James Le Fanu: Why Us? (The limitations of science)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 22, 2009, 08:55 (5391 days ago) @ John Clinch

My thanks to John Clinch for his detailed reply to my criticisms posted on 16 July. - As has happened before, when we get down to specifics, we actually agree on quite a number of things, and it may well be that some of the differences are a matter of degree and style rather than substance. I can understand it if someone doesn't believe in the God of the three main monotheistic religions. I don't either (= agnosticism), though I don't disbelieve (= atheism). But I have never heard of an agnostic who was prepared to dismiss the idea as "preposterous" (= radical atheism). - On the other hand, I'm intrigued by the fact that you find the idea of a meaningless Universe "fairly preposterous". I would very much like to know what kind of "meaning" you think the Universe might have. - I share your contempt for the evil that results from religion (as do many religious people), and also I have no problem when you say that "religion is not entitled to any special privilege from criticism". I have done my fair share of that myself. I find your equation of intelligence with atheism very dubious, however. What criteria did your pollsters use to measure intelligence? The reason why I mentioned intelligence myself had nothing to do with "evidence". It's simply that in my own state of ignorance I would not dream of ridiculing the many intelligent people, including scientists, who do believe in God ... any more than I would ridicule an atheist for his faith in chance (although I know the word "faith" raises the hackles!). My point is that I find it impossible to associate agnosticism with such ridicule. Perhaps I can simply persuade you to stop thinking of yourself as an agnostic. You have invented a new approach which we might call clinathepanism ... a mixture of radical atheism and tentative "Spinozistic pantheism". - You did not understand my argument about creation myths. I'm not equating these metaphors with "scientific endeavours". You have dismissed the "sky-god" creation story as preposterous. The parallel (not equation) that I drew was that if there really is a conscious creator (agnostics don't normally reject the possibility), the atheist belief that Chancedunit will seem equally preposterous, along the lines of: "How could anyone ever have believed that the most complicated computer in the world spontaneously assembled itself without a designer?" (Reminder: I don't believe or disbelieve either theory.) - As regards "abiogenesis", sometimes people use it to refer to the study of the origin of life, but it is indeed a theory (hypothesis if you prefer): namely, that life can come into being from non-living materials ... as opposed to biogenesis, which is the theory that life can only come into being from other living things (BBella might like that one). However, I use it to mean the theory that life can come into being spontaneously from non-living materials. It's the spontaneity that is crucial to the atheist argument. This is mainly a matter of linguistic convenience, because although I accept that it's a cause of misunderstanding, I can't think of a simpler way of referring to the theory that life originated by accident. - Your dismissal of the "paranormal" ("I know and believe it to be nonsense") is of course your affair ... although your use of "know" puts you on a par with those who say, "I know God exists." It amazes me that an agnostic can know so much! Where we might possibly come to an understanding, though, is on the boundaries of nature. I dislike the terms "supernatural" and "paranormal". The vast proportion of our universe is unknown to us, and we're learning new things about it all the time, so we don't know the limitations of the "natural". Similarly, there are great gaps in our knowledge of life on Earth ... we don't know how it began, and we can't explain phenomena like consciousness, will, memory, emotions, ideas. They're all associated with various areas of the brain, but we don't know how blobs of matter can generate them. Nor do we know what it is that binds the self together and gives it an overall identity. I make decisions which bring all parts of me into play, but what is the "I" and "me"? In this question I see another possible metaphor: the universe as a gigantic unit, bound together like me by some sort of mind. This may be what you mean by the "immanent" god in which you do not disbelieve. I can tie it in with unexplained instances of communication, and with NDEs and OBEs. I can. That doesn't mean that I do, or that I want to. I'm looking for explanations, and it's one that I'm not able to dismiss: a cosmos with consciousness, of which I am a microcosmic but conjoined part. It's just one of many possibilities, but it may help to explain why I don't like the distinction between natural and supernatural. It could all be natural. In your post of 09 July at 13.15, you wrote: "It would be a fool who declares that there can be no unknown "laws", or processes or phenomena, of nature". That is precisely the point I'm making. How can we prejudge what constitutes natural/supernatural when we know so little of Nature?