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and other good things.
When I went into my local grocery store and asked if they had tahini, the clerk was completely flummoxed and replied, "Ta-WHO?" It's actually not too hard to find, though.  The basic ingredient is sesame seeds.  In our local ethnic grocery, a large bottle sells for under $4.00.  Some have more oil, which floats at the top of the bottle.  This is ideal; simply mix the contents up.  The benefits of tahini are also considerable; it is rich in minerals, protein, calcium and vitamins, especially vitamin E and B-group vitamins. (We assert that there is no reason to take vitamins by mouth if one eats well--which is easy to do once one decides to do it.)
Hummus is better known and is also conducive to good health; it is rich in vitamins and minerals as well.   It is made from chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, and sesame seeds.

Directions:

Take four large radishes per person, cut them up--quarter them or cut them into slices.  Put them in a bowl.
Add three heaping tablespoons of tahini and two heaping tablespoons of beet hummus.  Mix together to a loose paste.  (If too dry, add a bit of olive oil.)  Optional: add a little bit of lemon juice to taste; add a dash of ground pepper; garnish with finely cut radish slices. 

That's it!  Eat it with a spoon like porridge.  If beet hummus is not available, any variety of hummus will do.  Redrad porridge is ideal as a snack.  Instead of having a piece of cake or a cookie with your tea or coffee, try this easily-prepared dish.

2, Gach

Ingredients: whole-wheat penne or any other form of whole-wheat pasta, turmeric, chili powder (cayenne powder), karela powder, garlic, extra-virgin olive oil, sea salt

Although we don't serve pasta often, it is often this dish when we do. The recipe dates back to the early 1990s.  The name refers to a dish--a very different dish--served during an episode of a very popular TV show at the time.  (If you know the name of the series, let me know in the comment section.)

Health Benefits: whole-wheat pasta, compared to refined, white pasta, has a much higher nutritional value; it contains all three parts of the grain, while white pasta contains only one.  The glycemic index (that is, the tendency to raise blood sugar) is lower as well.  The benefits of olive oil, an integral part of the Mediterranean diet, are well known.  There is evidence that heat destroys some of the nutritional value; the olive oil in this recipe, however, comes straight out of the bottle. Turmeric has been called "the world's healthiest food" for a variety of reasons.  There is evidence that it lowers blood sugar, prevents cancer, and reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease, etc.  It is quite high in antioxidants.  Karela or bitter melon is not only highly nutritious but possesses considerable glucose-lowering properties as well.  The vegetable  can readily  be found in Indian and Chinese grocery stores or online; the powdered form is rarer. If it is unavailable, one can omit this ingredient and still wind up with a tasty dish. The benefits of garlic are proverbial.

Directions:

Cook 8 oz of whole-wheat pasta al dente, drain, and place in a serving dish.  Add a generous quantity of olive oil until all the pasta is covered, without any pooling of oil at the bottom of the dish, about three or four tablespoons. Add four cloves of garlic via a garlic press.  Add one teaspoon of turmeric powder, half a teaspoon of chili powder and 3/4 teaspoon of karela powder.  Finally, add a pinch or two of rock salt.  Combine.  May be garnished with grated Parmesan cheese. Serves two to three as a side dish.

That's it!

We wish you happy and healthy eating by following these two simple recipes and other ones like it. I invite you to provide in the comments section recipes and food tips of your own.