There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero. (Hawking, 1988, 129) [thanks to Ross King for this quote]
There is a still more remarkable possibility, which is the creation of matter from a state of zero energy. This possibility arises because energy can be both positive and negative. The energy of motion or the energy of mass is always positive, but the energy of attraction, such as that due to certain types of gravitational or electromagnetic field, is negative. Circumstances can arise in which the positive energy that goes to make up the mass of newly-created particles of matter is exactly offset by the negative energy of gravity of electromagnetism. For example, in the vicinity of an atomic nucleus the electric field is intense. If a nucleus containing 200 protons could be made (possible but difficult), then the system becomes unstable against the spontaneous production of electron-positron pairs, without any energy input at all. The reason is that the negative electric energy can exactly offset the energy of their masses.
In the gravitational case the situation is still more bizarre, for the gravitational field is only a spacewarp - curved space. The energy locked up in a spacewarp can be converted into particles of matter and antimatter. This occurs, for example, near a black hole, and was probably also the most important source of particles in the big bang. Thus, matter appears spontaneously out of empty space. The question then arises, did the primeval bang possess energy, or is the entire universe a state of zero energy, with the energy of all the material offset by negative energy of gravitational attraction?
It is possible to settle the issue by a simple calculation. Astronomers can measure the masses of galaxies, their average separation, and their speeds of recession. Putting these numbers into a formula yields a quantity which some physicists have interpreted as the total energy of the universe. The answer does indeed come out to be zero within the observational accuracy. The reason for this distinctive result has long been a source of puzzlement to cosmologists. Some have suggested that there is a deep cosmic principle at work which requires the universe to have exactly zero energy. If that is so the cosmos can follow the path of least resistance, coming into existence without requiring any input of matter or energy at all. (Davies, 1983, 31-32)
Once our minds accept the mutability of matter and the new idea of the vacuum, we can speculate on the origin of the biggest thing we know - the universe. Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness - a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility. (Pagels, 1982, 247)
In general relativity, spacetime can be empty of matter or radiation and still contain energy stored in its curvature. Uncaused, random quantum fluctuations in a flat, empty, featureless spacetime can produce local regions with positive or negative curvature. This is called the "spacetime foam" and the regions are called "bubbles of false vacuum." Wherever the curvature is positive a bubble of false vacuum will, according to Einstein's equations, exponentially inflate. In 10-42 seconds the bubble will expand to the size of a proton and the energy within will be sufficient to produce all the mass of the universe.
The bubbles start out with no matter, radiation, or force fields and maximum entropy. They contain energy in their curvature, and so are a "false vacuum." As they expand, the energy within increases exponentially. This does not violate energy conservation since the false vacuum has a negative pressure (believe me, this is all follows from the equations that Einstein wrote down in 1916) so the expanding bubble does work on itself.
As the bubble universe expands, a kind of friction occurs in which energy is converted into particles. The temperature then drops and a series of spontaneous symmetry breaking processes occurs, as in a magnet cooled below the Curie point and a essentially random structure of the particles and forces appears. Inflation stops and we move into the more familiar big bang.
The forces and particles that appear are more-or-less random, governed only by symmetry principles (like the conservation principles of energy and momentum) that are also not the product of design but exactly what one has in the absence of design.
The so-called "anthropic coincidences," in which the particles and forces of physics seem to be "fine-tuned" for the production of Carbon-based life are explained by the fact that the spacetime foam has an infinite number of universes popping off, each different. We just happen to be in the one where the forces and particles lent themselves to the generation of carbon and other atoms with the complexity necessary to evolve living and thinking organisms. (Stenger, 1996)
Where did all the matter and radiation in the universe come from in the first place? Recent intriguing theoretical research by physicists such as Steven Weinberg of Harvard and Ya. B. Zel'dovich in Moscow suggest that the universe began as a perfect vacuum and that all the particles of the material world were created from the expansion of space...
Think about the universe immediately after the Big Bang. Space is violently expanding with explosive vigor. Yet, as we have seen, all space is seething with virtual pairs of particles and antiparticles. Normally, a particle and anti-particle have no trouble getting back together in a time interval...short enough so that the conservation of mass is satisfied under the uncertainty principle. During the Big Bang, however, space was expanding so fast that particles were rapidly pulled away from their corresponding antiparticles. Deprived of the opportunity to recombine, these virtual particles had to become real particles in the real world. Where did the energy come from to achieve this materialization?
Recall that the Big Bang was like the center of a black hole. A vast supply of gravitational energy was therefore associated with the intense gravity of this cosmic singularity. This resource provided ample energy to completely fill the universe with all conceivable kinds of particles and antiparticles. Thus, immediately after the Planck time, the universe was flooded with particles and antiparticles created by the violent expansion of space. (Kaufmann, 1985, 529-532)
...the idea of a First Cause sounds somewhat fishy in light of the modern theory of quantum mechanics. According to the most commonly accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics, individual subatomic particles can behave in unpredictable ways and there are numerous random, uncaused events. (Morris, 1997, 19)
Monday, May 25, 2009
Vacuum Fluctuations
Friday, May 22, 2009
Sidhartha-The Buddha
He married a woman named Yashodhara and they lived in his father's house. Sidhartha was still protected from the trials of life. Yashodhara bore a son, and Sidhartha believed that he was happy.
Then, during one of his few excursions from the protection of his father's palace, Sidhartha saw three things which opened the harsh realities of life to him. He saw an old man, suffering from the frailties of age. He saw a sick man, suffering from disease. He also saw a dead man, which shocked him greatly. He finally realized that the infirmities of old age, and the pain of sickness and death caused suffering that he had never experienced. This revelation caused him to begin a search for truth that drastically changed his life, and, eventually, the lives of millions.
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At the age of twenty-nine he left his home, his wife, his son, and his father. He gave up his claim to the succession of his father's throne and left the palace. He studied Yogic meditation with two Brahman hermits and achieved high cognitive states in both trance and meditation, but his desire for absolute truth was not satisfied.
For the next six years, Sidhartha placed his body under severe asceticism, which included extreme fasting and suspension of breathing. These practices almost killed him, but they did not satisfy his search for truth.
He finally ended his acetic lifestyle and began to eat. Sidhartha decided to meditate until the absolute truth would lie clearly in front of him. He meditated under a Bodhi tree where he sat facing east.
At the age of thirty-five, on the night of the full moon, Sidhartha reached enlightenment and became an "enlightened one"--a Buddha (c. 528 BC) He had at last discovered the truth he had sought, and he immediately shared it with five ascetics who had practiced near him.
After a few weeks of rest, he decided to teach the way to enlightenment to others and went to Deer Garden where he held his first sermon, "The turning wheel of Dharma." Sidhartha felt a strong call to teach others even though he could never teach the content of enlightenment, only the way of enlightenment. Buddha called his teachings "the middle way", because it was in the middle between asceticism and indulgence.
For the next forty-five years he taught as the Buddha or "Shakyamuni" (sage of the shakaya"). He also established a community of monks called sanga.
The Buddha died after forty-five years of teaching at the age of eighty.
excerpt taken from http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/India/Buddha.html
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Natural Selection
IN order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations. Let us take the case of a wolf, which preys on various animals, securing some by craft, some by strength, and some by fleetness; and let us suppose that the fleetest prey, a deer for instance, had from any change in the country increased in numbers, or that other prey had decreased in numbers, during that season of the year when the wolf was hardest pressed for food. Under such circumstances the swiftest and slimmest wolves would have the best chance of surviving and so be preserved or selected,—provided always that they retained strength to master their prey at this or some other period of the year, when they were compelled to prey on other animals. I can see no more reason to doubt that this would be the result, than that man should be able to improve the fleetness of his greyhounds by careful and methodical selection, or by that kind of unconscious selection which follows from each man trying to keep the best dogs without any thought of modifying the breed. I may add, that, according to Mr. Pierce, there are two varieties of the wolf inhabiting the Catskill Mountains, in the United States, one with a light greyhound-like form, which pursues deer, and the other more bulky, with shorter legs, which more frequently attacks the shepherd’s flocks.
It should be observed that, in the above illustration, I speak of the slimmest individual wolves, and not of any single strongly-marked variation having been preserved. In former editions of this work I sometimes spoke as if this latter alternative had frequently occurred. I saw the great importance of individual differences, and this led me fully to discuss the results of unconscious selection by man, which depends on the preservation of all the more or less valuable individuals, and on the destruction of the worst. I saw, also, that the preservation in a state of nature of any occasional deviation of structure, such as a monstrosity, would be a rare event; and that, if at first preserved, it would generally be lost by subsequent intercrossing with ordinary individuals. Nevertheless, until reading an able and valuable article in the ‘North British Review’ (1867), I did not appreciate how rarely single variations, whether slight or strongly-marked, could be. perpetuated. The author takes the case of a pair of animals, producing during their lifetime two hundred offspring, of which, from various causes of destruction, only two on an average survive to procreate their kind. This is rather an extreme estimate for most of the higher animals, but by no means so for many of the lower organisms. He then shows that if a single individual were born, which varied in some manner, giving it twice as good a chance of life as that of the other individuals, yet the chances would be strongly against its survival. Supposing it to survive and to breed, and that half its young inherited the favourable variation; still, as the reviewer goes on to show, the young would have only a slightly better chance of surviving and breeding; and this chance would go on decreasing in the succeeding generations. The justice of these remarks cannot, I think, be disputed. If, for instance, a bird of some kind could procure its food more easily by having its beak curved, and if one were born with its beak strongly curved, and which consequently flourished, nevertheless there would be a very poor chance of this one individual perpetuating its kind to the exclusion of the common form; but there can hardly be a doubt, judging by what we see taking place under domestication, that this result would follow from the preservation during many generations of a large number of individuals with more or less strongly curved beaks, and from the destruction of a still larger number with the straightest beaks.
It should not, however, be overlooked that certain rather strongly marked variations, which no one would rank as mere individual differences, frequently recur owing to a similar organisation being similarly acted on—of which fact numerous instances could be given with our domestic productions. In such cases, if the varying individual did not actually transmit to its offspring its newly-acquired character, it would undoubtedly transmit to them, as long as the existing conditions remained the same, a still stronger tendency to vary in the same manner. There can also be little doubt that the tendency to vary in the same manner has often been so strong that all the individuals of the same species have been similarly modified without the aid of any form of selection. Or only a third, fifth, or tenth part of the individuals may have been thus affected, of which fact several instances could be given. Thus Graba estimates that about one-fifth of the guillemots in the Faroe Islands consist of a variety so well marked, that it was formerly ranked as a distinct species under the name of Uria lacrymans. In cases of this kind, if the variation were of a beneficial nature, the original form would soon be supplanted by the modified form, through the survival of the fittest.
To the effects of intercrossing in eliminating variations of all kinds, I shall have to recur; but it may be here remarked that most animals and plants keep to their proper homes, and do not needlessly wander about; we see this even with migratory birds, which almost always return to the same spot. Consequently each newly-formed variety would generally be at first local, as seems to be the common rule with varieties in a state of nature; so that similarly modified individuals would soon exist in a small body together, and would often breed together. If the new variety were successful in its battle for life, it would slowly spread from a central district, competing with and conquering the unchanged individuals on the margins of an ever-increasing circle.
It may be worth while to give another and more complex illustration of the action of natural selection. Certain plants excrete sweet juice, apparently for the sake of eliminating something injurious from the sap: this is effected, for instance, by glands at the base of the stipules in some Leguminosæ and at the backs of the leaves of the common laurel. This juice, though small in quantity, is greedily sought by insects; but their visits do not in any way benefit the plant. Now, let us suppose that the juice or nectar was excreted from the inside of the flowers of a certain number of plants of any species. Insects in seeking the nectar would get dusted with pollen, and would often transport it from one flower to another. The flowers of two distinct individuals of the same species would thus get crossed; and the act of crossing, as can be fully proved, gives rise to vigorous seedlings which consequently would have the best chance of flourishing and surviving The plants which produced flowers with the largest glands or nectaries, excreting most nectar, would oftenest be visited by insects, and would oftenest be crossed; and so in the long run would gain the upper hand and form a local variety. The flowers, also, which had their stamens and pistils placed, in relation to the size and habits of the particular insects which visited them, so as to favour in any degree the transportal of the pollen, would likewise be favoured. We might have taken the case of insects visiting flowers for the sake of collecting pollen instead of nectar; and as pollen is formed for the sole purpose of fertilisation, its destruction appears to be a simple loss to the plant; yet if a little pollen were carried, at first occasionally and then habitually, by the pollen-devouring insects from flower to flower, and a cross thus effected, although nine-tenths of the pollen were destroyed it might still be a great gain to the plant to be thus robbed; and the individuals which produced more and more pollen, and had larger anthers, would be selected.
When our plant, by the above process long continued, had been rendered highly attractive to insects, they would, unintentionally on their part, regularly carry pollen from flower to flower; and that they do this effectually, I could easily show by many striking facts. I will give only one, as likewise illustrating one step in the separation of the sexes of plants. Some holly trees bear only male flowers, which have four stamens producing a rather small quantity of pollen, and a rudimentary pistil; other holly trees bear only female flowers; these have a full-sized pistil, and four stamens with shrivelled anthers, in which not a grain of pollen can be detected. Having found a female tree exactly sixty yards from a male tree, I put the stigmas of twenty flowers, taken from different branches, under the microscope, and on all, without exception, there were a few pollen grains, and on some a profusion. As the wind had set for several days from the female to the male tree, the pollen could not thus have been carried. The weather had been cold and boisterous, and therefore not favourable to bees, nevertheless every female flower which I examined had been effectually fertilised by the bees, which had flown from tree to tree in search of nectar. But to return to our imaginary case: as soon as the plant had been rendered so highly attractive to insects that pollen was regularly carried from flower to flower, another process might commence. No naturalist doubts the advantage of what has been called the “physiological division of labour”; hence we may believe that it would be advantageous to a plant to produce stamens alone in one flower or on one whole plant, and pistils alone in another flower or on another plant. In plants under culture and placed under new conditions of life, sometimes the male organs and sometimes the female organs become more or less impotent; now if we suppose this to occur in ever so slight a degree under nature, then, as pollen is already carried regularly from flower to flower, and as a more complete separation of the sexes of our plant would be advantageous on the principle of the division of labour, individuals with this tendency more and more increased, would be continually favoured or selected, until at last a complete separation of the sexes might be effected. It would take up too much space to show the various steps, through dimorphism and other means, by which the separation of the sexes in plants of various kinds is apparently now in progress; but I may add that some of the species of holly in North America, are, according to Asa Gray, in an exactly intermediate condition, or, as he expresses it, are more or less dioeciously polygamous.
Let us now turn to the nectar-feeding insects; we may suppose the plant, of which we have been slowly increasing the nectar by continued selection, to be a common plant; and that certain insects depended in main part on its nectar for food. I could give many facts showing how anxious bees are to save time: for instance, their habit of cutting holes and sucking the nectar at the bases of certain flowers, which, with a very little more trouble, they can enter by the mouth. Bearing such facts in mind, it may be believed that under certain circumstances individual differences in the curvature or length of the proboscis, &c., too slight to be appreciated by us, might profit a bee or other insect, so that certain individuals would be able to obtain their food more quickly than others; and thus the communities to which they belonged would flourish and throw off many swarms inheriting the same peculiarities. The tubes of the corolla of the common red and incarnate clovers (Trifolium pratense and incarnatum) do not on a hasty glance appear to differ in length; yet the hive bee can easily suck the nectar out of the incarnate clover, but not out of the common red clover, which is visited by humble bees alone; so that whole fields of red clover offer in vain an abundant supply of precious nectar to the hive-bee. That this nectar is much liked by the hive bee is certain; for I have repeatedly seen, but only in the autumn, many hive bees sucking the flowers through holes bitten in the base of the tube by humble bees. The difference in the length of the corolla in the two kinds of clover, which determines the visits of the hive bee, must be very trifling; for I have been assured that when red clover has been mown, the flowers of the second crop are somewhat smaller, and that these are visited by many hive bees. I do not know whether this statement is accurate; nor whether another published statement can be trusted, namely, that the Ligurian bee which is generally considered a mere variety of the common hive bee, and which freely crosses with it, is able to reach and suck the nectar of the red clover. Thus, in a country where this kind of clover abounded, it might be a great advantage to the hive bee to have a slightly longer or differently constructed proboscis. On the other hand, as the fertility of this clover absolutely depends on bees visiting the flowers, if humble-bees were to become rare in any country, it might be a great advantage to the plant to have a, shorter or more deeply divided corolla, so that the hive bees should be enabled to suck its flowers. Thus I can understand how a flower and a bee might slowly become, either simultaneously or one after the other, modified and adapted to each other in the most perfect manner, by the continued preservation of all the individuals which presented slight deviations of structure mutually favourable to each other.
I am well aware that this doctrine of natural selection, exemplified in the above imaginary instances, is open to the same objections which were first urged against Sir Charles Lyell’s noble views on “the modern changes of the earth, as illustrative of geology”; but we now seldom hear the agencies which we see still at work, spoken of as trifling or insignificant, when used in explaining the excavation of the deepest valleys or the formation of long lines of inland cliffs. Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in their structure.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Soul
One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did. When I was young we all knew, or thought we knew, that a man consists of a soul and a body; that the body is in time and space, but the soul is in time only. Whether the soul survives death was a matter as to which opinions might differ, but that there is a soul was thought to be indubitable. As for the body, the plain man of course considered its existence self-evident, and so did the man of science, but the philosopher was apt to analyse it away after one fashion or another, reducing it usually to ideas in the mind of the man who had the body and anybody else who happened to notice him. The philosopher, however, was not taken seriously, and science remained comfortably materialistic, even in the hands of quite orthodox scientists.
Nowadays these fine old simplicities are lost: physicists assure us that there is no such thing as matter, and psychologists assure us that there is no such thing as mind. This is an unprecedented occurrence. Who ever heard of a cobbler saying that there was no such thing as boots, or a tailor maintaining that all men are really naked? Yet that would have been no odder than what physicists and certain psychologists have been doing. To begin with the latter, some of them attempt to reduce everything that seems to be mental activity to an activity of the body. There are, however, various difficulties in the way of reducing mental activity to physical activity. I do not think we can yet say with any assurance whether these difficulties are or are not insuperable. What we can say, on the basis of physics itself, is that what we have hitherto called our body is really an elaborate scientific construction not corresponding to any physical reality. The modern would-be materialist thus finds himself in a curious position, for, while he may with a certain degree of success reduce the activities of the mind to those of the body, he cannot explain away the fact that the body itself is merely a convenient concept invented by the mind. We find ourselves thus going round and round in a circle: mind is an emanation of body, and body is an invention of mind. Evidently this cannot be quite right, and we have to look for something that is neither mind nor body, out which both can spring.
Let us begin with the body. The plain man thinks that material objects must certainly exist, since they are evident to the senses. Whatever else may be doubted, it is certain that anything you can bump into must be real; this is the plain man's metaphysic. This is all very well, but the physicist comes along and shows that you never bump into anything: even when you run your hand along a stone wall, you do not really touch it. When you think you touch a thing, there are certain electrons and protons, forming part of your body, which are attracted and repelled by certain electrons and protons in the thing you think you are touching, but there is no actual contact. The electrons and protons in your body, becoming agitated by nearness to the other electrons and protons are disturbed, and transmit a disturbance along your nerves to the brain; the effect in the brain is what is necessary to your sensation of contact, and by suitable experiments this sensation can be made quite deceptive. The electrons and protons themselves, however, are only crude first approximations, a way of collecting into a bundle either trains of waves or the statistical probabilities of various different kinds of events. Thus matter has become altogether too ghostly to be used as an adequate stick with which to beat the mind. Matter in motion, which used to seem so unquestionable, turns out to be a concept quite inadequate for the needs of physics.
Nevertheless modern science gives no indication whatever of the existence of the soul or mind as an entity; indeed the reasons for disbelieving in it are very much of the same kind as the reasons for disbelieving in matter. Mind and matter were something like the lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown; the end of the battle is not the victory of one or the other, but the discovery that both are only heraldic inventions. The world consists of events, not of things that endure for a long time and have changing properties. Events can be collected into groups by their causal relations. If the causal relations are of one sort, the resulting group of events may be called a physical object, and if the causal relations are of another sort, the resulting group may be called a mind. Any event that occurs inside a man's head will belong to groups of both kinds; considered as belonging to a group of one kind, it is a constituent of his brain, and considered as belonging to a group of the other kind, it is a constituent of his mind.
Thus both mind and matter are merely convenient ways of organizing events. There can be no reason for supposing that either a piece of mind or a piece of matter is immortal. The sun is supposed to be losing matter at the rate of millions of tons a minute. The most essential characteristic of mind is memory, and there is no reason whatever to suppose that the memory associated with a given person survives that person's death. Indeed there is every reason to think the opposite, for memory is clearly connected with a certain kind of brain structure, and since this structure decays at death, there is every reason to suppose that memory also must cease. Although metaphysical materialism cannot be considered true, yet emotionally the world is pretty much the same as I would be if the materialists were in the right. I think the opponents of materialism have always been actuated by two main desires: the first to prove that the mind is immortal, and the second to prove that the ultimate power in the universe is mental rather than physical. In both these respects, I think the materialists were in the right. Our desires, it is true, have considerable power on the earth's surface; the greater part of the land on this planet has a quite different aspect from that which it would have if men had not utilized it to extract food and wealth. But our power is very strictly limited. We cannot at present do anything whatever to the sun or moon or even to the interior of the earth, and there is not the faintest reason to suppose that what happens in regions to which our power does not extend has any mental causes. That is to say, to put the matter in a nutshell, there is no reason to think that except on the earth's surface anything happens because somebody wishes it to happen. And since our power on the earth's surface is entirely dependent upon the sun, we could hardly realize any of our wishes if the sun grew could. It is of course rash to dogmatize as to what science may achieve in the future. We may learn to prolong human existence longer than now seems possible, but if there is any truth in modern physics, more particularly in the second law of thermodynamics, we cannot hope that the human race will continue for ever. Some people may find this conclusion gloomy, but if we are honest with ourselves, we shall have to admit that what is going to happen many millions of years hence has no very great emotional interest for us here and now. And science, while it diminishes our cosmic pretensions, enormously increases our terrestrial comfort. That is why, in spite of the horror of the theologians, science has on the whole been tolerated.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Humanism
By: Steven D. Schafersman
What is Humanism? For many reasons, this is not an easy question to answer, but I will attempt to answer it in a number of steps. The word "humanism" has a number of distinct meanings, all legitimate, so let's briefly discuss them all and narrow in on my type of humanism. First, humanism means the study of the humanities--literature, history, philosophy, and so forth. Professors and students of history, philosophy, and literature are humanists, and are perfectly legitimately so described.
A second definition of humanism is the European Renaissance revival of interest and critical inquiry in Western classical literature, which as you know, was pervasively secular and oriented to human, rather than theological, concerns, unlike that other great literary source of Western thought, the Bible. Individual scholars of such classical letters, such as Thomas More of England and Erasmus of Holland, were orthodox believers in an age of encompassing Christianity, but they are widely and correctly described as humanists, because they translated and commented upon the great literature of Aristotle, Plato, and other ancient classical, pagan writers.
A third definition of humanism is "humanitarianism." This is one of the trickiest and most confusing definitions, because while I would claim that my type of humanists are humanitarians, not all humanitarians are my type of humanist. In particular, some religious theists claim that they are humanists--for example, Christian humanists or Catholic humanists--because they claim that their religions are humanitarian, that they are therefore humanitarians and, thus, that they are therefore humanists. While I would argue about how humanitarian such religions really are, I must admit that if such individuals are truly humanitarian, they can refer to themselves as humanists under this definition.
But obviously academic humanism, Renaissance humanism, and Christian "humanitarian" humanism is not the type of humanism I wish to discuss this morning. My type of humanism is correctly known as "naturalistic humanism." Naturalistic humanism, or Humanism (with a capital H) as I will speak of it from now on, is the type of humanism in the news, the type of humanism opposed to supernaturalism and theistic religion, the type of humanism that claims that humans are as much responsible for formulating their values, morals, and ideals as for following them.
I will define Humanism, although I hesitate to do so, because--as I like to tell audiences--there are thousands of definitions of Humanism, one for every Humanist. Yes, Humanists are individualists; more so than even Unitarian Universalists, they reject dogma, creed, conformity, and authoritarianism. But obviously we have to have definitions. I have heard Humanism explicitly equated by naturalistic Humanists with humanitarianism, environmentalism, secularism, naturalism, and so forth. All good beliefs, of course, but not specifically Humanism. A good and widely acceptable definition of Humanism is this:
Humanism is the naturalistic philosophy or way of life centered on human concerns and values that asserts the dignity and worth of humans and their capacity for self-actualization through the use of reason and scientific inquiry.[My preferred definition today is this: Humanism is a philosophy, world view, or life stance based on naturalism--the conviction that the universe or nature is all that exists or is real. Humanism serves, for many humanists, some of the psychological and social functions of a religion, but without belief in deities, transcendental entities, miracles, life after death, and the supernatural. Humanists seek to understand the universe by using science and its methods of critical inquiry--logical reasoning, empirical evidence, and skeptical evaluation of conjectures and conclusions--to obtain reliable knowledge. Humanists affirm that humans have the freedom and obligation to give meaning, value, and purpose to their lives by their own independent thought, free inquiry, and responsible, creative activity. Humanists stand for the building of a more humane, just, compassionate, and democratic society using a realistic ethics based on human reason, experience, and reliable knowledge--an ethics that judges the consequences of human actions by the well-being of all life on Earth.]
Humanism is therefore concerned largely with two issues: first, a rejection of all forms of theism, supernaturalism, and their associated miracles, superstitions, dogmas, authoritarian beliefs, and wishful and hopeful thinking, and second, the resulting necessity of creating or finding values, meanings, and ethical beliefs in a completely naturalistic universe by the sole use of human reason and individual inquiry. In today's society, these are both tough rows to hoe, but let's discuss them both and then turn to Humanism's relation to Unitarian-Universalism.
Humanism is a moral philosophy. Humanists believe that humans can live moral, happy, and productive lives on the basis of human reason and experience, without relying on the supernatural. In this article I want to explore three areas of humanist thought to explain humanism to those unfamiliar with this philosophy of life. After reading this, you can judge humanism for yourself. The humanist worldview is not difficult to understand, but in recent years the religious right has defamed humanism in the popular media, making it their whipping boy on every issue for which they have an opinion. In their quest to make all secular and public institutions conform to their God-centered beliefs, humanism has been frequently disparaged. Let me say at the outset that humanism is indeed opposed to the popular religions based on Biblical concepts of supernaturalism, mysticism, authoritarianism, coercion of belief, and inequality among different human sexes, classes, and nationalities. If you, on the basis of this knowledge, feel that your religious faith might be jeopardized, read no further.
Humanists base their lives and beliefs on three intellectual areas: naturalistic ethics, rational skepticism, and science. Humanists believe in naturalistic ethics, that humans are the ultimate source of morals, values, purposes, and meanings. Moral values find their source in human experience; ethics stem from human need and interest; the purpose and meaning of life are what we make it to be. Human ethics and values are an outgrowth of the cooperation necessary for the survival of a social species such as Homo sapiens. Thus, ethics and values can and should be chosen by the application of human reason; they are not handed down to us by a deity from atop a mountain. The dogmatic claim that only supernatural forces can civilize humanity and that human thought cannot be the source of morality is a superstition. To the contrary, we are responsible for our ethics as much as for our actions. It is improper to equate values and morals with religion. Estimable values and a personal code of ethics can exist independently of any religious doctrine or creed, and have done so for centuries. Many great historical figures lived moral, happy, and productive lives without religion, and their example is being emulated by innumerable men and women today. Humanists recognize this, and state only that since we must choose our values and morals, we base our choices on human reason and experience, not on supernatural authoritarian doctrines. Infinite punishments and rewards for finite acts do not need to be invoked to secure proper moral behavior; ethics can be justified by their ability to promote a happy conscience, a productive and successful life, and the harmonious working of society. Discussion of reasoned moral and value choice occupy the major part of the humanist literature, hardly the activity of a group that is trying to "brainwash youth into accepting non-moral values."
The second realm of humanist thought is rational skepticism, which is withholding belief where there is no evidence or where there is contrary evidence. Humanists do not believe whatever feels good, but only what we are allowed to believe by the available evidence. This realist viewpoint may not be as congenial as wishful thinking, but it is certainly more productive of reliable knowledge. To idealize the universe is a confession of an inability to master the proper ways to understand things that specifically concern us. Opposite to rational skepticism is faith, which is firm belief in something for which there is no evidence or, even worse, where there is contrary evidence. When there is evidence, no one speaks of faith. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. It is popularly thought virtuous to have faith, that is to say, have a conviction which cannot be shaken by contrary evidence. However, this is not a virtue--it is a vice. Faith weakens the intellect by destroying the value of reasoned and empirical thinking. Faith promotes dogmatism, since there is no method by which one can use faith to decide among different points of view or even between truth and falsehood. Faith frequently results in censorship, because if contrary evidence might induce doubt, faith holds that it must be suppressed--it obviously can't be fought by using reason, since faith does not use reason. Faith does not result in reliable knowledge, since knowledge is justified true belief, and faith can only justify its beliefs by either revelation or authority, both intellectually unacceptable in our modern world. I discuss all this in detail because belief in God and the supernatural can only be argued by an appeal to faith, there being no evidence or logical reasons to believe in these things. That is why humanists are not theists or supernaturalists.
Is there any way to justify belief and thus have reliable knowledge? There is only one way known to us: the scientific method. We can justify belief by performing empirical studies, using logical reasoning, and conforming to the principles of statistical inference. This method can be used in all spheres of human activity, such as the search for morals and values, not just in gaining knowledge about the material universe. The problem with this method is that it is hard to do, since it requires training and the use of logical thinking, and it is unpopular for many psychological reasons, so few people practice it. But humanists use it in everyday life. The scientific method requires free inquiry to work properly; therefore, humanists oppose censorship of any kind. Humanists are philosophical naturalists--they believe that what is studied by science is all that there is. We have no reliable knowledge about the supernatural and cannot rely on it. Humanists therefore accept what science says is true about our world. This includes evolution. We resist the effort to teach the religious doctrine of creationism in the public schools. Creationism has no scientific support, and the numerous illegal attempts to mandate its teaching are an example of how organized right-wing religious groups try to use the power of government to force their beliefs on others. Science, including evolution, doesn't have to resort to government coercion to be accepted.
In science, everything must have a cause. Did the universe have a cause, an uncaused God? Perhaps, but if something must be uncaused, it might as well be the universe as God, and we have the benefit of knowing for sure that the universe exists. Thus, humanists do not seek God and do not claim to have any knowledge about God. One universe, here and now, is enough for us. This gives humanists strong reason for working to ensure that the present world is the best possible world. Thus we actively work against discrimination, war, nuclear militarism, and threats to the environment. The only immortality we hope for is to be remembered well for our deeds.]
excerpt taken from http://www.freeinquiry.com/humanism-uu.html
Existentialism
Existentialism – A Definition
Existentialism in the broader sense is a 20th century philosophy that is centered upon the analysis of existence and of the way humans find themselves existing in the world. The notion is that humans exist first and then each individual spends a lifetime changing their essence or nature.
In simpler terms, existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. The belief is that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook. And personal choices become unique without the necessity of an objective form of truth. An existentialist believes that a person should be forced to choose and be responsible without the help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.
Existentialism – What It Is and Isn’t
Existentialism takes into consideration the underlying concepts:
- Human free will
- Human nature is chosen through life choices
- A person is best when struggling against their individual nature, fighting for life
- Decisions are not without stress and consequences
- There are things that are not rational
- Personal responsibility and discipline is crucial
- Society is unnatural and its traditional religious and secular rules are arbitrary
- Worldly desire is futile
- wealth, pleasure, or honor make the good life
- social values and structure control the individual
- accept what is and that is enough in life
- science can and will make everything better
- people are basically good but ruined by society or external forces
- “I want my way, now!” or “It is not my fault!” mentality
Existentialism – Impact on Society
Existentialistic ideas came out of a time in society when there was a deep sense of despair following the Great Depression and World War II. There was a spirit of optimism in society that was destroyed by World War I and its mid-century calamities. This despair has been articulated by existentialist philosophers well into the 1970s and continues on to this day as a popular way of thinking and reasoning (with the freedom to choose one’s preferred moral belief system and lifestyle).
An existentialist could either be a religious moralist, agnostic relativist, or an amoral atheist. Kierkegaard, a religious philosopher, Nietzsche, an anti-Christian, Sartre, an atheist, and Camus an atheist, are credited for their works and writings about existentialism. Sartre is noted for binging the most international attention to existentialism in the 20th century.
Each basically agrees that human life is in no way complete and fully satisfying because of suffering and losses that occur when considering the lack of perfection, power, and control one has over their life. Even though they do agree that life is not optimally satisfying, it nonetheless has meaning. Existentialism is the search and journey for true self and true personal meaning in life.
Most importantly, it is the arbitrary act that existentialism finds most objectionable-that is, when someone or society tries to impose or demand that their beliefs, values, or rules be faithfully accepted and obeyed. Existentialists believe this destroys individualism and makes a person become whatever the people in power desire thus they are dehumanized and reduced to being an object. Existentialism then stresses that a persons judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious or secular world values.
exceprt taken from http://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/existentialism.htm
