Chthonic to Sublime and Back Again: why missing links are God’s problem too. (Also, the Argument from Fermi.)

Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

For all the teeming diversity of the gods that someone, somewhen, has decided just might be worth worshiping  – and we could be talking about Yahweh or Allah, Ishtar or Thor –  they all have something in common. Despite running the gamut from the chthonic to sublime, and apart from superficialities like Thoth’s ibis-like head or the Buddha’s retractable penis, the fact is that they are all decidedly human. They hardly represent a random sampling of all possible gods. Rather they’re a conspicuous subset that are more or less like humanity and, crucially, they all speak to decidedly human concerns. While I lean towards the idea that we have a need to populate the heavens with forces that reflect our needs , note that this isn’t an argument against their existence per se. It’s entirely possible that the proliferation of deities that care about humanity’s concerns might arise out of the actual existence of powers concerned with the cares of humans. That said, this is as good an argument for Tiamat or Baal as it is for Vishnu or Ahura Mazda. If you challenge an unbeliever on account of Christ they could point out the godly horde you’ve ignored, and say , “I’ve just gone one better”.  

So the properly agnostic and newly minted proto-believer in the market for a god can’t help notice that there are gaps between the usual suspects. In between the franchise operations of the big boys – Christianity, Islam, Judaisim, Hinduism etc – and aside from  the Ma & Pa operations of smaller religions there are odd gaps where gods should be. We’re all familiar with the idea of a god with the Big Three: omnipotence, omniscience and benevolence. But where are all the gods that are omniscient but powerless, or omnipotent but blind? What about a god that’s omnipotent only on Tuesdays (Thank you, Pascal Boyer)?  Or, to give an example from David Eagleman’s Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives what if god does in fact exist and is intimately concerned with the lives of the special creations for whom he made the universe: single cells. What if these constructs we call humans are just not on the scale god cares about?

The itch that drove me to write this post was a discussion about evolution and intelligent design. Intelligent design looks for instances of irreducible complexity in the natural world, on the theory that a phenomenon – usually a feature of a biological organism – that can’t  be explained by the incremental accretion of adaptations is prima facie evidence of the existence of an intelligent designer, a god. A well-worn trope of this kind is the eye: what use, they say, is half an eye? More contemporary examples might include the motive equipment of certain viruses or the explosive back-end of the bombardier beetle. Without getting into an argument about the merit of these examples, I want to draw out the thinking that’s implicit in this approach: It only allows for two alternatives: either evolution by natural selection is responsible, or else an ‘intelligent designer’ – read as ‘My God’ – did it. This ignores other possible explanations and sets up a false dichotomy: an artificial division of a range of possibilities into a rigid binary opposition. In the spirit of exploring all possibilities: if in fact an instance of ‘irreducible complexity’ was found that couldn’t be explained by evolution by natural selection, is the only other choice intelligent design? I can think of at least one alternative: a so-called ‘thermodynamic miracle’. This would be an event – such as oxygen spontaneously becoming gold – that makes use of natural processes and has a finite probability, albeit one whose odds are so long they are unlikely to occur in the lifetime of the universe. My point isn’t to advocate for one of these ideas over the others, rather it’s to illustrate how the standard approach is restricted, and in fact relies on this restriction for its persuasiveness. To take another example, the argument from a First Cause sets up a dichotomy where either the universe was created at some point by a cause that caused itself- a self-causing cause - or otherwise we have an porportedly ‘impossible’ infinite regression. By what evidence is infinite regression deemed impossible? And if ‘intelligent designer’ usually implies ‘my god’ so does ‘first cause’: the argument usually comes with extra associations attached to the first cause that aren’t merited by the argument itself.  As we’ve discussed before – nothing in the argument says anything about omnipotence or unity of being let alone tridents or lightning bolts. 

Of course, logic is a fickle blade, and it can cut the other way too. Last time I touched on the Anthropic Principle, the idea that any explanation of us and our universe has to be consonant with our existence in it. It has to account for – allow for – the existence of us. Life seems to be such an odd thing and the prerequisites for its generation so chancy that any explanation needs to account for the long odds that must have been played the one time that we know for sure it happened. Maybe given universe enough and time life is just something that can happen in the role of the cosmic dice. But it’s hard to even know if we have something to explain if we don’t know exactly how long the odds are.  For all the amazing development of molecular biology and associated fields in the past century we are far from knowing all the antecedents for life, let alone thinking, reasoning human life. Attempts to attach estimates to the variables that might count – such as the Drake equation – are pretty hairy: they’re necessarily parochial and can only include those things we know are required for our kind of life and obviously don’t (can’t) take account of the unknown unknowns. What are all the factors that lead to a) a sun which can b) support planets which can c) support a kind of life that can d) include the kind of intelligence which might do things like e) building space ships?

Interestingly enough, even if you put relatively conservative numbers into the Drake equation, you get a picture of a universe that’s positively teeming with life. Hell, the fact that this is so, despite our never having met any of this life even has a name: the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi paradox is a mainstay of science fictional exploration precisely because it’s such an ill-posed problem: we have no idea what the contributing factors might be. Maybe there is intelligent life out there, but it’s so different that we would never notice one another. Maybe there’s some kind of bottleneck that all civilizations have to go through and few manage it: cf. the development of nuclear weapons or fossil fuel-based economies. A particular favourite of mine is the playful idea that apocalypse by zombie – or mass Spontaneous Necro-Animation Psychosis – is relatively common in the universe, and that each time a hopeful new space-faring society starts out to conquer the galaxy it meets a infected planet and the inevitable epidemic of zombie-ism nips that galactic empire in the bud. I’m not just conducting a whiplash tour of wacky out-there ideas; I have a point, though possibly just barely. It seems to me while zombies might be on a list of solutions to the Fermi paradox, I don’t remember seeing the possibility of special creation by a concerned deity being seriously discussed as a possibility. Imagine the implications of that: we, alone in the universe, are the only kind of creatures like us. Then imagine this is precisely how our creator wanted it...

XKCD: Fish

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

At home in the universe: the consolations of theodicy.

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, a man cannot discover anything about his future.

Ecclesiastes 7:14, The Holy Bible, New International Version

   

Hi, there. Been too long since my last post, and for that I apologize. Life and work conspired, and the hiatus in blogging was much longer then intended. From here on in, I can’t promise much regularity either – like I say: life and work. But if you’ll keep visiting – and blogger’s stats indicate that you have – I’ll keep trying to provide something worth visiting, when I can.

Although I’ve been busy, I’ve also been keeping a metaphorical toe in familiar waters.  One way I’ve done that is by enjoying Peter Adamson’s podcast, the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. I can’t recommend it highly enough:  it’s accessible and rigorous and seamlessly scripted, so do yourself a favor and give it a listen or three. I certainly have, and the bits that have stuck in my philosophical craw are concerned with theodicy.  A theodicy, as I’ve discussed before, is any attempt at reconciling a world of apparent evil and suffering with a God that is meant to be perfectly omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent. With those characteristics, one would have thought the big guy would be both willing and able to do away with suffering. As wiser heads have put it:    

Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion

I wanted to revisit this theme, because Prof. Adamson’s podcast has given me more food for thought.  Apparently the so-called Problem of Evil – PoE, if you will - comes in different flavors. First, you have what’s called the Logical Problem of evil, basically as above. The claim is that you can’t have the three traditional characteristics of the Abrahamic god  - as well as the bare fact of suffering and evil in the world - and be logically consistent. The logical PoE can sometimes be seen as a big gun in debates and apologetics. But as Prof. Adamson notes,  in response it only requires that one shows that there is - in fact - a logically consistent way for suffering to get along with the Big Three of god’s personality profile. And many would claim that such a scheme exists: God is good, and his power knows no limits. But being good, he wants to make the best possible world for his creations and the best possible creations for his world. What this means is the possibility of error, of sin. Thus, moral evil and natural suffering become the unavoidable consequences of the optimal possible compromise between God’s prerogatives and the needs of free will. You might not like the implications, and you may not grant the premises. But it does appear to provide a scheme that is internally valid and logically consistent. God is all powerful, but even he can’t do the logically impossible – like make a world where there is free will but no possibility of evil. And so, the Logical PoE can be answered. 

But I mentioned flavors. One such is the so-called Evidential Problem of Evil. We can acknowledge, in the abstract, the logical consistency of some theodicies. Despite this, we can still question whether the actual existence and abundance of specific ills and awfulness are consonant with a world watched over by a loving and all-powerful god. I bring this up not to score points, but because I now think that apparent strength the Logical PoE actually arises from the moral force of the evidential version. At least, I think this was the case for me.  Because it would take a rare breed to maintain their abstraction in the face of their first encounter with a war-wounded child, or any other genuine object of actual, real suffering. How, exactly, are these specific ills necessary in the best of all possible worlds? This implicit heartlessness is among the objects of Voltaire’s ire in his satirical treatment of Leibnizian Optimism, Candide. In the words of Doctor Pangloss: 

It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles.

And so, based on this logic, syphilis is a necessary evil because:

…it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.

While Voltaire deliberately takes the argument to an extreme, there is a valid point here: exactly how much collateral damage is acceptable? This leads us to another ‘problem’ that I like to call the Problem of Inconsistent Evil, and it goes like this: I once had a student, a religious guy who enjoyed talking about his religiosity. He’d tell me stories of the workings of providence in his life. A favorite was a road trip with his family where his father uncharacteristically stopped too long at an intersection,  and thereby avoided a tragic accident as a loose trailer shot down the road. They surely would have been hurt had it not been for the father’s unexplained pause. Great. Lovely, as far as it goes. But what about all the times providence doesn't stay the execution? What about the times when people do die, in senseless and even stupid ways. Because evil not only exists, it has contours: it’s not spread around evenly. And if the good things are a sign of the Good God and his will, then surely that counts for the bad too? If the one judgement implies benevolence, surely the other implies something too? Again, it’s possible to construct a logically valid argument that the judgement serves some lofty and unknown purpose, that the distribution of suffering is as it should be and serves some great plan. But again – evidentially - by exactly how much, and against who, is suffering and evil justified?  

 

Orthodox theology is generally creationist, in the sense that the universe’s existence is a specifically willed, active choice of a creator god. This seems – to me at least - to frame the moral culpability for evil differently than other forms of cosmology. An emanationist  scheme - where the universe sort of flows forth from the divine principle more or less as a consequence of the bare fact of 'his' existence - is a different kettle of fish. It’s also different for materialism, where there is no transcendent cause. Particularly in the latter, neither Evil nor its Inconsistency is a problem in the sense that we’ve been discussing: because the universe isn’t for us. It isn’t for anything. I might be tempted to leave the blog post there, secure in the knowledge that another theist muddle has been unpicked. But, it seems that even this view might have a problem.  If it’s not made specially for us, the fact that we are here when we might not have been poses a conundrum. From the fine tuning of fundamental constants to the orbit of the earth around the sun and the sun around the galactic core in a zone conducive to the productive of life, it all seems like rather long odds doesn’t it? As we’ve discussed before, the guide to how improbable, how miraculous something is  not the times we know it to have happened, but all the times it could have happened, but didn’t. And as for that number we - theist or not - have not a clue. But that isn’t the problem I’m talking about. The problem is, if the universe is not for us, if it is not made to our needs and our specifications, then what right do we have to expect anything other than hardship in an uncaring, even hostile universe? This is the problem: the problem of happiness, or at least of the possibility of happiness.

 

The thing is, though, that this kind of thinking betrays a notion of our place in nature that is still exceptionalist. As if we were thrown into this world de novo, from the outside, like a reluctant kid thrown into a swimming pool and left to sink or swim.  It’s a bleak perspective, and I can see why it’s unappealing to many people. It’s also unnecessary. From the materialistic perspective we are of the universe, at home in it. It may not have been made for us, but we may very well have been made for it even in the absence of a god to play architect or overseer. All it takes is space enough and time.  Acknowledging this and understanding it as best I can through the best way I know (science), is my consolation and my way of learning how to know it - really know it- skin deep. My lack of faith isn’t due to PoE or indeed – if I’m honest – any particular logical claim or counterclaim. It’s a feeling, a sense, that all the gods I’ve been exposed to are too small, too parochial. The universe is bigger, more diverse than we can imagine, and that tells me it wasn’t made solely or at all for little old humanity. But we are part of that amazing tapestry, a phenomenon as amazing and precious as all the mundane miracles going around us every minute. We are at home in the universe, or can be, and that offers – to me - the possibility of happiness. I keep returning to this theme, not because I’m sure it’s possible to reach a tidy conclusion. Rather, the more I scratch at these problems it the more it feels like answers - however tentative - to these problems are the core of what is required of a satisfying cosmology. One answer is providence. It doesn’t work for me, it implies to much complicity in mundane and monstrous hurts. Another answer is a kind of belonging that I’ve tried to articulate: Our belonging in the world provides an opportunity to build on happiness, despite the difficulties we encounter. I spend a lot of my time on this blog identifying differences.The answers here may seem different, but the question is the same, and the asking of it something that connects everyone, regardless of the details of our beliefs.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.