"...a universe that produces sophonts as casually as it produces snowflakes."
-Poul Anderson, "Outpost of Empire" IN Anderson, Captain Flandry: Defender Of The Terran Empire (Riverdale, NY, February 2010), pp. 1-72 AT p. 7.
"...a universe where life of any kind was so rare as to seem well-nigh a miracle."
-Poul Anderson, Genesis (New York, February 2001), PART ONE, VII, p. 85.
Despite their diametrically opposed premises, these two future histories share the scientific view that consciousness is not ontologically primary - that it neither pre-existed nor created the universe but instead arises within, and is a property of, evolving organisms. Anderson traces the evolution of fictional species on Ythri, Diomedes and Dido.
Anderson wrote fantasies in which powerful consciousnesses control natural forces. This was the pre-scientific world-view - although, despite that generally presumed primacy of consciousness, in Anderson's favoured Norse mythology, life and consciousness were not primary but instead arose from the interaction between the two dialectically opposed material forces of heat and cold.
While appreciating both Anderson's sf and his fantasy, we recognize that the author's own world-view was scientific. Consciousness as a property of an organism no more persists after the death of that organism than does any other materially based property. CS Lewis, defending prescientific metaphysics, wrote sf in which some of his characters are described as entering a hereafter. This idea requires far more back-up than Lewis ever gives it.
17 comments:
Though since consciousness is an interactive pattern of information, theoretically we could prolong it past death, by producing an analogue of the brain and then transferring an individual's information.
I recall one of Anderson's books where this is done on a colony-world (the only one) that's due to be destroyed by an impact.
A child is told that the people doing this will "go to sleep" and wake up on the other planet they're being sent to, downloaded into artificially cultured bodies, IIRC.
She objects that they'll be -dead- if they don't wake up.
That's a debatable point. If there's a continuity of experience -- you remember going into the 'clinic' and losing consciousness -- you could argue that the person is still present, even if the original 'container' is deceased.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: But I believe an infinite Intelligence, God, eternally pre-existed the existence of any universes. Nor do I recall anything from Anderson's works indicating he thought that an unscientific idea. More often than not he was sympathetic to religious believers!
Mr. Stirling: I remember that, it's from the HARVEST OF STARS series. And that child was a boy, not a little girl, to be picky!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I know you believe that but we are back to the old problem of a belief merely being stated or asserted with nowhere enough being added to back it up.
We can be sympathetic to believers without sharing their beliefs.
Of course many people accept both a monotheist faith and the findings of modern science. Nevertheless, there is substance to what I am saying. In a prescientific view, consciousness was everywhere - before nature, transcending nature, permeating it etc. A scientific understanding shows consciousness nowhere in inanimate nature or the environment and existing only in organisms with central nervous systems. Science and secularism go together. Anderson's fantasies and his sf are set in very different universes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But I don't believe in that kind of "consciousness," which strikes me as just another kind of pantheism, an ancient error condemned and rejected by the Catholic Church.
No, the Catholic view is that science and faith both goes together. Secularism is itself another error.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
A fellow Philosophy undergraduate once said to me, "You weren't anyone if you weren't anyone if you weren't in the Syllabus of Errors!"
Paul.
Sorry for the repetition there.
Kaor, Paul!
I also thought of Fr. Georges Lemaitre, the Belgian Catholic priest and scientist who worked out the physics and mathematics of what came to be called the Big Bang theory. I don't think he would agree with what you said about faith and science either.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Of course he wouldn't. All that we can do is state how we see it, not claim that there is any consensus.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I agree, but I don't believe those who claim faith and science are mutually contradictory and opposed to one another are right. And I think Anderson would agree with me, as this bit from Section 4 of "Delenda Est" shows (after Piet van Sarawak expressed puzzlement on why the Carthaginian timeline of that story was so intellectually backward): [Manse Everard replies] "No. It's quite understandable. That's why I asked about their religion. It's always been purely pagan, even Judaism seems to have disappeared, and Buddhism hasn't been very influential. As Whitehead pointed out, the Medieval* idea of one almighty God was important to the growth of science; by inculcating the notion of lawfulness in nature. And Lewis Mumford added that the early monasteries were probably responsible for the mechanical clock--a very basic invention--because of having regular hours for prayer."
Anderson made very similar comments at greater length in his book IS THERE LIFE ON OTHER WORLDS? (1963). When I think of how many convinced Catholics, clergy and laity, were scientists, including such giants as Louis Pasteur and pioneers like Abbot Gregor Mendel, I simply don't believe in this alleged conflict between faith and science. The problem goes back to how so many Protestants, wedded to antiquated methods of interpreting the Bible, made themselves (and by extension Christianity) look ridulous when it comes to things like evolution and the age of the universe. I have personally attempted, with no luck, to discuss such ideas with perfectly decent and well meaning evangelical Protestants online.
Ad astra! Sean
*Instead of "Medieval" I would have used the word "Christian."
Sean,
Science shows that consciousness has arisen and no sign that it pre-existed organisms with central nervous systems.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But this comment does not make sense. God, by definition, is infinitely transcendent and other than any creatures with central nervous systems. God has no need for anything like that.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
My comment does not make sense? Science shows us a universe where only unconscious processes - gravity, electromagnetism, the nuclear forces, entropy and natural selection - operated until some organisms became conscious!
God by definition is transcendent IF He exists. IF. If God exists, then He exists and is conscious without needing a central nervous system. IF. That much at least is not in dispute.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I believe God to be the Originator and Creator of all those unconscious processes.
I believe God to exist and those who do not have still failed to make convincing non-theistic explanations for the miracles recorded at Catholic shrines like Lourdes. But, I'm willing to concede that "IF" for the sake of argument.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Lourdes miracles do not prove theism. With all the philosophical objections that I have to theism and historical objections to the Resurrection, I cannot possibly accept unexplained cures as proving all that. We can propose hypothetical explanations - these are not "desperation," they are hypothetical explanations - but as yet the cures remain unexplained phenomena like many others. No one is obliged "to make convincing non-theistic explanations." The phenomena have to be investigated further. That is all.
In the world as scientifically observed, consciousness is emergent, not pre-existent, and you reply to this merely by defining God as transcendent? Here is another definition: a gryphon is an animal with the head and wings of an eagle on the body of a lion. We can define the word alright and I will disagree with anyone who confuses a gryphon with a hippogriff but can we find a gryphon anywhere in the scientifically observed world? Matters of fact are not settled by defining words.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
No, minimally put, I believe the miracles recorded at Lourdes supports the belief God is real. That they were/are acts of divine intervention. And non-theistic attempts at explaining Lourdes still strikes me as being desperate, strained, unconvincing. We are going to have to agree to disagree.
Your second paragraph puzzles me, I am not denying the role evolution plays in allowing intelligence to arise. And Earth has seen some very weird "gryphon"vlike animals in the past and now. Just think of the duck billed platypus!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But I am not trying to explain Lourdes. I am not obliged to try to explain the as yet unexplained. No doubt Catholic apologists cite Lourdes as an item of evidence on their side of the argument but to say, "Non-theists cannot explain Lourdes, therefore theism and indeed also Catholicism is true," is one massive non sequitur as I am sure most theologians would acknowledge.
There is nothing puzzling here. The point is that the empirical evidence is that consciousness has emerged in complex organisms and nowhere else. And what God is by definition has no bearing on whether God exists.
I get the impression that you are so convinced of the truth of certain doctrines that you have difficulty understanding that many people do not accept those doctrines. The discussion never starts in the right place: acknowledgement of the existence of very different world-views.
Paul.
I tried to make an abstract analogy between God (can be defined but might not exist) and a gryphon (can be defined but does not exist) but the analogy got lost somehow, especially if it was considered relevant to refer to a platypus. My point had nothing to do with whether any particular describable organisms seem improbable.
When we are trying to establish whether there are grounds for accepting a particular belief, it is inadequate simply to reaffirm acceptance of that belief.
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