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The philosopher John Messerly (author of the highly recommended book The Meaning of Life) recently asked if he could re-post and review the long essay I wrote that summed up What I Learned from 100 Philosophy Thought Experiments. I was delighted, of course, to hear his opinion on everything I wrote and was grateful for the extra attention I received from his own regular readers too. John (wisely) broke the review down into seven separate posts, and I thought I'd share his brief reflections on each one of them, as well as some of the back and forth we had in the comment section of his blog. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
What is a Worldview?
Overall Gibney’s careful and conscientious effort to summarize, categorize, and comment on all these thought experiments and place them in the larger context is a superb intellectual achievement.
[In a private note about this]
I really admire your effort to systemize a worldview. After all the classes taken and taught, and all the books read in an almost 50-year philosophy career, I have never really done that (with the exception of summarizing my meaning of life views). I also really like the idea of using thought experiments as a way to think about worldviews. Hopefully I'll spend some time over the next year looking at Baggini's book along with your commentary and come to my own conclusions, although I'll bet they'll be very similar to your own.
1. Epistemology
I agree with Gibney’s epistemological fallibilism/skepticism modified by the view of the provisional nature of all truth. I would only emphasize that this does not imply relativism, as the provisional truths of science are often supported by mountains of empirical evidence. The best a rational person can do, as Locke and Hume taught us, is proportion their assent to the evidence.
2. Logic
There is a lot here but I agree that as long as there is time, as long as there is a tomorrow, we cannot claim to know something definitively. Still, I’d argue that if we can enhance our intelligence, merge with AIs, create a global brain, become transhuman, etc., then there is a possibility of adjudicating our disputes with reason alone.
3. Metaphysics
Again so much substantive material here. As for personal identity, I think that Hume’s bundle theory and/or Buddhism’s idea of no-self is about right. Clearly, we just don’t have identity the way most of us imagine; if indeed we have any real self at all. And there almost certainly is no kernel that is us.
As for free will, I’m not sure what Mr. Gibney means by ”practically infinite free will” but I’m skeptical. I’m not a hard determinist, but I think that to say we are genomes in environments is a nearly exhaustive explanation of what we are. Still, we are not rocks, and free choice (which needs to be defined carefully but which is very, very limited) is something that emerged along with consciousness. That is, unlike rocks which are completely determined (let’s forget quantum theory for the moment), we have some deliberative faculties because we are conscious.
As for strong AI, I see no reason whatsoever why consciousness can’t exist on substrates other than our biological brains. In fact, in an infinite universe, consciousness may exist in almost limitless forms. Finally, I completely agree with Mr. Gibney on the interrelationship between reasons and emotions and that it is a moral imperative to improve our thinking. Quoting from Pascal: “Let us endeavor then to think well; this is the principle of morality.”
[In the comments on this post]
Me: Yeah, I’m not entirely sure what I meant by “practically infinite” either. : )
I find that the wording I use for the free will debate is still changing a bit for me. Lately, I’ve begun to think that it’s an unfalsifiable question since it would seemingly require two universes with beings in exactly the same positions making different choices to definitively prove something about determinism vs. free will. Without supernatural influences, souls, or dualistic minds not made of matter (things Dennett calls “skyhooks”), it’s difficult to refute the logic of determinism in a physicalist universe. However, the sheer amount of things determining those outcomes makes it nigh impossible to calculate them. That’s really what I mean by “practically infinite.” If we can’t calculate the determined outcome, it seems better to focus on the myriad of choices we do have and keep working to find the best influences from among them. There’s even some empirical evidence that this works better.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130924-how-belief-in-free-will-shapes-us
Ultimately though, I entirely agree with you that we are genomes in environments. I think that explains both the simplicity and the complexity of our existence.
John M: Yes, just such a difficult question. I act as if I have free will even though I might not.
4. Ethics
Traditional religious beliefs are mostly nonsense. Moreover, the divine command theory is ridiculous as Plato demonstrated in the Euthyphro, the problem of evil devastating for classical theism, there is no invisible gardener, etc.
I’ve never found much to recommend Kantian deontology, although I think a modified utilitarianism has a lot to offer. Like Mr. Gibney I think that evolutionary ethics explains the origins of ethics and can also function well as a normative ethical theory. I would modify Mr. Gibney’s “good is that which enables the long-term survival of life” by adding “and flourishing of life.” Survival isn’t sufficient by itself for goodness. (Note that Mr. Gibney seems to recognize this later on in the essay.)
I would also modify Mr. Gibney’s “1. Life is. 2. Life wants to survive. 3. Life ought to act to survive.” While I think you can get is from ought I don’t think you can get it quite that easily. (Perhaps Mr. Gibney is just summarizing here.) For example, Schopenhauer would argue that life wanting to survive is just a will to live that perpetuates suffering. So again we must enter the picture and choose to try to survive well, live well, or flourish.
[In the comments on this post]
Me: I thought I’d respond briefly to three things.
–> I would modify Mr. Gibney’s “good is that which enables the long-term survival of life” by adding “and flourishing of life.” Survival isn’t sufficient by itself for goodness. (Note that Mr. Gibney seems to recognize this later on in the essay.)
Yes, but I don’t modify this because I actually define flourishing and well-being as things that help to enhance the survival of life. If they didn’t do this, they wouldn’t be good and we could never encourage them since they would lead life towards extinction. To add “and flourishing” risks making it sound as if it's a separate thing. I’m getting better at saying this more explicitly in my latest presentations and papers. Life isn’t some on/off switch. To think so would be going back to visions of elan vital. So, just as life emerges and evolves slowly over evolutionary time, so does an ability to survive—from mere existence to lives with well-being and flourishing.
–> I would also modify Mr. Gibney’s “1. Life is. 2. Life wants to survive. 3. Life ought to act to survive.” While I think you can get is from ought I don’t think you can get it quite that easily. (Perhaps Mr. Gibney is just summarizing here.)
Well, we get from is to ought just this easily all the time with any conditional proposition. (In my paper, I note that *if* you want to get to Poughkeepsie, you *ought* to take the train there.) The difficult part is finding the conditional proposition that drives a universal and objective moral ought. That’s why I call this survival of life “the want that must.” And I do go into more detail on that in my other writings. But I still like the aphorism sometimes to get people talking.
–> For example, Schopenhauer would argue that life wanting to survive is just a will to live that perpetuates suffering. So again we must enter the picture and choose to try to survive well, live well, or flourish.
My answer to Schopenhauer is that perpetual suffering is exactly the evolutionary clue that you aren’t doing it right. By defining flourishing as living, I am saying much the same things as you, but I am placing the end consequence explicitly in the wording. By focusing simply on “flourishing”, utilitarians have left open the questions of whose, how much, and towards what end?
John M.: Ed – I like the way you consider flourishing as enhancing survival. That strikes me at first glance as plausible. We certainly do go from is to ought assuming we have some desire as in “if you want to become a lawyer, then you ought to go to law school.” Or “if you don’t want to get wet, then you ought to take your umbrella.” But of course, while Kant thinks there is a categorical imperative independent of our desires in addition to these hypothetical imperatives, Hume doesn’t think there are any categorical imperatives. So, as you note, that is the difficult part. To find exactly how to bridge the is/ought gap in ethics. The natural law theorists beginning with Aristotle do this by considering human nature, so perhaps you can and do get there but I’d have to read your other writings to see. Still, off the top of my head, life wants to survive so it ought to survive just doesn’t seem to follow in the same way that our other hypothetical imperatives seemed to.
5. Aesthetics
I probably know less about aesthetics than any other branch of philosophy. Let me just say that there is something about beauty that is intrinsically worthwhile. Truth, beauty, and goodness are the 3 great ideas by which we judge things. Here I’ll quote from Bertrand Russell’s last manuscript: “There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.”
[In the comments on this post]
Me: In my recent talk to North East Humanists about my philosophy, I added the following passage about aesthetics too:
——————--
[Aesthetics] is something that many philosophers have shied away from, preferring to stick with rigorous, analytical topics rather than squishy emotional ones. But recently the philosopher Denis Dutton gave a TED talk titled “A Darwinian Theory of Beauty” that had a quote in it that I really like because it goes a long way towards explaining my position here. He said:
“The experience of beauty is one of the ways that evolution has of arousing or sustaining interest in order to encourage us towards making the most adaptive decisions for survival and reproduction.”
A lot more could be said about this quote, but I just want to make one point about it. And that is that, although “the experience of beauty” may indeed be subjective and in the eye of the beholder, we now all know a lot more about “making the most adaptive decisions for survival.” And so, I think our understanding of what is beautiful ought to change accordingly.
——————--
Sylvia Wojcik queried me about this long essay (of what I learned during my writing about 100 thought experiments), and wondered where my thoughts were about “the meaning of life.” I didn’t have anything specific in here because Baggini didn’t have any thought experiments about this elusive topic, and I’m not sure whether it fits naturally into this framework I’m using (of the 6 branches of philosophy), or if it rises above it as a sort of metaphilosophy. I have come to think of aesthetics, though, as that which motivates and inspires us to find and fulfill the meaning in our lives. As an expert on TMOL, I wonder what you think of this relationship between aesthetics and TMOL.
John M: Haven’t really thought much about beauty and TMOL although lives which seek truth, create beauty, and involve (moral) goodness seem to paradigms of the meaningful life. As I said, my background in aesthetics is non-existent but it does seem that beauty and meaning are very closely associated terms. The philosopher who has written extensively about this connection of truth, beauty, and goodness to the meaning of life is Thaddeus Metz. But a life creating beauty is almost certainly a meaningful one.
6. Politics
I’m glad that Mr. Gibney discussed the prisoner’s dilemma at length as it is the key to understanding moral and political philosophy and many other things as well. (For more see “American Authoritarianism: Coming 2017.”) The desire to defect—to follow one’s own short-term interest at the expense of the group—may be the major problem of humankind today and it will (quite likely) lead to the destruction of the entire ecosystem on which life depends.
The question then arises as to how to deter egoistic behavior and encourage cooperative behavior. I advocate disablement strategies, that is making the selfish move impossible. Today this would involve enhancing human cognitive and moral functioning. We must re-engineer human beings or we will not survive. Radical as this may seem, I see no other option that is likely to be successful.
I also agree with Mr. Gibney about 1) limits to free speech, especially given the speed at which lies now spread quickly around the world; 2) the moral value of voluntary euthanasia; and 3) the need to include animals and AIs into the moral sphere.
[In the comments on this post]
Me: Thanks once again, John. I found this idea of yours really interesting:
–> “The question then arises as to how to deter egoistic behavior and encourage cooperative behavior. I advocate disablement strategies, that is making the selfish move impossible. Today this would involve enhancing human cognitive and moral functioning. We must re-engineer human beings or we will not survive. Radical as this may seem, I see no other option that is likely to be successful.”
I have a hard time disagreeing that we seem doomed as is, but I also wrote this:
“we are neither inherently good nor inherently evil—we are capable of both, a flexibility we must have in order to have the power to choose between alternate paths that are right some of the time and wrong some of the time.”
I can’t quite conceive of how to disable humans without getting rid of some of the flexibility we need. For example, in this disabled world, who would stand up to the government if it was headed down the wrong path? I think you’d need some level of selfish belief to do that. Also, I just have no idea how to practically disable the love of small circles of concern while keeping larger circles still loved.
I heard Yuval Harari talk on a podcast recently that he was actually encouraged by the recent rise of nationalism in the long history of humans. We have learned to love and defend very large circles of concern that didn’t really exist a few hundred years ago (depending on your location). I try to be hopeful that this trend will continue as information about the entire Earth spreads. I also wrote my second novel (shopping for a publisher again now that the one I found has dropped out of the publishing biz…rrrgghh) about a near future where humans discover how to live without aging, because I think that kind of leap in lifespan (being) would have to lead to a similar leap in morality (being well, aka well-being). Maybe you can expand on your disabling theory though?
John M: Ed – I haven’t really thought through how disablement would work except to say generally that it would include things like implanting moral chips, messing with the genome, etc. And if we could extend our area of moral concern to the entire planet that would, of course, be ideal. Also, I really agree with the claim that increased lifespans would aid morality. For example, people wouldn’t be so quick to trash the ecosystem if they knew that would be alive to see the consequences of their actions.
What is a Worldview?
Overall Gibney’s careful and conscientious effort to summarize, categorize, and comment on all these thought experiments and place them in the larger context is a superb intellectual achievement.
[In a private note about this]
I really admire your effort to systemize a worldview. After all the classes taken and taught, and all the books read in an almost 50-year philosophy career, I have never really done that (with the exception of summarizing my meaning of life views). I also really like the idea of using thought experiments as a way to think about worldviews. Hopefully I'll spend some time over the next year looking at Baggini's book along with your commentary and come to my own conclusions, although I'll bet they'll be very similar to your own.
1. Epistemology
I agree with Gibney’s epistemological fallibilism/skepticism modified by the view of the provisional nature of all truth. I would only emphasize that this does not imply relativism, as the provisional truths of science are often supported by mountains of empirical evidence. The best a rational person can do, as Locke and Hume taught us, is proportion their assent to the evidence.
2. Logic
There is a lot here but I agree that as long as there is time, as long as there is a tomorrow, we cannot claim to know something definitively. Still, I’d argue that if we can enhance our intelligence, merge with AIs, create a global brain, become transhuman, etc., then there is a possibility of adjudicating our disputes with reason alone.
3. Metaphysics
Again so much substantive material here. As for personal identity, I think that Hume’s bundle theory and/or Buddhism’s idea of no-self is about right. Clearly, we just don’t have identity the way most of us imagine; if indeed we have any real self at all. And there almost certainly is no kernel that is us.
As for free will, I’m not sure what Mr. Gibney means by ”practically infinite free will” but I’m skeptical. I’m not a hard determinist, but I think that to say we are genomes in environments is a nearly exhaustive explanation of what we are. Still, we are not rocks, and free choice (which needs to be defined carefully but which is very, very limited) is something that emerged along with consciousness. That is, unlike rocks which are completely determined (let’s forget quantum theory for the moment), we have some deliberative faculties because we are conscious.
As for strong AI, I see no reason whatsoever why consciousness can’t exist on substrates other than our biological brains. In fact, in an infinite universe, consciousness may exist in almost limitless forms. Finally, I completely agree with Mr. Gibney on the interrelationship between reasons and emotions and that it is a moral imperative to improve our thinking. Quoting from Pascal: “Let us endeavor then to think well; this is the principle of morality.”
[In the comments on this post]
Me: Yeah, I’m not entirely sure what I meant by “practically infinite” either. : )
I find that the wording I use for the free will debate is still changing a bit for me. Lately, I’ve begun to think that it’s an unfalsifiable question since it would seemingly require two universes with beings in exactly the same positions making different choices to definitively prove something about determinism vs. free will. Without supernatural influences, souls, or dualistic minds not made of matter (things Dennett calls “skyhooks”), it’s difficult to refute the logic of determinism in a physicalist universe. However, the sheer amount of things determining those outcomes makes it nigh impossible to calculate them. That’s really what I mean by “practically infinite.” If we can’t calculate the determined outcome, it seems better to focus on the myriad of choices we do have and keep working to find the best influences from among them. There’s even some empirical evidence that this works better.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130924-how-belief-in-free-will-shapes-us
Ultimately though, I entirely agree with you that we are genomes in environments. I think that explains both the simplicity and the complexity of our existence.
John M: Yes, just such a difficult question. I act as if I have free will even though I might not.
4. Ethics
Traditional religious beliefs are mostly nonsense. Moreover, the divine command theory is ridiculous as Plato demonstrated in the Euthyphro, the problem of evil devastating for classical theism, there is no invisible gardener, etc.
I’ve never found much to recommend Kantian deontology, although I think a modified utilitarianism has a lot to offer. Like Mr. Gibney I think that evolutionary ethics explains the origins of ethics and can also function well as a normative ethical theory. I would modify Mr. Gibney’s “good is that which enables the long-term survival of life” by adding “and flourishing of life.” Survival isn’t sufficient by itself for goodness. (Note that Mr. Gibney seems to recognize this later on in the essay.)
I would also modify Mr. Gibney’s “1. Life is. 2. Life wants to survive. 3. Life ought to act to survive.” While I think you can get is from ought I don’t think you can get it quite that easily. (Perhaps Mr. Gibney is just summarizing here.) For example, Schopenhauer would argue that life wanting to survive is just a will to live that perpetuates suffering. So again we must enter the picture and choose to try to survive well, live well, or flourish.
[In the comments on this post]
Me: I thought I’d respond briefly to three things.
–> I would modify Mr. Gibney’s “good is that which enables the long-term survival of life” by adding “and flourishing of life.” Survival isn’t sufficient by itself for goodness. (Note that Mr. Gibney seems to recognize this later on in the essay.)
Yes, but I don’t modify this because I actually define flourishing and well-being as things that help to enhance the survival of life. If they didn’t do this, they wouldn’t be good and we could never encourage them since they would lead life towards extinction. To add “and flourishing” risks making it sound as if it's a separate thing. I’m getting better at saying this more explicitly in my latest presentations and papers. Life isn’t some on/off switch. To think so would be going back to visions of elan vital. So, just as life emerges and evolves slowly over evolutionary time, so does an ability to survive—from mere existence to lives with well-being and flourishing.
–> I would also modify Mr. Gibney’s “1. Life is. 2. Life wants to survive. 3. Life ought to act to survive.” While I think you can get is from ought I don’t think you can get it quite that easily. (Perhaps Mr. Gibney is just summarizing here.)
Well, we get from is to ought just this easily all the time with any conditional proposition. (In my paper, I note that *if* you want to get to Poughkeepsie, you *ought* to take the train there.) The difficult part is finding the conditional proposition that drives a universal and objective moral ought. That’s why I call this survival of life “the want that must.” And I do go into more detail on that in my other writings. But I still like the aphorism sometimes to get people talking.
–> For example, Schopenhauer would argue that life wanting to survive is just a will to live that perpetuates suffering. So again we must enter the picture and choose to try to survive well, live well, or flourish.
My answer to Schopenhauer is that perpetual suffering is exactly the evolutionary clue that you aren’t doing it right. By defining flourishing as living, I am saying much the same things as you, but I am placing the end consequence explicitly in the wording. By focusing simply on “flourishing”, utilitarians have left open the questions of whose, how much, and towards what end?
John M.: Ed – I like the way you consider flourishing as enhancing survival. That strikes me at first glance as plausible. We certainly do go from is to ought assuming we have some desire as in “if you want to become a lawyer, then you ought to go to law school.” Or “if you don’t want to get wet, then you ought to take your umbrella.” But of course, while Kant thinks there is a categorical imperative independent of our desires in addition to these hypothetical imperatives, Hume doesn’t think there are any categorical imperatives. So, as you note, that is the difficult part. To find exactly how to bridge the is/ought gap in ethics. The natural law theorists beginning with Aristotle do this by considering human nature, so perhaps you can and do get there but I’d have to read your other writings to see. Still, off the top of my head, life wants to survive so it ought to survive just doesn’t seem to follow in the same way that our other hypothetical imperatives seemed to.
5. Aesthetics
I probably know less about aesthetics than any other branch of philosophy. Let me just say that there is something about beauty that is intrinsically worthwhile. Truth, beauty, and goodness are the 3 great ideas by which we judge things. Here I’ll quote from Bertrand Russell’s last manuscript: “There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.”
[In the comments on this post]
Me: In my recent talk to North East Humanists about my philosophy, I added the following passage about aesthetics too:
——————--
[Aesthetics] is something that many philosophers have shied away from, preferring to stick with rigorous, analytical topics rather than squishy emotional ones. But recently the philosopher Denis Dutton gave a TED talk titled “A Darwinian Theory of Beauty” that had a quote in it that I really like because it goes a long way towards explaining my position here. He said:
“The experience of beauty is one of the ways that evolution has of arousing or sustaining interest in order to encourage us towards making the most adaptive decisions for survival and reproduction.”
A lot more could be said about this quote, but I just want to make one point about it. And that is that, although “the experience of beauty” may indeed be subjective and in the eye of the beholder, we now all know a lot more about “making the most adaptive decisions for survival.” And so, I think our understanding of what is beautiful ought to change accordingly.
——————--
Sylvia Wojcik queried me about this long essay (of what I learned during my writing about 100 thought experiments), and wondered where my thoughts were about “the meaning of life.” I didn’t have anything specific in here because Baggini didn’t have any thought experiments about this elusive topic, and I’m not sure whether it fits naturally into this framework I’m using (of the 6 branches of philosophy), or if it rises above it as a sort of metaphilosophy. I have come to think of aesthetics, though, as that which motivates and inspires us to find and fulfill the meaning in our lives. As an expert on TMOL, I wonder what you think of this relationship between aesthetics and TMOL.
John M: Haven’t really thought much about beauty and TMOL although lives which seek truth, create beauty, and involve (moral) goodness seem to paradigms of the meaningful life. As I said, my background in aesthetics is non-existent but it does seem that beauty and meaning are very closely associated terms. The philosopher who has written extensively about this connection of truth, beauty, and goodness to the meaning of life is Thaddeus Metz. But a life creating beauty is almost certainly a meaningful one.
6. Politics
I’m glad that Mr. Gibney discussed the prisoner’s dilemma at length as it is the key to understanding moral and political philosophy and many other things as well. (For more see “American Authoritarianism: Coming 2017.”) The desire to defect—to follow one’s own short-term interest at the expense of the group—may be the major problem of humankind today and it will (quite likely) lead to the destruction of the entire ecosystem on which life depends.
The question then arises as to how to deter egoistic behavior and encourage cooperative behavior. I advocate disablement strategies, that is making the selfish move impossible. Today this would involve enhancing human cognitive and moral functioning. We must re-engineer human beings or we will not survive. Radical as this may seem, I see no other option that is likely to be successful.
I also agree with Mr. Gibney about 1) limits to free speech, especially given the speed at which lies now spread quickly around the world; 2) the moral value of voluntary euthanasia; and 3) the need to include animals and AIs into the moral sphere.
[In the comments on this post]
Me: Thanks once again, John. I found this idea of yours really interesting:
–> “The question then arises as to how to deter egoistic behavior and encourage cooperative behavior. I advocate disablement strategies, that is making the selfish move impossible. Today this would involve enhancing human cognitive and moral functioning. We must re-engineer human beings or we will not survive. Radical as this may seem, I see no other option that is likely to be successful.”
I have a hard time disagreeing that we seem doomed as is, but I also wrote this:
“we are neither inherently good nor inherently evil—we are capable of both, a flexibility we must have in order to have the power to choose between alternate paths that are right some of the time and wrong some of the time.”
I can’t quite conceive of how to disable humans without getting rid of some of the flexibility we need. For example, in this disabled world, who would stand up to the government if it was headed down the wrong path? I think you’d need some level of selfish belief to do that. Also, I just have no idea how to practically disable the love of small circles of concern while keeping larger circles still loved.
I heard Yuval Harari talk on a podcast recently that he was actually encouraged by the recent rise of nationalism in the long history of humans. We have learned to love and defend very large circles of concern that didn’t really exist a few hundred years ago (depending on your location). I try to be hopeful that this trend will continue as information about the entire Earth spreads. I also wrote my second novel (shopping for a publisher again now that the one I found has dropped out of the publishing biz…rrrgghh) about a near future where humans discover how to live without aging, because I think that kind of leap in lifespan (being) would have to lead to a similar leap in morality (being well, aka well-being). Maybe you can expand on your disabling theory though?
John M: Ed – I haven’t really thought through how disablement would work except to say generally that it would include things like implanting moral chips, messing with the genome, etc. And if we could extend our area of moral concern to the entire planet that would, of course, be ideal. Also, I really agree with the claim that increased lifespans would aid morality. For example, people wouldn’t be so quick to trash the ecosystem if they knew that would be alive to see the consequences of their actions.
