Christopher L. Owens
Dr. Adam Johns
Option #1
28 January 2009
Socio-Religious Evolution?
In Lee Silver’s Controlling Nature, there is the suggestion that every thought humankind has ever had has been guided by the invisible hand of mathematics, and that every emotion experienced has been little more than the sum of probabilities and chaotic systems of the brain. The extent of this implication is such that much of the evidence presented is directly contradictory to the widely accepted notion of free will. Silver himself says, “Many people think that free will is the only philosophic alternative to a deterministic view of human mentality. But an understanding of brain biology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory indicates otherwise […] As a philosophical concept, free will is like an onion whose skin has been completely peeled away: at its core, it ceases to exist” (59). That is, the causal relationship between physical biology and mental function is inverted from what is assumed; metaphorically, evidence indicates our brains are the marionettes rather than the puppeteers. Additionally, Silver similarly implies that if there exists a ‘soul’ at the core of human life it also is a product of the physical process and would cease to exist with death. And it is not implausible to assume that such ‘souls’ could also be reproduced in machine brains, essentially making humans the creators of another consciousness. With such scientific support, it is easy to understand how Silver is an (albeit reserved) atheist, and as such information spreads and technology is further developed, there will be a significant decline in religious belief. The future global population will naturally progress from creationist beliefs toward a positivist, reductionist outlook, where atheism is the norm and spirituality is unrelated to anything supernatural.
According to Silver, approximately 90 percent of Americans believe in a higher power and 84 percent believe in an afterlife, yet the percentages for those educated in science are markedly lower (29). There is an obvious correlation between the level of education in science and religiosity. Thus, it is logical to speculate that the concepts of science and the notions of religion are mutually exclusive, that the information given by the two are conflicting. As progressively more people are exposed to commonly assumed scientific truths (namely Darwinism), the number of people that believe in supernatural power will presumably decline over time. This model produces an important question. If such a societal evolution could occur, why hasn’t it occurred already? The resolution to such uncertainty lies within Silver’s text. The necessary evidence to contradict traditional religious belief is only just becoming available. Technologies with true capacity to emulate the human ‘soul’ with genuine emotions, such as Aibo and Qrio, are just at the horizon, technologies that would make man, not God, a creator of a species (57). The majority has yet to be exposed to either the information or the physical evidence required to create a significantly powerful cognitive dissonance to reject conflicting idea of faith. In this faith in religions is rejected because evidence that can be experienced with the senses trumps hopeful confidence in the supernatural, from a positivist perspective.
If still skeptical of these ideas, notice that in the past, higher orders of religious thought have always displaced lower, less explanative ones. For example, the nature gods of indigenous peoples were replaced by a somewhat more complex system, polytheism (as with the Romans). When the tales of these gods were no longer sufficient, people adopted a monotheistic system, which also provided moral clarity for actions. The final step in global maturation no longer seems to require gods at all, as humanity is sufficiently advanced to explain any natural phenomena rationally, and many questions about afterlife, free will and soul seemingly diffused. Even within the recent period, Christianity has been transformed from fundamentalism and its literal interpretation of the Bible to a more modest metaphorical interpretation after many events were proven to be scientifically ridiculous to the Pope accepting the validity of Darwinism in a desperate attempt to incorporate science into the faith. However, the Pope refused to bend on the key concepts of Christianity, though are equally scientifically impossible as other parables (29). Based on Silver’s information, the age of humanity worshipping gods is coming to an end, and the worship of logic and science and positivism is reaching a golden age.
Silver, Lee M. Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
3 comments:
I like how you set up a format to critique my paper, so i'll do the same for yours.
As for technicalities, again I'd have to recommend that you pay more attention to your use of commas. Some of the sentences run on and of those that don't, some need commas in order to make sense. I also feel like you use the words "suggested, assumed,these implications, it is not implausible to assume, etc," too freely. Be wary that it may make it seem like you're unsure about how you really feel about the passages you're citing. Or if you even understand them. If it is indeed how you perceived the passages, I would cut some out so as not to sound wordy.
I really liked your last paragraph, and I think you should adress these points earlier in the paper. I don't think your argument is clear enough and you should find some other resources rather than Silver. There needs to be more organization in the paper so the paragraphs go together more smoothly.
Overall, I think the paper was interesting, but again I have to stress that it was a little hard to read because of the lack of organization, both in sentence structure and content. Try to make your argument clearer.
Christopher L. Owens
Dr. Adam Johns
Option #1
2 February 2009
Socio-Religious Evolution?
In Lee Silver’s Controlling Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality, there is the suggestion that every thought humankind has ever had has been guided by the invisible hand of mathematics, and that every emotion experienced has been little more than the sum of probabilistic, chaotic systems of the brain. The extent of this implication is such that much of the evidence presented is directly contradictory to the widely accepted, somewhat religiously-rooted notion of free will. Silver himself says, “Many people think that free will is the only philosophic alternative to a deterministic view of human mentality. But an understanding of brain biology, quantum mechanics, and chaos theory indicates otherwise […] As a philosophical concept, free will is like an onion whose skin has been completely peeled away: at its core, it ceases to exist” (59). That is, the causal relationship between physical biology and mental function is inverted from what is assumed; metaphorically, evidence indicates our brains are the marionettes rather than the puppeteers. Additionally, Silver demonsrates that if there exists a ‘soul’ at the core of human life it also is a product of the physical process and would cease to exist with death. It is not illogical to assume that such ‘souls’ could also be reproduced in machine brains, essentially making humans the creators of another consciousness. With such scientific support, it is easy to understand how Silver is an (albeit reserved) atheist, and as such information spreads and technology is further developed, there will be a significant decline in religious belief. Even without genetic modifications the future population will naturally progress from creationist beliefs toward a positivist, reductionist outlook where atheism is the norm and spirituality is unrelated to anything supernatural.
According to Silver, approximately 90 percent of Americans believe in a higher power and 84 percent believe in an afterlife, yet the percentages for those educated in science are markedly lower (29). There is an obvious correlation between the level of education in science and religiosity. Thus, it is logical to speculate that the concepts of science and the notions of religion are mutually exclusive, that the information given by the two are conflicting. As progressively more people are exposed to commonly assumed scientific truths (namely Darwinism), the number of people that believe in supernatural power will presumably decline over time. This model produces an important question. If such a societal evolution could occur, why hasn’t it occurred already? The resolution to such uncertainty lies within Silver’s text. The necessary evidence to contradict traditional religious belief is only just becoming available. Technologies with true capacity to emulate the human ‘soul’ with genuine emotions, such as Aibo and Qrio, are just at the horizon, technologies that would make man, not God, a creator of a species (57). The majority has yet to be exposed to either the information or the physical evidence required to create a significantly powerful cognitive dissonance needed to reject the conflicting idea of faith. Faith in religions is rejected because evidence that can be experienced with the senses trumps hopeful confidence in the supernatural, from a positivist perspective.
If still skeptical of these ideas, notice that in the past, higher orders of religious thought have always displaced lower, less explanative ones. For example, the nature gods of indigenous peoples were replaced by a somewhat more complex system, polytheism (as with the Romans). When the tales of these gods were no longer sufficient, people adopted a monotheistic system, which also provided moral clarity for actions. The final step in global maturation no longer seems to require gods at all, as humanity is sufficiently advanced to explain any natural phenomena rationally, and many questions about afterlife, free will and soul seemingly diffused. This development occurs even within the Bible. The God seen in the Old Testament is less refined than the one seen in the New Testament. "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully," a bold statement yet this is arguably the most well-known quote of molecular biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion). The God of the New Testament, however, represents a message of wisdom and compassion. Even within the recent period, Christianity has been transformed from fundamentalism and its literal interpretation of the Bible to a more modest metaphorical interpretation. After many events were proven to be scientifically ridiculous, the Pope accepted the validity of Darwinism in a desperate attempt to incorporate science into the faith. However, the Pope refused to bend on the key concepts of Christianity, though they are equally scientifically impossible as other parables (29). There has been an undeniable movement towards trusting logic and the senses. Based on Silver’s information, the age of humanity worshipping gods is coming to an end, and the worship of logic and science and positivism is reaching a golden age.
Silver, Lee M. Challenging Nature: The Clash Between Biotechnology and Spirituality. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. New York: Bantam Books, 2006.
jms306 - this is a solid response, although the substantive part (the 2nd paragraph) is a little short.
Chris - Your paragraphs are *long,* which contributes greatly to the relatively lack of structure that Julie? Julia? comments on. Don't get me wrong - there is some very smart material, as well as a clear argument, in the first paragraph, along with a good reading of Silver. Nonetheless, it all feels rather haphazard - splitting it into 2 or even 3 paragraphs would have made a lot of difference, and maybe given you some room to trim a little, too.
Your second paragraph has many of the same strengths and weaknesses. Think about this quote for a second: "This model produces an important question. If such a societal evolution could occur, why hasn’t it occurred already?" Maybe it's just me, but it seems like this would be a good opportunity to either challenge Silver or to push his point farther; a more compact paper might have been able to raise this question much earlier in the paper.
You strike out in bold new directions in the third (also ponderous) paragraph, staking out your own position as one ultimately more rooted in Dawkins than in Silver. I feel that, like in the first version of the paper, you're missing an opportunity to get these issues on the table immediately, and then move more into a detailed argument.
There is *some* evidence here, certainly, but because your argument is only fully clear at the end, and because of the indifferent structure (the bad paragraph structure especially), you don't spend as much time developing the argument in favor of your position as you might have. Intellectually, there's a lot going on here, but you need to work on structuring your ideas more.
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